Quote :: Change it if you don't like it!

If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it. - Mary Engelbreit

I used to be (I am still sometimes in my deeper heart) angry with the person, who made remarks that are not soothing to my ears. But lately I realized that if I don't change the way I think and my response to her remarks, it will just make me more and more angry and get me nowhere.

So to counter this, I have been telling myself don't get affected by what she said and if possible, think of a response to stop her from repeating the remark.

My hubby once told me no point keep complaining and take action to change it.

I decided to write this post to remind myself whenever this quote slis off my mind.

Life back in Singapore

For past 1-2 weeks, I have been busy with unpacking and cleaning up the house. It is not just the stuffs we brought back from Bahamas. We moved in our current place sometimes early 2010 but we seldom stayed here as my hubby travelled frequently so I stayed at my parents' place for quite a while. Only sometimes 4th quarter 2010, then we moved in permanently. But no long after, we went to Bahamas. Boxes from our move are still lying around and now I feel more obligated to clean up the mess as I no longer can stand the mess and wanted my hubby and girl have a neater place to stay in.

Life back in Singapore is more boring. Well. Packing and unpacking is seldom fun isn't it. Every morning I will send my girl to PIL place and went for breakfast before I think what I going to clean up for the day. Then I will work on the area till 5 plus and went for a cold shower before I went to pick up my hubby. We will then have dinner together before we went to fetch our girl. Sometimes I will fetch Faith before I fetched my hubby. Since I don't cook, our weekend is not so much on food stores hopping. Things we did during our weekend in Bahamas, we no longer doing. We do things we don't get to do in Bahamas like window shopping in huge shopping mall and look around for nice food places. Strangely, I can't eat as much I ate in Bahamas even the food here is more tasty and varieties.

Some unhappy news so far since we are back :
1. my MBA repair cost me $642. Pretty upset over this esp. my warranty is just days over before I sent to repair. I have to repair with no other choice. Lessons learnt from this: ONE. Digitalize all warranty cards. My hubby could have send it for repair earlier when he back for training two months ago. TWO. Regular backup is essential as you never know when the laptop will fail us. I have too much crucial information and my last backup is quite sometime back.
2. my iphone is giving way too. Sometimes, receivers can't hear me.
3. my dad had a mild stroke. Good new is that he is recovering well.
4. the fridge we gave my dad is spoilt and warranty is over. I hope the repair doesn't cost them much.
5. my hubby's lens repair is costly and now has to send back HK to repair as it is still under HK warranty.

So far my cleaning tasks are on schedule and I can't wait to see our house in showroom condition. Haha... a bit too much to ask for but showroom is always so nice to stay in.

Leaving Bahamas...

My hubby has finished his job in Bahamas and we are all packed to go back Singapore. Our girl did not want to leave. She always said "This is a beautiful land. I want to stay here forever." I think she enjoyed the amount of time we have together as compared back home. She somehow knew that life will not be the same after we go back. She cried silently in the taxi van we took from our house @ Paradise Island to International Airport.

As for myself, I will definitely miss the times we have together. Our dinner together every night. My chats with hubby on daily updates. By 7pm, we usually finished our dinner and rest of night is just family time. My everyday moments with our girl even though I complained a lot. Her grandparents will take over the daily care when we back Singapore. I definitely miss her seeing her whole day and her smiles and her cheekiness. My daily cooking for hubby and our girl. I will miss everythings we have done together in this land.

It is a long journey home. 1.5 days in the air. (We are flying on 31st August 2011 morning and reaching Singapore 2nd September 2011 morning.) With 7 check-in baggages and 3 cabin baggages.  Majority are Faith's stuffs and her schoolwork materials. We still have some stuffs in Bahamas, hoping my hubby's collegue could bring it back for us.

Knowing that distance, I don't think I will be back Bahamas again unless my future job required me to. This makes me misses the fabulous beaches and people in Bahamas.

I will miss you, Bahamas.

Purchases from US online stores

Since we are going States next week, I have planned a list of items to get online and shipped to our hotel. We did the same previously when we went Miami.

This time round as I wanted to enjoy more benefits, I ordered stuffs from different sites other than our fav. Amazon.com. Two days ago, I ordered two Estee Lauder products from their website. To my dismay, my order is rejected. I only received the email today. I wondered why and decided to try again. If my order gets rejected again, I will get them from Bahamas instead to avoid any hassle.

