Thursday, December 22, 2005

First Year Post-Mortem

My mom was right all along. Despite having known The Don for 8 years, I learnt more about him this past year than all the 8 years combined. But we are lucky I guess, we have had less fights this past year of marriage than 3 months of our pre-marriage days. The Don is very helpful at home. He often helps with the dishes & laundry and is a great host whenever my family comes for the weekend. And believe it or not, since we have been married, not once have I operated the vacumn cleaner coz that's his dept. I have a warm relationship with my in-laws so no grouses there. My Don's only weakness is food so as long as I keep the dapur berasap, he is one happy man.

Thats not to say everything has been picture perfect. There has been major annoyances and minor skirmishes but above and beyond, I love being married. It has given me a kind of serenity I have never known before and I look forward to every day like the flowers wait for the sunshine.

Still to benefit those waiting the throes of marriagehood and those in their early days yet, I list here the top 10 things I learnt in the first year of my marriage....

1) It seems there's an invisible sign on the ice-tray that says "Your wife will fill it"
2) Forget about any hope of holding the remote control when the husband is at home
3) Avert your eyes away from the television when its commercials time coz the constant channel buzzing can make you go blind.
4) The seat of the toilet is never down. Forget it and your butt will get stuck in the bowl.
5) Its ok to spend all your pay check. Every morning, the husband fairy will put in money in your empty wallet.
6) There is no such thing as "read till you fall asleep". The husband will make sure of that. :)
7) Apologies have to be extracted, sometimes with a plier and a chainsaw.
8) Its fine to stay out late till the MRT ends on a girls' night out. The husband is just a phone call away. And he sends my friends home too :)
9) Whenever you bring up an issue, make sure he cannot find a way to blame it on your PMS.
10) Hint at something you see on a sale long enough and eventually he will buy it for you :)

Happy Anniversary to my friends who are celebrating their anniversaries in Dec too.

Never Too Late



I finally got The Don an anniversary present. Extremely belated, being one whole week late (as his presents from me always are) but he's not complaining. Its extremely difficult to steal away to find his present. My lunch time is never enough for shopping and come 5.30pm, he will already be waiting at my office carpark. I usuallu get my chance at surprising him during my girl's nights out but I haven't had one yet this week.

Anyway, I took an extended lunch just now and after much scouring, found the perfect gift.



Just what he needs. Now let's hope he doesn't read this before I give him his present.

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

A Girl's Best Friend

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My anniversary gift from my darling Don.


My colleague made me a Hello Kitty charm to hang on my new mobile
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Then my best fren, M bought me 2 very very lovely charms that are symbols of what we love most. Shoes and handbags.
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So the hello kitty has been relegated to my old phone and the new blings-blings on the new one. And I'm hanging them both!!!!

Oooh I so love my phone....

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

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Thank you guys for all those wonderful anniversary wishes and e-cards. Time sure flies huh? Suddenly, Its already one whole year since I officially became Mrs Don. It seems like it was only last month that we had our wedding. I can still recall every single minute of that weekend, the images imprinted vividly in my mind's eye. When other people talk about weddings, I practically hold my tongue for fear of going on & on about my wedding ad nauseum. HeHeHe. Short of Idris, who still loyally asks for our wedding dvd to be played again and again every 3 days or so, our wedding is as ancient as yesterday's last year's news. But as my Don so loves to remind me, "The wedding is but one day, the marriage, Insyallah, is a lifetime."

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Our plan to whisk oursleves away for a short anniversary holiday went up in smokes. Literally. We planned a quick getaway to Colmar Tropicale on the anniversary week, to celebrate our special day and also to re-live the French atmosphere of our Paris honeymoon. But things just didn't materialised. We planned this anniversary hols months back but never really got down to do the booking. When we finally tried the week before, we were told it's full house. Numerous attempts at various travel agents also failed to get us a room. The Don tried to placate me by offering to go even further than we planned. We scoured the net for Bangkok deals but our trusty travel agent said they needed more than 3 days to make the necessary bookings. The Don contemplated going up cold and pray for a cancellation at the last minute. But I declined coz it was too risky. Needless to say I was sullen and certainly didn't look forward to the weekend.

