Andie Summerkiss

My end of the year is full of hope and determination to do better and to improve. Yeah, you will call it New Year Resolution. Of course, my resolutions (along with other people’s - maybe) will most probably go unachieved and broken as well as ignored shortly after they are set.

But the intention of the commitment itself is fairly good. I’d like to see the intention is already half way to get something done. LoL.

Most voted resolutions are physical-fitness related (maybe that’s the explanation why expenditure for home fitness equipment and also gym packages are the highest during January?). Then weight-loss and appearances. I might vote for all three. But the chances of achieving them would be pretty slim.

I am still thinking of mine. I don’t think I will share them as it is a bit too embarrassing if I ditch the resolution on the first week of January! It really takes character and will power to carry them out through the whole year. Yeah … I am not up for that

Finally, my leave request has been approved by the management. I will have one month holiday to visit D in Philippine.

O N E M O N T H!

It just sounds too good to be true. So to make it official as quickly as possible, I will book my flight ASAP.

I can’t wait to go and start my life as ‘wife-posing-as-temporary-expat’ in the Philippines. It will be fun as I try to perform my wifely duty. Stay home and wait for the husband. But … Yay!!

Will I be visiting this?

 Starting in 3 days’ time. I will be joining it and it will be 365 days full of my rantings and ramblings and ridiculously nonsense thoughts.

In the news headline yesterday. Three magic phrases that men are learning to say to their wives.

T H A N K Y O U

I A M S O R R Y

I L O V E Y O U

Maybe they can be magical if said to our husbands too.

A lot of decisions were made throughout the life. I was just wondering whether the decisions I made was the best possible ones for me and people around me.

Whenever I realised that I have made the wrong decision, I got upset terribly. Maybe instead I should tell myself that the decisions I made were actually based on the most current information I had in hand at that time. I would not have known more than that.

How to live with bad decision making?

Look at it the positive way. It could have easily got worse result.

Live with it and don’t be a big baby. Everything has consequences.

Don’t get scared when faced with bigger problems. You thrive more with challenges in life.

Be that a lesson for the future. Be careful, even simplest decision can have grave implications. Always think ahead, vertically and horizontally.

This is a Christmas hoopla from Sandy at Momisodes. (ps. it’s what we are calling it now. m-word is out of the picture!)

The rules:
1. List 12 random things about yourself that have to do with Christmas
2. Please refer to it as a ‘hoopla’ and not the dreaded ‘m’-word
3. You have to specifically tag people when you’re done. None of this “if you’re reading this, consider yourself tagged” stuff is allowed…then nobody ends up actually doing it. The number of people who you tag is really up to you — but the more, the merrier to get this ‘hoopla’ circulating through the Blog-o-sphere.
4. Please try and do it as quickly as possible. The Christmas season will be over before we know it.

Hoopla .. such a cute word. I looked it up, and it’s a movie of 1933 by Clara Bow. Hever heard of both. Then I asked D, he said that a hoopla is a publicity of something. Anyway ..

We don’t exactly celebrate Christmas since our family is a long-standing-traditionally-buddhism-practising one. We started celebrating Christmas last year when D was at home. So the hoopla is going to be quite limited!

1. We never celebrate Christmas till I met my husband.

2. We bought our first Christmas tree last year, it’s the pvc-most-probably-chinese-made-9-feet-crap. We gave in after searching for pine tree for almost a week. Now it is still standing in our living room even he is not in the country. One day I would like to see a real Christmas tree …

3. The Christmas presents exchanging involved very lame presents, since me and my family and relatives never did it before and it was like half a day notice. It involved soap bars, canned beer, chocolate, socks and some other weird items they found in their house unused.

4. I got shoes from D, which I bought myself with the money he gave me earlier that week. Yeah, big surprise. I’d rather get cash for presents .. or store credits!

5. I love decorations in shops and department stores. I could stare at them for hours. They never seem to run out of ideas how to do it … When I was younger, I would beg my parents to go for holiday trips to Singapore just to gawk at Orchard Road’s Christmas decorations

6. This year is the worst year in terms of card-receiving. Normally I would get some Christmas cards, this year … none! Maybe that’s because I never send any back? Oh well …

7. I love all Christmas movies. They are so magical!

8. Our family don’t have the holiday tradition yet. Maybe someday in the future we will have one.

9. Until now, my tradition is to show up at work on Christmas morning. We are never close. How great is that for holiday …

10. Reading about others’ posts on Christmas stuff brings warmth in my heart. It is such a great thing. A day to be with family, with food and presents too!

11. The most memorable Christmas day is the one on 2004, when the Tsunami disaster hit the next day. Three months later I met my husband.

12. I am getting cold sweat from squeezing all the Christmas facts for this hoopla, I think it’s time to stop now … Never ever attempt to do a hoopla on empty stomach!

