I’m constantly amazed at the things people come up with these days. I know many of you notice these things too but may be too polite to blog about them.

Speaking of politeness, sure it’s good except we seem to be going in the opposite direction. These days, people make no bones about handing you a wedding invite and then telling you NOT to bring your teens. Not that we even make it a habit to bring our kids to weddings. We understand they take up extra seats and sitdown dinners are expensive.

As a sidenote, even when my kids were toddlers, they were never a problem at formal dinners or when eating out. They would sit there and quietly eat along with us. They never left the table to race around or scream after other kids or throw temper tantrums, so the issue of them disrupting an event never arose.

Anyhow being that this is a family member we’ve been visiting very often and who’s mentioned the upcoming wedding to us more than once, I guess I just assumed we’re ALL invited. No? Okay, my bad! Maybe I’m a little outdated in this respect so I was very surprised when told pointblank that my teens are not welcome at the dinner.

I guess it’s their prerogative but the way I was brought up, it’s not a done thing with close family. Being tactful people, we know we shouldn’t bring our entire neighborhood and their cat either. So that’s never a problem for us.

Sure I understand dinner at the Marriott and honeymoon at the Cozumel Mexico does cost a fortune but hey, if you can afford it, what’s three more guests? Know what I’m sayin’ ? Still if folks are looking to profit from a once-in-a-lifetime event like this, maybe they should just start selling wedding tickets instead of handing out wedding invites, huh ?

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I’ve had a full day today and man, am I pooped!! We had a late night last night attending what started out as a perfectly harmless dinner that later turned into a conversion program (not the kind you use to convert data, mind you !)

I spent my entire school life in a religious school but never found reason to convert. None whatsoever! To me, a religion has to make sense and it must be scientific, not based on blind faith and stories that can’t actually be verified. So what makes these people think they can sneakily try to convert me now?

Anyhow I almost fell asleep listening to the fairy tales of testimonials which even a 3-year-old kid can’t be convinced to believe. Sorry guys, but if you need help rewriting those tall tales, let me know. Maybe I can inject more fantasy into them and help you concoct a better story. I got a kick out of watching the song and dance though, pretty funny that !

And today, well, I’ve been up since 5:30 am for a morning drive which took me 100 km out to the boonies to I don’t know where. My 20 minute trip took an hour and a half and I’m still clueless as to where I made the wrong turning, no thanks to the incredibly helpful road signs that might as well not be there. What an adventure!

Me and the kids spend the rest of the day trawling the malls and wearing ourselves out. My new shoes were killing me but band aids saved the day! I’m truly beat and now I’m all ready to plop into bed. Tomorrow’s gonna be another big day, so stay tuned !

After a rather stressful weekend, I was hoping this would be a good week. Still it’s only Wednesday so there’s every chance it could still turn out to be a good week but for now, I’m pretty stressed.

Skye has just recovered from fever and flu. I didn’t take her to see a doctor lest she gets exposed to even more deadly germs at the clinic. Besides there’s already a doctor in the house. Hi, Dr Mom here ! I kept her from school for 3 days and pumped her up with Vitamin C, cod liver oil and lots of fluids.

Barely 3 days back in school and I’ve pulled her, and Raine, out of school again… for the rest of this week. There’s a full-blown flu bug going on out there and folks are still happily sending their kids, coughing and sneezing, to school.

On a good day, fine, they can bundle their kids off to school or camp, farm them out to every tuition class in town, sell them off on eBay, whatever, that’s their prerogative but not when their kids are sick as rain-soaked kittens.

Same goes for the bank officer who was openly sharing his cough with everyone and everything. Nice going, man! I had to do a quick errand at the bank this morning and dang it, this bank officer handled my transaction!! Ew!

I complained to another bank officer that the guy shouldn’t even be at work! Strangely all the other bank staff were wearing masks except him!!! Geez! When he’s not processing transactions, I sure hope he’s not looking for panama city beach hotel deals so he can share his germs with the rest of the world, the nerve of him!!

After I left the bank a half hour later, my throat felt itchy and scratchy. OMG, so soon? I sped home, drowned my bank documents in antiseptic and OD’d on 2000mg of Vitamin C! Thanks, man! No, really, it would be nice if people just keep their germs to themselves.

Okay, here’s my rant for the week. I’ve got to get this off my chest so I can start Monday with a smile . Okay, let’s face it, we’re a society of copycats, blatant ones at that. I’m a rebel and a non-conformist so I find copycats very uncool!

Well, there’s this woman at the gym. I don’t know her and have never spoken to her. Friday before last, she was there and by all appearances, it seemed like she was working out on a bench across the room from me.

I wouldn’t have noticed her if she’d actually been working out like everyone else. But she was just lying there on the bench, her head turned in my direction, her eyes fixed on me, watching me intently.

Last Friday, she was there again, only this time she was unashamedly doing all the exercises that she’d watched me do the Friday before. Am I over-reacting? How do I know she’s copying me?

