Author: mamabok

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Flossing Her Teeth

Finally, she is ready to floss her teeth! for years – we’ve been trying to get Chloe to floss her teeth – and today she is ready to floss her own teeth without much fuss. Happy we are – because like all parents we want what is best for her – and we really don’t want to see her go thru’ another hospital trip to get her caps in and putting her to sleep. So yes! hopefully, she will continue flossing without much fuss – and now to push PB to get Chloe’s dental insurance in place – because MSI only covers her dental till she is 10 years old – and that certainly isn’t enough time to cover her braces and all.

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Golf Course @ My BackYard

For those who are not aware of this – the golf course – for the country club is just behind our backyard – one of the main reasons why we bought our home there. It is a very beautiful golf course – lots of greens during spring time and also summer and it is my hope that I will one day pick up golf again. I used to play golf when I worked for a Spanish company – I needed to entertain our clients – so I would practice since my handicap is not even worth mentioning. My boss has a gps for golf course – yes! he was a serious player alright. Hopefully, this summer – I can get a chance to play again – coz’ my girlfriends from here – wants to play with me – I’m trying to do different things this year – to make my life a better and healthier one – I’m darn proud of myself alright!

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I Love My Friends, But…..

I make long lasting friends – friends from far away and friends from near by – but it’s not easy to make friends with me because I am a very private person and don’t like any intrusion in my private life. It takes a long time for me to be someone’s “friend” – since you all know that PB owns his own business and everyone is a “friend” – but true friendship takes a long time to nurture for me.

After 11 years in Y-Town – I’ve only a very handful of real friends – I think 5 – if i am not wrong. All these friends are steadfast and are always ready to give a helping hand when I need one. All of them are very thoughtful and never expect anything in return from our friendship. They all understand that I can get very busy and don’t call or chat with them for months. We never argue – we have difference in opinion but we agree to disagree and we always think of them and include them whenever we can in our life.

Next month, I’m planning a spa party at a local spa with 3 other wonderful ladies – with their kids involved – all in the name of getting together and spending girl’s time together. I love my friends, but I’m not always available for them – so my “real” friends understands that – and don’t think I’m ignoring them – good friends are like a warm breeze when we get together.

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Helping Hands

The chinese have a saying – no one wants to be bald if they can helped it. And no one want to borrow or get a loan with high interest either but look – life can be tough sometimes and as bad as people may say cash advances are – I beg to differ. Why? personal experience of course. Many years ago – the store wasn’t doing so great – and we need a bit of cash for a roll over at the store – and we couldn’t go to the bank – because they wanted a collateral that we didn’t have. So we had no choice but to get a high interest loan – and it took us a while to pay it off – but we knew what we were getting ourselves into and without this cash advance – we wouldn’t be where we are now. Our loan is paid off after several years – sure it was high interest – but what can we do – we needed the money BAD! the folks where we got our loan from never bothered us – we paid our loan monthly and religiously and we are debt free now – and we know how to make better choices now. So for those who say that cash advances are evil – it’s not true – it is you who made that choice to loan – so it is your responsibility to want to get out of debt. It is what you do after getting the cash advance that is important.

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A Gift For Chloe’s Teacher

May is already here and the school year will be coming to an end really soon. Each year – we try to show our appreciation to Chloe’s teacher for all that they have done for her and this year it will be no difference. I’m sure teacher gift from students is common but we don’t want to just give a mug or a box of chocolate – we would like to give her teachers something that they can remember her by and something really useful. Besides the regular personalize note pad that we made for Chloe’s teachers yearly from a printer shop in town – we will have to think of something else to give her. I cannot express how grateful we are to Chloe’s teacher – for taking care of her and giving Chloe so much confidence in her reading – Chloe has definitely done so much better in the last 1.5 years. Plus we also need to get some gifts for her after school program teachers as well. Therefore, I need to start now to buy the presents and not wait till the last minute.

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Neither Here Nor There

My burner at the store is constantly lighted up – to keep me calm – even though PB think it is to make the store smell nice – well it does – so I let him think so. The general election is just round the corner and I’ve been reading up a lot about it. My Singapore passport had been renewed in New York High Comm and was sent back to me via courier. It’s a 5 yrs renewal now and not 10 like it used to be. I asked myself if I should vote – since I’m in Canada – but truth be told – I don’t really feel like a Singaporean no more. Why? i can’t imagine going home for good – for it’s too expensive to live in Singapore – but having said that – I don’t really feel at home in Canada either. I always feel like a guest here – even though my true loves are here. The spouse said i think too much – maybe it’s true – I should just go with the flow – and not think too much.

