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!!

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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?

Okay, so Chinese New Year is just around the corner and it coincides with Valentine’s Day this year. This time every year, we’d be trying to catch every lion dance performance in town. But not this year! Seems my teens have finally outgrown the obsessive lion chasing though we’ll still be picking a few spectacular ones to watch.

As usual, we won’t be traveling out of town like most folks. We prefer to avoid the rush and just visit some friends and relatives here in town. Now if we were going on vacation in Orlando, that would be a different story.

I’ll be cooking a simple reunion dinner at home on New Year’s Eve. Customarily daughters having been married out of the family are not welcome to have the reunion dinner with their side of the family because it’s believed that it’ll impoverish the family. Hahaha, I call it poppycock and fiddlesticks!!

They could, of course, ignore the superstition but my Dad celebrates it with his ‘new’ family and I’m technically an ‘orphan’ who never gets invited so… That leaves Hip2bDad’s side of the family where we’re customarily supposed to be having the reunion dinner with. But since his Dad also celebrates with his ‘new’ family, us ‘orphans’ decided to heck with all this nonsense and just have our own reunion .

On the first day of Chinese New Year, we observe a vegetarian diet. On the second day, I’ll be cooking the first meal of the year. As usual, we’ll be avoiding Chinese restaurants like the plague for the 14 days of CNY, away from the crowd and having to pay through our noses.

And that’s about it. Got a whole stash of festive cookies, mandarin oranges, drinks and flowers for the altar. Not much left to do except finalize my two menus. We don’t traditionally decorate the house with festive symbols, plants or lanterns. The kids have some new clothes which we bought over the Christmas holidays. Hip2bDad and I don’t bother with new clothes. No trips to the salon for any of us either, yay!

And we’re set for a whole week off school, that’s all we care about . Call us boring, call us weird but we’ve always done our own thang much to the horror of our extended families. We’re not your typical family. So the way we celebrate Chinese New Year shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone !!

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So here’s the thing, right? I loathe hair salons. The very thought of being held captive to a babble of empty feminine gossip, and my hair and face being pulled and pushed in different directions at once, is enough to keep me far, far away from hair salons. I just don’t have the patience for this thing some of my friends call pampering (?).

First the hair dresser subjects my head to semi-abuse, then she tries to get all friendly and chatty, then she tries to convince me to agree to all sorts of other abuses to my poor hair – you should steam it, color it, fry it, roll it up and grill it ! By then, I’m really in no mood for anything more than monosyllabic grunts. Just to shut her up!

So you can imagine why I’ve left my hair to its own devices. I looked in the mirror this morning and suddenly, my hair is this long.

While I’m clearly not one to fuss with my hair, I kinda like playing around with different styles. I get bored easily with the same old, you know, like going on destin florida vacations a few times but doing the same things each time . Having a new hairstyle, now that’s like becoming a whole new person! It’s fun!

So I’m thinking I should cut my hair short – again. I love this long hair but I think a shorter style would be easier to maintain since I work out at the gym several times a week and the weather is freakin’ hot! Should I risk a trip to the hair salon? Or should I just tie up my hair? What do you think?

Rarely has a Friday been this much anticipated in our household. Sure we live for the weekends (doesn’t everyone?) and we’re usually happy when Friday rolls around. But today is different.

This is the Friday we’ve all been looking forward to!! This is the Friday after 5 grueling days (feels more like 5 years!) of unnecessarily, ridiculously long school hours. When I picked the girls up from school, they were beaming from ear to ear! And we drove straight to the McD’s drive-thru for the lunch they’ve been waiting all week for!

A few quick wisecracks from the girls today.

Raine (gobbling down her burger): Man, I feel like I just got released from jail!

Skye (right after lunch/shower): Time to get some sleep, be back in two hours! (After a two-hour afternoon nap, she couldn’t stop smiling through dinner.)

Raine (to her friends online): Boo you, homework, you can sit there till Sunday!

Already the girls are counting the days till the end of the school year.

5 down, 200+ to go !

Back from our beach vacation and minus the usual taxi runs, these are lo-oong lazy days we’re enjoying. Waking up late. Simple lunches at home.

Me: Go to sleep, it’s very late!

Kids: Still early, Mom, we’re cultivating eyebags!

Well, I set my alarm clock last night, and Raine and I finally dragged ourselves up early enough to hit the gym which we missed for an entire week while we were away. Great to get those lazy bones moving again!

Steev, my 18-year-old who’s working part-time on a software project, came home after a half day’s work saying the office was practically deserted. Everyone’s on leave this time of year. So no work got done. Instead he snuck out for morning tea with a family friend who was in the area to meet up with some business plan writers.

I’ve pretty much decided I won’t be attending my cousin’s wedding dinner reception at the JW Marriott. We’ve been allocated only 2 seats and told point-blank my 3 teens are not invited. Now I’m not being picky, I just think it’s bad manners on their part.

Nyek, that’s my randomness for today. By the way, please go check out our holiday photos of buffet breakfast at the Hard Rock Hotel, Penang and lunch at Strada.

Steev came home from class yesterday morning with the beginnings of a cough and fever. Tis the season, that’s one thing. The other is that Steev’s been having chocolates for breakfast, lunch and dinner – almost! Chocolate is very ‘heaty’ (raises internal body heat), hence the fever, or so we believe.

This is only a small portion of the goodies Hip2bDad brought home from Melbourne last weekend and most of it is already in Steev’s tummy .

As for the rest of the chocolates and nuts, my girls have split them up between my two fridges and hidden them deep in the drawers and behind all my other stuff, to be savored little by little when I’m not looking.

I’m guessing Hip2bDad and I are to blame for this bizarre behavior. Steev never tasted a candy till he was 3+! Raine and Skye started a little earlier, around age 2+, because by then, our friends and relatives had begun to notice how deprived our kids were and taken it on themselves to ensure our kids were normal well-fed with chocolates and candy whenever we visited.

Could this be why our teens find chocolates so irresistible? Have we inadvertently caused them to develop Chocolate-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder ?