If you read the December 2009 issue of the OPRAH Magazine, you’ll notice this Sondra Roberts Satin Flower Holiday Bag was featured in there. If you know me, you’ll know I love unusual handbags… what I wouldn’t do to get my hands on this one . Do you like it? What kind of bags do you like?

Click on picture for details about this bag.

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I can’t believe I wasted spent my entire morning watching an interview with some Korean actor. The only reason I was watching it was because I was on the treadmill in the gym doing my cardio, aka captive audience!

Admittedly I’m a banana (yellow on the outside, white on the inside). When I was growing up, I lived with my British-educated aunt who banned us kids from watching Asian movies. See one and you’ve seen them all, the story lines are all the same so I never developed an interest in them.

This wasn’t a movie though, it was an interview on CNN. Anyhow what could I do, I was chained to the treadmill! I have no idea who this Korean dude is except that thankfully he speaks somewhat intelligible English and I could actually catch bits of the interview through the crunching of treadmills being worked to death.

But what caught my attention was the way the Aussie interviewer was looking at him. There were moments when I thought she must surely be falling in love with this guy the way she was looking at him . It was like watching a love story unfold within an interview. How quaint!

She’s gorgeous, by the way, but I’m not so sure about him . She was gazing intently at him with her very pretty smile while he was looking everywhere else but at her. Gosh, some guys are just so blind! And that, was my Monday morning entertainment!

I wasn’t going to do a grandmother post to tally up this year, but WTH, I’ll go ahead and do a long-winded grandmother post (my last chance to bore everyone this year). 2009’s been a good year, an interesting year and I’m a little sad to see it go.

This was a year of rock concerts for us. Some free tickets to MTV World Stage fell from the sky and we got to see Hoobastank, Boys Like Girls and All-American Rejects ‘live’! The girls and I are huge fans of AAR. And as luck would have it, AAR came back for a second concert. Raine won tickets to the concert and we also got to meet the band. Pretty cool, huh?

And just to show the world we’re not a bunch of Philistines, we spent an entire afternoon falling asleep at the Philharmonic, quite an experience for my first-timers.

We’re also huge fans of blogging for charity and we had a blast staying up for 24 hours straight blogging at Blogathon 2009. I’ve been doing it for 3 years now, the past 2 years with Raine and Skye. It’s so much fun for a good cause. We’re definitely doing it again next year!

I spent a month on vegetarian diet and gained some weight in the process . My attempt at learning French turned out to be a bit of a laugh. When Tyson, our baby beagle, moved in in September, French went out the window.

The two weddings, one on my in-law side and the very disappointing one on my side of the family, were non-events as far as I’m concerned. On the positive side, if I never appreciated my in-laws before, I appreciate them a little more now. But only just a little, let’s not get carried away .

Not forgetting our recent beach holiday at the Hard Rock Hotel where we created some beautiful memories… and what a proud mama I am that the kids have done great in school this year.

New Year resolutions, I have none. They don’t work for me so I’m not even going to waste my time. Just some notes to self – eat healthy, stay cool, pray for world peace, keep smiling and keep striving for excellence .

HAVE A SAFE AND HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!

Okay, I’m not sure it’s a wasp because it’s fluttering so much I can barely make it out.

Let’s just assume it is because the last couple of things that fluttered into our house were wasps and this looks like another one of those.

Don’t ask me how it got in. I’m such a mosquito magnet I had all the doors and windows in the house mosquinetted (yes, I just invented this word and you may use it, just please give me credit ). Which means we’re pretty much air-tight – unless a wasp with either brawn or brains actually figures a way in, that is.

Wasps freak me and the kids out. If ever there’s a new preoccupation on, say, the Charlotte job search list, for Professional Wasp Catcher, you can count me out. I haven’t got a clue how to chase a wasp out without killing it, my personal philosophy being to live and let live.

But apparently there is a way. We heard this true story about an old woman who discovered an ant hill in the garden patch where she wanted to plant some flowers. Not wanting to kill the ants, she spoke to them instead and gave them an ultimatum to move out. Next day, the ants were gone .

We decided to try this trick. I got Raine to dolittle Mr Wasp and politely tell him we need our bathroom back. Well, so far, we haven’t seen or heard from Mr Wasp. It’s been over an hour and my kids have been trooping in and out of the bathroom and I haven’t heard any screaming yet . Does the Dolittle trick work, you think?

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.

My good neighbor tells me she has so many family weddings to attend this month she’s going positively broke. The first wedding starts today and there’ll be more to come soon. She being one of the elders is expected to give a fairly decent gift like maybe a gold coin or bracelet.

I was jokingly suggesting that maybe she should order a stash of gold coins and just dish them out freely at all those weddings. Gold always makes a nice gift that a couple can keep for remembrance or even a rainy day.

She laughed and said it sure would be nice if she could afford to buy gold but her husband’s business isn’t going too well at the moment and hopefully her relatives will understand.

I came across this question on another blog (sorry, can’t remember which) – if you could have any job (assuming you have the skills), what would it be?

Interesting ‘cos the kids and I sometimes talk about what they want to be when they grow up.

I grew up wanting to become a teacher. I think it’s a phase lots of us went through. Guess I’m one of the lucky ones who actually got to have a spin at it. Got myself certified to teach English and I do it now whenever I can, and it’s lotsa fun and something I really get a big kick out of.

Then I went through another phase where I wanted to be in a band, a rock star. Anyone else? Hahaha, I know it’s crazy, what are the chances? but I love music, love to sing and drive people nuts with my bawling, more like it .

Now that I enjoy cooking so much, I’m thinking it might be fun to be a chef too. Then I’ll get to play with food and come up with all sorts of wierd concoctions. Ever had crazy ambitions that might or might not have panned out?

Occasionally I teach English at college, and one of the things I love to do is walk into class on a Monday morning with this sprightly question, “So how was your weekend?”.

I love challenging my students to a tough question first thing Monday morning to get their brain juices going, right ? Even though I know the standard one-word answer I get every time will be a fairly lifeless “Okay”.

I’m not talking about students who are new to the English language. These are kids who’ve recently graduated from high/secondary school, some of whom are in the habit of scoring strings of A’s even.

So how was your weekend? – Okay!

Uh-ha, so what’s ‘okay’ mean – exactly? Is that ‘okay’ as in borderline boring but tolerable? Or ‘okay’ as in lots of fun but the rain drenched your spirits somewhat? For some strange reason, everything here is ‘okay’, a word that doesn’t really say much at all.

You want some pizza? – Okay!

How was your English test? – Okay!

What do you think of the new boy/girl in your class? – Okay!

Well, it’s time to shake that Okay Syndrome. You can help your kids improve their vocab by pointing out new things to them. Get them reading. Make it fun to learn new words. Take it from me, having a wider English vocab would really help them express themselves better when they get to college .