The Household COO

Welcome to my blog. These are the memoirs of an undomestic goddess who went from a high flying corporate career to stay-at-home-Mum. Join me as I learn about Chinese culture, how to cook and decorate a home. If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Hubby and I were shopping at Carrefour when we passed a sign that stated: “Crocs $20″.  After being sold on the idea of Crocs, I didn’t hesitate getting another pair.

When we asked why they were so cheap, we were told they were Crocs rejects.  Well, here’s the scoop – Crocs don’t sell their rejects.  All Crocs rejects get melted down and made into new Crocs.  We were fooled because they look exactly like Crocs with their logo, etc.

How did we discover they were fake Crocs?

1. The sizing was odd.  Crocs usually size their shoes with either even numbers or odd numbers but not one of each.  For example, my Crocs shoe size is 6 – 8, and my SIL’s Crocs shoe size is 7 – 9.  The pair of fake Crocs that I bought was size 6 – 7.
2. Crocs are very grippy.  It is easy to trip over your toes if you don’t lift your feet up properly when you walk because the soles of a real pair of Crocs stick to the ground.  The fake Crocs were not sticky at all.  Considering we only bought the pair just before Chinese New Year, the threads on hubby’s pair is already completely worn while my Hello Kitty Crocs that have seen much more wear are still okay.

The dangers of wearing fake Crocs

Because the threads wear out quickly, it is easy to slip and fall when walking on wet surfaces.

Moral of the story: this is one instance where you really should get the real McCoy.

Gosh I’d love one of these…

Considering my current computer has been slowing down a lot these days, do you reckon it’s about time for an upgrade?  And while we’re at it, I reckon it would be even cooler with one of these:

I’m not asking for much… :-p

I’ve been a Sherlock Holmes fan ever since I read Arthur Conan Doyle’s first book “A Study in Scarlet“.  Naturally, when I saw the poster for a new Sherlock Holmes movie starring Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr, I was ever eager to watch it.

Hubby brought home the DVD and we just finished watching it.  Suffice to say that it was the grossest bastardisation of characters ever.  I should have figured that something like this would have happened when I spied that Robert Downey Jr was playing Holmes.  The new Holmes is typical of the characters that we’ve come to associate him with.

After getting over the initial shock, I must say that as far as entertainment value goes, the movie serves its purpose.  As long as you can put out of your head your expectations of what Holmes and Watson are supposed to be like, you should enjoy the movie.

You never truly realise the benefits of an experience until you experience what it’s like when you don’t have it…

After my first pregnancy, I agreed to have this Malay massage called “urut” done.  The purpose of the massage is to expel the wind in your body which is believed to be the cause of all your ills when you grow old.  There are supposed to be ten sessions and the “urut lady” comes everyday.

I don’t really believe in this stuff but I figured a daily body massage would be a nice treat to have after enduring nine months of pregnancy culminating in a delivery that took some thirty-five hours.  Well, that was before I really understood the purpose of “urut”.  Suffice to say that after my first session, I was ready to tell the “urut lady” to never come back again – ever.  It was the worst torture I had ever willingly agreed to subject myself to.  All through the massage, I was counting the seconds until it would all be over – it was an hour long massage, by the way.

Perhaps I ought to clarify at this point that my idea of a massage is one of those that you can fall asleep during.  Let’s just say that there is absolutely no way you could fall asleep during an urut session.  By the end of the session, I had tears squeezing their way out of my eyes.

So when my MIL proposed the idea of arranging urut sessions for me after my second delivery, I begged her not to.  She seemed disapproving about leaving all that nasty wind inside me but she complied.  Seven weeks after the delivery, I’m wondering whether I should have endured the torture and accepted that gift of “urut”…

I don’t know if it was the urut sessions or because Gavin was a smaller baby and my first, but I do recall having a relatively “flat” stomach by the time Gavin was a month old.  I could wear many of my larger pre-pregnancy clothes and actually looked semi-decent in them.  Now I’m seven weeks post delivery and I still look like I’m at least four months pregnant.  The rest of me looks okay, but my belly is quite a sight.  I have the stretchmarks from hell and the skin folds of a Shar-Pei, not to mention that nothing, absolutely nothing in my wardrobe can hide the fact that I still look pregnant.

I honestly thought I’d stopped caring how I look after I’d discovered that inner confidence in myself but I guess that was back when I didn’t have a four month pregnant belly that could not be attributed to a pregnancy.  Funny how we’re always so keen to show off the bump during the pregnancy and eager to hide what’s left over after the delivery.  Up until the delivery, I was quite happy to wear snug fitting shirts that hugged my belly and told the world what I was.  Now, I’m looking for my baggiest shirts to disguise the fact that my belly still sticks out far enough to hide my feed from view when I look down.

So here’s my advice to the pregnant mothers out there – go get the urut.  It hurts but if you want to look anything like your former self after the delivery, you’d better consider it.

If you want to achieve your goals, you need to be clear what your target is.  So here are my resolutions for 2010:

Family

1. Spend more time doing cool stuff with Gavin – ever since I became pregnant with Gareth, this part seems to have gone downhill.
2. Start dating hubby again – ever since Gavin was born, this part seems to have gone downhill.

Children’s Development

1. Tools of the Mind program.
2. Right Brain training.
3. Fun Start activities.
4. Physical development – Gareth.
5. School applications – Gavin.

Writing

1. Complete Writer’s Bureau Writing Course.
2. Write more articles on Helium.
3. Develop my blogs.
4. Write a story.

Work

1. Helium sub-channel steward duties.
2. Accounts for SIL’s cafe.