Flower Power

Guess what I got yesterday?

He came back from work yesterday and gave me a bouquet of flowers and then told me that he had to go down to the car to take some stuff. When he came back up, he got another bouquet of flowers for me! yay!

I was worried at first since we only have 1 vase and Iv got 2 bouquets. Luckily the vase tht we have is big enough for both of them. Im grinning from ear to ear. ;)

Sorry but I dont have the pic of all of them in the vase. I uploaded the pic and only then I realised that I havent taken any pic of the vase yet.

Great Monday

What a day to start the week! When I checked my email today, one of them came from my brother Rizal who as mentioned in my previous post, is now in Sudan. He is doing well (alhamdulillah) and already started his duty after his 2 weeks induction though it is apparently very hot there and also very dusty.

He also has a question for me which im not sure if I know how to answer so Iv decided to post it here and hopefully will get a few feedback from my readers.

He's planning of visiting Europe sometime in early August for about a week. Now, Iv only been to a few places and it was in May when the weather was nice. I know for a fact that August is the hottest month of summer. So, I really need some advice on which part of Europe should he go to. he has never been to any part of Europe before so a detailed info would be very much appreciated. Please leave a comment or email me your advice ok? You can find my email add on my profile. Thank you everybody!

All About Food

Ehem ..... did you know that you can find all my food-related posts here at Salt & Turmeric? ;)







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Weird Incident and Stolen Bike

Yesterday around 6.30am there was a knock on the door. Luckily the apartment has a peep-hole so we dont have to open the door and there was a man in white t-shirt standing outside. I asked who he is and here's how the conversation goes;

Me : who is it?

Him : Maintenance, ma'am

Me : at 7 o clock in the morning? (it was actually 6.30)

Him : yes ma'am. The unit under you has a clogged sink. Pls do not use the vanity sink for now.

Me : err, ok.

Well, I just thought it was weird that the maintenance guy actually came tht early in the morning. And clogged sink, though sucks when happen, is not a matter of emergency. At least not tht it had to be fixed at 6.30am! You know what I mean? There is another sink in the kitchen. I would understand if the toilet is clogged. Or the bath tub coz we only have one each.

So I called Michael at work to let him know wht happened and he too finds it weird and remind me again not to open the door to strangers esp at 6.30am. He was worried but I assured him that I will call the office to check if indeed there was a work done at the unit downstairs so early in the morning.

Anyways, I called the office at 9 something and was informed that there really was 'emergency' work done and tht guy was the maintenance guy. What a relief! I did tell her about my concern when someone knocked on my door at tht hour though.

Iv been feeling a bit jumpy lately. We'v lived here for almost 2 years and like it here, despite the high rent and small sqft, it is in a safer neighbourhood. Nothing bad happened until last weekend when our motorbike which were parked on our underground lot and behind our car got stolen. It was not a brand new bike neither an expensive one but it sucks still when someone stole your stuff! We called the police to report about it so that we are not liable should anything happen involving the bike. (yes, i pray tht something would happen to the person/s who stole our bike!)

Im not sure if this incident is related to the declining of economy. Maybe it is maybe its not. But one thing for sure, for the last 3 weeks, everyday there is a report about murder fr an 11-yr old boy to older people.

Health Tourism and Cheap Flight to Kuala Lumpur

Did you know that Malaysia, besides the majestic twin tower, is also famous for being the go-to place for makeover vacation? Makeover as in you can do anything from general surgery to eye corrective surgery to dental treatment to fertility treatment and the list goes on. They will also arrange your accommodation throughout the treatment and recuperation period to fit your budget.

I first heard about this just before I came to the US but I thought it was just for plastic surgery (like changing from b-cup to dd-cup, :P) and only in Penang. Now you can do everything in Kuala Lumpur and stay at 5 star hotels like the Ritz-Carlton and Sunway Lagoon Resort. So if you're planning of vacationing in Malaysia, you can kill 2 birds with one stone. ;)

And guess whatelse I found out on the net today? The flight from LAX-KUL on MAS is going for USD 768 for the months of Mar-May, USD 938 for Jun, Jul and Dec and USD 843 for Aug-Nov. All with taxes included. Go to farecompare.com for these prices.

No. this is not a paid post. Just doing my bit in promoting Malaysia. :P

Values

Some says USA is not in recession while most economist are saying, yes we are. Whatever it is, the housing market is down, has been going down and those who bought a house between mid 06-07 are either in foreclosure or going into one. People are losing jobs due to down-sizing and these according to the news include some 1600 teachers in O.C. alone. How are the kids going to learn if there's not enough teachers to teach them??? Dont even start talking about those in banking line.