But apparently our disappointment was short lived. That same day, my cousin called to say they were planning to come down to Singapore for the weekend. We, of course welcomed them with open arms and a failed anniversary trip became one whole weekend shopping trip. hehehehe My cousin, like me, simply loves shopping. So the two of us painted the town red, pink and green while our dearest hubbies sat waiting and chatting, each silently hoping we dun burn holes in their pockets hehehhee. But burn we sure did... hehehe.

And just when I though justice had been served, as a make-up for that botched weekend getaway, The Don has agreed to book a week-long holiday in Penang + Langkawi + KL for the coming year-end hols. Looks like for the 2nd year running, we will be celebrating New Year away from home. A good deal if u ask me.... one weekend of doing nothing in Bukit Tinggi is now a week long holiday of endless shopping, good food & wonderous sights.
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Happy Anniversary Darling!!!! And a big thank you !!!!
Now who says a delayed holiday is a bad thing???

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Monday, December 12, 2005

HOLLYWOOD ON ICE

The Don received 5 free tickets for Hollywood on Ice show at Singapore expo, courtesy of his client, the company that brought them to Singapore. Since he was busy at Ba'alwie for a special function last Friday night, I took the opportunity to have a girl's night out with my 2 best gal pals. Lisa fell ill at the last minute but my MIL and the Don's sister joined us so it was a Girl's Night Out nevertheless.

We had prime seats, as always, and practically sat at the edge of the ice floor. Having been to various Disney on Ice shows in the past on account of bringing my nieces and nephews, I was quite sure of what to expect, but clearly I was wrong.
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This was sooo much better. They put up a showcase of all the major hollywood films and icons. From the time of the silent movies all the way to the most recent epic of Titanic. Perhaps the skaters are not as world class as the Disney ones (we caught a few falling) but the shows they put up were great. The props, the costumes, the acrobatics were captivating, to say the least.
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M and I had a fun time picking out the movies we know. Being such movie buffs and lover of classic movies, between us we picked out Charlie Chaplain, Top Hat (Fred Astire & Ginger Roberts) when they played the song "Dancing cheek to cheek" Casablanca (Ingrid Bergman & Humphrey Bogart), Elvis Presley in "Jailhouse Rock", the massive props and costumes in Dr Zhivago, the theme song & sexy girls were a dead giveaway for James Bond not mentioning the Aston Martin car they brought in as a prop, Moulin Rouge, ET, Starwars, Titanic, the great songs from Dirty Dancing, Footloose and Flashdance. There was only one movie that left us stumped. One with two groups of people and lotsa bats/flies lookalikes, which we later found out was Lord of the Flies.
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It was a great night and the audience clearly enjoyed the show although perhaps not many would want to come and see it. The expo hall was only half filled on the Friday that we went. But I'm sure if you were to go, you'd have enjoyed it as throughly as M, I and my in-laws felt.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

EGG-LICIOUSLY PERFECT

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What do think this is ?

  • a) a table lamp ?
  • b) Idris's spinning toy ?
  • c) a dinosaur egg ?


    Neither...

    Its a life-saver, a virtual time conserver, and recently my most recent best friend.
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    The Don loves half-boiled eggs for breakfast and he eats it like twice/thrice a week. And he is very fussy about it. It has to be perfect. Not too watery, not too hard. And eaten with a dash of kicap.

    During the early days of marriage, I used to fret about not getting it right. I either leave it too long in the pot and it ends up like this
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    or I take it out too early and it looks like this
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    Honestly, pre-marriage I had no idea how to make half-boiled eggs. No one in my family eats it (with the exception of my brother) and I never had to cook it for anyone before. Besides, looking at the slimy whitish concoction I can't help but think of it as some oozy, yucky slimy insides of some poor chick who was terminated before it got a chance to live. UUUrrrghhh!!!

    It is only with much practice that I got it right. Now with a glance I know when to fish out the eggs from the pot and it will be perfect. Just as The Don likes it. With the yolk undisturbed and with his dash of kicap.
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    And now that I have mastered the skill of making the half-boiled perfectly, I come across a life-saver. The microwable egg boiler. Its an absolte time saver. 2 mins on high in the heat box and Voila! Perfect! If only I knew of its existence when I was struggling to getthe eggs right.

    Still, its a great thing to have. At least now I dun have to keep popping into the kitchen in various states of half dressed to check on the eggs every few mins. And even better, I dun have to spend 15 mins preparing breakfast every other morning. I can do it in 5 mins flat! And its EGG-PERFECT every single time !!!!