Skye is studying for her school exams. Raine and I are in the same room. Every now and then, our resident cheeky girl would enlighten us by reading aloud or commenting on what she’s reading in her book.

Skye: I don’t understand why I need to learn about checks and banks!!? What do I care?

Raine: What you studying for?

Skye: Commerce.

Raine: Oh, I never studied Commerce. I did Cooking instead.

Skye (shaking her head!): Uh-oh, that means you got to walk 10 steps behind your man!!

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So just what have I been up to? Apart from the wedding, and hanging out at a friend’s casual outdoor party, and shopping for a new washing machine which turned out to be a little more of a run-around than I expected, that is.

The fun wouldn’t be complete though without a line-up of exciting administrative errands that I so enjoy – like waiting endlessly at the bank, waiting endlessly at Steev’s college for his transcripts, waiting endlessly at … well, you get the picture.

With all of this new-fangled technology that the world’s geeky community throws at us every other day, you would think that waiting would be an obsolete word by now, if not already banished to the lexical museum.

So what have I been up to?

Bank teller’s answer to my question: Wait, let me check!

Steev’s text message to me: Wait, need to go to library to return books!

Tell me you’re just like me, that you hate to wait.

What a great weekend! We spent the better part of it at a wedding on the in-law side. Friday night, it was raining elephants and gorillas. Visibility was poor and parts of the highway was flooded when we drove out to the bride’s open house.

As usual, each time we see the clan, there are the exclamations of how big the kids have grown and the repetitions of names, ages and school year to jolt everyone’s memories. Now that my teens are old enough to answer those questions themselves, my days as a human tape recorder may be numbered .

Saturday morning, we were off to the church wedding and reception. The bride was radiant, of course. Thankfully too the service was short and sweet, and the day got noisier as more of the clan crawled out of the woodwork whom we’ve not seen in ages.

The hotel dinner party that night was huge. There must’ve been at least 800 guests. In the midst of camera flashes and toothy hugs, Steev bumped into a guy from college that he vaguely knew. Someone he would say hi to as they passed each other in the hallway between classes.

In the small talk that followed, that guy turned out to be a cousin (?) Steev never knew he had. Can you imagine that? Right now, we still have no idea who he is but I’m sure with a little nosing around, we’ll soon find out he’s related to us. It’s the first time we’ve ever encountered something like this. Have you ever found a long-lost family member through casual conversation?

In the continuing saga of my washing machine woes, I’ve decided to heck with the store that sent over the young technician who charged an arm and a leg to fix my washing machine by trial and error. I’ve spent the better part of this week comparing prices at other stores. That’s when I came across the store my folks used to buy our household appliances from.

There’s a new store owner now. The previous owner handed the business over to his son who happily gambled it all away, so the story goes. The new store is a no-frills mini warehouse that doesn’t even display the appliances but I popped in to have a look anyway.

And to my pleasant surprise, I found they offer some of the best prices in town. Must be my lucky day ! Yes, for the savings of a few hundred bucks, I didn’t even mind running to another store to view and select my washing machine before calling them back with the model number to order for me.

My new Electrolux washing machine arrived yesterday, the very next day after I ordered it. What great service! So it’s happy days!!

About two weeks ago, my washing machine stopped in the middle of Spin Dry. I guess it couldn’t handle the girls’ 2 pairs of pants that are as thick as tree barks.

I called the repair man from the same store where I bought this washing machine 3 years ago. They sent over a young guy who didn’t even bother to troubleshoot. He simply replaced the capacitor, snatched 100+ bucks out of my hand and was on his merry way not 5 minutes after he stepped into my house.

It worked for exactly one wash and then died again. Said young tech came over again on a Sunday, turned the knobs and miraculously the machine started up again and he was out the door in 3 minutes. As soon as he left, it died again.

So I waited till Monday to call him again. He mumbled something about the timer needing to be replaced, that it would cost me big bucks and that I should consider buying a new machine – from him! Oh, and that he would discount what I’d already paid for the capacitor. How generous of him!

Somehow I didn’t like the sound of that and decided to call the manufacturer who said they would charge a freaking 70+ bucks just to have someone come over to take a look. And what if they can’t repair it? Okay, so now what? We need a quick and dirty decision.

Should I buy a new machine from said young tech just so I can get back what I paid for the capacitor? Or should I take a chance on getting it fixed (or not) by the manufacturer? Or should I just bite the bullet and buy a new machine from another store since this machine is already rusty in a few places? What would you do?

I’m up early this morning to start preparing for my Reunion Dinner which incidentally became Reunion Lunch somewhere over the course of yesterday. The story is this. I invited two of my favorite aunts to join us for our Reunion Dinner tonight.

Yesterday they got a call from my uncle (the one who excluded my kids from attending his son’s wedding dinner recently) inviting them to his Reunion Dinner. He said he’d booked his dinner reservation at a restaurant two months ago and that he’ll send his son to pick them up at 5:00pm today. When my two aunts told me about it, I said, fine I’ll reschedule my reunion to lunchtime so they can still join us.

This morning, my uncle apparently called my two aunts to say he’ll be picking them up for lunch. Er, say what? Theirs was supposed to be dinner which is why I shifted my reunion to lunchtime to accommodate them . My two aunts were surprised too and reminded him what he’d told them earlier. He brushed them aside and insisted they should’ve called him back yesterday to confirm.

I’m like, err, are we playing some sort of game here?? Am I sensing a complete lack of sincerity here in his invitation to these two old folks? So yeah, see what I mean about family politics stress and Chinese New Year? Well, whatever! I’ve got everything ready to start cooking my Reunion Lunch now and my two aunts have decided to join me. Lunch will be fairly simple so no worries about the need for stomach fat loss later . Catch you guys later.

So here we are, sitting around in sauna weather waiting for the Year of the Tiger aka the Big Food Fest to begin. Dare I say the sun is a ridiculous 95+ degrees that feels like 120 degrees and I’m sweating like a pig (do pigs even perspire?) from a humidity of, oh, only 95% ?

To all the ladies who wanted to trade in their snow for my sauna in my previous post, great choice! This here is the best natural weight loss system ever. Yes, this is typical Chinese New Year weather tailor-made to counter the effects of the Big Food Fest!

So while I’m languishing in perspiration wishing I could dive right into that,

let me just say I can’t believe how laid-back I am about Chinese New Year. I didn’t bake a single cookie this year because my oven’s kaput since Christmas and I haven’t gotten around to buying a new one yet. Talk about procrastinating.

I’m so glad I only have two traditional meals to cook for the five of us – the reunion dinner on CNY Eve which is tomorrow night, and the kick-off lunch on the second day of CNY – and that’s it. Easy-peasy! Stay tuned for more updates and pictures when I’m done slaving and serving, or follow me on Twitter for fat, juicy titbits on the fly .

I know I shouldn’t be complaining but it’s 93 degrees out and I’m ready to swap my sun with anyone who wants to give up their snow .