when i was a SAHM

my last post before abandoning this blog of mine 2 years ago was about hiring a maid/looking for a baby-sitter/daycare centre for my twins before their arrival. i was about 3 months+ preggie at that time. we took our own sweet time as we had plenty of time to waste then.

one fine day, i received first hand news on our company restructuring plan and gotta know that my dept would be eliminated mercilessly! boy i was feeling terrible about losing my job and was really lost, couldn't figure out as to how to continue living with additional expenses when the twins came along. however, at the same time i was jumping with joy! it was a mixed feeling, but the feeling of being on top of the world was perfect on the day i finally received the confirmation. to me, the baby-sitter search was put to an abrupt stop! i was going to take care of my twins MYSELF! that means i was going to be a full-time mommy! i was elated, over-joyed, thank god for granting me my wish!

life didn't come easy after that...and i don't mean financially. i was a full-time mommy for a period of 10 long months! and what did i learn after that? never to become a stay at home mum again!

i was really drained to the max, going to bed with flat battery everyday. sleepless nites, pumping milk every 3 hourly (as a result of 100% breast-feeding to twins! i kid you not!), having meals at the oddest hours --> breakfast at 12pm, lunch at 3pm, dinner at 9pm, supper at 12am, waking up at odd hours, stop going for facial sessions for 2 years (stopped when i was in my 3rd trimester), looked skinny (as the hokkien says 'skin wrap bones'), sunken cheeks, looking really exhausted and as if i was suffering from a cronic disease (yes, that's what my friends asked when they saw me in the malls). i lost quite a great deal of weight. from a pre-pregnancy weight of 50kg to 78kg; my last weight on the day before c-section, to 45kg 3 months after delivery. i was considered under-weight for a year plus; couldn't fit into my old clothes and was looking physically ghostly! i rarely took any phots at that time, that's because i really looked like a ghost then!

i have been dieting all my life but to no avail. i thought i was going to be on diet till i reach 50 years of age, luckily giving birth helped me lost all the unwanted weight. but i didn't like it. i lost weight too drastically, it made me looked so much older than my true age. i wasn't taking care of my physical appearance then, i didn't since i wasn't going anywhere, just stayed at home all the time, with the usual routine trips to mum's & in laws' on weekends. that's it. then i got scared that i would look anerotic so much so i started eating like a pig. i would have 2 helpings for each meal, topping up with snacks in between. for the first time of my life, i wanted to put on weight!! it was fun O.o

well, i started putting on weight after i stopped breast-feeding. i'm now back to my normal self, but with 2kg below my pre-pregnancy weight. it was my wish weight! when i was dieting, i always wished for 47kg weight...and now i'm at 48kg and still increasing. i'm not complaining, in fact i'm way too glad to be what i am now. at least i look fleshy - a bit and i like the way i look now. i love myself minus the bulging tummy.

happy new year 2011!!!

thank godness i don't earn a living blogging. i've been wanting to start my own blog since aeons ago; well, actually i did have a blog before. started so eagerly when i was 3-4 months preggie??? i don't remember anymore. i always thought that the blog would still be there all the time, so i would be able to continue "blogging" anytime i want in future (in this case, future never came till today). guess what! i procrastinated 2 years!!! my favourite phrase is: how time flies like nobody's business! i blogged halfway in the middle of my pregnancy, stopped due to laziness and was hopeful i can continue when the lazy bug went away but it didn't!!! i wanted to capture my preggie moments...didn't quite make it. i wanted to blog again after giving birth...didn't make it also. and now my twins are 20 months already. blogging re-appears in my 2011 resolution list, i'm 3 days behind time now :(

well, actually i wanted to continue using my old blog. tried extremely hard to recall the login id & password but couldn't log in! so i created a new blog and started a new post and halfway typing, i went back to the login page again & tried to re-login, IT WORKED!!! so i copied & pasted this post into the old blog. yippie!!! what am i going to do with my newly created blog then? ooppss!! will figure out later how to delete the new blog.

