Free fruit for kids at Woolies

It's only this year that I discovered that Woolworths gives free fruit for kids accompanying while grocery shopping! So, now whenever we are at Woolies, the kids get their choice of fruit from the allotted baskets (usually it's a choice of either a banana or an apple). I commend them for doing this incentive. It is a healthy snack option - we all know how kids are always (as in always!) hungry. We all know how impatient kids can get while grocery shopping! Offering this healthy treat is a good thing I cannot stress enough. I wish they have this in Manila too!

Ironic the healthy treat stand beside the chocolate treat one! At Macquarie Centre

Gowns and Diet

Gown shopping is super fun, but sometimes it is hard to decide which one to take when you like them all!

Just wondering which one will bring out the "slimmer" me or which would flatter my body type. I guess it's not about the gown sometimes, I should really stick to my diet! My best friend's wedding is exactly a month from today!

So heavy!

I've got about 3 and a half weeks left before I pop, and I am feeling so heavy and immobile. It's quite a challenge to leave the house and run my errands such as my Christmas and baby things shopping. I've done a lot of online shopping which is okay and convenient, but not as great to see things live and get to take it home straight away! But with the heat, and the weight I don't really have a choice. I did sneak out to buy some of our friends' gifts in the city.. and just took a cab home amidst 31 degree heat! I so loved the cool aircon inside the cab! I immediately had some ice cream when I got home just to cool me off :)

Finally!

After months, long hours, sleepless nights .. I managed to order the major furnitures for baby's room!! :) So very glad. Am happy, I got to order all that I wanted. And, it will be delivered in three days!
There are a few other pieces that I ordered .. I can't find decent photos of them. Hopefully I get to post a picture of the nursery once it's all done! Am so excited!!

Sooner than later

Sooner than later I think I would be wearing maternity clothes! So, I enjoy browsing through the websites that people have referred to me. What I like are the ones which don't look old fashioned or too eccentric (if there are any!). I am also leaning towards more dressy type of clothes that come in light or pastel colors. I wish I could find some outfit that I could wear to work, especially during winter season. I guess I still have to do more research to see what would suit me. I really need my sisters with me when choosing what would look nice in a baby bump fashion sort of way!

Making my life easier

Recently I discovered online grocery shopping at Woolworth's HomeShop website. I usually like doing the grocery when I am not pressed for time, but sometimes it can be a painful chore. Especially when it's time to buy rice/detergent/etc (this can be gruesome taking it home-living without a car can do this). So now I have the option of doing my heavy shopping online, and have someone take it straight to our apartment! Another plus, is that I can just browse through weekly specials in one go. You know how while at the supermarket it can be overwhelming seeing all the stacks and shelves of goodies. One can easily miss out on things, or forget stuff to buy.

I love it that I can just click one button if I decide not to buy a certain item. I can even double the same item in one hit. Overall, I guess Homeshopshopping is just an alternative. Nothing beats the therapy of going through aisles and aisles of actual goodies.

Shopping day

Today was shopping day for me and hubby, and I think it’s one of those few days that we actually both bought stuff we wanted. Usually it is just him who gets to purchase, and I, being the stingy one opts to window shop. Today also is the longest shopping day that we did not even have a tiny bit of argument about waiting while the other shopped! Have reached the point where we need a Debt Consolidation Loan to get through this recession? Not really. We have swiped our cards a fair bit, but we know our limits and how much we can afford. Maybe when we decide to purchase a car, a debt consolidation loan would be handy! For now, I have already paid our credit card bill so until our next shopping spree day!

Our new baby

Okay, it's not really mine. But this now means hubby and I are able to surf the net on the couch together! Hehe! We bought a very portable Dell Inspiron Notebook. It's only 8.9" and is I think 1 kg. Very handy for those out of town trips as well. It's only for browsing and surfing the net as the hard drive memory is only 16 GB. We have an external hard drive to store our files anyway so that is not an issue. We wanted the white one, but they did not have it in stock so we settled with black.

What new gadget have you bought recently? I am not really a very techie person, but since I am married to one my tech knowledge is increasing over time!

How do I undo?

How do I un-memorize my credit card number? Now, when I find something online and I want it bad (or not), I have to count to 100 to try and resist the temptation!! Yikes!!

In the beginning, I thought I would not belong to this group of people, like my clients, who've memorized their numbers by heart. As if it was something precious to them. And now, I am surfing the net for this make up brand, and I am tempted. Should sleep it off. Tomorrow, maybe I would have forgotten. Or, maybe not.

(disclaimer: i am a responsible credit card owner with none or little balance off my card. :) But still, perhaps it's low EQ that I have).

Loving my flats

Ballet flats. I remember having a fascination for ballet flat shoes when I was young and studying ballet. I loved the way the shoe turned magic on me as my classmates' eyes were on my feet doing my ballet walk and run. Those were the days.

In high school I had the chance to revisit using ballet-like flat shoes that were sold by Sari Sari/Cinderella. I loved how they would curl up, just emphasizing how comfy the bendable soles were.

In college, I had a bit of a break from flats. I enjoyed my chunky shoes then. Clanking on my feet, making me appear taller than usual. It must have been a phase.

When I moved here five years ago (my anniversary is actually today!!) I was so into pointy heels. Then, came the walking. Walk to the bus stop, walk to work, walk up the hill. I beared it all, until I became practical and went back to loving my flats.