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Kids & Vitamins

Like every parent – we want what is best for our kids – from buying them the most expensive books to nourish their mind – to getting them the best multivitamins to nourish their bodies. I’m no different and I strongly believed in multivitamins for kids – as well as ourselves. Of course, the doctor had said that if your kids are given a well – balanced diet – they don’t need any more vitamins. But if you have a kid like mine who don’t like greens – then you’ll have to find a vitamin that can supplement that right? Yes – I’m the official helicopter mom – but nope I don’t overdose her with vitamins – although I’ve heard that if you feel like a cold is coming – you should get an overdose of Vitamin C. Anyhow, I’m sure if you are a mom who cooks home cooked meals a lot for your kids – and is a stay at home mom – it will be easier to monitor their diet – but for moms like me who needs to work, it is harder so don’t feel bad if you are making your kids take vitamin because you feel they are not getting enough from their food.

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Umbrellas Don’t Work Here

It had been raining a lot here – and for years, we’ve tried all sorts of umbrellas but they don’t work – because PB gets all upset – that the umbrella is just not strong enough for the wind and he claims that it gets blown away. So for years, we haven’t really bought any umbrella except for the few that we’ve had sparingly – that always end up somewhere – like the garbage in the basement. So the other day, I saw some very cheap rain coat from the dollar store and picked one up for her because I saw one of her school friend wearing it. Chloe liked it a lot and it did the trick to shield her away from the water – while walking into school from the car. As for PB – it was so cheap – he didn’t really protest – because to him – little rain is nothing – but he doesn’t know that it’s so irritating to be wet. Yes! he rather get wet than to wear a rain coat.

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My New Past Time For Destressing

PB has been playing online games since Everquest 1 first came out – and that was even before I came to Canada 11 years ago. But as time passed – he also played EverQuest II, WOW (World of Warcraft), which was a big hit around the world, Lord of the Rings Online for a while and now – he is into a new game called Rift. First, they have to pay for the game – and then they have to pay a monthly fee – and what they do is gang up and kill other people as far as I know. But as for me – I’m not into those games – no matter how much I tried to get into it – I was never that kind of gamer.

I tried the Facebook online games – the fishing game and also the Chef game – but after a month or so I got tired of it – too time consuming and don’t really make me think so there’s no real motivation there (no offense to those who love FB games eh!). But PB still encouraged me to find a game that I will enjoy playing – to de-stress, so I thought about games that I used to play every now and then back home. Mahjong is one of them and of course I also played the slot machines every time I was on vacation or on a work trip near a casino. But where I am currently – in a small town – there are no casinos around – so PB showed me how to play slots online – whenever I want to have some fun and do something I like.

I’ve known about internet casinos for quite a few years now but never really did anything about it till now since I like thinking games like blackjack and mahjong – I hear it’s especially good for training ones mind as you get older – so your brains won’t get lazy on you. But I never go overboard when playing online games – I play because I want to have fun and de-stress and of course I did my leg work and checked out only the reputable online casinos. It’s amazing how much information a reputable online casino has on their site and I can even use my paypal for deposits and payments – I never have to have it reflect on PB’s credit card statement – definitely a plus point in my case – I like to keep my online gaming private since PB never liked to go to a real casino – so this is a fun thing I can do on the weekend when Chloe is sleeping and I’m all done with my housework. I play responsibly of course and know that playing in an online casino is for fun and not for trying to become a millionaire.

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She Won’t Eat Lunch In School

A few months ago, we noticed that Chloe won’t eat her food during lunch in school – of course, we asked her why – and she didn’t want to say at first – and just told us that she didn’t have enough time to finish her food. So we told her that we were gonna talk to her home room teacher to let her stay till she finishes her food before going out to play. Of course, that didn’t sink in too well with Chloe – so she told us the truth about her lunch time. Chloe explained that some of her friends in her class – said that her food was smelly – so she didn’t want to eat it in school as it embarrasses her. Yes! kids can be insensitive and we believed that it wasn’t meant to be mean but we also know that you can’t control what other kids think or say to our kid. So we enlisted her teachers help and also tried to explain to Chloe that not everyone need to like her food – and that she can go right ahead and finish her food even if someone in her class don’t like her food.

A month later, still Chloe would eat a bit more of certain food but some food – she just won’t eat them even though she loved the food at home. So what do every good parents do? We made extra food – first for the home room teacher to try and then 2 weeks later – a bigger batch in a corning ware dish (presentation very important too eh) and sent it to school to offer to Chloe’s classmate to eat. And guess what? today Chloe came back with her thermos empty ! woohoo!!! so if your child ever come home without touching their food – there may be more to it than meet the eyes.