tell me about it

It seems like the days are ticking away rapidly. On one hand I’m worried because there seems to be nothing I can really actively do for wedding prep (it seems like now I’m just waiting on vendors, and waiting on time to pass) yet there seems a dearth of time for house prep (AAAAGH STOP DELAYING SHIPMENTS).

I’m ridiculously nervous that there’s something I’m missing – yet some part of me is so zen and blah about it that I’m busy being nervous but lazy to really do anything about it. Maybe I’m afraid I really will discover something I’ve forgotten and then I’d have to go half-crazy trying to fix it.

Our house is coming along nicely :) Really pleased with the color. We spent about two evenings cleaning the place up – it sort of helped that I came down with a nasty eye infection, so I got two days MC and spent most of the time cleaning the house instead of going to work while my eye did its disgusting swollen leaky thing and sort of dribbled all over the place while contriving to become a natural eye patch. I could see out of maybe a quarter of my eye. Even my doctor, who’s generally a rather mild person, took one look at me and in surprise went, “Aah. What happened to you?”

Me: *pitifully* My eye be swollen.

Him: Yes, I can see that.

Me: BUT I CAN’T SEEEEEEEE THAAAAAAAT.

So the eye is a lot better now – I got antihistamine eyedrops and steroid eyedrops and between the incessant dripping of more liquid in my eye, it’s sulkily decided to return to its normal shape and size. I wonder though if an eye on steroids will become more buff and muscly than the other. Will I have more toned, defined eye muscles on the left? :D

Eagerly waiting for Friday – the fridge, washing machine, and the rest of our Ikea stuff is coming in. My lovely Turbo hob came in today. It’s got, er, a very artistic way of lighting up. Because I asked for safety valves, it sort of lights up around the circle – it lights at the spark point and then the flame travels round the circle till it joins up. It’s rather fascinating. I find myself turning on and off the stove just to gawk, until I remember I’m on LPG now and not Citygas, and that I really shouldn’t randomly turn my flame on just to admire its prettiness.

We now have five lamps in the house and I think the extra lighting is really helping to make the place look brighter livelier and more homey. Can’t wait for the sofa to come in, and the bed, and the TV console, and and and!

So I’m sitting at Chomp Chomp waiting for my prince to arrive, and I’m so mobile that I can blog from my phone. Technology is changing my life, and it’s not too pricey either!

There’s a new addition to the family: or should I say a MEW addition. Heh. As yet not formally named: a precious little Ginger kitten! Not mine :P but J&B’s. Heh heh. And really adorably sweet. We spent the morning making friends with him.

They adopted their little boy from Mutts and Mittens. They came over this morning to get the kitty carrier, waking me in the process and inspiring me to an impromptu morning visit to Pasir Ris Farmway to pick the baby up. Exciting!!

Photos to come!

Lord, have my burdens. They are too much for me to bear.

Happy birthday to me. May I love more, learn more, live more. God bless us everyone.

This is the first year ever that I’m not particularly excited about my birthday. I suppose age is finally catching up with me.

I was going to post but oh man it’s suddenly 2am and I need to wake up early tomorrow. Yikes.

I got my iPhone! Her name is Alethea and I love her so very very much!

Some dude at Singtel finally got it right (on my behalf). Thanks, Singtel dude. Shan’t give out your name as I’m not sure the switch was entirely sanctioned by the company. But I’m really happy with my phone :)

TRALALA so our house is undergoing renovation and it’s all very exciting. Even though we’re really doing so little to actually change the look of the house, it’s still exciting to go in and see all the little changes that have been made.

So far we’ve had the light switches changed to lovely fat round ones, had the walls plastered, removed all the fugly shelves and hanging things and an extra powerpoint that was sort of useful but in the way of our future shoe cabinet. And we all know that Shoes are much higher in the hierarchy of life than electricity is. Pooh, who needs electricity when you’ve got Aldo shoes.

They’ve also begun replastering the walls – I’m a little deflated and let down though, because I did think when they said “replastering”, they meant they would scrape off the whole top layer of the wall and replaster the whole thing evenly. Instead they just cracked away the loosest parts, laid a thin plastic mesh over it for reinforcement, and scraped plaster over the whole thing. Meh. I don’t know if that’s what’s usually done, or if it’s better and more reinforced than replastering. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

Oh oh oh and we went tap shopping yesterday at Jalan Besar. Don’t laugh. Tap shopping is surprisingly thrilling. Considering it IS something you use everyday! We sought out brass taps plated taps chrome taps Italian brand taps China brand taps (No.) Italian shower heads bidet sprays toilet seats kitchen taps bathroom mirrors. Although the displays were not so much dazzling as they were dizzying with the range and prices ($300 for a tap!) that were laid out like dishes at a banquet – a banquet you can only touch once, and then only one dish, and the choices, the CHOICES, THEY DROVE US MADASDASKSJhFKASJHfAKERA.

We don’t even have our new taps yet because when we’d finally decided which ones we want, the shops were closed. Faints.

Also on the list of things I don’t have – my birthday iPhone.

Singtel SMSed us three times yesterday.

The first, 3.28pm: Don’t worry if you did not collect your iPhone 3GS at our Launch event. We will let you know when your iPhone is ready for collection. The offers will still be valid till 31 July 09.