The past recent years I have revisited wearing my flats and find it really comfy. I keep a few heeled pairs underneath my desk at work, for those impromptu meets and others. Once I opted to wear my flats to this work function. I was the only asian girl! And while having cocktails and chatting, I felt all the Aussies towered over small me. But I managed to pull it off well, so I loved my flats even more.

This weekend I bought two pairs of flats. Nothing expensive just a gray coloured one and a brown one. I love how I can just slip them on, with anything I am wearing.

After my purchase my boyfriend and I went to another shoe shop: Shoe Box. There was this cute cute black heels that caught my eye (this doesn't happen very often anymore-especially for heels). I was tempted to buy it, to replace my stock underneath my work desk. But I just bought two pairs a few minutes ago. I resisted, but right now I am wishing I have bought it.

I am loving my flats, but once in a while the lady in me wants to prance around in my sexy heels.

Are you a bag, shoe or jewelry person?

I probably own about 30 pairs of shoes, more or less ( I think it is more though). I don’t know how it’s come up to that number, although I guess because I have shoes to suit different moods I am in. Just like my bags. I probably have about the same number of bags. They both come in different colors, shapes, and sizes. When I like something, for example shoes, I buy them in different colors of the same design, just to match the different bags as well.

Having said that though, I am not really much of a shopper. But, when I start, I really shop until I drop. Although I realize that I am not the best shopper particularly of baby presents. I find that each child is different and I don’t want to give the usual stuff that the baby may already have. I think a shop selling customized baby gifts would really be helpful during shopping dilemmas like these. Personalized gifts for baby would really be appreciated by the parents (also known as my friend/s) as they would feel that thought was given to choosing the best personalized new baby gifts.

When I was thinking what to buy my goddaughter of course I thought about getting her baby shoes, but then she’d just outgrow them. I ended up just getting her this really nice precious pearl earrings that were small enough to suit her baby ears, but big enough for her to use when she gets older. I really hope that she likes it.

Sunnies for a holiday?

I don’t know about you, but I have this thing for nice sunglasses. It does not have to be expensive for it to appeal to me. Hubby bought one for himself last year, and I think it’s about time that I look for a new one as well. Something that will suit all my attire should I be going away on a holiday again anytime soon. I’ve read that zennioptical.com has got real nice and affordable fashionable sunnies. I would definitely check that out.

TV or Couch?

I’ve been looking for new furniture to match my somewhat small couch. It has been so long that I’ve wanted to buy a bigger couch but then due to financial restraints, I am torn between buying a bigger couch or a new home theatre appliance. Part of me wants to just keep my old seat, and buy a big plasma television and DVD Mini Theater System. However that means watching my favorite movies in a really nice screen, but scrunching while seated in my old couch. I guess I can’t have everything, or at least not yet.

For now, I am satisfying the need to shop by just searching online through Shopwiki, which is a really great site. Instead of having to go through individual shop websites, shopwiki captures them all for me, by listing different stores and their bargains for a plasma television. I actually found a Panasonic 42” Plasma TV that might actually fit my budget! I will have to discuss with hubby though if we are able to make this purchase now or whether we should just wait for our tax return money. I am keeping my fingers crossed until then.

Being a travel agent

Last night I was researching on hotels for my trip to Mauritius, as well as other travel details such as what to bring, what the weather would be like, etc. I couldn’t be more excited to travel to this place. It’s not one of those places that people usually visit. I’ve read that celebrities have their honeymoon in Mauritius, or just go to the island to hide away from it all. I will be going away for about 7 nights in a few days time and since this is for work, we are staying at cool five star hotels. When I say hotels I mean quite a few. We’d be staying at four different hotels. This doesn’t mean though that we’d see only four, because in my job, when we are sent overseas to inspect hotels we’d have a taste of a few, but are most likely to visit more hotels than where we're staying at. Particularly the ones which we sell a lot, or those that belong to the same market we sell. For example, if we were to be sent in Italy to see Venice, Rome, and Naples, we would most likely check out a fair bit of what Hotel Venice, Hotel Rome, Hotel Naples are like. This is one of the perks of being a travel agent. We get to see places, hotels, or experience tours all because we need this in order to be better at our chosen careers. To travel for free, well sort of. I only chipped in about 100 dollars for the entire trip; meaning includes flights, meals, accommodation, etc. That’s a decent amount if I may say so, considering it would be pure luxury that we’d be experiencing. I think I’d spend a lot more than that on my shopping to buy clothes to wear while I’m there! Well I couldn't wear something too plain while sipping cocktails at the beach with some celebrity!

Black friday goodies

I am not really someone who's very into shopping online, but if it saves me a considerable amount, then I will by all means use that. I have found out when doing Christmas shopping it is best to do it online on black friday as they are the official site for all black friday advertisements for 2008. When is black friday? If you are not familiar to this term at all, it is the day after thanksgiving. It is the day when you can shop at your favorite stores online. Imagine not having to leave the warmth of your home, but being able to do all your shopping in one go. There's Toys'R'us for the kids, Macy's for the teeners, Office Depot for dad or hubby, and just so much more deals. For one not to forget this special black friday event, you can even subscribe to them and they will take care of reminding you about your black friday shopping date. I think I know how else I can make shopping online on black friday even more special and fun! I could probably invite a few friends over. Since I've got wireless internet, we could all gather at my place and do our online Christmas shopping at the same time while chatting away and munching some goodies. I actually think that is a good idea. Now, I would just have to subscribe to their email alert, and wait for D-day.