What 40 something blog free days have done to me

I really don't think that anyone missed me but, ayam beg!

Fortunately or unfortunately (can't believe I'm using this phrase) although busy settling into our new home, I decided to abstain from blogging, blog-hopping, online chatting, facebooking and friendsterizing for this year Lent Season. I wasn't ready to let go of the Internet for the whole of the 40 days so I decided to maintain emailing (both for work and personal) and some googling. Let's face it, Internet can be addictive just like TV and the fact of the matter is, not everything we do over the net is important but somehow robs our time from doing other important things (this is me trying to protect self by saying, you know, you do it too, we all do!)

I decided to stay away from this one distraction and see how it marks my 2009 Lent. At first it was HARD but it got easier. What I realise from this whole thing is:-

1. Despite my interest in writing, I needed to prioritise my activities including my job, my family, my chores and my rest.
   
2. Facebook and Friendster is a good way to keep in touch with friends from all over the world but we don't have to know if they are having a roti canai, cappuccino or pretzel every other day or minute. Its okay to visit these accounts ever once in a while but not in on hourly basis! No one really cares if I'm having kacang putih also.
   
3. It doesn't make me less in touch with the world or the current issues by not updating myself daily with certain blogs.
   
4. Whatever I was abstaining from were not all that important and can be done at special times.
   
5. I get more sleep.
   

By that I do not mean everyone is the same but I do invite everyone to think about it. Unless it's your fulltime job is a blogger, I do think that we need a 'cleansing' path to start anew and realise that what enriches is what we HAVE to go through daily including work, family and friends.

However, now that I'm back in the game, I have a few blogs I want to catch up with and I also missed that two of my friends are pregnant, which is fine because I'm probably late to know 40 days tops! Okay, I just got back from the dessert, so I can't bombard too much with updates at one post. Til then, Happy Easter Month!

 

 

 

 

TEMPORARY CLOSURE

Dear guests,

This blog is temporary closed and will be reopened after Easter Sunday, 12 April 09. In the meantime, please browse through the other entries. I will be back with many entries in regards to our humble home of which we already resided. Thank you for your continuous support.

Criticizing Ma Crib

This post might just as well be called 'Dissing Ma Crib' but I guess that is way too harsh. What I want to emphasis is just me criticizing our humble home, before someone else does.

After the paint horror, the contractor claims he is left with little money to buy new paint. DH is giving in based on his liking on the mistakes (horrors to me!!). I know the limelight green for the hallway is not conventional and I myself am trying to adjust to the colour. I maybe have some regret there. It was my colour of choice, so I let myself live with my mistake for a while. What I couldn't tolerate is the mistake done by the contractor/painter.

The master bedroom that is painted in juvenile blue and yellow is being favoured by DH and I'm trying to get him to agree to change the colour by hook or by crook.

Another horror for me is, the Fairy Tale (light beige) paint wasn't enough to cover over the Hashbrown in the TV room and hall downstairs. It ended that the beams and pillars remain Hashbrown instead so that they're obviously there. I would have thought that an odd room with many beams and pillars should be camouflaged and that is done by painting them the same colour as the wall.

Sometimes I wished that I had a queer husband because right now we have different definition of 'nice'. Nevertheless, I hope everything will soon fall into place. The wall colour will have to be dealt later as the wall I mentioned are easily painted over as they don't have or have few furnitures against them.

Next to criticizing our own house is, the external paint may be too dark and look kinda gaudy. Plus, not many have actually gone to Arizona and seen the colours of the houses there. So, I reckon that many neighbours and visitors will have whispers of disapproval. The balcony grills, gate, fence and door and window grills were all painted chocolate brown without our knowing. I would've thought that the contractor should've asked us regarding the colour but noooo.....he assumed that chocolate brown is 'nice' instead of the house looking 'Sahara' and white from the outside, it's now 'Sahara', white gate pillars and chocolate grills.

Sorry for my lack of pictures to illustrate my point. I forgot my camera in my office. Will post once I have them.

We are in the last stage of renovations i.e. lighting and bathroom fixtures. The first load supposedly yesterday couldn't go ahead due to delay from the wireman, thus delaying bathroom installations, thus delaying final touch up and cleaning works. We are literally sleeping with boxes and I'm doing the minimal cleaning to just get by the week (even the bedsheets aren't changed).

Living Out of the Suitcase

This is just me trying out photo blogging with Picasa 3. The above is a before and after picture of the hall/entertaining room. The TV room is next to it.

Currently living out of the suitcase as DH packed most of our belongings and enduring living in an unorganised state (boxes everywhere) Will be arranging the move around next week when the walls are repainted and lights are installed and will invite our prayer group leaders to pray over the house.

The kitchen cabinet though is not done so, our kitchen stuff are currently as it is and I will just throw them into some boxes later. In this though time of economic depression, I hope God will look over us as the house and the move is already putting a pressure on our resources. We are also having problem selling our current apartment and probably will resort to renting it out if there are no buyer. The pending recession for some companies is probably holding back buyers to react now.

