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Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Holiday House Cleaning

While everyone else was enjoying the long Raya cum Merdeka holidays, I've been busy at house cleaning.  (No part time maids available during Raya holidays, that's why...)
I scrubbed the glass windows and toilets, cleaned the fridge,all the shelves and desktops, and wiped the walls clear of markings, as well as mopped the floors.  J cleaned the fan, the aircond filters, wiped the doors, fixed the lights and scrubbed the bathroom walls and floor.  And little Baby Xin was helping!
  She used the 3M Quick Sweeper to mop the floor and even got the spots under the sofa.  She must have been watching her babysitter do it.
We were so tired by the time we finished but at least it was a job well done.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

iPad Camera Connection Kit for SD card

This is a technology post, because I would like to share my experience on what I happened when I tried to transfer photos from my laptop to  iPad via the camera connection kit (CCK).
Firstly, I transferred photos from my laptop to the SD card (in a named folder).  When I plugged in the CCK with the SD card into the iPad, nothing happened.  I checked the web and found that I must name the folder DCIM.  I did that, but my photos were all named according to the place and number.  Having plugged in again, I found that all the photos were not detected, except one.  Wondering what was so special about the lone photo, I discovered that that photo was named Picture7.
So 2 basic rules.  The folder must be named DCIM (which stands for digital camera images, I think) and the photos must be named Picture1, Picture2 , Picture3 and so on.  After changing all the picture names, finally they could be detected and imported on the 3rd attempt.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Wei in Swensen's Age Group Rapid Open

At the recommendation of Wei's chess teacher, we enrolled Wei in a national chess tournament, at Cititel Midvalley.  As Wei is a year-end child, he could still participate in the Under 10 category.  J took Wei to Cititel at 9am and left him there with the chess teacher and picked him up at 5pm.
There were 136 participants including kids from Singapore and Iran. Wei was seeded somewhere above the halfway mark.  Even though it was nothing to shout about, I am still a very proud mom.
For lunch we gave Wei RM20, hoping that the chess teacher would take the kids to lunch.  It turned out that he was too busy helping out at the tournament, and 4 boys went to lunch together at McDonald's, with one of the boys leading the way.  That boy was CH; his mom and aunt went to Gardens for shopping and they didn't show up in time for lunch. So CH had no money.  So he led the way to McDonald's, ordered 2 lunch sets for Wei and himself, and Wei paid for lunch ;-)

Monday, August 15, 2011

Forgiving Yourself

Sometimes we are so drowned in guilt that we cannot let go, forgive ourselves and move on.  Here is a story that I heard from Ajahn Brahm which I found very touching.
As a young, poor student, he found a part-time job selling children's encyclopedia from door-to-door.  He described that job as the worst job in the world, because it entails "cheating" on the customers.  The training he got was about psychologically making the parents feel guilty that they didn't care about their children if they didn't buy his encyclopedias.  Then one day, he actually sold one to a young couple who had a baby of about 1 year old.  He felt so guilty about it, the poor young couple who probably didn't have enough money to get by, and they spent their money on a worthless encyclopedia.  He quit the job the next day, and felt guilty about it, until he became a monk when he learnt to let go.
Then one day, while giving a talk about forgiveness in Perth, he told this story.  After the talk, a young woman walked up to him and said that she was from England, and as a young child she had this encyclopedia that her parents bought for her from a student who was a door-to-door salesman.  And she wondered if it was Ajahn Brahm who actually sold that book to her parents, but it really might have been him, because the world is a strange place where what goes around, comes around.
She said: "I loved that book. It was my constant companion as I was growing up, and I had so many fun hours reading it!"

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Matta Fair for Inexpensive Flights & a Henna Tattoo

Finally,  a Saturday that is free from either work or property-session related seminars, and where do we end up? At Matta Fair PWTC.  J wanted to check out the cheap flights and plan for our year end holiday.
Reliance occupied a very big area of the fair.  We ended up visiting this booth and didn't get far.  The cheapest air tickets were offered by Cathay Pacific (cheaper than AirAsia at this time).  Also there were a lot of fun activities like Turkish ice-cream treat (which Baby Xin kept licking and got chocolate stains all over her mouth), and a  free henna tattoo at the Dubai booth. Cool!

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Ben 10 Slippers

Last Sunday night we went to Tesco Village.  The main purpose was to get to Popular bookstore, but after we finished we decided to pick up a few things quickly from Tesco as well.
One of the things we wanted to buy was a pair of new slippers for Wei.  While Wei refused the plain asadi slippers, he doesn't mind Ben 10 slippers.

I was thinking in my heart: I always thought that Wei, my eldest son is so big, but he is actually still small.
He still wants Ben 10 slippers.  So I will gladly buy for him as long as he still wants them, and cherish his childhood.  Time would pass by and one day he won't want Ben 10 slippers anymore....
However, finally we got stuck at the Tesco queue for so long, we gave up.  I would have to go another day.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Baby Xin took her passport photo

In September, J's company organizes a family trip to Singapore for 3 days.  We have decided to take all the kids along, including Baby Xin. So she's got to have her passport made before the 15th of this month.
Here's the passport photo, with Baby Xin staring at the photographer wondering what he was doing.