The second, 6.02pm: Don’t worry if you did not collect your iPhone 3GS at our Launch event. You can collect your iPhone at the Singtel Comcentre on 14 & 15 July, 10am to 9pm.

The third, 7.47pm: Due to an oversight we sent you a message incorrectly. Please ignore the last message. Rest assured we will let you know when your iPhone 3GS is ready for collection.

Well, ain’t that just a bitch. The false hope! The subtle, evil, preying on customers’ minds. The long-suffering desperation and deprivation of one who waits as if starved for an iPhone. Seriously, though. They let people who didn’t reserve join the queue, while insisting that centralization was the way to maintain the hype and fervor of the grasping crowd.

Wouldn’t it have been so much more efficient and satisfactory for them to have limited reservation slots, to allow customers to indicate which centre would be best for them to pick up their units? The Comcentre could have been used as the queue-up point for those who wish to get in on the hype and for those who didn’t reserve. Honestly, I have much better things to do with my time than wait around 10 hours in a queue to pick up a mobile phone.

SPASM!

BACKSTREET’S BACK ALL RIGHT!

YES!!!!!!

DID YOU ALSO KNOW THEY ARE PERFORMING IN SINGAPORE AT THE F1 RACES!!!!!!!!!!!

SQUEAL!

Reno plans are chugging along at a good rate. We’ve contracted LS Im*ge Interior for the reno – well, it’s not much of renovation work really.

Because our current place stands over a part of the Circle Line, it’s thought that the drilling and digging works for the underground stations must have caused tremors. Tremors which caused our walls to shake and crack. About four or five walls in our new place need replastering – and we figure if the contractors are replastering, they might as well do the paint job for us too. Heh.

So since redoing the kitchen is just way out of our budget, we’re just going to replaster walls, repaint them, replace the electric switches, taps, and install an oven in the kitchen cabinet. Not much to be done and thus hopefully the works will be completed in about 2 weeks time.

Joy!

We bought some stuff at the Barang2 sale – good deals! Almost everything going at HALF PRICE. And Barang2 things at half price are very good deals indeed.

We got this bed!

Which incidentally is the same one my brother and his wife bought. What to do, good taste runs in the family. In beds as well as in life partners. Heh heh.

We also got a towel rack and a pouffe from Barang2. We just might be going back for a shoe cupboard and a TV console, and maybe a leather armchair, because the prices are just too good to resist.

Our mattress is a King Koil, from Courts – also on sale. He likes hard beds and I like soft beds and this one was a compromise. We both have bad backs anyway, so we needed to splurge on a good mattress or we’d be creaky and groany every morning. Which is not good.

Our friend, who has mad connexions, pulled one of his strings to help us get our itchy little hands on the Bosch oven we wanted. Sorry, Harvey Norm! If you’d had it in stock we would have gotten it from you. Anyhoo we managed to save another $20 so how’s that for a great deal!

Right now we’re deciding on what sort of metal gate to get for our door. The present one is flaking and falling apart, and is so narrow that I – a person of modest size – have to walk in sideways to get through the door. My fiance is not a skinny man by any means (skinny men give lousy hugs) and we really need a wider gate. The current gate is U-G-L-Y, it ain’t got no alibi, it’s ugly, yeah yeah, it’s ugly.

Ah-hem.

Picking wall colors soon!

I am currently deciding between the following models (was assisted by Hazel at HN MW… nice girl and quite knowledgeable):

1. Electrolux EOB31002X ($699)
2. Brandt FE611XS1 ($699)
3. Bosch HBN331E2J ($666)

The Brandt oven is 16amp and HDB standard is 13amp. The salesgirl told me that as the oven is actually a basic model, it can be plugged into a 13amp socket with no problem. However I’m concerned this may void the warranty and I don’t want my house electricity to trip every time I turn on the oven!

The salesgirl also mentioned that the Bosch one has more and better features (and a digital clock! prettyyyy) but Electrolux oven has a better inside lining. Electrolux and Bosch only have 5 cooking programmes while Brandt has 6.

Electrolux: Defrost, top and bottom heat, bottom heat, top and bottom heat with fan, grill
Brandt: Fish, roast beef, pizza, chicken, tarts, and vegetables (I don’t know why it’s in food types, they didn’t provide any other cooking modes)
Bosch: Top and bottom heat, bottom heat, grill, hot-air grill, 3D hot air cooking

I like the Bosch one the best because of its nifty hot-air grilling mode (nice crispy chicken!). However the Bosch oven is out of stock as some condominium apparently ordered it to outfit their apartment kitchens, and new stock only coming in late Aug. My contractor is starting work next week! Don’t think the oven will be here in time – I don’t want to have to call him back just to install my oven.

Looks like I’ll be going for the Electrolux. My mother also swears by Electrolux as apparently they have really good after-care service/guarantee and will willingly come fix your appliances if they are not working. But I don’t know if its features are good enough. I don’t really need the defrost function :/

Also getting the compact pullout Electrolux hood EFP9520X, if my contractor can figure out how to hack the existing cupboards carefully enough to install it.

Any thoughts or advice?

Bought:
Washing machine (Harvey Norman sale), less 35%
Refrigerator (Harvey Norman sale), less 20%
Bed (Barang Barang sale), less 50%
Towel rack (Barang Barang sale), less 50%
Pouffe (Barang Barang sale), less 50%
Dining table set (Arts and Crafts Inc)
King Koil mattress (Courts sale), less 40%