Cleaning House

5 Feb 08 - Yes, we all know what festival's coming up in 2 days. That's right, it's the time of year when kids get to torture their parents by running around in hordes, screaming and knocking over priceless porcelain vases. It's also the time of year when singles smile nervously at relatives and wait helplessly to be grilled about their marital status.

Yes, it's Chinese New Year again.

This is the first Chinese New Year that Her Royal Majesty and I are celebrating together since we were married. The most obvious difference is that we no longer experience much of the hustle and bustle that comes along with CNY preparations. After all, we don't really have to cook up a storm for family and relatives, or start worrying about visits from relatives.

Nevertheless, we have taken to sprucing up the place. And given Her Royal Majesty's penchant for organising stuff, she has taken the liberty to draw up a list of household chores and allocated them between the both of us. Note that my role mainly involves nodding my head in silence, and going about whatever tasks assigned without delay.

So far, we have completed most of the tasks that we have set out to do, including polishing the glass walls/doors/windows, cleaning the walk-in-wardrobe, wiping surfaces/furniture that we hardly use, polishing the kitchen counter, and others. For a 2-person dwelling, the amount of dust, stray hairs, dirt, mould and grime is incredible. But to make our lives easier, we have gathered an amazing array of cleaning solutions and equipment, one for almost every type and colour.

We look set to complete our Project Housecleaning on schedule, just right before the New Year. And here's taking the chance to wish everyone a happy and prosperous Lunar New Year!


- Melvin

From Bootiful to Beautiful

Its been more than 3 weeks since my last post on "Bloom to Destruction".

I am totally sick of flowers. Fake ones I mean.

Mdm Yik has no time to help me... and I had been too lazy to get others to help, lol.

Finally, Hb and I decided to get new flowers to replace the red ones.

Went to IMM 2 Sundays (27 Jan) ago and showed the pic of our vase to the florist, who expertly helped us to pick out a nice combination of white and green flowers.

I never knew that fake flowers can cost so much, lol.

Upon learning that yours truly has absolutely no talent in floral arrangement, the florist helped us to arrange the flowers nicely, even bending the branches at certain angles, so that all we need to do was to dump the whole thing into the vase when we get home.

Sounds easy yeah?

I wish!

On Monday, I finally mustered up enough courage to try my hands on floral arrangement again.

I removed the red flowers and....

I'm so glad Hb didn't kill me for messing up the floor he mopped the day before~

I happily dumped the new flowers into the vase, expecting them to look as lovely as we had imagined them to be.

It wasn't meant to be.

I can never become a florist.

I got pissed after 15 mins of unsuccessful attempts at trying to make the whole thing look nicer.

I gave up, leaving the new flowers in the vase and the red ones lying all over the floor.

I left the mess untouched until 2 days ago, when I need to clear them up so that Hb can mop the floor.

No choice too, since CNY is just around the corner.

I decided that I shouldn't "geh kiang" (insist on doing you know you will probably never succeed)anymore.

I went to Hb, flashed what he calls my trademark "up-to-no-good" grin and said,

"Lo gong! You help me clear the flowers ya?? Thanks!!!!!!!!!!"

And I happily disappeared into the kitchen, pretending to be busy, lalalala~

Manz... I should have known earlier...

That people who are generally slow in doing things usually have the patience to work on tasks that require lots of trial-and-error attempts.

After half hour, I went into the living room and to my surprise, our new flowers look really lovely (to me) in the tall white vase!!!!

Wah~!!!!!

I think that was probably one of the few times I kept singing Hb's praises for a good 10 mins non-stop, wahahahahhahaa~!

Now, take a look at these:

Before



$19 worth of broomstick-like flowers and figs down the drain...

After


Our $170 creation is finally ready for CNY!

The red flowers are now lying inside our store room, wahahahahhahaa!

I really like this combi.

It looks simple yet elegant!

So happy~!!!!!!!!!


- Phebe