i'm finally blogging again...i'm soooooooo proud of myself for the strong determination! kudos to cindy!!!

hiring a maid

i was chatting with my aunties a couple of weekends ago and upon learning that i'm going to have twins, they shared with me a brilliant idea (well, the idea is brilliant according to them, not for me though) on how i should go about handling the twins; as in who to baby-sit them after i finish my maternity leave.

they suggested that i should hire an Indon maid, it's definitely much more cheaper than sending the twins to the baby-sitter. the current baby-sitter market rate that i know from my colleagues are ranging from rm550-650 for daycare only and rm750-850 for day & nite care, per month, per baby. baby-sitter only takes care of the baby and that's it. we still gotta supply them the babies' daily neccesities and after adding all the cost up, all that would cost a bomb to an ordinary employee like myself & cl. so there they are, bringing me the maid-hiring suggestion. not only the fee is cheaper, a maid also takes care of the babies and helps around with the housework and probably cooks too. that would help ease my burden a lot. if i'm concern about having the maid alone at home with the 2 kids, i can always send her to my mum's house which is just across the road from mine. she can be stationed there from morning till evening and i could fetch 3 of them back to my house again after work. this routine will be repeated daily.

as convenient as it might sounds, the idea doesn't sound a bit compelling to me and my mum at all! why, my mum has gone through her days with the maid and she has vowed never to have maid anymore for the rest of her live. that maid would be our first and last one we'd hire. thus, we both are not even considering what my 2 aunties were suggesting. interesting stories about this maid of ours will be in another post.

both aunties of mine even did a calculation on how much i could save up if i get a maid for 3 consecutive years; renewing her contract for another 2 years after the first. money is one thing...never-ending headaches & problems are another thing. after hearing horror stories from those who've maid at homes and encountering one myself, it's a big no no. i can't imagine while you hope to ease your burden from hiring a maid, in the end, you end up solving problems created by her. i would rather send my twins to the baby-sitter, i haven't decided whether to send for day care only or day & nite care (day & nite care would be my choice, if only my financial situation allows it). or may be i can be a full time stay at home mum..who knows. i have about 6 more months to decide what's best.

by the way, i found one confinement centre that provides child care too. day care for rm500 and day & nite care for rm900. probably i can do some bargaining with the boss and get some cheaper rate for sending 2 babies. i'm going to visit the home again next month and place my booking if everything goes well.

long lunch break

lunch with my dear friend was a long one. i left from my office at 11.35am, reached the mall around 11.50am (thanks for tailing behind 2 cars which were hogging the road), had lunch till 1.45pm and finally back to work at 2.15pm. even so, we didn't get to finish our chat as both of us have lots of stories to tell! imagine we haven't updated each other for >2 months now :P

we didn't go to sakae sushi. my friend suggested wong kok restaurant when i called her before leaving the office. i had seafood cheese baked rice with plain water :( simply because the set that i ordered came with only 2 choices of drinks; coffee & milk tea. i can't take both at this time, and i didn't want to order other drinks which are normally too sweet to my liking. plain water was a right choice as it helped washed down the generous amount of cheese from the baked rice.

my friend has gone back to her normal shape, just a little extra fat here & there but i guess that's normal considering she's not a small frame person. she told me she's got 10kg more to lose. her baby will be taken care by her sister who is a full-time housewife, so i'm waiting to see how long does one who doesn't take care of the baby herself take to go back to her normal pre-pregnancy weight. :P

i can't wait for her to go back to work so that i have one more person to chat with during work. hopefully i can get helpful baby tips from her *wink*

gosh...my life is gonna be all about pregnancy & baby now. but i'm loving it!

my dear friend is back!

last nite one of my friends sms-ed me asking whether i wanted to go lunch with her. she's my dear friend who's going to finish her maternity leave soon and will be back to the reality a.k.a working world again next week. i quickly replied her yes! i haven't seen her for months now, even before she went to deliver, i really wonder how she looks like now. she told me she needs to groom herself thoroughly before going back to work. she's just trimmed her eye brow, has an appointment with the hair dresser on thursday and now the most important thing is to look for new clothes to wear! that's really a lot of shopping to be done...women just love it (only when they have nice figure to fit into easily).

