A Homemaker’s Diary

I have been having tough days since last week. If you have followed my blog for some times, you will know that my son and I have unusual sleeping time. Usually we will sleep from 4-5am onwards. So by the time it is 8-9am (the peak time when normal people go to school or work) we will be in our bed sleeping soundly..do you think we are somehow related to vampires..haha!

Anyway since last week, my next 2 door neighbor has started massive renovation work on their house which I believe has been abandoned since the last 2 years. So the contractor they hire has started working since 8am till 5pm and on Saturday too (as it is allowed by the gated neighborhood handbook). Imagine the noise of drilling and more drilling, knocking the wall and more knocking every now and then that both of us have to endure in our sleepless sleep. Just as I thought the contractor has stop working, there will be some knock, knock here and annoying drilling there.

If only Malaysian’s house are built like these modular homes Massachusetts. Check out how the owner get his second story house addition completed just in a day.

Since the land in city like Selangor and KL is really precious and expensive, I doubt that we can have such spacious home to equip the sunroom which I could use as my craft studio. But hey, give this cranky, sleep deprived mom a chance to dream. After all I don’t know how long the renovation next door will continue, Hubby said he saw piles of sands and more bags of cements in front of the house..huhu!

I have been thinking whether to have my son birthday party this year or not..sigh! The thing is he doesn’t have any real friends of his own since he never go to day care or play school yet. If I were to hold his birthday party, it will be my friends’ kids who will be attending.

I have this idea of doing a birthday party once he has entered play school or preschool which will be in like 2 years time. What do you think? Should I do a birthday party this year or we just do something special in family like what we have done for the last 2 years?

For the last few years since we moved here, our neighbors have done birthday parties for their kids in such an elaborate way, some with party goodies in bags, banners on the wall with theme like under the sea, party princess and Cars..huhu! Yes, you read me, I am pressured, not easy being a mom in this neighborhood..huhu!

Maybe in years to come once I am ready to organize a proper birthday party, I should order all these vinyl banners to make up for the lack of enthusiasm to celebrate my son’s birthday in his toddlerhood..haha! Or else, I could save it for his university convocation or wedding.

We managed to go to the Big bad Wolf sale on Tuesday and look what I got myself this time..huhu!

After browsing almost all the aisles and checked out the boxes people left under the table, I managed to grab many interesting titles. Oh, Hubby got the Shopaholic Ties The Knot to complete the series..(err except we still couldn’t find Mini Shopaholic anywhere!)

I bought Philippa Gregory’s The Other Queen. I never read any of her books. She wrote The Other Boleyn Girl which has been turned into motion picture. I think if I don’t really like her writing style, I’m going to sell the book…haha!

There were also many parenting books by Dr William Sears. Since I am way passed the tough phase of parenting infant, I only bought The Successful Child. Oh, I also found another book by Michael Gurian – A Fine Young Man to complete the boys series.

Since my son is not into eating rice and more into pasta, I decided to buy the Italian recipes book. Hopefully I would be able to try a recipe or two soon.

Hubby went to the second day of Big Bad Wolf sale on Saturday. I gave him a few book titles in case he could find them at the sale.

Hubby knew I like Lisa See’s books and he remembered what other titles of her work that I already have at home. On Friday when we went to the sale, I couldn’t find all the complete set of the Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella. Now I have almost all except for Shopaholic Ties The Knot..hehe..(will look for that tonight :))

I am so happy that Hubby found Malcolm Gladwell – What The Dog Saw. I have been eyeing that book for some times and have been hoping to get it at RM8 at the BBW sale. It doesn’t matter if the jacket cover of the hardcover is not in good condition, for me the content is more important.

As requested by my online friend Yin, these are the craft books I bought. For RM10 (on average) per book I would say it was worth all my effort of browsing at the Craft isle for 2 hours..heh! Thanks to Hubby too for taking care of our son while I took my own sweet time thinking which craft books might help in my future biz venture.

We are going again tonight and I will share more pictures if we buy anything worth reading.

We managed to go to the Big Bad Wolf Sale on the first day. Hubby took annual leave just to be available for me to go there on Friday. The place is certainly much bigger compared to the sale venue last year. The only setback is that you have to park your car below the hill and take the tram to go to the Hall A. If you ever been to MAEPS in Serdang for MAHA, then you’ll know how vast the place is. However if you buy too many books (like we did) you can go and take your car and bring it to the exit so that the BBW staffs can help you load the books into your car 🙂

You will be given box to put all your chosen books..(err but we brought our own IKEA bags). The best part of the sale this year is that they have customer service counters where you can let them keep the full box and you take a new one and fill up with more books (clever business idea, huh!) You don’t have to push your heavy box around to browse more titles like last year while worrying that others will steal your books..haha!

As expected my son was not too happy being in a crowded place like that. We have to take turn to entertain him. If only there are more stalls selling snacks and bottled drinks outside of the halls. There was no stool or bench where waiting customers could sit. If there are more kids friendly facilities at the sale, I would have stay longer and buy more..sob sob!

Overall I am glad that we made it to the BBW first day sale. We managed to get a lot of books that our son loves like CARS, Thomas, Handy Manny and Mickey Mouse. It would have cost us a lot more if we were to buy them at the local bookstores at retail price. Thanks BBW for your effort! You have helped subsidizing our beloved son’s early childhood education by making books cheaper and available in Malaysia..(yes, some of the titles are only available by direct import.)