Spending Unnecessarily

I was only supposed to buy 1.5 kg Dory fish, one bottle of tomato sauce and capsicum but ended up spending more than I ought to. It ALWAYS happens when I go to Tesco.

f.y.i - those things in the cart are not all mine. Some of the stuff belongs to Eunice

MPH Book Vouchers

Last Saturday evening, I picked Eunice from Jusco to drop her off at a house warming party before shooting off to fetch dear hubby from a restaurant (he actually gate crashed on someone's wedding dinner!!!!) to Jusco for our dinner. On the way to Jusco, he told me that he had some MPH vouchers which were given to him as a gift from a talk he gave that afternoon.

We accumulated some MPH rebates and both the vouchers and rebate came up to RM343.00. Woohoo!!! The timing was great as I was running out of books to read.

We spent more than RM350 worth of books in MPH. I've already finished reading two easy-to-read books! :)

Clogs

I've always thought clogs were unimpressive as well as uncomfortable.

When I was young, the only version of a pair of clogs were those red wooden soles with red plastic-like material on top.

Not anymore!

I was in MidValley with Minchee and Eunice a few days ago and saw these beautiful clogs on sale at a kiosk-like shop. I was so taken by the beauty of it that I called Eunice to get another pair - the pink version of what I was going to get. She ended up getting a black pair, which looked great on her.

What I liked about this pair is the hole at the heels. Of course, the simplicity of the entire footwear coupled with the beautiful floral motifs played a big part in me parting with RM50 for it.

Mini Shopping Spree

Last Saturday, MinChee, Eunice and I went to KL specifically to spend money. The three of us have something in common - we're all born in the month of December.

There's this home decor place in KL which sells great stuff - from ribbons to interior home decor to gardening, you name it... anything to do with the home decor, they have it. The three of us signed up as members a few years back. One of the "benefits" of being one is that we'd get discount vouchers on our birthday month and it will be valid for more than a month.

Each of us would get a 50% discount voucher for one item and 20% discount voucher for 10 items.

Last year, I got this three tier metal thingy (without the pink flowers, of course). I was quite fascinated with the very fact that I'm buying it "New" but it looked rusty and worn out. I think after my 50% discount, it cost me about RM164.00.

This year, I used up both my and MinChee's 50% discount voucher for two things to complement my three tier thingy:-

A flower pot holder (without the flower pot and plant), which cost RM106 after discount

and a plate cart thingy which cost RM224 after discount

Yeah, yeah. I know. I must've been out of my mind to pay so much for two rusty and old things but hey! I love them. Right now, the flower pot holder is at my parents' place (temporarily). The three tier thingy is also at my mum's place. I haven't decided where to put the plate cart thingy yet.

I also bought some crystal-like decor for this year's "White Christmas" theme. Even with the 20% discount, each cost about RM3.10

Both Eunice and I saw this authentic looking clock which we gave into temptation after some contemplation. It cost us RM23.90 after discount. I think mine is a little faulty. Hmm.... must get my dad (jack of all trades ....) to fix it.

These square plates were going at 50% discount. We did what we naturally would do - Grab them.

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After spending so much, we went to Sogo. I didn't dare spend much in there. Thank God for "No Sale"

Lau Yat was our last destination. I bought ink (RM123 in total), one 4G thumb drive for myself (RM25 - CHEAP!!!), 3 2G thumb drives for my company (each costing RM17.50) 50 blank CDs and 50 blank DVDs. Can't remember how much all came to but I know I spent a lot!

Till now, I don't dare calculate how much I spent. I keep telling myself that I am using the money that I received for my Christmas present and I calmed myself down saying that I did save up the other 50-60% of what I received.

Books Hunting Again

We went out with Ashley & family and Neela & family on Monday (Jan 5th) for dinner and after that to have a guided tour of Ashley's place.

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Neela, Jason and Joelle met up with Ashley and family in The Chicken Rice shop at 7pm. I had t work, so Rajen and I were a little late in getting there.

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I had my normal bowl of wantan mee curry laksa while the rest had chicken rice. I saw Jason's eyes opened ever so slightly (because he loves laksa) and offered him a small bowl to taste it but .....

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.... Joelle hijacked and ate most of it. By the time the bowl got to Jason, he had very little left to eat from.

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After dinner, we took the children to Popular and MPH to choose their books. Joelle was in a cheerful mood and started jumping her way to the bookshop.

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Lisa (who was forced to buy a dictionary), Rachel and Darren chose their books in Popular. Joelle couldn't find any that she liked there, so we went to MPH, where she chose a "Unicorn" book.
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Brandon chose his book in MPH too. A truck book which had flaps in every page. Cool!

