Its Big and really really Bad!

The wolf is laughing all the way to the bank by now. Another book sale. The Big Bad Wolf Sale. It's the best sale I've been to. What's not to like, great books at 70-90% discount. I went nuts!

We (mommy and kiddos) were anxiously anticipating this day since we knew about it about a month ago. So the minute... no, the second Kya returned from school today, we jumped into the car and wooshhhh to South City Plaza (I seriously wished we had a magic carpet).

Arrived circa 2p.m. Parking madness. People were coming out with boxes and boxes of books. Some taking own sweet time to load in the books. Some even browsing their books by their car boot, blindly ignoring those awaiting for parking (note to kids:be sensitive to others!). Alas, a parking near the lift. Alhamdulillah.

With kids , I must head to the children's section first. And there we were for an hour plus. With a box full of books and kiddos excited to go back and rummage their loot for the day, there's no way for me to cover the adult section then (note to self:I need to come back for my own... alone!)

Now the queue to the cashier. Another hour. But we didn't mind. With books in the box, we killed time reading. That's the wonder with books. Have book, will travel. And we travelled through time without realising it, we reached the cashier. Our damage? 40 over books at RM250. In my world of books, that's hardly any damage, not even a dent! (note to self again: must come back).

Here's our collection for the day. Can't wait for our read aloud sessions. And shoot, I think we need another billy bookcase!

Billy Bookcase

Another reason to be smiling today. I found out that the IKEA billy bookcase price is reduced to RM169 from RM185! To book lovers, this simple means - new case = lots of new shelves = lots and lots of new books! Yay!
Do you know that to date there's more than 41 million Billy Bookcases sold worldwide? Wow! A simple case.
What does your bookcase say about you? - an article from TIMES about the Billy bookcase and to my wonder, what we choose to display or have on our shelves speaks about personalities. Ye ke? I'm a bit shy to post picture of my bookcases - some are quite organized, some remained untouched for yonks of years (terselit katak mati pon tak tau), and some are just upside down (esp with the kids shelves)!

All in all, I love the sight of my bookcases in my living room, study room and kids room. In fact, the cases are the centrepiece item in my living room, far more valuable than the big tv or a 20k art painting! (errr no, I don't have one).

And here's a pic of my ultimate dream wish to have bookcases!

I'm the supermom!

My day starts as early as 6.00 a.m and ends just after midnight. In between, I juggle the tasks of being a mom, wife, teacher, cleaner and cooker. On lucky days, I get to shower more than 5 minutes! It's a bonus if I get online and check my emails.

It sure is tough being a full time mom without a maid. Still, I never felt so contented before than now when I'm able provide my lovelies the basic necessities with my own bare hands. Sure it was nice to be able to buy them anything when I was earning 5 figures income, but to hear from your son this "Mama, you're a great cook!"... priceless (tho's it was just a mini pizza using jacob crackers!).

To my mama, I truly understand now your pains raising us without maid back then. Thank you loads and no words but only prays that I can offer for all that you've done for us. Then, now and forever. Love you much, Mama.

The Mother-Daughter Book Club

I'm over the moon with my latest books. Its for my little girl actually but if I had these books when I was growing up and spent time reading together with my mum, I reckon we would have a somewhat different (closer) relationship than now. Not that we're estranged but I wished we would connect better at some level. And that's what I will do differently with my girl.

I've come to love these books of late when I've taken interest in children literature. My most favorite bookstore on earth - BookXcess - are selling these two lovely book sets at unbelievable RM49.90 each (with 5 books in each set).

Set 1 (reading age 9+) contains Bridge to Terabithia, Ida B, Little Women, Absolutely Normal Chaos, Ella Enchanted.

Set 2 (reading age 10+) contains So B.It, The Luckiest Girl, Sister of the Bride, The Great Gilly Hopkins, The Secret Garden.

This set also comes with a book club kit by Dodson whom started a book club with her daughters and invited some other parents to share and discuss on the books they've read. The results were astounding - it not just any book club, its an avenue they've come to love and grow together. Brilliant! Heemm, that's an idea worth pursuing.

This is such a wonderful opportunity to have bonding moments with my gal through our love of reading together. I'm sure its a journey we both will cherish forever. What more these lovely books have impacted many successful people today and they say "everything I need to know I learned from a children book".

Bibik Oh Bibik

Can we Malaysians survive without our bibiks? Tough but possible with a bit of hair pulling, I suppose. Well, at least that's my story for the past week. And yep, that explains the M.I.A part. Our maid has gone back for good and left this mommy all the pleasures of keeping the house together. Yes, pleasures. My oh my, I can't hardly take a breather (on this note, I salute all housewives and standing ovation to those without maids - my cuz Ica for example).
As much as I appreciate having a maid, but I am relief she's gone. She was good with kids but slacking on houseworks. And to my surprise, a has been carear woman like me actually enjoyed cooking and cleaning though I wished sometimes I have ten pairs of hands! There's just not enough time and yes speaking of time, we need to be tip top on time management or your kids don't get feed nor clean clothes. So who is to say stay at home moms are not good with management skills. In fact I reckon being at home makes one good at some of the critical management skills - people (the art of negotiating, managing expectations and exerting influence to get your kids and even spouse to do what you want them to do) - time (like I said, you have hundred things to do in such a short time, so prioritize! and multi-task and constantly finding the most effective way to do things).
Now back to bibiks. Much debate on this lately. Should we continue to depend on them and should we pay them more? Because the demands of our work, we do need them and when you calculate per hour basis like say if they work effective 12 hours per day and 6 days per week with average RM500 per month = RM1.60 per hour. Wow, value for money, eh? But of course it comes with perks like food and shelter. So we Malaysians are lucky (esp those with super efficient maids) to have access to these blue collar workers. Still, we need to be tacky when to comes to handling our bibik. Can't be too nice and you can't be a slavedriver either. They are human with feelings and thoughts. And when its about raising our kids, we must shoulder that role and responsibility, not bibik's. Our values are ingrained and deep rooted in our kids or we have a society raised by maids!

A different model

From spending hours constructing 3G related business models, now I'm cutting paper and putting together dinosaur models. Fun but I must say it's also a headache as my new project manager is even more demanding than my previous boss! Mr. Kashfy comes up every 10 minutes or so asking "Is it done yet?". Pressure lar mommy!

When I started out from a book, I thought it would be just a task to complete. But as I went along cutting out the pieces and gluing them on, I actually enjoyed every minute of it and I persisted till wee hours to complete all 5 models. And the look on his face when it's done was priceless:-) See we don't need Mastercard to get those priceless joys! Oh yes, the book only cost RM14 at BookXcess. Fabulous! Now at first mention, Kash knows all the dinosaur's model name (which I'm still grasping at times). That's my paleontologist! Bijak, bijak.

Que Sera Sera

What will I be? An art director? That's according to Ms Kya. I always knew she has a knack for it. I, on the other hands, hopeless in arts. If that's her interest, then I will do my best to fuel that interest. Not an accountant. Not a lawyer or a doctor (tho' I still wish for one doctor in the family.. hush,every parent's dream). The point is, to explore every talent they have and harness those potentials within. Unlike deciding on a sole suspection like "Ok, you did very well in account for SPM considering you're self tought, let's be an accountant!"

So, I imagine whilst my son is off on an adventure in search of fossils, my daughter will be busy preparing for her art gallery opening. And here's my darling with her first winning art competition.