Quack!: January 2009

Saturday, January 31, 2009

House Warming

Finally, we completed our official house warming.

The first was for our close friend during hari raya last year.
The second was for my girlies one months back.

This was the official one for everyone else.

Playing the ever exciting in-between.

End note:
At this point, I suddenly remember, I still need one more round with my aunties! Oh man!

Friday, January 30, 2009

January Babies Aplenty

03 Jan. Wilson.

07 Jan. Cass.

08 Jan. Minn.

24 Jan. Jess.

30 Jan. Pee.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Fifi Lapin On Your Shoulders

Not sure if you remember Fifi Lapin the fashionable rabbit.
Now, you can carry a piece of her on your shoulders!

Checkout the whole collection from LeSportsac here.

On an unrelated note, Polaroid, which announced last year that they they will stop producing their instant film, had been saved from extinction! All thanks to an Austrian businessman/artist who loves instant photography.

I hope by now the Polaroid factory in Enschede, Amsterdam has started production again.

More here.

Both via here.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Chubby Hubby Promoted

To ang bao giver.

Such a significant moment!

Monday, January 26, 2009

Mooo Mooo

This Chinese New Year, I only need to visit my parents.
Woohoo!

First day and we already brought the house down.

More to come!

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Reunion Dinner Part II

Being married means that everything now comes in pairs.

2 sets of parents.
2 sets of siblings.
2 sets of relatives.
2 reunion dinners.

My mum-in-law, just like my mum, woke up extremely early and prepared a really really big feast. The reunion dinner is probably even more significant to her than my mum because it's the only time of the year where all her children will be back at home.

I can imagine one day, when I have children of my own and they all grew up and went far away for school or work, it must be quite a heartache to only see them a few times a year.

At the very least my mum get to see me once a week.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Reunion Dinner Part I

Every reunion dinner, dad simply refuses to eat out. Maybe he prefers the homely atmosphere of our kitchen. Or perhaps he feels that only when everyone is back at home can the true meaning of reunion be expressed.

It takes a lot of effort to prepare a sumptious reunion dinner, even if it's steamboat. Mum, who always hope that one day dad will choose to eat out, never get her wish come true till date.

Still, every year, she will wake up extra early on that day to prepare the most significant meal of the year for everyone of us.

This year, it was my first time going home for reunion dinner. For the past 28 years, I would be at home.

Perhaps it's for this very reason that I'm very excited about it!

Friday, January 23, 2009

Company Dinner 2009

Somehow, our company siew kang dinner this year seems a bit wrong.
Like a plate of cold dish.

Is it me?

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Bian Bian Goes Swimming

The little one at home went for a swim.
Finally.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Penang Island

Other than attending the wedding, we also caught up with an old friend in Penang.
[Can I be any fairer?]

We chatted over some authentic nyonya food but who is to know for sure? Definitely not us!

I said I wanted to buy some scrapbook stuff.
So Loewe drew me a map and sent me to this shop that sells super nice wrapping paper. Heehee.

G Hotel.

With connecting shopping mall!

We bumped into the crew of On The Beat while buying tau sar biscuits.
The coward in me refused to get out of the car for the fear that I would be caught on screen!

Just like our first trip here, we took the ferry, car and all, back to mainland Malaysia.

I don't think we will be back here in the near future.
Unless our old friend has good reason for us to be back.

Monday, January 19, 2009

An Expensive Cup Of Tea

My brother-in-law is JBrian and his GF is Penangrian.
So they had their wedding dinner held in both places.

The JB one was my first time as an attendee at the VIP table.

They had a wedding band where the lady singer doubled up as MC.
And she sang so well I was totally mesmerized!

The second one at Penang included the ceremony as well.
If MB's wedding was traditional, then theirs must be ancient. They had way more customs to follow!

This thing went from this..

..to this in 2 seconds! So amazing!

The dinner at Penang was a very grand affair.
The tables, the flowers, the ballroom - all so befitting of a 5 star hotel.

Congrats!

Monday, January 05, 2009

The First Game Of The Year

At Anthony's place.
On the first day of the year.

Sunday, January 04, 2009

Seven Things No One Told You About Marriage

For all my girlfriends, giggling or not.
================================

By Ylonda Gault Caviness for Redbook via Yahoo.

Here's a secret - sometimes it's the least romantic parts of marriage that have the most to teach you about yourself, your partner, and the nature of love.

Below are some simple truths that will unlock the surprising treasures and pleasures in your imperfect, unstorybook, real-life love.

1. You will look at the person lying next to you and wonder - is this it?

When you get married, you think that as long as you pick the right guy - your soul mate - you'll be happy together until death do you part. Then you wake up one day and realize that no matter how great he is, he doesn't make you happy every moment of every day. In fact, some days you might wonder why you were in such a hurry to get married in the first place. You think to yourself, "This is so not what I signed up for."