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We left Jusco and headed to Ashley's place for the guided tour.

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After that, we went to Curry Leaf for a drink.

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I was dead tired by the time we got back home!

Christmas Decor at MidValley and The Gardens

Every year, I would take time off to go to MidValley just to see how the whole mall is decorated. This year, I was so pressed for time that I only could go to MidValley on the 23rd.

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I picked Eunice up at 8.35am and we drove up to KL. This is my very first time driving to KL and I was feeling rather nervous. Eunice was my guide and err... to tell you the truth, she was not a very good navigator (actually, Eunice admitted that fact to me). We were near the parking zone and she suddenly said "Go up". I was confused as to whether I needed to turn left to go up or turn right to go up. Even with her unclear directions, we did reach the mall with no problems at all. Our plan was to get to MidValley before 10am and we got there 15 minutes early. Parking was not much of a problem.

This year, MidValley had a circus theme. We took many pictures of it.

We saw an elephant, a tiger and some other 3-D fake animals. Immediately I thought of our Kidz Safari which we might be having in June 2009. How nice if we could just recycle all these animals and use them for our kidz safari.

We also went to The Gardens and their theme was .... bird cages. Reminded me of the fact that for our Christmas Musical, we needed to get bird cages for the "temple scene".

We left MidValley at 3.30pm - our scheduled time. Once we came out of the parking area, there was a huge traffic jam. We were moving at 10km/h and at times, we had to stop for a long period of time. I was worried that we might miss our Seremban turning and had to make one whole round again. I kept asking Eunice when I could turn off from the inner MidValley circle and onto the main road to Seremban and Eunice kept saying "Go until you cannot go anymore" .... "Huh??" What was that supposed to mean??

We saw a signboard saying "Petaling Jaya and Bangsar, turn right" but Eunice didn't think it was the right one. After being stuck in the jam for 15 minutes, we were worried that we might've made a mistake by not turning off at the PJ/Bangsar exit. We drove on .... got stuck, drove a little, got stuck, moved a little... and finally saw the signboard for Seremban. Phew!!!

We arrived in Seremban at 4.45pm.

Last Minute Christmas Shopping

As usual, I waited until almost the very last minute before I went for my Christmas shopping. I had a long list of names and I had no idea what I should get them.

On the 22nd, I accompanied my mother-in-law, sis-in-law and Rajen to the shopping mall in Ampangan. I haven't been to that mall in years but Rajen's mother thinks the clothes there are much cheaper than the ones in Jusco.

We went grocery shopping first, then lunch at Windmill.

The second part of the shopping was difficult.

We needed to get from the ground floor of The Store to the 2nd floor. Rajen's mother was in a wheelchair and we needed to figure out where the evelator was. We found one in the mall but there was no connection from the main mall to The Store on the 2nd floor because the furniture shop closed it off.

What we did was to go up to the 1st floor using the elevator and from there, go into The Store and used their escalator.

We took a while to get onto the escalator. Rajen was right behind the wheelchair while Viji was behind Rajen. I was infront, holding on to the wheelchair until we almost reached the 2nd floor. That's when Rajen asked me to let go of it. The moment I let go, it went off balance for a little while but Rajen was quick enough to put it back in place.

I was the 1st one off the escalator. When I turned back, I saw that the weelchair got stucked and Rajen was trying in vain to push it off the moving escalator. Viji, from the back, tried to help by pushing Rajen. It took me a few seconds to realise what was happening before I reacted by pulling the wheelchair from the front. Immediately, the three of them were pushed forward.

That was a really scary episode which I hope will not be repeated.

It was a good thing all three of them didn't fall backwards.

Anyway, after that, Rajen's mum got some clothes for Rajen's christmas present. I know, at the back of Rajen's mind, he was trying to figure out how to get his mum down to the 1st floor. I was thinking hard too. There was NO way we would've done the same as how we came up.

I told him that the best way was for her to get off the wheelchair and go down the escalator like how we normally do. The only problem was that I don't think she would be quick enough to take the next step the moment her foot touched the escalator. I could just imagine her falling down the escalator.

I told Rajen that it would be good if someone could just stop the escalator so that his mum could walk down slowly.

Well, that was just what we did.

Rajen's mum, though was slow and caused a small people jam on the escalator, made it down safely.

After that, Rajen took his mum and sister back while I picked up my mum and Esther to go to Jusco for MY Christmas shopping.

We were there from 5pm - 10pm. By then, I was feeling so exhausted and zombie-like AND I was 90% done with my Christmas shopping!!!! Yes!!!!

Even though I was so exhausted, when I got back, I started decorating my tree until 12.40am.

For me, it was a very productive day. :)