lifeonplanetmum.com

We are back in the USA and what a special time we had in Malaysia with my family. We did not do much but just fell into my parents’ routine. They had also changed their routine somewhat to spend time with us but here are some of the highlights.

1. Cameron Line Dancing.

My dad teaches line dancing to senior citizens in church and one Friday, he took us all there. Cameron was shy at first but then he joined in the lessons!  After 10 minutes of dancing, he decided that he knew it all and proceeded to “teach” the ladies how to dance. It was hilarious because all his steps were out of sync! James thought it was kind of “weird” to dance so he preferred to watch!

2. Train Rides

I am so sick of train rides. It seems like every country we go to, we HAVE to take the public transport there. Sometimes, they just want to ride on it with no specific destination in mind. The boys just want to sit in the train, observe the stations and look at the mechanics of the train.

Fortunately, my dad was very patient, he took the boys many times on the different trains - there are like 4 to 5 different types of trains in Malaysia. They have the LRT, which is driverless, the Monorail which services the city, Starline (I don’t know where this leads to), KTM Komuter, which is a diesel line servicing the further cities and the interstate line, the ETS, which is the latest addition to the complicated Malaysian railway system.  It opened its services in June 2010, and it goes about 140 km/h.  James was very excited and wanted to go on it. My father went to check out the prices and it was about RM256 for all of us to Ipoh, a town about 4 hours away from Kuala Lumpur.  In the end, because it was so expensive, instead, Jo-Ann, my sister decided to surprise the  boys with a trip on the KLIA Express, the Airport Train. They were over the moon about it!

Here are some photos of the various trains from Singapore to Malaysia (I already had a separate post about the ones in Australia)

KLIA Express (the airport train)

With Aunty Jo-Ann

The Singapore Sentosa Monorail

Inside the Monorail.

The Sengkang LRT.

I haven’t even uploaded some of the other trains yet! That is a lot of trains!

3. Our Trip To Singapore.

This was a difficult trip for me.  It was so good to be back, and of all the places I visited during this trip, I felt that Singapore was “home”.   However, because we had nowhere to stay, and had to put up in a hotel, it felt weird, like we were home, but did not have a home in that place anymore.  I met up with old friends, caught up with our previous maid who I miss dearly. However because we had such a short time, I could only settle for quick snippets of time with people - another difficult thing for me to handle as I wanted to see more of them.

We caught up with some of my good friends, Christina (whose oldest, Lauren was off to a Starcruise trip for 4 days to shoot a TV advertisement for them and while she was away, ANZ Bank picked her up for another TV commercial. Her girls are just gorgeous!) Martha, Jenny, Cara, Sarmi and Sapiyah.

No trip to Singapore would be complete without a playdate by the pool!

It was great to see how my friends’ children had grown so much! Especially little Brandon, Martha’s youngest, he was such a cute little toddler. Also it was so sweet to see how James and Cameron bonded with Josh after such a long absence. All the girls in the photo above are Christina’s daughters. She is expecting her fifth child, a boy, which is a precious gift for her and hubby!

This has got to be my favourite picture of all. Christina took all the photos, aren’t they lovely?

Catching up with Jenny and Andrew at the American Club.  Cameron was not very interested in building a friendship with Alex, their son, the last time but this time, he was playing so well with him.  Jenny and I were so happy to see that.

We got to see Sarmi very briefly.  Sarmi lived with us for 3 years as our nanny and she and the boys share a closeness. We were very sad that we could not see her more because of our tight time frame. This picture was taken at our hotel room, which was cramped but in the ad, it was a “deluxe room”.

We were also privileged to break a Ramadan fast with our old neighbours. The boys were very close with their youngest, and it was so nice to be able to chat like old times. Oh Sapiyah! I miss your family so much!

The typical Singapore “suburbia” - full of HDB buildings, housing hundreds of thousands of people.

The boys at the Esplanade during one of our very long trips using the new Circle Line.

The boys love Phua Chu Kang, and so do I. He is one of Singapore’s most well known icons.

4. Korean Dramas

My mother is a big fan of Korean drama and during our stay, we ALL got hooked on some of the series, including the boys. It was so funny to see James requesting to watch, “Happiness In The Wind,” and Cameron asking for his favourite, “Bread, Love and Dreams.”  Now that I am back, I am considering getting Korean TV by cable or satellite.

5. My Family

It was a little different this time around.  My youngest sister Janice has moved to Singapore to work and we only got to see her for 2 days.  We also saw her in Singapore but she was working for the most part.