i've seen many ladies still spotting big tummy after coming back from their maternity leave. i dread that moment myself, but don't think i could help it, could i? i do not have a big frame, thank god for that, but that doesn't mean that i don't put on weight easily. eventhough my tummy is still not that visible at 4 months, i guess my butt expands faster than my tummy!!! that's the first thing people around me notice when i was confirmed pregnant. sigh...

back to my lunch date later on, i'm still thinking what to eat. my friend has asked me to think about it, oh, i'm craving for japanese food as usual :P been eating sakae sushi for 2 consecutive weeks now...but i'm still not sick of it yet! another week of sakae sushi....whee!!!

the shocking good news

i still remember the day i went for my routine pregnancy checkup at week 7. it was just another normal checkup and as usual, i prayed for my baby to be growing healthily. that would be the only words that i would want to hear from the gynae. never would i thought another good news was in store for me on that fateful day! i had always hope for a pair of twins; so that i could kill 2 birds with one stone :) but it was just merely a wish, nothing more.

was i shocked? i definitely was! my heart was jumping with joy. when i regain my composure, the thought of bringing two babies into the world at one time does give me a little scare though. the diapers, the bottles, the sleepless nights, etc...and i begin to wonder, how on earth are we going to cope with 2 babies? i had no idea how it would be like but hearing my sister's daily rant, i know that whatever she faces; i would face it double. little did i know at the time that the most stressful part of having twins was already upon us...the pregnancy.

this is my first pregnancy and it's going to be one very exciting journey!! i'm all geared up to enjoy this long 9 months journey already. whee!!!

just some casual rants

lately i've been feeling rather tired. is it due to pregnancy or am i mentally exhausted from looking at the pc too long a period; both at work and off work? i guess both factors do contribute a lot.

i've been feeling rather nausea too. this is definitely one the pregnancy symptoms. my colleague told me that this feeling would last until i deliver. godness gracious! it's making me very uncomfortable!!!

do other mothers experience this too?

still the sick me

i went to the doctor the previous night; actually it was never my intention to visit a doctor despite what i've mentioned in my previous post. i kept on thinking that the sore throat would go away soon and bring all its friends along. normally, it always goes away very fast even without any visit to the doctor or taking any medication; just a couple tablets of vitamin C + panadol would ease the discomfort away. this time i thought no exception.

but after work, cl told me that he wanted to see the doctor. he's down with cough and since he could make use of my medical benefit meant for dependant, why not take advantage of it?

so there we went hand in hand to the same doctor. i went into the consultation room first. told the doctor that i've been having sore throat & blocked nose and it irritates me a lot when i couldn't breathe properly especially at nite. he checked my tongue and told me it was just a mild sore throat, nothing to be worried about. then he checked my nose with a torch light. he exclaimed 'wow! so congested!' i was taken aback by what he said, congested? did he mean that i didn't clean my nose properly and it's full of nose shit that he couldn't see what's inside??? oh my god! so embarassing! he added, 'your nose is swollen inside'. ahhh...swollen, that's why it's congested. phew! i have a swollen nose, how weird! luckily it's only swollen inside, not visible outside.

the doctor then took my body temperature. i had slight fever. hmm...i didn't feel that i was having fever. i mean you could feel it right if you have fever. but nothing of that sort. he asked me if i needed a medical leave the next day. surely i grabbed at the opportunity. i didn't ask for it, he's the one who asked me if i wanted it. *grinning from ear to ear*

so there i was, having a good day rest at home yesterday. i slept till 12 noon, it was the most soundly sleep i had since ages. after waking up and did some house chores & had lunch, i went back to sleep for another 2 hours till 6pm, waking up just in time for dinner.

life is a bliss if only i could just sit at home resting until i deliver...*day-dreaming again*

the sick me

it started with a mild sore throat, and then the sore throat got worse. that was just the beginning, i just knew it. after that, other friends came along...blocked nose, cough, flu. arrgghh!!!

