My first night-out cycling with hubby

Hui finally bought a Tern Link C7 foldable bicycle after gotten his bonus and added an additional object to take up space in the house. He claims he bought the bike is for me but actually it's more for himself. I'm not really a fan of cycling and cycling is just a leisure for me. Not a hobby. Instead, he actually wanted the bike more for himself so he could cycle to work from Clementi after dropping the girls at childcare as it can be easily kept in the car.

I strongly opposed of getting this foldie because our house do not have space for it anymore. We have his Fixie and mountain bike in the kitchen plus EC's bicycles and 1 strider in the living room. It's so unglam to have all these biycles lying around in the house especially after each ride, the wheels are damn dirty and we are moving in all dirts into the house!

Anyway, he bought it. His money. He is very happy with the purchase. I "should" support him.

Yesterday (28th March), mum stayed over because the next morning we need be at the temple early for praying. It's Qing Ming so we had to visit Daddy dearest. So I suggested to take the foldie out for it's virgin ride as we had mum to look after the kids in case EC woke up to pee or Andre cry. It could be our first and last night-out cycling together as mum doesn't always stayed over. It's probably something the wife wanted to do with the hubby at least for one time - to spent the time doing his favourite hobby with him. Even at the expense of knowing it will cause leg pain, back pain or whole body aching after the ride!

So off we went at 10+pm and back home at almost 12am with a pit stop at McD for some drinks. According to the Endomondo app, the distance cycled (from home to punggol PCN and back home) was about 20Km but the device on his bicycle shows it's actually only 16+km. Whatever the distance, I'm dead beat when reached home!

Pitstop at SK swimming pool McD

Finally reached home. My super shag look taken near our lift lobby.

I am sorry

Last month sometime in Feb, EC were throwing temper in the house and shouting loudly for something. Hui and I got so angry that we nearly threw them at home and leave the house with Andre. That day at Mcdonald while Hui went to buy breakfast, I taught EC to write many lines of "I am sorry" for me.

These 3 words seems to engrave into their memory and whenever they did wrong things, I would ask them to write these 3 words many times on a paper for me.

Today, Chloe made me very angry at mum's place. She was fighting with Elsie and screaming at the top of her voice. This got me irritated and scolded her. She was crying for few minutes and later weaping at the study table writing something. When we left mum's house, she was holding on to this paper tightly.

Along the way home in car, she fell asleep (probably due to all the cryings). She was still holding onto that paper. I took the paper and after seeing what she wrote, my heart went soft immediately. Somehow I had this strong feeling of hugging her tightly at that moment.

My kids are rather well-behave afterall? At least when they did sometime wrong, they will show remorse. But it's not always all the time. Well, 养不教，父之过。教不严，师之惰。If they misbehave, it's actually the parents fault. I just had to find the right way and attitude to teach them.

Patience, patience, patience. I need lots of them to teach my kids. I need to learn how to control my temper too whenever they do wrong things. I need to learn how to see the other side of them and understand the reason behind why they do this. I need..I need..I need...I have a lot to learn as a Mother!

1st year death anniversary

As the title speaks, today is Dad's first year death anniversary according to the lunar calender. We went Tse Tho Aum early in the morning for praying session. How times flies. Really FLY! Wonder how he's doing in heaven. He passed away one day before my lunar birthday. This day shall always be remembered for the rest of my life, including the english calender - 26th Feb 2012.

EC kind of forgot how their Clementi Ah Gong looks like. So I brought them to see the photo on the urn. I hope somehow Dad's look will still be somewhere in their memory when they grow up. As for Andre, I don't think he will remember at all how Dad looks like. When he passed away, Andre is just 6 mths old. :(

An apology finally heard

Shop N Save called me on Monday (my birthday) to apologize. The lady said she was shocked to receive my feedback about the expired goods. She also mention the area manager will look into this matter and they treat such matter very seriously.

I had mention in the feedback form that I had taken pictures and if they want I can send to them. The lady actually requested I send to her via email or sms. Is she thinking that I am lying so she needed proof to show I am not trying to flame them?!

Anyway, pictures send and she arranged a mini hamper to send to my house on Wednesday. I rejected but the lady insisted saying that they are sincere about the apology.

The delivery guy wearing Shop N Save uniform came on Wed night. He apologized to me after passing me the mini hamper without knowing what he is apologizing for! I asked him how they going to deal with this matter. Will there be stricter checks on the goods? He looked blur and told me he was told to apologize and say sorry for any inconvenience caused. Great! Another point deducted for their sincererity!

My hatched day

Last year was a very sad birthday for me due to the pass away of my dad just about 2 weeks before my birthday. So I did not want to celebrate my birthday and did not even want to hear any birthday song.

This year, I had a wonderful birthday celebration with good friends and family.