Hmm … let’s see who to tag …

Cat Lady - - (the Cat Lady has not been sighted yet … )

Secret Agent Mama (this is Mishelle’s Hoopla –> Post-Christmas Hoopla)

Judith Shakespeare  (check out Judith’s Hoopla –> Because Blogger VD from Judith is like getting a Hallmark card. We only care to send the very best )

There are some fish and also some plants (from Thursday Ramblings). That’s what I called efficient. Let’s see how long they last, got them yesterday. Set them up in a glass container. Got to admit that when I came in to the office this morning, I was kind of holding my breath. Anxious to see whether they were still alive after one night. It’s fun to see them swimming around happily ..

It’s weird how they can still spin around blissfully in their own poo and pee. I guess I’ll never know. But wait .. do fish pee?

Once a week I reward myself by posting something really blabla about my week. It’s always gonna be on thursdays. Why? Because it is not exactly weekdays and not yet weekends. That’s really driving me nuts! Here’s the blablas.   

It’s public holiday. Haj New Year. And also this is going to be 10 busiest days of the year period. So … I will need all the coffee and all the patience in the world to help me get through this. Usually there will be a lot of yelling and nagging (in public) and litres of tears (in private) on my side.

There will also be no fancy photos taken. But there will be lame photos posted since the nice camera is now in Shanghai with the rest of the family. I will try documented the hectic days of my other-wise-fabulous life with the limited-and-really-bad-quality camera on my Nokia E61i. I personally think the camera feature doesn’t worth a damn! Maybe I can reward myself with a nice camera end of this year …

I am thinking of buying some plants and fish for the office. Maybe I can cheer the place up. So far, it has been very dry and depressing. But me as a pet-and-plant killer, might not be such a sound idea. Heck, it will be a challenge. Let’s go and check them out!

I have finally finished Little Women from last week’s reading list. At the end of the book, I wept like a baby. Very mature, Andie.

I was stuck in the house all morning. Here’s the story …

8.00 am Headline

On today’s newspaper headline, the President is coming.

9.00 am Dead jam

Then everybody in town decides to go to the ceremony to see him. My house is about 200m away from the ground zero. They parked the minibusses used to carry the spectators on side streets like ours. Both sides of the street

9.30 am More jam

10.00 am Dead end

I insisted on going to work, about 5 m drive down the street I was faced with this … Then I took a long reverse trip back to the garage

11.00 am Things are clearing up a bit

11.30 am Things are definitely clearing up

People! It is a great thing, public rally. Show that you care. Show your support. Show your curiosity.

But for God’s sake, clean up after yourself!! Don’t leave your trash in front of other people’s houses. Show some respect for other people’s property, please

In local newspaper last week, there’s a photo featuring the smallest nutcracker in the world. Funnily, it didn’t say nutcracker. It was said ‘pemecah kacang‘ - literal translation of ‘nutcracker’ in Indonesian.

nutcracker ala andie

I was like … What?? I thought it was a name of a holiday toy which is a wooden carving of a soldier. Then I found out that the toy originally could be used to crack nuts! Nuts can be put in the big mouth (by lifting the lever at the back of the toy). When the lever was pressed down, the nuts cracked.

nutcracker ala steinbach

Nutcrackers are not everyday toys for us. I have never seen them before. So it’s cool that I don’t know anything about them. But the article was kind of misleading in a way. They should explain what it actually is. Why it’s called nutcracker and such and such. Goof readers like me can easily get confused. And I thought the newspaper editors were being stupid.

I think it’s smart to use the soldiers and knights to crack nuts. The nuts eaters like me can feel like royalty

I surfed sites on traveling to Shanghai yesterday because my parents and family are going for Christmas holiday. Virtual tourist gives some information on shopping in Shanghai. It’s interesting to read other tourists’ experiences.

One lady said that she wanted to buy a set of hairpin, the seller asked for RMB 140 (around USD 14), and she walked away with only paying RMB 4. And then one other tourist said that she was bargaining for an Armani jacket which was RMB 14,000 and paid RMB 900 at the end. Isn’t that ridiculous?

Last year in Madras (aka Chennai), I went shopping by myself at a souvenir shop in the mall. I really liked a wall hanging with golden thread embroidery and sequined. Very beautiful. The shop owner asked for USD 400. An idiot as I was, I didn’t actually think it was expensive. I wasn’t really thinking of buying. So I asked for USD 80, just for the fun of it. The seller was very pushy and I didn’t want to increase my price. After 15 minutes arguing, suddenly he shouted “Sold!” I couldn’t describe how shocked and speechless I was. On my way back to the hotel, I couldn’t stop swearing at myself for being such an idiot. I bet it doesn’t worth more than USD 20!

So, rule of thumb

• Bargain for at least 80% off the opening price at all times! If you got the nerve, go for 10% of the asking price. It’s amazing what my mother can get away with by doing that. I am actually scared of going shopping with her. She got some nerve!

• I shouldn’t shop at tourists’ spots. I am an easy target. They can actually smell me.

sequined & embroidered wall hanging from madras