Cameron likes to pull faces. It is a phase that he is going through right now, to be the clown of photos.

One morning when my Dad was doing a quiet time with the boys. C was upset because he wanted to play. Notice how James is wearing the same shirt as Cameron in the above photo? I had underpacked that they did not have enough clothes so I was letting them wear each other’s clothes.

Cameron and James were very taken by my cousin, Li Ling.  They both do not have cousins so the idea of having a “cousin” was cool.  Li Ling came over 3 days and even took days off work so she could play with the boys. That is my Aunty Choon Yong in the photo.  Here, you can see that I have really run out of clothing options for Cameron because he is in his boxers.  Since we were at home, I told him to treat them like regular shorts.

My other sister, Jo had bought a house and was thick in the process of renovating it.  Renovating a house in Malaysia is very stressful.  The contractors make errors and you as a customer sometimes must foot the bill. Not only that, customer service is non existent there and there were times where a project was delayed and another service provider would get nasty to my sister about the delay. Hello, do you want us as customers or not? My Dad was undertaking a lot of the supervision for her as she was at work most of the time.  Cannot wait to see how her place turns out at the end of it all. It has been a long process for her.

It was a very relaxing time spent with my folks.  My parents are not going to recognise the silence in the house after the boys leave.  They complained that whenever the boys talked, it sounded like a Singaporean food court! Miss you all!!!

My first haircut in a year! Calvin Gan from Hairloom and Caramel in Singapore gave me the same cut again because I was too much of a chicken to perm my hair. I swear to do it next year though!

The landlords, a Korean retired couple, let’s call them Mr and Mrs H, have been over every single day. Sometimes twice, with groups of people coming through the house.  Yesterday she asked me if she could bring someone over at 10am in the morning but I was out for a septic tank inspection.  I allowed her to come here even without me being at home.

While I was out at my new property, she called me to say that she had no idea where her spare keys were and she wanted me to come back to open the doors for her.  When it became apparent to her that I would not budge, (haven’t you heard of changing appointments, lady?) she said she would drive to me but I had already left the place and was going thrift store shopping, my agent, Nancy, wanted to cheer me up so she had planned this. How sweet!

Anyway, to be nice, I rushed home.  As I entered the house, I was shocked. ALL the lights in the house were on. EVERY SINGLE ONE. From the bathroom, even the exhaust fan was left on, to the basement.  Initially, I was scared and called out to see if anyone was still in my house.  Then rage grew inside me as I went to my master bathroom and smelt clorox all over. I looked at my bathtub and someone had obviously sprayed bleach on my tiles! She had tried to clean them, but as it needs reglazing, that did not work as it was not a mold problem!  I was furious and offended, later it hit me that she must have gone rummaging around to search for my clorox and I got even more angry.

So I called her up and told her how angry I was that she left all my lights on and tried to clean my bathroom. I also told her that her husband was always coming here and dropping hints and trying to sweep some floor or saying things about the garden which I DID NOT APPRECIATE. I also told her that in our contract that they were to maintain our garden while we took care of the lawn and she said that she never stated that it was their job to take care of the garden. She did not stipulate it in the agreement because she hoped it was “up to our conscience” to maintain it. It was not clear cut because she told us she was responsible for gutter cleaning and once her gardener came and told us that the previous tenant did not maintain it, because Mr + Mrs H were paying for it.  They just got cheap when it came to us.

Anyway, she said, “Please forgive me, I will not do it anymore.” She proceeded to tell me that she admired how I could express my anger towards her.  She said she could not do that and went into a 20 minute story about her relationship with her best friend of 55 years breaking down because she held some grudges and could not speak out what was bothering her.  In the end, she invited me to lunch today and I kept saying no. Don’t you get it? I am sick of seeing you every single day.  I wrote to her and said I wanted my space and time for packing.

What does she do? She is coming over again to bring a contractor to look at replacing the master bath at 2pm and with clients again at 3.30pm.

I said no, and have written to her to ask her to consolidate all their visits to three times a week, max. No more Mrs Nice Gal!

…for my other blog which I use mainly for entering giveaways, my thrifting and craft stuff.  I created another blog because I did not want to direct strangers into my personal blog here.

www.craftonplanetmum.blogspot.com

About a month ago, Matt’s work ran a Career Training course for spouses to help them find a job and to connect with possible employers.  I have been to one where they ran the Myer Briggs test and the lady had a hard time trying to figure out what type I was.  She came up with three types for me, not because she is inexperienced, in fact, she is very good at what she does. She couldn’t figure me out because I had such a contrast of roles in my past and she was trying to make sure I was best fitted for the right sort of roles in the future.  She had to organise 2 meetings for me because she wanted to understand me better so the next one is next week.