Actually, it is. You just didn't realize it the day you and your guy were cramming wedding cake into each other's faces. Back then you had no idea that "for better and for worse" doesn't kick in only when life hands you a tragedy. Your relationship mettle is, in fact, most tested on a daily basis, when the utter sameness of day-in/day-out togetherness can sometimes make you want to run for the hills.

That's when the disappointment sneaks in, and maybe even a palpable sense of loneliness and grief. It's not him. It's just you, letting go of that sugarcoated fantasy of marriage that danced in your eyes the day you and your beloved posed in all those soft-focus wedding photos. You're learning that marriage isn't a destination - it's a journey filled with equal parts excitement and tedium.

Waking up from a good dream to face the harsh morning daylight may not seem like a reason to celebrate. But trust me, it is. Because once you let go of all the hokey stories of eternal bliss, you find that the reality of marriage is far richer and more rewarding than you ever could have guessed. Hard, yes. Frustrating, yes. But full of its own powerful, quiet enchantments just the same, and that's better than any fairy tale.

2. You'll work harder than you ever imagined.

Early on, when people say, "marriage takes work," you assume "work" means being patient when he forgets to put down the toilet seat. In your naivete, you think that you will struggle to accommodate some annoying habit, like persistent knuckle cracking or flatulence.

If only it were that easy. Human beings, you may have noticed, are not simple creatures. Your man has mysterious, unplumbed depths - and from where he sits, you're pretty complicated, too. You have to learn each other the same way that you once learned earth science or world geography. And getting married doesn't mean you're done - it just means you've advanced to graduate-level studies. That's because every time you think you've mastered the material, he'll change a bit. And so will you. As two people grow and evolve, the real work of marriage is finding a way to relate to and nurture each other in the process.

"It's like losing weight," says Andrea Harden, 45, of Buffalo, NY. "You want it to be a one-time deal. But then you learn it's a lifestyle. That's marriage. The effort is a forever thing."

3. You will sometimes go to bed mad (and maybe even wake up madder).

Whoever decided to tell newlyweds "never go to bed angry" doesn't know what it's like inside a bedroom where tears and accusations fly as one spouse talks the other into a woozy stupor until night meets the dawn. If this scenario sounds familiar, I've got three words for you - sleep on it.

You need to calm down. You need to gain perspective. You need to just give it a rest. I've found that an argument of any quality, like a fine wine, needs to breathe. A break in the action will help you figure out whether you're angry, hurt, or both, and then pinpoint the exact source. Maybe the fight that seemed to erupt over the overflowing garbage can is really about feeling underappreciated. Could be you're both stressed out at work and just needed to unload on someone. Taking a break will help you see that, and let go.

Or maybe you really do have a legitimate disagreement to work out. Without a time-out, sometimes a perfectly good argument can turn into an endless round of silly back-and-forth, rehashing old and irrelevant transgressions as you get more and more wound up.

Even when you do manage to stay focused and on topic, there are some fights that stubbornly refuse to die by bedtime. And if you stifle your real feelings just to meet some arbitrary deadline, your marriage will surely be the worse for it.

"This was a huge lesson for me," says Andrea. "As women we've been trained to make nice. But the whole kiss-and-make-up thing just to keep the peace was eating me up inside. I'd let things build up inside me until I just exploded. Now I wait a while to get hold of myself - let the emotions settle a bit - and state my position. Even if that means reopening the fight the next day."

4. Getting your way is usually not as important as finding a way to work together.

When it comes to certain disagreements, there is no right or wrong - there is simply your way of looking at things and your husband's.

"I used to be very black-and-white earlier in our marriage," says Lindy Vincent, 38, who lives in Minneapolis. "Now I see that I'm not all right and my husband is not all wrong. There's more gray in life than I thought, and that's taught me patience and the value of compromise."

5. A great marriage doesn't mean no conflict; it simply means a couple keeps trying to get it right.

It's important to have a big, fat fight every now and then. Because when you fight, you don't just raise your voices; you raise real - sometimes buried - issues that challenge you to come to a clearer understanding of you, your man, and your relationship. In the end fighting won't break us; it only make us stronger.

6. You'll realize that you can only change yourself.

There is a bit of that makeover fantasy in all of us - something that makes us believe we can change the person we love, make him just a little bit closer to perfect. We may use support and empathy or shouts and ultimatums, but with dogged conviction we take on this huge responsibility, convinced we're doing the right thing.

Whatever our motives, the effort is exhausting. Transforming a full-grown man - stripping him of decades-old habits, beliefs, and idiosyncrasies - is truly an impossible task. And you will come to realize, sooner than later if you're lucky, that it is far easier to change the way you respond to him.

7. As you face your fears and insecurities, you will find out what you're really made of.

That's the strange beauty of marriage - it's full of hard times and hard lessons that no one can ever prepare you for. But in the end, those are the things that give richness to your life together - and make your love even deeper and stronger than when it began.