Sofa

We finally made our first furniture purchase for our home...


this sofa model in a PLAIN darker beige material.

I sure hope it gets delivered:
- on time
- in the correct colour, material, measurements
- without defects, insects crawling out(!!!)

I've heard/read too many complaints about horrible furniture malls/shops.

CPF-poor

Looks like we'll only be getting the keys to our flat on 15 Jul 2009. Our runway with the flat is really short!


We took half day off today to go down to the HDB Hub at Toa Payoh for our first appointment. It involved 8 people (excluding HDB personnel) and the whole process took 2 long hours. I'm horrified at the amount of paper HDB uses!

Building a collection

Edmund and I went to visit my cousin Karen tonight. She'll be off to Canada with her family for the next 4 years and there's a lot stuff they don't want to keep. She invited us to come pick whatever stuff we need.

We came home tonight with kitchen knives, utensils and cutlery, pretty bowls, WMF pots, brand new Ikea wine glasses and tealight holders.

We also "choped" her drying rack, VAX machine, dust buster, electric kettle, Corningware, woks, Ikea stools, cordless phone, lamps, etc.

Karen says we're doing her a favour while Edmund and I feel really blessed to have people like Karen help us as we start from scratch.

Junk

Since starting my new job, I've been consuming a lot more unhealthy food than usual for the following reasons:-

1. My colleagues enjoy fast food! Strange!
2. When I am stressed/sian/upset, fries/chips/ice cream cheer me up

This is so not a good time to be getting hooked on to junk food. I feel like my double chin is growing on me!

I asked Edmund to stop offering to buy me McDonald fries. He knows it makes me happy.

Here's a list of foods a wedding website said I should avoid:-

* Fried foods (My comfort food!!!)
* White cream sauces (I love carbonara sauce, tartare sauce, mayonnaise)
* Butter
* Desserts (I have a separate stomach dedicated for desserts!)
* Sodas (I've been drinking a lot of Sprite lately, but I believe this would be the easiest to avoid)

ARGH!

Shopping Kaki

We celebrated Carol's birthday in advance tonight at Prego's.

Carol is my shopping kaki. She used to also be my cut-hair kaki until I started to keep long hair. Carol has a good eye and I love shopping with her! Carol is going to follow me everywhere on my wedding day!

I don't dare to post a in-your-face photo of Carol here, cos she might don't friend me anymore! ;p

Sharon was joking that this shot looks a bit like our wedding rehearsal dinner.

I will miss these people whom I've grown up with when I move to another church. Sure, we can still meet up for dinner every now and then BUT IT JUST WON'T BE THE SAME. Don't try to convince me otherwise!

Off on a tangent, I like the tiramisu at Prego's.

Today?!

I seldom remember my dreams.

Last night, I dreamt that I woke up on a Saturday morning and jumped out of bed asking myself if I was getting married today. Thoughts of ‘could it really be today?’, ‘so soon?’, ‘so exciting!!!’ came to mind. That’s all I remember of the dream.

I’m looking forward to the wedding even though there’s still a lot of things we haven’t done. Not sure if I’m in denial, but I’m not gan zheong YET. Maybe must wait till July or August! Ha!

Sharon, you need to bug/remind me about the things I need to get done.

Eventful day

Visit to the new house:
We started the day by popping over to our new house to take measurements and photos. The seller was in the thick of packing so the house was rather dusty and messy. So glad dad and mum came along to help us take measurements!



Wedding 5:
Then it was off to Ron & HP's wedding solemnisation and lunch at Meritus Mandarin. I love the ballroom there. This was my 1st time having a full 8-course dinner menu during lunch! The food was GOOD and I thought the wedding favours were pretty. Didn't get any photos with the bride & groom though.


Wedding shoes:
Since parking was already free from the wedding lunch, I decided to hunt for my wedding shoes at Orchard. My colleague told me about a shoe shop called Anna Nucci at Far East Plaza. She'd gotten her wedding shoes there for under $100. However, when I went there, I couldn't find Anna Nucci. I ended up walking into Mondo and coming out with a pair of strappies that I think I can wear for the wedding. Edmund was really patient as I went from each shoe department and shop.

