Gimme A Break

The kids and I drove all the way downtown this afternoon just to enjoy some free coffee and donuts. We have some coupons expiring tomorrow so that was the perfect excuse I needed to pack everyone in for the somewhat long drive into town.

I know how that sounds but really it’s because we didn’t want the coupons to go to waste. I mean, we’re talking latte at San Francisco Coffee and donuts from Big Apple here.

• hillbillies in the city
• window-shopping day
• unsweet jam memories
• visit from grandpa
• relatives

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The long school holidays are coming up… fast, and every year, it gets here before I even have a chance to plan any vacations. We usually only take short trips because the kids aren’t that keen to travel, they’d much rather stay home on the computer .

Well, here we are again, almost that time of year again to start planning a vacation if we are to really go away for a while. Trouble is I’ve been too busy to think about where to go.

Unlike a girl friend of mine who always has everything all planned out every time. I wonder how she does it. This year, she’s biting the bullet and taking the kids to New York to see her brother who is studying there.

She’s got it planned down to taking the JFK Airport Shuttle to her brother’s apartment where they’re going to be staying. Can you believe this woman?

I always tell her she should moonlight as a travel agent when her kids are a little older. I’m sure it’ll be a cinch for her to organize these daily airport shuttles for holiday travelers.

Talking about her was the much-needed diversion I needed. But it still doesn’t solve the problem of me having to organize something for my kids.

• our jetset consultant
• wedding down under, to go or not to go
• every daughter’s dream mom
• it’s stress-free whether you’re traveling or not
• when the travel bug bites

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Believe it or not, I’ve got my own MP3 player. So far, the only place it’s been is to the gym with me .

I only listen to it if the volume of the gym TV is turned too low for me to hear what’s going on. Otherwise, I’d be watching the news.

Ever since the gym manager got fired, things are so disorganized. Like some of the TVs and air-conditioners are sometimes not on, and we have to run around looking for the switches ourselves.

Anyways, I was thinking I might download some free audio books to listen to. I’m not sure if it’ll work on my MP3 player but it’d be a nice change to listening to the head-banging music my kids have loaded in for me .

Not that I don’t appreciate what they’ve done but sometimes I need a little peace and quiet, ya know.

• don’t read, listen to these books
• a nice, low-key day
• role model of a son
• the long crawl
• stress-free day

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The weather is hot, hot, hot. Look, not a hint of rain in the sky for over a week now.

To think that just before that, we were having major storms and some towns were flooded and there were massive traffic jams and stuff.

Right now, it says it’s 86 degrees on my computer but I say it feels more like 100 degrees because of the humidity.

Alrighty, I’m logging off now to do the rain dance .

• sparkling clean car, yeah right
• hot and cold
• struggling through the rain
• super hot days
• a bit of rain

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After breakfast with an old friend, she took me to view the house she’s planning to buy if the price is right.

It’s an old house with a big, old fire hydrant sitting just outside the fence. For some strange reason, she’s thrilled with this whole idea of the fire hydrant.

The house itself seems rather run down, and as for the fire hydrant, I just can’t see where the attraction lies.

Of course, I should’ve known. This friend of mine doesn’t do anything unless there’s a really good reason behind it.

Apparently that water hydrant, by its mere association with water, symbolizes wealth as is commonly believed in feng shui.

So does that mean that owners of houses without fire hydrants outside are doomed to a life of poverty? I jokingly asked my friend.

I’m inclined to think that merely having a faucet in (as opposed to the fire hydrant which is outside) my garden should be symbolic enough, no? And wouldn’t houses with swimming pools be much sought after then?

• doing up your garden for spring
• it helps to be insured
• point collector
• compare for the better
• Cinderella’s stepmother

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The girls and I went to a book warehouse sale yesterday. My two bookworms have been hankering after some new books to read as the year-end school holidays are approaching.

They’ve long run out of books to read and have had to reread the same books over and over till like they say, they have almost memorized some of the paragraphs.

We didn’t buy many books yesterday. They were only 30% off the normal price unlike at other warehouse sales where the prices often come down to 70%.

It’s a good thing too we only bought 6 or 7 books as our bookshelves are already at bursting point. I’ve actually had to put some books in boxes.

The girls won’t let me sell them. They want to reread them after some time when they have nothing else to read .

• re-reading old books
• big family mentality
• no books for us
• the weekend warehouse sale
• nice combo, tools and dresses

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An old girl friend of mine is in town from halfway across the world. I’m not sure what her schedule is like as I haven’t had a chance to speak to her yet.

I’m waiting for her to call and I hope she does soon and I’ll get to see her before she leaves this weekend.

Our friendship has been solid as ball lock pins since forever. But somehow over the years, distance got in the way and we both got busy with work and kids and life, so our friendship has suffered as a result.

It sure would be great catching up to chat over old times. We did have a lot of fun back there and we used to travel and dine like there was no tomorrow.

I still think about those times we had, hanging out, laughing, just being crazy. I sometimes wish we could go back in time, you know and live those carefree days again. Do you ever feel that way?

• island days
• all set to go again!
• when the travel bug bites
• yoga tomorrow
• true blue city girl

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My nephew’s getting married early next year. We just received the invitation card last week but are still undecided if we should all travel to Australia for the wedding.

Of course, it’s going to cost a fortune for our family of five. Dh and I have been to visit them before years ago but the kids have never been to that part of the country.

SIL and family live way out in the country. I remember taking a ten hour drive from the city/airport where we landed and the scenery was nothing but brown shrub the whole time. Duh!

I haven’t checked out the weather there either at that time of year. Who knows it may be cold and wet and we may need to buy some UGG Australia boots and outer wear as well.

I guess we still have time to check things out and make a decision as to whether to go or not. We’d love to go but by the looks of the economy, we’re probably best staying home. We’ll see.

• something unusual to boot
• brown
• the annual pilgrimage
• the slacker plays catch-up
• shopping and eating

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