The Nest

Enhancing Mobility for the Handicapped

garynchris — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:44:16 +0000

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of NMEDA. All opinions are 100% mine.

In a way, I’m blessed that I was born perfect and no one in my family was handicap until two years back when my grandmother had stroke. Since then, she was mostly stuck at home and we always bring her out during the weekends. Initially, it was a difficult process because we didn’t know how to handle her and we were blessed that we managed to hire a helper to take care of her and this helper has experience in handling handicap and the elderly. My grandmother is not a plus size person but when a person is unable to carry her own weight, she can be very heavy. We usually bring her out on Sundays for dinner and we always have to plan ahead on where to go and whether it is accessible for her especially shopping malls. Shopping malls are a little tricky because we don’t have the handicap sticker. So, unless the guards see my grandmother alight from the car, they would think that we shouldn’t park on the handicap parking lot (which I agree is fair). Therefore, we usually get someone to go grab a wheelchair, come to the car, drop her off and then park the car. It truly takes a lot of caring and giving and sometimes I wish Malaysia is more handicap friendly. But whether it is or not, my grandmother deserves some freedom instead of being stuck at home.

NMEDA

Free Wordpress Themes

garynchris — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 06:39:43 +0000

there will come a time that i need to change the theme of my blog especially when i’m feeling bored. and that’s when i’ll go in search for free wordpress themes (because i’m obviously not paying :P) that i like. this usually prove to be a difficult task but google helps. and after countless searches, i will usually chance upon something that i might just like. but, i also hope that there will be free wordpress templates for you

Losing Weight

garynchris — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 08:34:19 +0000

I’ve been trying to lose my postnatal weight (if you can call it that) after my previous miscarriage. It just seemed that after a miscarriage, the weight just seemed to stay and not go away. It was easier to lose weight after giving birth than a miscarriage especially if you miscarriage after the first trimester which I did. I’ve tried exercising but it didn’t work because I didn’t have the discipline to begin with. And I’ve tried cutting down on my food but failed because there’s just too much good food around. I’ve tried bringing food from home for lunch so that I limit the amount I eat but when a colleague says, “Let’s go for lunch here and there”, that’s it! My food from home will end up being my domestic helper’s dinner. Poor thing! And I recently went to Koh Samui for a holiday and that’s when my diet went havoc. So, I came back and consciously tried to reduce the food I eat and watch what I eat. Breakfast is now raw oats. Not too bad and if I’m still hungry, I eat nasi lemak. Oops! And I managed to lose 2 kgs so far. Phew! But, if you’re having problem losing weight and watching your diet, you may want to try weight loss for idiots.

koh samui & hatyai holiday :)

garynchris — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 09:13:12 +0000

it was a spur of the moment decision to drive to koh samui with my hubby’s boss. in fact, the decision was made two days before the confirmed “departure”. we quickly got the car insurance for driving into thailand and packed our bags the day before.

we left our house at 5:45 am and met up along the NKVE at 6:15 am. had mcdonald’s for breakfast. and thank God we did because lunch was at 7 Eleven in thailand. the next stop was at the donsak pier to board the ferry which was at 5:00 pm (thailand local time). and by the time we reached our hotel on chaweng beach, it was like 7:30 pm. that’s a long time for a journey! by the time we had dinner, we were so tired.

the next day, we rented a motorcycle and went around town. during the ride, the conversation was:

LF: mom, car seat!
mom: motorcycle has no car seat
LF: mom, car seat!
LF: mom, fireman sam (indicating to the cartoon that he could watch from the car’s DVD player)

thereafter, he didn’t want to get onto the motorcycle anymore. so, we had lunch and headed down to the beach. spent about 2 hours on the beach and back to the hotel for a nap. we had dinner with hubby’s boss and family.

we had almost the same routine everyday whilst we were at koh samui. for the last 2 nights that we were there, we went to the ark bar and the ice bar. LF didn’t like the ice bar much because it was at -7 degrees celcius. hahaha!

LF with his new float

after 4 days at the beach, we were ready to head home. on the way back, we stopped by at hatyai for 2 nights just to take a break from the long journey.