Well, because I’ve been at that gym long enough to know what workouts everyone else does, and most people just keep to the same old, same old. Well, me being the wierd one, I’m always changing my routines and doing workouts that no one else does.

Point is copycats piss me off, and this woman was so in my face! I wish she would just quit the gym and go back  to her weight loss pills. I mean, those of us who are regulars do get together and exchange notes about how we’re doing with different routines and then we go ahead and try what works for the other person.

But this woman walks in there, spies on people, steals their ideas and makes like she pioneered them .

For weeks, I’ve been without my car CD player. The freakin’ bad roads killed it, that much I know. Not being able to play my CD is an added stress to driving, something I really don’t need. Half the time, I’m flipping between channels trying to avoid those darned ads. The way the radio channels are besieged with ads, believe me, it’s really hard finding a song, never mind a good song .

Then there’s all that talk and news and information updates. Listening to those fake accents, mispronunciations and half-past six grammar drives me nuts! For years now, I’ve kept the radio off when the kids are in the car with me. They don’t need to hear all that. They’ll have lots of time to pick those up at school .

Yesterday while waiting to pick Raine up, I had some time to kill so I started fiddling around with the CD player to see if I could get it to work. Please, please work!! It coughed and spluttered. I gave it a few encouraging whacks and whoa, we’re back in business! Woo-hoo !

I hate to admit it but I went to the I-sale last weekend. I know the place spells furniture heaven to a lot of folks. Not to us.

We were only there because we happened to be having breakfast at a nearby building and decided to see if I could find a new chopping board, the white plastic one I use for cutting fruits.

Their furniture and stuff are overrated, in my humble opinion. I know a lot of die-hard I-fans are waiting to beat me up for saying that . But it’s true. Once I bought a cupboard with their signature flimsy plywood back. We are gentle creatures, yet within a month, the doors and drawers started coming apart, leaving big gaps and refusing to shut tight.

I read on someone’s blog that they had to attach a string to the back of their I-cupboard to keep it from falling forward ! That kind of quality is clearly not for me. With kids in the house, I can’t afford to have cupboards collapsing and drawers disintegrating. We spent so much money kid-proofing our house, we really don’t need safety issues like that!

I had an adult student who worked there and she told me their merchandise are manufactured in China at very low cost and sold here at (what I consider) exorbitant prices. Yes, I understand we’re paying for the design but if I have to pay so much, I’d expect them to last for a lot longer than a few months.

Back to my hunt for a white chopping board. The only ones they have are so thin that Steev says he can break them in half with his wimpiest karate chop! Five minutes in the store and we left empty-handed as the weekend crowd started hitting our butts with their shopping carts. Definitely time to flee !

I’ve had a rough week both physically and emotionally. I said in my earlier post that I would blog (rant is more like it) about what happened, so here I am.

Suffice to say I’ve wasted an entire week making plans in good faith based on some people’s empty promises and lies. If only I had known that I was being given the runaround, I would not have subjected myself to all this trouble.

I especially hate it when people assume that just because I don’t work outside home, I have nothing else to do but sit at home and wait for their phone calls and be at their beck and call at a moment’s notice.

Yes, I’m tired of dealing with people who have no respect for me, my capabilities and my time. I’m tired of people who sit on their *sses high horse and spit out empty promises from forked tongues. I’m tired of people who think they’re high and mighty but don’t even have the common decency to apologize for having wasted your time and made you look like a fool. End of rant.

That, in a nutshell, is exactly how pissed I’ve been feeling. Have you ever met people who really, really make you fume? In fact, I was so pissed last night I slept like a log, woke up this morning, baked a blueberry cheesecake and made waffles. The way I was feeling, I just needed to focus my energy on something constructive, not destructive, know what I mean?!

I actually thought I was going to have a stress-free Chinese New Year this time. I was just going to lay back and enjoy the lazy days with my family, visit a few tolerable relatives and go hang out at the golf club. Heh, who am I kidding?

Minutes before I could even step out of the house for our reunion dinner, the stress arrived. The Out of Town clan on my side of the family wants to meet up with the Local clan and I’ve been requested to show up.

Let’s put it this way, there are certain people I don’t want to see. But there’s always the nosy-parkers and self-appointed do-gooders who will try to arrange these massive get-togethers so they can watch the drama play out when those of us who loathe each other meet.

I’m a peace-loving person. A rebel at times, yes but harmless nonetheless and a little too nice for my own good. Over the years however, the peace in our clan has been shattered by a certain b*tch who’s been doing nothing but stirring up a whole lot of sh*t since she married into our family!

Enough is enough. I mean, festive occasions are meant to be a joyous time. All I want is to have a great time with my kids, ya know. The last thing I need is all this unnecessary stress of dodging backstabbers, taking sides and pretending to be nice to people who deserve a punch in the face, know what I mean ?