If you have been popping by here and going away disappointed that there has been no updates in the past two weeks, thousand apologies. I had been super-busy. My Indonesian cleaning lady who had been coming in once a week for the past ten years or so had been deported by Immigration. So I had to assume some of the heavy-duty cleaning that she had been doing. Though I delegated some of the tasks to the kids, there is still work to be done that I had not been actively doing when Wati was around.
The schedule these days is such that there are more family members eating lunch at home. This means that I have to cook two meals (lunch and dinner) a day. Previously I packed lunch when there were only two or three of us eating home but this is no longer economical when there are six mouths to feed.
On top of that I have started giving English tuition to my nieces and teaching at a friend’s language institute. Got to supplement the household income. The diving economy has affected my family more than superficially. (Even Mawi is affected – less singing gigs for him now). I lost some writing jobs but on the bright side, I have at least two books released this year. Do You Wear Suspenders was released this March and my next book, Stretching your Dollar$ and $ense – More than 300 money saving tips for anyone and everyone, has just gone to print. It should hit bookstores in June. I’m also working on a non-fiction guidebook for kids which I’m trying to complete ASAP, hence the protracted silence in this blog.
Life has been pretty hectic of late. Take last Thursday. I took my mother for her regular check up at UMMC. After the appointment I dropped by Damansara hospital to visit a friend’s mum who had broken her thigh bone. By the time I got home, it was after five. I was about to start baking a cheesecake for no. 3′s birthday when I discovered that my sister has not returned my cake mixer. Okay, I’ll mix by hand, I thought. Then I discovered that the lemon in my fridge had gone bad. Okay, I might as well whizz into my sister’s to pick up the mixer and see if she has a spare lemon in the fridge. Fortunately she did. I picked up the stuff (she stays seven minutes away by car but popping in and out takes time) and got home at 6.30. After baking the cake, I prepared dinner. We ate later than usual that day and the cheesecake, which had to be chilled, was only eaten at 10 pm. I didn’t eat the cake as I don’t like cheese. No. 4 has already asked for an Oreo cheesecake for her birthday next month, so I won’t get to eat her cake either.
Friday was another mad rush but came Saturday, no. 2 and I left for Ipoh with some friends. We stayed at a friend’s brand new Lakeside home which was beautifully furnished. It looked like one of those houses you find in glossy magazine pages. On Sunday we drove up to Cameron Highlands to attend another friend’s wedding dinner. We only returned on Tuesday after a relaxing stay at a cosy bungalow. Our meals were cooked by the caretaker : scones with home-cooked strawberry jam, muffins, apple pie and pancakes for breakfast and barbecue at night. It was a much needed break. I feel more relaxed now compared with last week when my nerves were strung tight and I had to keep reminding myself to breathe in and breathe out deeply.
Don’t give up on this blog yet. Stay tuned for another contest which I will run when Stretching your Dollar$ and $ense is released.
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