8th March:
A Friday night out with my secondary mates. Thanks to Phyllis for remembering to create that Whatsapp chat group in end Feb and partially organise the gathering for me. It was almost a full attendance (minus away Jenny who resides in Perth now) after many many years! Phyllis said my face very big as all made it to my birthday gathering. Yes indeed, I'm honoured!

We met 7pm at VivoCity to have dinner at JPot, followed by some snacks and teas at Queens situated along the Sentosa Broadwalk.

Got a set menu for 4 for the 6 of us. We are all small eaters. Dinner treat by them.

 In return I treat them to the teas and cakes at Queens. Very nice Chocolate Macademia with ice-cream

Another cake. Chocolate D* (something). Top and bottom are some crust and centre is real dark chocolate! Yummy!

 The gang of 19 years!

This girl gonna leave us too for Switzerland in April! Our gang short of 1 more again...

11th March:

Hubby brought me to "FLY"! This word causes alot of misunderstanding in facebook. Friends thought we are going for holiday again. No, we don't have so much $$ to keep going for holiday (although I wish...).

Morning after sending the girls to school and Andre at my mum's place, we headed to Keppel Bay TCC for breakfast. End up it was not open yet. Hence we proceed directly into Sentosa Coffee bean for breakfast before the exciting advantage at iFly.

Was told to arrived 1.5hours before the "flight" and so we did. End up we waited for 30mins before we were brought into this room that shows video of sky diving. Then we were brought into another room that shows video of the "How/What To do" when doing the skydive in that big wind tunnel. When the video ended, the instructor that was allocated to our time slot will enter the room and brief us further what to do - the hand signal and correct position when doing skydiving.

After the briefing, we were brought into the counter to collect our gears and were in queue to get ready to FLY! It was pretty scary at first looking at others flying in that big tunnel and how some did not do it well and fell from the top. But when you had the first try, it's actually not that scary afterall and you would want to do it the second time, the third...

Hui bought the package that allows 2 skydives. Any additional dive can be done at a cheaper rate of $30. So we did 3 times of "fake" skydive at iFly. Bought the photos and DVD (video of the whole session) back too. It cost a bomb just for this experience!

  Our instructor

We are certified to "fly"!

Hui ordered a customised cake from my favourite bakery shop - Pine Garden! I only knew about it after the Fly. So we head to AMK after that to pick up the cake. Head straight home to put down the cake before heading back to Clementi to fetch the girls from school.

Dinner was at Xin Wang HK Cafe at West Coast Plaza. It changed so much after the major renovation. No longer like a dead town. Bill was paid by mum. Drop mum off after dinner and head back to home for cake cutting

Hui's family came over at 8+pm. Sang birthday song, eat cake, played some games with the girls and time to end the busy day.

 My elegant birthday cake in my favourite color. Hazelnut chocolate flavour! My current favourite. Lychee Martini is a history.

Family shot!

 Now you see me...

 Now you DON'T!

Cake cutting time. All the kids wanna have a share in it!

The only present(s) I received this year from Hui's sisters/BILs. The gifts were separated into 3 wrappers!

A Scrapbook album kit, a night mask from The Face Shop and a 3-1 glue (was told is a free gift for buying the kit). THANK YOU, SILs/BILs!!

My first complain feedback form

I had never wrote a complain letter nor email before. On 9th March 2013, I had my first.

I went to the Shop N Save downstairs my block in the morning to get some ingredients to cook for Andre's dinner. As I was in a hurry, I took this Fortune silken tofu from the shelf and made my payment.

Evening when I cut open the tofu to prepare Andre's dinner, I realise something is not right. The tofu looks weird and had a smell. I looked at the expiry date and was shocked to see it was dated 24.02.13!

I went down with the spoilt tofu to demand for an exchanged and explanation why there were expiry goods found on their shelf!

I approached this guy wearing in grey uniform which was the store attendent. Upon telling him about the expiry good I bought and saw a whole lot of the expiry tofu STILL on the shelf, he immediately started to filter out the expired from the non-expired ones. He told me that he will ask the senior staff to come out and handle this situation.

A minute later, this lady with long curly hair, non-chinese walked out from store area and did not even bother to come forward to apologize and explain. Instead when I requested the junior guy for a replacement, she just told him to give me the non-expired tofu and sign on the receipt. After which she walked away right in my face without an explanation or apology!!

This is really unacceptable! First there are goods on the shelf that have expired for more than 2 weeks! Secondly this senior branch lady staff wearing grey uniform did not bother to come talk to me about this matter nor apologise and just get the junior staff to get me a new one and walk off?!

Hence I got so pissed that I took the new tofu and stormed out of the store. I knew they will be in deep shit because once I got home, I sat down infront of my laptop and started typing out the complain letter via the Shop N Save online feedback form...

This digusting spoilt tofu nearly went into Andre's macaroni's soup!

Still on the shelf! Wonder how many had been sold since morning till 7pm that day!

A total of 10 expired tofu!