Mandy the domestic wife

I feel so rusty since I've not blogged for about 2 months!

Was talking to Encik Mulut-Manis (he might want to remain anonymous thus I won't mention his name here) on MSN the other day and he said it's a sad time for 'mankind' ever since I stopped blogging. Hmm. Expressive, isn't he? With such guilt (mankind!), I decided to visit my blog again and pen down few words.

And guess what? I found out that I couldn't view my edit taskbar previously due to my extinct IE version where it's now working well with Mozilla Firefox! So erm.. yeah, USER error previously. Oops. Me bad. Someone said Women and Computers = Disaster. Looks like I fall into that category in bringing shame to my fellow sisters on Earth.

OK, putting aside my pathetic excuse for not blogging, life's been pretty boring here in Aussie land. As it was winter (June-Aug), weather was not much of a help to excite my life here since all I feel like doing is sitting in front of my heater! 11 days into spring now, but the weather's still pretty much unchanged. News reported that this yr's the coldest winter in 34 yrs and we had several coldest-day-in-xxx yrs as well this month where the temperature here is way below average.


Winter @ Kiama


My typical week for the past few weeks besides working:
<> Monday - Back from work, Cook, watch project runway from 8.30-9.30pm and then read magazines if there's no other interesting TV programs to watch
<> Tuesday - Back from work, Cook, watch American Top Model from 7.30-8.30pm and then Australian's model search and then Beauty and the Geek.
<> Wednesday - Back from work, Cook, watch So you think you can Dance (season 4) America (My fav program of the whole week!) and then loiter around and play with Chooey and Hubbii.. hehe..
<> Thursday - Back from work, then out for late night shopping. Shops close at 9pm once a week, so have to take the opportunity to shop!
<> Friday - Back from work, usually go to in-law's place for dinner and then it's hubbii's footy nite. Footy games from 7.30-10.30pm. I'm usually asleep on the sofa by 10pm and hubbii will wake me up or carry me to bed if I'm too sleepy to move
<> Saturday - Sleep till 11am, then out to shops for more shopping. We usually explore different shopping malls on Saturdays and catch a movie at nite too, or meet up with Brad's friends.
<> Sunday - Sleep till 11am (hubbii has footy till 11am), then out to buy house necessities or clean the house and then go to church. Usually dinner with in-laws too.

*yawn*
Domestic life, ain't it?


Me pushing the litehse at Kiama - this was in July BTW

Yeah, too domestic that I'm getting bored and building up fats! I guess life would probably be better when the weather's warmer.. then we can go chill out at the beach and watch hot bods running around, playing frisbees etc. Ah. Can't wait!


It's not an ugly rock. Check out the next photo on what it could do....

I told hubbii last month that I need a break. So we decided to take a short break next month, we're heading to Auckland! My mum in-law is actually from NZ thus she'll be going over to visit her siblings next month in time for 1 of the relatives' 50th marriage anniversary party so we decided to tag along.

Imagine, married for 50 years! I find that it's a blessing for any couples who could reach 50 yrs together not just because they could tolerate each other and stick to their wedding vows, but more on the fact that both are still alive then! With the current trend of one's life span, I'd be happy if I could reach 70 healthily!
Maybe it's something about the life quality in NZ.. 1 of Brad's aunt's still healthy at the age of 92 - she's living by her own! *salute*


It squirts! hehe.. this is the BLOWHOLE at Kiama

Besides looking forward to warmer weather and my Auckland trip, I'm sooooo looking forward to going back to M'sia next year during chinese new year. Yes people, I'll be back for about 3 weeks! Am looking at spending quality time with my parents, loitering around at shops, visiting friends and relatives, eating all my fav local food (YUM YUM, I could just start writing the list of stuffs that I wanna eat already!), spending time with my doggies for about 1.5 weeks and then work from the M'sian office for the other 1.5 weeks.

Am counting down the days!

That's it.. am closing down this blog!

Dear friends, family,

Looks like I need a new blog - perhaps something without a counter on how many times you blog in a mth! The editting task-bar has gone away for good where I'm not able to edit the fonts nor post up any photos.. sob sob.

