Cupcake Memories: Life in Sydney, Australia

Very soon the major departmental stores will have a winter clothing clearance sale. Hope to get some bargains for next year’s winter clothing for DD. As you know, they sometimes slash as much as 50% off the existing price.

Will prolly need to get some hoodies, thick jackets, socks, long pants and long sleeve tops. As for me, I don’t need anymore new stuff unless I see something I really, really like. Well, when I’m overweight, everything looks awful on me anyway.

I print out my own address labels for snail mails especially when mailing cards to family and friends on festive seasons. Then I have to peel them off from the sticker and stick them onto the envelopes. It is a three step process. Print, Peel, Stick.

At times I wonder, why do I bother with the trouble? Why don’t I just get some custom rubber stamps made for our home address and our names for signatures? Just stamp it onto the envelopes and cards, a one process method. Saves time and money.

Wow today is officially second half of the year 2009. Scarey, scarey how quickly time flies ever since we had DD. I guess the good thing is that by December, she’d be 3.5 yo and hopefully, hopefully she’d be more manageable by then.

We haven’t really done much the past three years as we mostly spent a lot of time on DD and our house. Thank goodness our house is more of less done, no more immediate things to fix, install, or buy, phew! I remember those times, it wasn’t easy completing the house and take care of an infant at the same time.

Here’s to a better second half of the year and future years to come!

Well, well, today is the last day of second quarter of the year already. Time to scout around for the best insurance rates for both vehicles and family covers. It didn’t seem that long ago when we were talking to friends about the cheapest rates available.

I feel a little scared each time I realize how quickly time flies. It just zooms past you year after year as soon as you hit the age of 25! More reason to think about insurance cover.

I’ve been horrible at replying emails. Really horrible because those are not just emails to friends and family. Every month or two, I try to force myself to clear off some emails and I spent over an hour last night to reply to some long overdue ones.

As for family and friends, I hardly communicate via emails since FB came into existence. It is simpler to just drop a short note or leave a comment there Talk about being lazy!

Before I became a mom, I was super quick at replying emails from whoever!  Friends would mostly get a same day reply from me and at max, the next day.  But now, probably a month or more!

Thank goodness the moon craters on my face rarely shows up on photos when viewed on low resolution. I can’t say the same of high resolution though. Worst of all, in real life nothing can hide them unless I slap on layers of liquid foundation.

At one point in my life I tried to source for the best acne treatments including going for facials which I was naïve to think would cure me.

Fortunately I decided to go to a skin specialist. Within three months of antibiotics and some cream prescriptions, I finally had a normal face free of acne filled with pus and blood (gross!).

Occasionally I still have an acne or two popping up every month (hate it!) but at least they’re not all over my face.

Baked sweet potato wedges is yums on a cold winter’s night. Simple to prepare with minimal mess too. Simply cut them into wedges. Lightly coat with oil, sweet paprika and salt. Bake at 180C for twenty minutes. It makes a great snack … ooops snacking after dinner again! Sigh, how am I to lose weight?

Sweet potatos, I used to eat so much of them as a child.  Mom would just boil it and we’d eat it dipped with some sugar.

I still have my life insurance policy with a company in KL. At first I contemplated on cancelling it and get back much less than all the premiums I have paid for because I thought it would be troublesome to keep that policy while I live in Australia.

Somehow I was either too busy or I changed my mind. Up until today, I am still paying my premiums annually. That policy was taken a long time ago, way before I met DH.

Perhaps it is time to look into a different policy now, to include coverage as a family?

It seems soooo long ago that we’ve had sunny winter days. Yesterday and today’s weather is perfect! Especially when you have loads of laundry to do *LOL*

I am waiting for our new local library to be completed and opened to the public so that I could take DD there for storytelling or read books. Hopefully she’ll be able to walk the distance.

I never used to check my receipts after paying for my groceries until I discovered that the checkout persons in local supermarket often entered the wrong prices by from a few cents to a two dollars. This usually happens when products especially fresh foods are marked down and the system at the checkout is probably not updated.

Then there is frequent short changing at other checkouts. Duh! For example, a fortnight ago, I was supposed to receive $3 in change but the checkout person didn’t realized it and thought that was it.

I said “sorry …” she looked stunned for a moment.  I proceeded to say … “I have not received my change”. Then she apologized and had to get a key to open the cash drawer. Good thing she even remembered the amount of the change ?