What type am I? I am a highly adaptive person, a fire fighter, can be counted to get things done. However, I tend to start things and not finish them.  Studying does not come naturally to me and I am more hands on. I wish I did this test 20 years ago, then I would have not studied accounting and gone for something more appropriate! So far it is looking like I might be running a business from home as I have some skills which allow me to do so, like setting up a photography studio in the house.  However, I am not keen because in Singapore, I hated the aspect of dealing with impossible kids and complaining parents.  In Singapore, I used to take photos of pregnant women in the nude because it was niche market we tapped into and we were both mothers ourselves, making the clients feel more comfortable around us. However, I believe this is common here so I won’t be able to have an edge over my competitors. So we will discuss more to find out what other skills I can use to work from home.

Elena ran the workshop with 20 people in it and then organised to meet each of us individually to talk about our careers and what we can do.  I really appreciate this because it is so helpful to meet other spouses in the same sort of situation.  I found out that some of them brought their maids from Bolivia and Ecuador which makes it so much easier for them to look for work.  I fantasize about bringing Sarmi over still but then, the boys would have someone pick up after them for the rest of their childhood lives.  They are now learning to do some chores around the house which they never did before.

Ok, I know I should have called this blog “The Nomadic Mum” blog because we are always on the move, or thinking about moving!

As I blogged about a few days ago, we have initiated our house hunting process because we have plans to put the boys in a private Christian school, run by our church.

For the longest time, I cannot remember how long, we have wanted our boys to have a consistent Christian upbringing, not only reflected (occasionally!) at home but also at school and those around them.  Imagine this, a child spends about 10,000 hours of his life at school. That is a lot of hours for a person to be influenced and taught by those around them!

We are somewhat happy/unsure with the school that our church runs - it is pretty exclusive, not in the grand sense, but exclusive as in opposite of “inclusive.”  You have to be a member of the church in order for your child to attend the school. That involves a 10 week course and a rigorous interview about yourself and your walk with Christ. In November, we became members of this church, which we think is a fantastic church.  The kids are great there, so polite, so kind. James has started addressing Matt and I, “Sir” and “Ma’am” just like some of the children when they address their parents. It is cute but I don’t really insist that he does that - it is his choice.

However, there is lot of good things going for their current public school.  The kids are learning so much! James is in an accelerated class.  He does Chinese once a week, Cameron learns French. It is a small school, no more than 400 kids from Kindergarten to Grade 5. They serve hot meals at the cafeteria and the bus comes to pick them up. It is all free, except for lunches.  James has a friend - the one who beat him up at the start of the year? He has become James’ best friend. I just got a call from the boy’s mother because they are going to form a baseball team and James has been invited to join the team. For years and years, we wanted James to fit in, to have friends.  He now has them.

Cameron’s teacher is working very hard on improving his behaviour on a daily basis. He has gone off the separate carpet and they are now using tokens to help him monitor his behaviour.

If we move the kids to the Christian school, there would be no more foreign languages. No more accelerated classes. We would never find out if James or Cameron qualified for the magnet school or gifted program run by the school county here. (tests run in Grade 3)  We would be living in a place which is pretty remote. Because of that, we would have to buy a second car so that Matt could drive to the train station. He cycles to the station at the moment, using the bicycle paths that run outside our estate.  The area where the church is does not have a bike path and it would be unsafe for him to cycle, especially when it snows.  Higher fees, added expense of a car, undesirable housing location, less options offered at the school for a Christian education.

The other option is for us to move states - to the other side of DC, to Virginia, where we originally put down deposit for another private Christian school. The area we would be looking at is only minutes away from downtown DC and an established area. The downside is that the school only goes up to Grade 8 and we would not want to buy a house there, only to move again after 6 years when James is ready for high school.

The obvious conclusion is to stay put where we are but we want to take this step of faith. It is a big step of faith for us, that what we are doing is the right thing by our boys.  School is more than just academics to us.

This is a very difficult decision for us to make and we have to come to a conclusion by the end of Feb.  Our heads are swimming! What to do?