i'm having difficulty to sleep at night due to blocked nose. i think i'm going to the doctor tomorrow and get a mc. looking forward to sleep late tomorrow morning. it soothes my mind thinking of not having to work tomorrow :) ...yea, i know, the lazy girl thought, as always.

the lazy girl workout

i was flipping through jaya jusco's bi-monthly PEARL magazine (may 2008, issue 42) and came across a very interesting article titled "lazy girl workout".

the below extract caught my attention:

"vacuuming, tidying up and getting through a pile of dishes will burn up around 100 calories in just 20 minutes!"
with such a busy schedule, who could blame you for not wanting to slog a few hours at the gym?

learn how to get a great body without spending hours on the treadmill!

exercising and getting fit doesn't have to involve hours at the gym but do realise you have to do some form of exercise! writer Deborah English puts in aptly when she says, "don't believe in the old saying: there's no gain without pain. lazy girls can get fit too." our body can thrive on a little of the right type of exercise, a healthy dollop of recreation and plenty of rest. apply the following suggestions to your life and before you know it, you'll be fit, healthy and raring to go!

do housework if the last thing you want to do is go to the gym on the weekend, get stuck into the housework before you have breakfast. vacuuming, tidying up and getting through a pile of dishes will burn up around 100 calories in just 20 minutes! don't underestimate the workout you get while cleaning and tidying up the house. your arms get worked as you clean the windows and mopping the floor works your waist as you move your mop from side to side to get all corners after a hot shower and looking around clean, guilt-free house. so, you will be killing two birds with one stone - getting a workout while getting a spotless home!


when i was about to get married, i had an extremely vigorious workout at the gym almost everyday! i could burn up to 800 calorie per workout! that's a freaking half of the total calorie needed by a girl in a day. i had a very fit body then, all parts & curve were nicely shapped & toned. i was getting so slim that my colleagues commented that i looked too skinny already and that i should stop working out and eat more instead. wow! that was the best compliment that i had and what more, a very strong reason to indulge myself. life was a paradise then.

of course i didn't indulge myself crazy as my wedding was just around the corner. i really didn't want to end up looking like a coprse bride either so i worked-out & had normal portion of meals everyday. i had to have rice during lunch; well, i tried staying away from rice and just had some noodles for lunch for sometime and guess what, i couldn't even bring myself to burn 300 calories. i just didn't have the energy to brisk walk on the tread mill. finally i learnt the tricks - consume carbohydrate during the day and eat a smaller portion for dinner. and most importantly, no food intake after 8pm.

after i got married, the mission to maintain my body figure did not sound so compelling anymore, thus i stopped doing workout altogether. people were saying that for those regular gym goer, once they stop doing workout, they will bloat like nobody's business. thank godness it didn't happen to me. i did not officially go to gym for workout anymore but i did what the article above indicated. i did lots of housework to keep my home spotlessly clean. whilst doing that, i was burning calorie unknowingly. the only difference is that i couldn't keep track of the amount of calorie i burn and i don't sweat as much anymore. nevertheless, i still feel great & satisfied especially when my house is squeeky clean after all the cleaning.

home alone 3

i'll be alone at home for 2 days from 21-22oct08. why, cl is attending a very prestigious forex course organized by the forex academy where we attended the previous fundamental forex course.

we had been thinking hard whether or not to take up this course as it's not cheap at all; a 2-day course costs a whooping rm11,888 per person! i know, it's a sum of an apartment downpayment for some. of course, what we had in mind was to send only one of us there, we really can't afford to go together! finally after a long long thought, we decided to just go for it. it might be tough to finance such a costly course at this time, with the babies coming and all but if it would give us a good investment return, why not? a little sacrifice made for the long run. alas, we made the hardest decision of the year and prayed for the best.

it seems that the minimum investment profit that we could reap after attending the course would be 30%! wow!! isn't that great? i shall wait for cl to come back tomorrow and tell me how great the course goes.