Buying a house is very much a mantra for american, the american dream. Though I think its everybody's dream to own a house be it american, canadian, malaysian or singaporean. The problem comes when the desire to own a house cloud your judgement. There is no low-cost or medium-cost housing here. Everything is market value. If the house you're eyeing costs 400k and you're earning 130k/p.a, can put down 10-20% for down-payment and have good credit score, you can easily get the loan with low interest rate. Nothing wrong with that. The problem is when you're earning 80k (or even 130k), have no money for down-payment and have low credit score and STILL insist that you want to buy the house. The real estate agent and broker will find somebody to give you the loan that you needed so you can buy the house with a much higher interest and/or another loan (of course with even higher interest) to top-up the first loan. This is what I really dont understand. Why insisted on buying a house with a high interest NOW when you can rent, fix your credit, save some money for down-payment and THEN only think about buying a house? Or better still, start saving the money, secure a job in another state and buy a house there. Even better if you can save enough money to retire somewhere in Asia (Malaysia!) where cost of living is much cheaper. I so wish we could do that someday! Suami ku, dengarlah jeritan hati ku (o husband, listen to my cry) :P

Anyways, usd is going down, again. As of now, us$1 is about the same with a$1 and about c$0.985. Maybe its not even surprising if usd would go back to rm2.5 circa 90s. Good for Malaysian but very bad for us here earning usd. tsk tsk tsk! And this is what I found on the internet yesterday, "Antique store owners in lower Manhattan, ticket vendors at India's Taj Mahal and Brazilian business executives heading to China all have one thing in common these days: They don't want U.S. dollars." You know that when they dont want to accept usd anymore for the entrance fee to Taj Mahal that it is bad!

If the above is not enough, the gas price as of Tue Mar 11 was at 3.45/gallon for the cheapest kind and at the cheapest gas station. I will keep you updated on this the next time we had to fill up the tank. Let's all start crying together-gather! :P

Have a great weekend everybody.

My Eyes Need Help

Iv been wearing glasses for maybe 10 years now. I think I started with wearing contact lenses and then only with glasses. Of course during those times, the craze was all those colorful contact lenses. Yup, everybody wants to wear either hazel or blue or aquamarine. And that 'everbody' included me lah. After awhile, which basically means after my eyes started to bleed, literally, I decided that maybe its not a good idea to continue wearing contact lenses thus beginning the era of glasses. Gosh, i spent waaaayyyy too much on them. When you were single and earning your own money, there's nothing much to do than spending your hard-earned money either on yourself or on your nieces and nephews. True???? :P

Anyways, lately Iv been thinking about giving contact lenses another chance. So last weekend we went around to find a place to do an eye exam. the first place that we went to was the one near our place, which is at the mall and for the eye exam (for contact lenses) alone they wanna charge us almost 200 (without insurance) and with a year supply the total would roughly be around 400. We would have done it there but Iv already checked with a friend and other place and even without insurance it only cost around 80-90 for the eye exam. Lesson learned, do not fall into buying this optical insurance. You dont need them! Seriously.

We finally found one at Walmart and for the exam we paid 90 and it will be 25 for a 3-mths supply. So that means if i wear them everyday, the most that I would spend on contact lenses will be 100. A total of 190. Half than what we would have to fork out if we didnt know the whole truth about optical insurance. I have to thank Julita for letting me know about this since back in PA we used to have the insurance and to do my lousy no-brand glasses with no-glare coating, we have to pay 100. If i wanted no-scratch glasses, gotta pay another 50. What a rip-off huh?

Now, my problem is that I still cant get used to wearing these contact lenses. That day it took me almost 5min to take them out and I was already freaking out. I kid you not. The next day when we were about to go out, I only managed to put 1 on and not the other so I had to take it out since I cant be wearing only 1 side, right? Didnt try yesterday but today I decided I have to keep on trying. That I did, successfully. Putting them on that is but I still dont feel comfortable as in while im typing this, I feel light-hearted but when I look up to the tv, its ok. Its also clearer.

So, is it just me or is it really me?

Letter to My Friends

Dear friends,

I would like to thank you all for the friendship, support and concern that you've shown me even when you dont really know what was going on. I really appreciate all the kind words, emails, smses and calls. *hugs* I would also like to apologise if I 'missed' some emails/calls/msgs. It was not intentionally done.

Though im back to feeling somewhat normal again, Im just not ready to post anything. My heart is not ready yet. Dont worry, im not planning to shut down this blog (yet) and I promise to come back my new posts as soon as I can. In the meantime, you'll still see me around. I may not be posting anything in mine but I do visit your blogs. ;)

I am also thinking of posting some password-protected posts but not sure how to do them. Your advice would be very much appreciated.

Love and hugs

Farina