We dragged ourselves out of bed on a Sunday morning to go to a golf tournament. Can you believe that? But only because my three teens were once budding little golf players and Hip2bDad is trying to inspire them to pick up the game again. I say, anyone would be crazy to send their kids out into this unbearable heat to chase a little ball!

Anyhow this was a one-off. And you know why we prefer to stay away from these events? Because they’ve got all these stupid rules about what you can and cannot wear and do! And quite frankly, on a hot day like today, we’d rather not be strutting about in the sun wearing polo shirts with long pants and proper shoes !!

I parked the car miles away and we hopped on a small shuttle bus to get to the main entrance of the golf course. Then we hopped onto a golf buggy to be transported to the main event. The girls got a big kick as they often do when they caddy for their daddy and he lets them drive the buggy into bushes and trees!

After asking about 10 completely clueless people for directions, we finally stumbled on the food tent where we stopped for some breakfast. One thing’s for sure, the food they serve golfers makes me look like a top-notch celebrity chef, booyah!

We passed many interesting people, most notably the scantily-clad air-heads hired by the companies sponsoring the event. I think I understand a little better now the scenarios that must’ve led Tiger to his downfall predicament.

And by the time we got back to the parking lot, I found someone had parked behind my car (obviously someone with a brain the size of a golf ball) and I couldn’t get out!! Thank goodness for the golfer who ran around my car telling me how much space I had to maneuver. It took forever to inch my car out of that impossible space!

All in all, the morning put me in a really foul mood for a Sunday. I’m going to take an indefinite break from golf. That’ll be all. I won’t be taking any questions.

If you liked this post, subscribe to my RSS feed or follow me on Twitter for more hip parenting stories.

If you’ve been following my tweets on Twitter, you might just have caught on to what happens in my house every weekend. Yes, my three teens would set up their laptops in a row and play their computer games.

It does get quite noisy as they cheer, jeer and laugh at each other. I jokingly threatened to send them for rapid detox for opiates, more like rehab for computer addicts, if they make too much noise.

My smart alecks argue that this is their family time . They’re too stressed out by the extended school hours this year, they say. They don’t get to spend much time together and this is how they destress and stay sane.

Okay, so we’re on this fish and chips binge right now. We’ve had it two weekends in a row… New York fish and chips which the chef must’ve drowned in breadcrumbs before dropping into the fryer, then generously topped with melted cheese. Mmmm, swimmingly good!

And as if that’s not enough, I even ventured to make my own fish and chips for lunch on a school day. Fish and chips ‘homecooked’ in heaven complete with salad and tartar sauce, yum!

So we go through these cycles of food obsessions when we simply must go back and eat the same thing over and over again. Then there’ll be a lapse when we’re on the prowl for a new obsession…

… when we’d gladly go back time and time again to have our tongues singed silly by the spiciness of peri-peri chicken. And all those weekends chomping down Vietnamese pork chops over rice, by the end of which the cute waiter knew our orders by heart and had become our personal server. And not forgetting that incredible garlic shrimp pasta which we never seem to get tired of.

Are you as crazy as we are, or crazier? Do you obsess over a merry-go-round of food like we do?

Yesterday was a quiet day at home. Unusually quiet. So quiet you could hear a pin drop! After sending Steev to class, the girls and I headed for the book sale. Yep, that one, the big bad one where books were going for a steal (at 70-90% off, I would definitely call it that)!

Once we got into the sale, Raine (our resident book fanatic!) went berserk with Skye only two steps behind. In 30 minutes, my dear girls managed to pick out 29 of the books they’ve been waiting to get their hands on, the poor kids, hmm!

Yes, thankfully we have incredible sales like this once or twice a year where I can afford to let my hungry bookworms loose! If we shopped like this during normal times, I’d be like Ma Baker sending my kids out to rob banks!

Now that my wallet is lighter, I told the girls we can only afford to eat porridge for lunch. But this here is no mean pot of porridge – it contained 3-year Japanese scallops (luckily we didn’t die from this) which have been sitting around forgotten !!

We had a quiet Thanksgiving dinner, just me and the girls – partly because we were hungry (porridge digests too fast!) and partly because our tongues were on fire, the black pepper lamb chops were oh so spicy !

And why is the house so quiet again? That’s because the girls and I aren’t speaking to each other! Well, they’re in their rooms, eyeballs glued to the new books (duh!) and remember, there’s 29 books so I reckon the house is going to be quiet for a while?

It’s the weekend and I don’t have to take the girls to guitar class. any. more. We finally called it quits! What a relief! You should see my girls grinning from ear to ear. They love to play but apparently their guitar teacher isn’t too keen on teaching.

Or maybe he figures we’re easy money! Of late, he’s either reteaching the same old stuff, or flirting at the front desk. Most days, he’s in class for all of 10 minutes of the one-hour class.

Then out of the blue, the music school informs me the fees have increased because the girls have gone up one grade. They have? When? How? Did they sit for a test I didn’t know about? Nope, but apparently the school has been charging me the lower fee by mistake and now they want me to pay the difference for the past two months.

Frankly if the teacher had been doing a good job, I wouldn’t mind paying. But as it is, he’s been giving the girls a hard time, constantly missing from class and boring them with the same old and the girls’ enthusiasm has taken a nose dive ever since. They lost interest in practising and I practically had to drag them to class, the poor things.

Well, if the teacher figures it’s easy money, he’s got another thing coming. How about a taste of easy come, easy go!?

This is what I’ve lately become addicted to. Does this somehow have to do with the fact that I’m 48% nerd? Never mind, don’t answer that .

I’m at this practically every night and the girls jump in to help me or cheer me on when I’m stuck. Growing up, I remember hogging the Sunday papers for these, much to the frustration of everyone else in the house.

Then there was a stretch when my Dad became totally obsessed with submitting his entries to some weekly crossword contest. He’d come by waving his stack of entries, and how could I say no? I didn’t mind helping with the crosswords but cranking out those slogans really threw me .

We’ve been talking about stopping Raine and Skye’s guitar lessons. It’s not that they’ve lost interest, no. But right now, they seem more interested in listening to music than playing it. True, they’ve been at it for almost a year and have the basics down. By now, I’m guessing they should be playing songs like gushing faucets. Not.

At the same time though, the classes are becoming more of a drag now. The teacher isn’t the fun guy they started out with. For some reason, he seems distracted and often disappears from class to smoke or flirt with the staff outside, leaving my girls to practise on their own.

Earlier on, he asked the girls to give him a CD of their favorite songs that they wanted to learn. He said he liked the songs on the CD too and briefly taught a couple of songs from it. Our CD has never been seen again. Now he’s on to teaching songs by people whom the girls say are from their grandpa’s generation, people like Eric Clapton!! So let’s see where we go from here. We haven’t quit yet but we’re on the verge of.

… to read, write, make jewelry (now retired ) and cook up a storm.

What are your hobbies?