i'm very very excited to reap our very first 30% ROI - the minimum :) well, i've managed to reap >20% ROI last month after opening my first live account... but didn't do quite well this month due to sheer greediness. oh i really regret my action and hope that i could turn back the clock. however, what's done can't be undone anymore; perhaps a story for another time.

would cl help me to gain back my losses? *fingers crossed*

my company annual dinner

i’ve been working in this company for 5 years now and tonight, the company is going to reward me for being such a loyal chap for 5 unbroken years of service. HR has just sent out an e-mail a couple of days ago informing that we could go home at 4pm to prepare ourselves for the function; namely Axxxx’s (company’s name) Nite … Axxxx’s Million Smiles. i like the name given. sounds creative, isn’t it?

just about a couple of weeks ago when i first saw the e-mail invitation, i didn’t have any mood to attend at all. in fact, i wasn’t in the mood to attend all the wedding invitations as well; i received invitation from a long distance cousin’s & another 2 colleagues’ oncoming weddings (though i haven’t received their invitations, i had already thought of a few excuses to give them when the time comes :P)

now, a couple of weeks later, i found myself looking forward to attend these functions again. weird… i know i’m a fickle-minded gal, i could change my mind within seconds the fastest! probably at that time, i was always having stomach discomfort & loss of appetite due to pregnancy. i was at week 10 then.

i’ll be heading to the hotel (where the banquet is held) right after work. nay, no time to wash up but i did brought my facial traveling pack & makeup set along. let’s see if i have the mood to touch up myself later today.

more posts & hopefully pictures of the annual dinner to come soon.

lunch

i'm beginning to get sick of my workplace canteen food. for few months in a row, i've been eating in.

the reasons?
1) blame it on the weather - it's so freaking hot in the noon these days that i rather eat in to avoid myself from mr. sunshine. i don't like the feeling of feeling sticky & sweaty after coming back from outside lunch; it's hot one minute and cool another minute; i get headache & the idea of going home for a snooze would grow stronger then. no thanks

2) unless there's a special occasion to be celebrated, we would end up in the food court. it's always the same food court from a limited choice. eventually, i would end up eating the same food as i normally have for weekends (weekends are when i don't get proper home-cooked food; it's my mum's rest days). sigh...

3) if it's me who suggest to go out for lunch, most probably i'll be the one driving. the idea of not getting a good parking spot when i come back doesn't sound so appealing. more often than not, i gotta park far far away from the office entrance and walk all the way under the freaking hot sun to reach the entrance. by then, i would be drenched in sweat and my face, oh, don't mention it. the amount of oil coming out is enough to fry an egg. yucks!

4) eating out is so expensive nowadays, that a simple meal from the hawker centre easily costs rm5 the least, drinks included. whereas all i need to fork out eating in is just a mere rm1 the least as my company is so kind to give us a daily food subsidy of rm1.50 per head. isn't that nice? (fyi, the food subsidy has not increased since how many donkey years ago. only the food price increases over time...duhhh). how pathetic is that?

there are so many disadvantages of eating out. but still, why do i still want to eat out???

some 'cute' people i met

have you come across someone whom after explaining something to her uncountable times, she still comes back to you asking the same old silly questions? i ain't no teacher and i ain't no trainer in this case. i was just trying to explain something to this friend of mine since July (now it's mid Oct) and i could hear myself repeating the same words for a few months now, everytime she asks me the same thing. either she's dumb or she just couldn't comprehend what i was telling about. or did i mumble something alien to her?

how pathetic and she's getting on my nerves! the worst thing is i couldn't just tell her to get out of my sight as i'm a civilised person; i handle things with high EQ. oh my god...everytime i hear her voice, it makes me wanna box her right on the face.

