Gimme A Break

Our relatives have left town for their next shopping destination. Lucky them. They were saying that with so many affordable flight deals on offer at this time of year, they’d be stupid not to take advantage of the savings.

That’s what I used to do before I got so busy with my kids. I would chase bargains down to the ends of the earth given the time and money . I mean, wouldn’t you?

There’s always something to buy, something new and interesting to catch your fancy and new shopping places to explore. For me, a holiday isn’t a holiday unless I shop till I drop. How about you?

• joining in the rush
• New York, New York
• planning our getaway
• staying home
• how to deal with rising costs by using smart shopping techniques

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We went to a buffet dinner last night. Buffets are great when you have kids along. They can have their own table and get their own food, and the adults can engage in adult conversation… finally!

We were laughing about how swear words escape us when we’re driving because of all the lousy drivers out there these days! Some of us are so well-restrained though that we’d never swear in front of the kids and yet, strangely enough, have kids that swear!

It’s a bit of a puzzle, that one. But it looks like kids start swearing younger all the time. My friend was shocked when her 8-year-old burst forth with a string of swear words right in front of her during an argument with his classmate.

Maybe we need to send them to swearing rehab, you know, something like a drug rehab for people who swear !!

• so what’s drug rehab?
• bad role models
• the stress of driving
• sloppy mechanic
• disappointed dad

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I’m all rested and ready for another day out tomorrow entertaining our visitors from out of town. Wouldn’t it be nice if every day could be this carefree and enjoyable, doing stuff that doesn’t stress you out?

I’m not sure where we’ll be going but it always works out to be a lot of fun. Not having a set agenda is really a neat way of avoiding stress. The malls are less crowded on the weekend so it’s relatively easy to keep an eye on the kids and not worrying about leaving someone behind.

I mean, we can take our sweet time to window-shop and linger over lunch now that the kids are a little older and able to take the crazy shopping hours we set.

• long weekend
• best stress reliever
• window-shopping day
• 5 ways to reduce festive stress
• Quick Shop makes it easy to save

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Call us crazy but we’ve only just recovered from achy legs having spent 8 hours window-shopping on the town yesterday. I had a long afternoon nap to rest those eyeballs tired from hours of looking at stuff in the stores.

By the end of the day, we were just glad to plonk ourselves down for some doughnuts and coffee before heading home to get ready for dinner. It was the sort of day that leaves you sweetly tired yet rearing to go again. Ever had one of those?

• achy-breaky
• five hours of shopping
• drinkoholic
• Wednesdays
• an extra time machine

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We woke up early this morning and hit the gym. I haven’t been there in two weeks, that’s how busy I’ve been. My two older kids came with me.

My gym buddy is impressed that I managed to even get them out of bed that early to go with me. Let’s face it, they need the exercise and when school is on, they barely get a chance to go to the gym.

As for me, my two weeks of zero workouts and pigging out on good food has drained the stamina out of me. A few minutes on the ellipticals and I was out of breath!! Duh!

That’s the thing about exercise. You have to gradually build up your strength and stamina, and you just have to keep at it or you’ll have to start all over again!

• the walk of life
• cook a lot, eat a lot
• you go, girl!
• sauna au naturale
• staying fit

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I’m not sure if I mentioned this earlier but I got a GPS sticking to my car windscreen.

Not that I’m really that bad at finding my way around but I didn’t mind having a new toy to play with.

DH clearly couldn’t find a use for it though he was the one that bought it. I don’t think men will find any use for a GPS since they always insist they can find their way around, even if it takes them hours, huh .

It’s quite a neat little contraption and although I find it pretty confusing sometimes, it’s fun to have on my windscreen. I’ve just figured out another use for it.

When my son gets his driver’s license, I’m going to keep him in my sight with this handy-dandy gps tracking device. At least I’ll have some peace of mind knowing where he’s at.

• 5 unusual ways to relieve stress
• driving me nuts
• add another white elephant to the heap
• vacation on the Outer Banks
• what he must’ve thought

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No, we have no plans to vacation at the Outer Banks or any other holiday destination for that matter in the next couple of weeks. You guys know how busy I’ve been so I really didn’t get a chance to plan anything.

It’s a good thing my kids don’t complain. They’re quite happy staying home and playing their computer games. Of course, I have lots of shopping to do now that the sales are on.

We have some relatives coming in from out of town and that’s going to pretty much take up most of our waking hours, shopping in hordes and eating like locusts .

• power-hungry games
• staying up late
• best stress reliever
• five hours of shopping
• back from the beach

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We wanted to go to the movies today. The kids have been raving about Iron Man though I’m not that interested, to be honest. But seeing that it’s the weekend, I gave in and told them to go ahead and book the tickets online.

DH happened to be near the cinema so we asked him to collect the tickets on his way home. But apparently the booking information hadn’t been updated and our reservation number was not in the system yet. Huh? Er, isn’t online supposed to be …? Er, never mind, that’s another story.

The fact remains that if we had taken advantage of the discount home theater seating we saw a while ago, we’d be enjoying any movie we want in the comfort of our own home. Duh!

• good or bad?
• switching to movies at home
• nothing like a ‘real’ home theater
• ‘killing two birds’ with a twist
• a small price for peace of mind

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I passed by a new restaurant in town and was reminded of clam chowder. Yes! I love clam chowder and haven’t had any in years simply because I can’t find any restaurants that serve it. I used to go to Long John Silver’s for my chowder fix but the one near my house has closed down.

There’s a guy on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco that serves the best darned clam chowder in the whole wide world. Thinking about slurping hot chowder in a cup on a cold, windy day by the sea brings back such great memories. I think I’m going to write a book about romancing the clam chowder.

• pumpkin me
• missing winter
• it’s all in the heart
• camping memories
• the obstacle race

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I read in the papers that the haze is back… till September. Grrr! That’s a real bummer especially since the kids and I were looking forward to going swimming next week.

Since we’ve got nothing planned for the holidays, we’re just going to be bumming around town doing fun stuff. But I don’t want to be inhaling all that haze when I’m outdoors or at the pool !! We could wear masks in the water but wouldn’t that make us look really wierd ! Drat! It’s really going to ruin our plans!

• fantasies of a quiet cny
• morning swim
• morning rain
• wierd weather day
• da haze is back

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