Mummy & LF at the Ark Bar

I Signed Up for SocialSpark

garynchris — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 07:28:18 +0000

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of IZEA. All opinions are 100% mine.

after much proscrastination, i signed up for SocialSpark in order to earn that extra bucks since i blog anyway. however, in order to sign up, you will need your own blog domain and not using blogger.

however, if you’re concerned about your privacy and etc, you need not be as SocialSpark has its Code of Ethics to protect advertisers, publishers, bloggers and tweeters. yes, you can Sign up for SocialSpark if you’re an avid tweeter too. how great is that to tweet and to earn cash?

in the beginning, i thought it would be a very tough process and after using payperpost for sometime, i thought, why not just try for this? and i found that signing up process fairly simple. the only obstacles i face is probably getting on the blogrolls so that my blog qualifies to post for money.

so, if you see me posting adverts, please bear with me. i find it thrilling to earn money whilst blogging and using that money sitting in the paypal account to do all my online shopping especially when i need items from overseas such as that okkatots travelling depot bag i got recently. can’t wait to use that!

durian prince

garynchris — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 04:40:32 +0000

the durian season is here! and that’s usually good news for my family as we love durians. and it became the best news for LF. he just loves durians. of course, we try not to give him too much because we’re afraid of it being too “heaty” for him. yesterday night, i brought home a durian to be shared between gary, LF and myself. LF waited for an hour and the half and refused to drink his milk until he got to eat the durian. and he kept pestestering gary, “dad, durian”.

a weekend of celebrations

garynchris — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 02:54:27 +0000

last weekend was packed with celebrations. saturday was my BIL’s marriage registration day to his wife, yukie. we were at the Buddhist Maha Vihara Malaysia temple at brickfields before 10am as they were going to start at 10:30am. but, who would’ve thought that the marriage registrar only got there by 11:30am. by that time, both LF and my nephew, LV (not louis vuitton :P) couldn’t sit still in their sits anymore. sigh…. but, the whole thing began and after a couple of minutes, my BIL and yukie have been made husband and wife legally. the customary one will follow on 2 october 2010. we went for lunch at dragon-i and there were close to 30 of us (both sides of the family plus friends). as usual, LF had to have his routine at the toys department and once he got into the car seat he conked out. even i conked out when we reached home. we got up only at 7pm and had simple dinner at a malay restaurant. i love these restaurants where they charge RM3 per dish of chicken, vegetables and eggs. and a little bit more for fish. and LF love the way the fishes were fried.

sunday was a day of celebration for princess miu miu who turned 1 month old. the proud parents of princess miu miu had a celebratory lunch for her at oriental banquet, pj. LF was particularly excited to see so many babies younger than him. and he has decided now that mummy can have a baby as opposed to “no” before that because he was afraid mummy doesn’t love him anymore. he’s pretty mature for his age, seriously.

a conversation with the kiddo

garynchris — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 07:22:12 +0000

recently, LF has picked up many words. his vocabulary has improved tremendously that i’m unable to document them anymore. but i’m able to remember certain conversations with LF that gave me a shock:

me: where did kakak tia go?
LF: home (meaning indonesia)
me: why kakak tia go home?
LF: daughter “ekh” (die)

me: please put it back into the kitchen
LF: put here

me: popo marry who?
LF: kung kung
me: dad marry who?
LF: mom
me: po tai (great grandma) marry who?
LF: kung tai (great grandpa)

saving with coupons

garynchris — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 03:00:11 +0000

many years back, when i was still single, i never knew the benefits of coupons. i used to think it’s a waste of time. but recently, when i had to purchase some sympathy flowers for a relative residing in the US, i scoured the internet for coupons either for free delivery (as delivery can cost up to USD 14) or for discounts. i finally managed to get a coupon for 15% off. phew!

one of the places i scoured was at savings.com coupons. at that time, i was searching for 1800flowers.com coupons and glad that i could grab a coupon from savings.com coupons to get 15% off the flowers because if i were to convert to MYR, it made quite a difference. the other site that i like looking at is home depot. and at savings.com coupons, they also have coupon for home depot. i guess i can’t use this much now since i’m residing out of united states. but perhaps, i could purchase something for LF using the old navy coupons. hopefully, they’ll have discounts or free shipping for international purchasers. that’ll be the best news for me.

a trip to the warehouse sale

garynchris — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 09:00:50 +0000

the only warehouse sale i make an exception to go to is the CLARKS warehouse sale. most of our shoes at home are clarks… either bought at the warehouse sale in 2008 or from their boutiques. ever since we discovered clarks, we hardly buy shoes from anywhere else unless they’re given to us like lewre and pedal works (because i won them during contests). hehehe!

so, i took leave and went down to the warehouse sale at corus hotel, kuala lumpur. we arrived at 10am and only managed to get in after the long queue at 11+am. once we got in, we saw everyone trying shoes at the centre of the ballroom. after trying on a couple of pairs, i was ready to leave with a pair for myself, LF and 2 pairs for gary.

My New Pair of Shoes