I then placed orders in Sephora and Vichy. I then realised it could due to incorrect billing address. Sephora don't accept international credit card. And Vichy site don't allow me to put non-US billing address. Note billing address is important. It has to be the same as the address with credit card company. I guess this could be the reason my orders are rejected by Estee Lauder.

So I end up quickly went back Amazon.com to purchase same stuffs from Sephora so I will not miss the delivery date. Sephora sells products via Amazon.com too.

Now, I am waiting and see any more rejected orders from Vichy and Estee Lauder. If they get rejected, then it is really due to non-US billing address. I have contigency plan if I unable to get from Vichy and Estee Lauder but not Clarins. I really hope my ordered stuffs from Clarins will go through.

Her worst experience with Feng Mo rashes

This is not Faith's first time having feng mo. She experienced twice before but nothing worst than this time. It spreads all over her body, limbs and neck and face. It started on Saturday night. She scratched herself so hard and non-stop in middle of night and gave a short outcry after I applied some lotion on her.

In Sunday morning, we saw some patches of "feng mo" rashes on her body. We had planned Stringray adventure in the afternoon. Due to her skin condition and gloomy weather, we were thinking should we postpone our trip to the next weekend when Faith gets better and hopefully weather is good. But end up we still prepared ourselves and went out for breakfast at McDonalds hoping weather gets better and her skin condition does not worsen. While waiting for the boat, she scratches herself non-stop (maybe is due to hot weather and we were just beside the sea) and I put plenty of body powder to ease her itchiness. Scratching might spread the rashes and also cause open wound and leave scar marks. We then decided not to go after seeing her feeling uncomfortable. But Faith wanted to go so we still go ahead with our pre-planned trip.

It just get worst. By end of trip, rashes spreaded from her body to her limbs.

feng mo rashes on her arm

As we do not have any calamine lotion and her travel size body powder running low, Daddy E brought us to City Market to get some calming lotion or powder as contigency. We knew Feng Mo will go away by itself after 2-3 days and all we could do is to ease her urge to scratch. She scratched herself sooooo hard that visible scratch marks all over her body and behind her kneecaps.

Luckily she got much better this morning. Most of her body rashes has subsided but her face got worst. By noon, countable rashes left on her body and face.

After her late afternoon nap, we are shocked to see a large patch of feng mo rashes on her calf. Made us wonder why it came back when we thought it is getting better. We are hoping it is due to heat and not anything else. Luckily, it subsided after a while.

During this period, we used plenty of Califonia Baby Calming Everyday Lotion and Johnson's baby powder. She skipped her daily bath/shower. No-no to water contact other than drinking and brushing teeth. Till now, we don't know the root cause of her feng mo rashes. We suspected her new pyjames (washed before but that is months ago), avocado (yellow instead of green flesh) and air-con. Whatever the reason is, I just hope all the rashes go away and all her scars go away. Really upsetting to see the scratch marks. She has been a good girl and listened to us to control not to scratch. Hope she fully recovered by tomorrow.

Faith's lesson on poisonous animals

After Faith woke up from her late afternoon nap, she asked her dad what is poisonous animal and after we went upstairs, Daddy E shown Faith some poisonous animals on his ipad2 and explained to her some generic information of each animal. Faith asked many questions and here are some that made us laugh non-stop.
Faith: Why is his hair so long?
Daddy E: Yea. He has not go barber.
Faith: You are crazy.. animal don't go barber. Only 1 go. Only human goes barber.
.
.
Daddy: Why he didn't shave?
Faith: Because he doesn't has moustache.



I love her innocent and yet so smart replies.

Personalised straw sling bag

We went to straw market today as Daddy E wanted to get Faith a straw bag. Straw market in Bahmas is like pasar malam in Singapore. They sell mainly local made stuffs and imitation goods. Unlike pasar malam, noone sell food here.

After seeing straw bags in few stores, Faith chose her fav. color pink and she wanted a sling bag rather than top handle small bag, which Daddy E originally wanted to get for her. We met this kind old lady with pretty good workmanship. We didn't bargain the price since we feel that it is pretty reasonable.

She is sewing "Faith" on the limited available space.

Daddy E got himself a cowboy hat and her princess a personalised sling bag.

Here is her new chic bag. US$6. Personalised name is free of charge.