I guess I'll continue blogging either by creating a new blog or just do it via facebook. I'll keep you guys posted. I need a darn broadband connection in my apt!

Life here in Aust is gradually improving, although I haven't found a buddy/girlfriend whom I could go shopping and do girly stuffs with (where I can ditch my hubby for a day or so!), am just taking it slow and enjoying each moment I have here. I get my 'alone' time whenever he plays footy (twice a week) so it's good as I could just blast the music up and dance like a mad woman without him laughing and shaking his head OR stealing my thunder by dancing more lunatic-er than me!
My next task to do here is to get my driving license and of course a car so that I could just do stuffs in my own pace and not depend on my hubbii... can't wait!

Alrighty, till my next update on what's happening (on new blog), do take care y'all!

Love,
Mandy

The buttons have dissapeared!

I think my blog's not happy that I'm blogging only once a month. The button for any editting's dissapeared! I can't change any font format nor upload any photos :(

I had an interesting weekend but it ended with a sad news i.e. my mum in-law's admitted to the hospital for an operation. We're going to visit her later before the operation so pls pray for me that she'll be OK.

It aint' easy but that's life

I have to admit that settling down in a foreign country for me has been quite a challenge. I recall having the same homesick-feeling when I first went to Manchester for my bachelor's degree.

The Manchester experience
The 1st day experience in Manchester was an eye-opener for me.
Everything started from the moment I stepped into the airplane (British Airways) where I was sobbing silently in my seat staring blank as back then, there weren't any individual TV screens in their economy seats. Imagine 18 hrs without any entertainment. Small little space.

And then my hand-carry bag got confiscated and checked-in causing some fragile stuffs that I had in it to break into pieces. Followed by a bad case with the cab driver bringing me in circles. And then trying to carry 35 KG luggage + 12 KG handcarry into a small hallway space all by myself as it was midnight when I reached my student apartment. Man, those were horrible memories that I'll never forget as I just broke down into tears when I saw my small squashy room!

The Aussie experience
Not anywhere close to my Manchester experience as I had my wonderful hubby to pick me up, carry my luggage, fetch me home back to our apartment. I was not too bad the 1st 3 days when we started to look around for stuffs to build our love nest, but after that, it suddenly struck me that I've moved to Sydney for good. I'm not here for holidays. I'm not here for a short term assignment. I've moved here for good to start a life with my hubbii!


Hubbii tired from all the furniture-carrying

With those thoughts in my head, I was constantly comparing life here and life back in my home cty and it was NOT a nice feeling to have. My mind kept reminding me that I wont be seeing my parents as often, I won't get to hug my dogs, I won't get to hang out with my bestie, I won't get to do stuffs independently and due to that, I got depressed.



Us after a long day of carrying and assembling our furnitures!

Depression lead to constant argument with hubbii as I was just being sensitive about almost everything. It's not a lie that I loved how my life was before I came here. When hubbii wasn't 'giving in to me' in any scenarios, I'll start to wonder whether it's worth it that I left my comfortable life back home to come here, 8 hrs flight from home, to be with him. My financials were divided into 3 (exchange rate) and it sux knowing that I don't have as much money as what I normally had.

I never had problems with jealousy. I'm the type that's fine with my other half looking at chicks (as I would probably be looking as well - you know, it's a gal thing!), hanging out with chicks or even having chicks as a good friend. The only thing I would ask of him is that he tells me about it. To me, being open and frank is the key to trust. So I've never had any doubts with hubbii.
But somehow my mind started to wander away when I found out that hubbii has been constantly emailing this chick that he hung out with (along with his other friends) when I wasn't here.

3.5yrs of long distance relationship and not a single doubt but BOOM! 1 week of being here physically with him and I started to doubt him.
I did not doubt nor felt anything when he told me about it during our long distance daily calls & smses but somehow my mind just wandered away with all the depression I had then.

I wanted to leave so badly.

I was sobbing away during day time when hubbii was at work while I was stuck at home alone. Kept thinking to myself - why why why?