Not as nice as these I borrowed for the pre-wedding shoot though! However, I don't think many people will see my shoes! [Photography by Dominic Khoo]

Furniture browsing:
We went to The Helping Hand, LifeStorey warehouse, and 2 other furniture stores at Kaki Bukit Enterprise One.

Renovation forums:
We were seriously considering taking up a package from Mode Studio cos it sounded really worthwhile. I guess it was too good to be true cos I came back and found tonnes of bad reviews of it's sister outlets under different names. Sneaky!

From the renovation forums, I found a few furniture shops that were recommended:
1. S&C at Blk 338 Ang Mo Kio Ave 1, #01-1647
2. Yi Sheng Furniture Blk 399 Taman Jurong Shopping Ctr, #01-01
3. Univonna Pte Ltd at Sunget Kadut Way, Furniture Mall at Beach Road & Blk 54 Chin Swee Road

Veil

Several months ago, I mentioned to Chris that I had half the mind not to wear a veil down the aisle. Why, you might ask.

1. What on earth is the veil for? There are so many things we do traditionally at a wedding that no one seems to know why we really do it. (eg. cut cake, pour champagne down a pyramid of glasses, couple intertwining their hands to drink champagne, yum-seng, etc)

2. How to get good photo shots of the pretty bride's face if she has a veil over her face while she makes her entry?

3. It will blur my vision. I want to see everything clearly, not through the tiny holes of the veil. I can't even stand it if my fringe is near my eyes.

Aiyah, then Chris mentioned that the veil is worn to symbolise the virginity of the bride. I know it doesn't really apply in this day and age... but what if some traditional person ends up getting stumbled cos I didn't wear a veil?!?! ;p

Haha! Generally I don't see any use or beauty in wearing a bridal veil. Very romantic meh?

I think Edmund is a little bit worried he wouldn't know how to put the veil properly in place after lifting it. I warned him not to leave my veil hanging in mid-air after lifting it! ;p

Day gown design

Thank God for friends with good taste!

Alice and Carol came down with me to see the gown designer tonight. The design of the gown has been finalised on paper and I've gotten my measurements taken.

Happy! :)

Now must pray that the gown turns out what I envision it to look like after it goes on my body!

Here's the sketch of the 1st design that got scrapped when I realised that wearing a ball gown is not really me even though it's got a really grand effect.

If only I could sketch like that!

We ended off the night at Macs with hot fudge sundaes and fries! :)

Go Live!

The female colleagues in my dept made sure we went home on time last night to catch the wedding live on TV. Edmund wanted to go to Courts to look at stuff but for the 1st time in 2 years, I told him that I REALLY wanted to go home to watch TV.

The men cannot understand who would want to watch somebody’s wedding live on TV. Well, I think many women in Singapore wanted to watch it. Even my mum joined me!

I wanted to watch it mainly to see what she would wear and thought it would be fun to spot Dom on TV.

I quite enjoyed the coverage of the nao men and what went into preparing for the wedding. But it got quite draggy when the 3 male tv hosts went round asking celebrities to give their well-wishes to the couple. B-O-R-I-N-G!

Some personal thoughts:-

* I like bling-bling!

* Poofy ball gowns are not my thing

* The cost of the flower deco that supposedly could buy you a car failed to catch my eye. Then again, I’m so not a flower person.

* Michelle was radiant and looked like she was having the time of her life, but Shaun looked really really tired and almost washed out. 1st time seeing the groom trailing behind the bride cos of her poofy dress. Usually it’s the bride trailing behind cos she’s struggling with her dress

* I love her buffet dessert idea (cos I have a separate stomach for dessert) although I couldn’t imagine how 800 people were going to get their dessert without being in a big human jam. Anyway, most hotels’ desserts cannot make it.

* It’s so much nicer and orderly walking down a church aisle compared to a banquet hall aisle

* Having too big a bridal party or too many photographers/videographers can really get in the way and make things look really messy/chaotic

* I thought it was tiring and back-breaking for Dom to run ahead, squat/bend, shoot, repeat that, make way for the camera (whom I believe had priority), and jostle a place with dozens of others wielding cameras, all night.