The Colour Blunder

The colour palette of which I chose the colour is from Mr Paint Man (www.mrpaintmain.com.my) which I don't recommend because it has very limited colour options. I know I have been everywhere with the theme here but I can't help it. Anyway, its just paint which is easier to change than mosaic or furniture. Decided to take a risk. The real problem though is the painter not the colour or the paint.

Yes, that's all the colour option. I'm serious.

Exterior 'Sahara'. Again, its an unconventional colour but I'm liking it. Imagine the house with (green) plants. Anyways, the colour tend to fade later.

Master bedroom made like son's bedroom, kinda juvenile I should say. (The blue is supposed to be Barley White)

Our bedroom from another view.

The detailed colour chart I gave to the contractor absolutely treated like child play.
Notice the colour code canceled and changed for no aparent reason but for ease.

Living Room that is a waste of paint (and $$$) - too much Hashbrown (where is the Fairy Tale?). You would understand if the actual result I wanted should look like the below picture (simulation only) The dining room that I dream to be in shade of red is also in Hashbrown. Sulks.

Son's bedroom - too sunny (suppose to be blue and yellow)

Guest room - the only room got right as its the only room with only one colour.

The hall way with the Limelight green. MIL totally not liking it. DH starting to be okay with it after being upset with it for a while. Christine and husband like it. I think its unconventional and will look great once the doors are varnished a dark colour. Do you think it's too much?

Packing to Move, Arrogant Contractor and Paint Colour Feud

It’s the second day of the Lunar New Year and it was the eve that I wanted to make this post. However, DH and I had started packing at our apartment that we are exhausted from all the sneezing (from the dust) and the work. Even our toddler has been neglected and by now is saturated with Disney Clubhouse cartoons. He does get in the way, trying to figure out what this two grown ups are up to, picking stuff up and trying to make it as his toy despite the two trunks of toys he has.

I still could not believe how this 700 sqf apartment could have so much things and how funny what we dig up after all these years. The collection of photos and negatives made me appreciate digital photography even more. Suddenly I feel so old. The 3 sets of tea set from our wedding is just too much even after donating one set to my office. There were also three sets of glassware that we barely use and the 1593 disposable paper and plastic glass and plates that got build up without my clue. I vow to have a garage sale once we move.

All this packing is just preliminary and to make full use of our holiday since the moving date is probably delayed. The reason; the paint colour are all wrong and to repaint would require us to wait for the paint shop to reopen, which is another week.

I was really fumed up not because the wall colour were wrong but because they were almost deliberately made wrong by our contractor to prove a point i.e.; “in no way, anybody, contractor or house owner choose more than 2 paint colours” and “contractors get confused (exact words were: pening (dizzy))”. My detailed colour chart with only 6 colour codes was taken as too much and I don’t know which part of the contractor’s nerve I hit that he ‘blasted’ me on the phone and hung up. My friend Christine opted for 12 colours for her home and it was taken casually by her contractor, no “dude, you’re so weird” remark. I am still irate that my contractor is the type who wants you the client to listen to him instead of the other way around. My exact words to my DH were (since I couldn’t blow my top with the contractor) were;

“Does he think that he can paint the wall black and I just follow him like a buffalo with a nose ring (kerbau dicucuk hidung)! I’m not like his other client, who just listen to him!”

As I’m working in Prai, I couldn’t find time the week before to monitor the painting so I waited till last Saturday. During the week, DH who had little idea about my colour choice only commented (harshly that is) about the limelight green I chose for the top floor hall way. Going to that later. When I finally went to check things out, I was dumbfounded that the colour codes in the colour chart I gave to the contractor had scribbles that included the Fairy Tale white for the ground floor and the Barley White for the master bedroom were striked through totally and replaced with some other colour code. So instead of a light beige of how a Fairy Tale should look like, the whole ground floor looked like a really dark with the Hashbrown I chose for the walls with curtains and the walls opposite them. Our master bedroom was painted in blue and yellow that is supposed to be for our kid’s room colour and his room was painted fully yellow. It was as if the contractor proved that he tried his best and hope that we just accept the results and no questions asked. My choice of colour was criticized as ‘mana ada orang pilih colour dark’ when in fact; the colours were in the bright category. As if we don’t know that for him to maximize his profit was to stick to one colour so that whenever he is runs out, he could just purchase another can instead of keeping bits of leftover for each paint (of which I was sympathetic at first, that is why I chose only 6 colours and made sure the colours repeat in at least 2 rooms).

The exterior paint I chose turn out really well. The ‘Sahara’ (sandy-dark look) brings to memories of the South West style houses back when we were in Arizona. But when the contractor coloured the linings with some moss green paint, I was really pissed then. He insisted that they look pretty and I remarked a simple

“Ini rumah saya tinggal!” of which he replied a defeated “okay, okay”.

After all this, I don’t think I could ever recommend him to anyone else due to his BAD PR. He is actually a good and importantly a fast worker but this comes to prove, marketing is still king regardless of the type of business. I am not all for the slogan ‘customers are always right’ but I still think that they should be treated like kings nonetheless.

12 Days to Completion Update

The Chinese New Year is coming and our home is 89% (rough estimation) tiled. The only place wasn't tiled during our last visit was the carporch. I have chosen the paint colour. Will blog about that later.