I love garage sales and salvation army/thrift stores.  My love affair with garage sales started after I had kids when I realised how quickly children grew out of their clothes and toys.  In Singapore, garage sales are not really common because not many people have garages, living in high rise homes.  Once or twice a year, there would be an organised garage sale held by certain organisations.  There were thrift stores, like Salvation Army but it was always out of the way for me to get to.

Now that I am in the US, I am really enjoying myself with the garage sales. We have purchased furniture and clothes this way.  Recently I am on the lookout for some furniture where I can play with upholstery.  I popped down to the Salvation Army store and saw two wing backed arm chairs for US$39 each. It was a lot more than I wanted to pay for a DIY project.   However, I saw Stephanie Meyer’s “Breaking Dawn” book, the last of the Twilight books (I have the other 3) but was not willing to pay full price for it, since I felt her books were not great at all.  There, I found a hardcover copy for $2.37. What a bargain. I also picked up some “Choose Your Own Adventure” books for James! Also some winter clothes for the boys.  I still have yet to get winter gear for myself because NOTHING fits me here. 

Anyway, I have been most inspired by many American ladies here who pick up furniture for $6 to $10 and change the look to something so amazing.  Once I find something, I will do so and post it here.

I love thrift stores, they are the BEST!

Matt’s work has a well run support group for spouses and families as they hire so many people from all over the world.  They are aware of cultural shock, the settling issues that families go through and they have this buddy program where a person would “buddy up” with a newcomer from their own country.

I have been blessed to be a recipient of a Malaysian lady’s company - Reva is from Penang, not very far from home.  She has been in DC in and out for 4 years with an overseas stint in Madagascar. She has two children one around James’ age and the other a teenager.  She has been calling me once a week, taking me to all the Asian restaurants and grocery stores.  During Depavali, the Indian festival of lights, she invited us to an open house at her place. 

She organised a playdate for the boys yesterday and it felt really nice to just sit out in the warmth (it was top of 24 deg C yesterday!) watch the boys jump on the trampoline.  She has gone the extra mile to organise a book club with a few other ladies so that I could meet more people.

When we were ill with H1N1, Reva dropped by with two pots of chicken soup and a bag of tumeric powder. Tumeric has anti bacteria properties and she gave us instructions how to take it with our meals.  Matt was sceptical at first but his cough improved quite significantly after that!

I am so blessed to have met Reva!

A while ago, a chap who is working as a missionary in a third world country, requested that I add him to my list of friends.  His name did not ring a bell but I looked at his friends and all my friends from Austalia were friends with him.

Each time I got online, he would say “Hello Grace!” like we really knew each other.

I would be in a cloud of puzzlement because I looked at his photos and I recognised no one, not even his wife.

This was so weird, talking to someone that I didn’t know like I knew him so well.

This went on for a few months and today, I decided to bite the bullet to tell him that I had no clue who he was.  Of course, I did it more tactfully - I asked him if he remembered where we met. He said no, and I said I didn’t remember him either.

It was funny. He wasn’t too fazed by it and we “introduced” ourselves for the first time!

Matt and I have been test driving several cars at a used car place and we tried the Honda Civic, Corolla, Hyundai Elantra and Mazda 3. They were all good but for our needs and budget, we both liked the Mazda and Toyota.   Originally we planned to get a second hand car, as we are both not very confident drivers and did not want to spend more than $15,000 on a car. However, as the economic situation is very bad right now, dealers are bringing their prices down low so there is only about a $1,000 difference between a new and a second hand car.

Matt likes the Mazda 3 hatchback because it has a bigger engine and looked more sporty. However, I found it a little difficult with the visuals and the brake was extra sensitive. The back was cramped, and when I got in with the boys, there was hardly any leg room for me.

I like the Toyota because it was familiar - I have been driving one the last few months and I love the smoothness of its steering. It was also far more spacious than the Mazda.

However, as the price climbed higher and higher (we became greedy, wanting traction control and airbags all around, we had to go for newer models, so in the end, we were looking at US$18K in total. So we had to re-look our options and look at the Elantra again because it is really a nice handling car too with nicer trims than the rest. Imagine, heated seats in winter time would be nice!

The Hyundai is the cheapest by far with the most features but without a hatchback.We can live with that. It is also the biggest of all the three cars.   Our preference is the hatchback because we have been doing garage sales and picking up bookshelves and furniture.  However, if we buy a second hand Hyundai, it is about $1,000 less than a new one. That is about $17K and then we think - hmmm. We can get a new Toyota or Mazda 3 for $18K.

We are greedy, aren’t we?