Edmund’s thoughts:-

* He is so glad my family is not traditional and that he doesn’t have to sweat it out in the nao4 men2 process

* Michelle’s attire was too short, skimpy, sexy, low-cut, revealing... you get the picture. (That’s my uncle!)

* He cannot understand why we girls must change so many outfits during the wedding. (If I had my way and more money, I also want to have more outfit changes! ;p )

* He liked Shaun’s grey suit although the practical side of him would never have chosen to make a grey suit. (I like the metallic grey suit too!)

The 1st thing my female colleagues talked about this morning: the wedding.

From scratch

I don’t visualise things well from verbal descriptions and drawings. I need to see the real thing, or at least photos of the real thing.

We were suppose to finalise the wedding gown design tonight, but when I saw an actual photo of the gown the designer had suggested and I had agreed to, I realised that was not what I had in mind.

Though Corinna was really nice about it, I felt bad that she had to go back to the drawing board to come up with more designs cos I didn't know what I wanted now anymore.

Poor Di Jing who came along with me after my last-minute appeal had to gobble her Subway dinner, get lost with bad-sense-of-direction me in the car to the designer’s and watch me make no progress in my gown matters.

This is such a small matter but I went home tired and discouraged! My job is getting the better of me. It’s sapping my energy. It’s killing all the fun. With work stress, the lack of sleep and time, I half wished I could just pick a gown off the rack. Honestly, I feel really sian about wedding preparations tonight.

I must have sounded pretty down in my sms to Carol, cos she gave me a really encouraging reply. She said that starting from scratch is hard, but the end product will fit you like a glove. I sure hope so! Well, at least that sms gave me a glimmer of hope! It also reminded me that when I went to try gowns off-the-rack, I didn’t find/see anything I really liked anyway.

My tiredness and fussiness is making me oh-so-confused!

Medical Report

After more than 3 months of dilly-dallying, we finally went to collect our medical reports from Dr Leong last night. We registered our names at the clinic at about 7pm but only got to see doc at 9.45pm. *fainted*

Even with many patients waiting for him, doc still takes his own sweet time explaining stuff! It’s great when you’re inside his room hearing his detailed explanations. It’s horrid when you’re outside waiting to see him! All my favourite doctors are like that!

Edmund has been bugging me to get my cholesterol checked for the longest time. As expected, my bad cholesterol level is a little bit above (+5) the acceptable range. I was pleased to hear doc say this is no cause for concern. Too bad Edmund thinks otherwise.

The couple medical checkup is good for those who want to know how their current health might affect your kids in the future. 2 areas of concern arose from our medical reports.

1. Allergies – asthma, eczema & sinusitis

I suffer from all 3 of the above while Edmund has eczema & sinusitis in severe degrees! The medical report showed that our eosinophil readings are high with Edmund’s over the normal range. In the natural scheme of things, our future babe will really ‘kena’ from our bad genes. Doc’s recommended solution? Breast-feed for at least 2 years. (plus prayer to break all unhealthy traits from passing down!)

eosinophils are white blood cells that are one of the immune system components responsible for combating infection and parasites in vertebrates. Along with mast cells, they also control mechanisms associated with allergy and asthma

2. Thalassemia - an inherited form of anaemia caused by a deficiency/faulty synthesis of haemoglobin (the blood protein that transports oxygen to the tissues)

I was hoping the test would confirm whether I have thalassemia minor or not. However, doc said this wasn’t the actual thalassemia test. Edmund definitely doesn’t have thalassemia so there’s no danger of our future kids being born with thalassemia major (this requires regularly blood transfusions for life!)

My haemoglobin readings are very very low. This is the reason I’m perpetually sleepy and always yawning. At first I thought it was thalassemia minor since some of my dad’s siblings have it, but it seems my readings are worse than most people with thalassmia minor.


Doc has put me on abimin pills for 3 months. He said that I need to get my iron levels up otherwise it wouldn’t do me nor the baby good when and should I get pregnant in the future. Currently, I don’t even have enough for myself, so the babe won’t have enough (baby would be very small and under-developed cos of the insufficient oxygen).

I know this sounds crazy, but I’m pleased that I now have a valid medical explanation to why I’m sleepy all the time.