*chanting endlessly in my mind -- i have high EQ ... i have high EQ ... i have high EQ ...(scratches head profusely)

we hit the jackpot!! it's TWINS!!!

a day after i was discharged from the hospital, i had an appointment with my gynae (this was supposed to be the next appointment that i had with him before my sudden admission into the hospital). guess what! my gynae said he's seeing another featus inside my womb! i wasn't very surprised indeed as i had suspected that my bleeding wasn't the normal bleeding, it was similar to that of implantation bleeding. however, i wasn't too confident when my stomach had a severe period cramp and the bleeding came later. did the second featus just implanted himself (use of noun does not indicate any gender bias here)? was that the cause of all the huh hah that got me admitted into the hospital? i was certainly very very glad that it turned out to be a happy ending afterall. well, at least at that point of time.

my gynae, being a very straight forward person, told me that the second featus might be the main cause of the bleeding that i had. he wasn't too positive that it will last, looking at my condition, but all we could do was just to pray for the best. it hadn't shown any heartbeat yet, so i was still keeping my fingers crossed. hopefully in my next visit, both will be doing good. they just have to be progressing well. because mama said so :)

2 days raya break! it's a holiday!!!

the last break we had, if i'm not mistaken was the merdeka replacement holiday on monday which gave us one extra day break prolonged from the ever short weekend. i've been waiting for another break and was eager to take a day's leave or two just to relax at home, away from the hustle bustle of the morning traffic. but, why waste my leave unnecessarily?

finally, after a long wait, the raya holiday is here. i had intended to do a little spring cleaning today but as i woke up in the morning, i had a much better idea. why not go unwind in the shopping mall. i haven't gone shopping for a long long time, and now it's a good time to hunt for discounted clothes, i'm sure the shopping malls would try to lure their patrons by doing a raya promotion, won't they? moreover, most of my clothes can't fit now, my belly is showing a little bulge now that i'm in 10 weeks. 10 long weeks and it's just the beginning. and my pants, oh boy! i can't button them now. even my mini skirt looks like bak chang when i wore them. it made me felt very very uncomfortable. i can't breathe properly in it! it's a good excuse to change my wardrobe now. yippie!!!

follow my conscience

i was certainly glad that i did not enter the tues, 23sep08 daily bread. it took 3 days to close the trade and it was a LOSS! a clean loss of 108 pips. duhh...thank god i followed my instinct. so i shall never enter any trade when i don't feel like it. *do not trade emotionally*, so adviced my trainer.

on the other hand, there was another daily bread on thurs 24sep08 and i felt good to take it. pop! i won 38 pips or usd35.73! nay, it didn't increase my previous ROI of 8.7% to a higher rate, coz in between, i lost 3 trades totalling to a whooping 132pips! my profit is now at 5.96% only ...sob...sob...sob...i lost 2.74% overnight. i know, this is no big deal and it can be earned back in no time.

i have another 2 more days to hit my target of 10% ROI for the month of sept. wish me luck!

first lost in daily bread

i entered a daily bread on 22sep08 and lost it for the first time in my live account. it costs me 119 pips of loss in total, amounting to usd88.79. however, thank godness i entered 2 lots using the downtrend abc (abc is the name of the stategy) and profitted before the daily bread loss. hence, i made a total net loss of 83 pips, amounting to usd54.87. not too bad, it's all part & parcel of forex trading... yesterday, 23sep08, there was a daily bread too but i didn't feel like trading it. it still hasn't profitted yet at the time i'm typing this post. i see that it's still a long way to go.

anyway, as of 24sep08, exactly one month into trading live, i've made a nice profit of 8.73% (usd172.78). my target is 10% monthly but this is definitely waaayyyy better than all other investment tools in the market, don't you think so?

*reminder: please go for proper forex trading classes before you start to trade. it is very very crucial*

another superb profit!

i just have to record this down! yesterday, thurs 18sep08, i won a total of 174 pips per day!!! i used only 2 strategies on 3 trades and i won all of them! this is not by sheer luck i tell you. this has proven that the strategies work! it really really works and i can't believe that me & cl, 2 investment idiots before this, could actually do this well in forex. i know it's still too early to tell as we're just less than two months into trading live account. but, with our solid trading plan and consistent quality trading, i'm sure we're one step nearer to our goal.

forex rocks!!!

916

916 has come and gone. nothing has happened yet...we're still waiting.