Thankfully, we managed to talk it out and now, things couldn't be better between us!



Our love nest

I learnt that I have 2 options -
1) I can either sulk and complain about everything here while not making any efforts in meeting people where I'll just be in my small little world with hubbii, OR
2) I can embrace the challenge, learn the aussie culture to fit in and make the best out of what I can do here.

I chose option #2 and I'm glad and thankful that God gave me this opportunity. No doubt I'll continue to miss my parents & bestie but at least I get to sms, email or talk to them whenever and where-ever I want to!

Camera USB received!

Wee! I just received my camera USB connector from my bestie today so I should be back in the blogging biz very soon!

Life here has been pretty slow paced. It's almost 3 weeks that I'm here but it feels like 3 months. Guess 1 late nite shopping day in a week is not helping much :(

Nothing beats home back in Malaysia. Truly.

Anyway, I just started my new job last friday. I have not read this much of materials and performed this much of online courses since Uni days! Was supposed to go to Shanghai for a biz trip but due to some hiccups with the visa stuffs, my trip was cancelled. Then due to internal lengthy processes, I just got my email ID but nothing else on my 3rd day of work.

OH WELL!

Will be back soon with photos!

I'm down under

G'd day, mates!

Yes, I'm finally here in Sydney. Still in a daze although it has been 5 mths since our wedding. The days prior to my move here was so darn hectic that my brain is still trying to register what's happening!

Have got a few photos here and there but right now, can't post any as I'm using hubbii's comp lap top. I need to settle down alot of stuffs before I could get myself a new lap top and then blog my time away! wee!

My apartment is nice and cosy, kinda empty for now as we're still sourcing for more furnitures. Building our 'love nest' is not easy, as both of us have different taste when it comes to decoration! Hubbii is more into earth colors - he likes everything matchy-matchy such as dark brown with ivory with light brown. And oh, and red too (since red is a bolder color of brown, really.... ); whereas I like lively colors such as blue, green, red, white - basically a combination! But I don't like my hse to be darkish as it tends to give me a 'moisquito-field' feel. Plus I think it's quite depressing to come back to a dark house during winter... gloomy.. eeek... but well, hubbi loves dark stuffs!

So how do we compromise? I'm leaving the guest room and study room for hubbii to do most of the stuffs where else I'll have more say for the living room and of course, our bedroom.. :D
Shh.. I haven't quite told him yet, so don't blow away my secret on how I'm gonna get that my way! hehe..

So much to blog about, hopefully I'll settle all the important stuffs and be back to blog with heaps of photos soon!

This is it!

I'm official categorised under the unemployed section.

No more waking up at 7.45am everyday! Well, at least till I find a new job down-under!
1.5 weeks to go till my big move. I can't believe how fast time's flew by. It has been 5 mths since my wedding, and now, finally my move.

me @ office on my last day of work

Sadly, I didn't really get any farewell lunch or dinner from my boss prior to my leave. I understand that it's a busy month end closing but hey, I think they should at least do something for someone who's been with the company for 7yrs! Good thing is I had separate lunches with close colleagues. Guess that's what matters ey? Not quantity of people but the quality.

Also, my singapore team sent me flowers - sweet of them! I really didn't expect that and I think my boss was kinda 'shy' when he saw that my Singapore team did something for me, but nothing from his dept. Oh well.

So what did I do today, being the 1st day of my unemployment?
Well, I slept almost the whole day! Man, I can really fall into the hibernate category. I really wonder if I was a bear or similar in my previous life.. HMmmm.

Oh, and YES, I chopped my hair off. Was bored of my long hair. I actually wanted something funky like Rhianna's but my hair stylist ended up giving me a school girl bob-cut! :( *SIGH*
Hubbii wasn't happy at all. Since he had not seen me with short hair, and he being a typical i-love-long-hair-girls kinda guy, he said I look weird. And complained saying now ppl will think that he married an underage gal! blah blah.... somehow I just can't be bothered of what he thinks these days. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that we're married.. haha.

Oh well, it's just hair. It'll grow and I WILL get my funky hair style soon!