Just regular folks.

So I started to knit my socks from the supplies given to me by my sweet Secret Pal. I have to admit that when I used the size 2 needles, the gauge came out to 8 stitches per inch instead of 7 per/inch as requested on the pattern. I kind of shrugged and thought that I’d just multiply everything by 8/7 and everything will be OK, and then I realized that it might be a screwy thing to do to the pattern and I might not want to mess around with fractional stitches on my 2nd project. I finally noted that the pattern said, “for a tighter fit, go down one needle size”. I figured I would just make pretty tight socks and forget the multiplication. So I started knitting in the round with these little tiny needles and little tiny yarn. It was OK going, and I think it looks OK, except that it looks really, really small. I think I’ll have to upsize the needles to match the gauge. These socks are going to take me a long time to make and I want to make sure that they fit. Jeremy laughed at me and told me that they sold socks in the mall next door for one dollar. Bleh!

We went to McDonald’s on Sunday. Vince was not at all happy on Sunday because Saturday was so exciting that he forgot to sleep and eat, so by noon on Sunday, he was a whiney kid. So we went to McDonald’s and sat there for 45 minutes while he recharged on nuggets, fries and orange juice.

Then we took him to Gymboree downtown, which he loved, but asked to go home after 40 minutes because he was so exhausted. At home, he took a nap, which was good because we went to our neighbor’s daughter’s 21st birthday party. It was held in the funtion room of our condo complex. Every weekend we see people having parties in the room and every weekend we lament that no one invited us to their party. Finally, someone did and we had a really nice time. They had a lot of food catered in and we met our neighbor’s whole extended family. It was really sweet.

I was born with feet that flare out. As a result of this, I walk like a duck. When I go to sleep on my back, my feet flare out and go past the V position and almost rest flat on the bed. My shoes always wear unevenly.

Edda has inherited my feet. Look at this crazy picture, her feet are almost in a straight line. I think this makes it harder for her to balance which is the skill that she’s working on this month. She spends a lot of the day standing up and holding onto the couch, the bathtub, the wall. And for the most part, she’s always leaning forward, her weight firmly on the thing she’s leaning on. But about once a day, I see her lean backwards and fall on her butt. I know she doesn’t like falling, but at least she’s learning more about how to balance herself.

It was a pretty busy weekend…

Friday was sleep over night at Choon and Pei Sun’s place. I made a lemon tart that I have to say didn’t look very good, and was okay tasting. The crust was definitely the best part. The filling had 2 cups of sugar and a cup of corn syrup. nice!

anyways, we grilled on Choon’s new wedding present from Lynn and Jack. The conversation revolves a lot around home buying and home improvement since, well, everyone’s married, and either just bought a house or is looking to buy a house. haha. we played some bridge, played some taboo, played some Crazy Taxi on the Dreamcast. We ate a lot. Pei-Sun made some creme brulee and some other custard desert. Lynn made a coffe cake.

We stayed up until 3am. weee!

I was a bit toasted for the Saturday, going to work. Also this whole ramadhan fasting thing was getting hard.

Saturday night, i played some tennis with choon and folks. I was wearing jeans the whole time, and i had to pull up my pants every 5 seconds. hrm.. I think I’m going to get a tennis racquet soon enough and start playing some consistently.

Sunday was lazy day, as I’m at home checking my fantasy football stats. it’s sorta sad. I told myself that i wouldn’t be a slave to my fantasy sports team, but as it turns out I am. I watch too much ESPN Sportscenter now… blah.

tomorrow is move day, just going to go in a setup everyone’s computers in the new office. And then the design class i’m taking from some IDEO guy. who’s just a bit off his rocker, but we’ll see. i still need to do my reading. ha.

(Site maintenence question)

Bro –

I just turned on the site feed (under settings) on Just Regular Folks, but I think it isn’t an RSS feed… Could you take a look at it? Do I have to use something like feedburner to make and RSS feed? Do I need an RSS feed? I’m starting to use Google Reader and I’d like our blog to come up on it. I figure that Google Reader and Blogger should be compatible, but who knows…

Also I changed back the comments to Anyone but with word verification so we won’t have the spam, but we will have anon. people commenting. Thanks!

Love,

Sis

Vince’s grumpy mood continued today and even though we went to the trouble of making pancakes for breakfast, he declared that he wanted to do nothing today – or as he says it – I don’t want to do nofing. So over and over again Jeremy and I ask, is there something you want to do? Do you want to eat at the Move and Pick? Do you want to go to the Gymboree? Do you want to eat at McDonalds? OK, we didn’t really offer the last option… He finally said, “I want to go to Takashimaya.” Takashimaya is only the most expensive and popular mall in Singapore. The mall that the store anchors has Gucci, Tiffany’s, Bulgari, etc. etc. etc. Boring and expensive consumerism at it’s best. So what do we do? We oblidge and head straight to Takashimaya down town. We usually take the bus there and taxi home. The kids like the bus. On the bus, a woman tries to convince me to go to church, that makes about 5 people so far who have tried to convince me that I need to become a Christian. It’s mainly cab drivers who have me as a captive audience who try to get me to go to their church. Jeremy hasn’t had anyone try to convert him. Lucky guy.

We get to Takashimaya and we get a snack at a coffee shop and head straight for the toy section. Vince must have caught us in a nice mood because he scored the following Thomas the Tank Engine goodies – a pajama set and also sneakers with blinking lights. I swore once that I would never, ever purchase blinking light shoes. Now I swear never to say never. Edda got a little pop-up toy thing-y. We also bought the Hi-5 CD which is this kids show that Vince watched over and over again on the plane ride over here and hasn’t stopped talking about it since.

Jeremy took the kids home by cab and left me to look at the shoe and handbag section, but by the time I had really started to feel relaxed and unwound from the week (nothing like trying on shoes with heels that I would never wear, but imagine that I look way cool in them even though I’m wearing torn shorts and a food-stained T-shirt surrounded by young, hip, thin Singaporians), Jeremy called and said that he forgot his key and was locked out of the house. Yikes.

Headed back and unlocked the door and then went grocery shopping and made dinner. And now I’m going to go to sleep. Good night!

Today Vince was in a grumpy mood. Even he admitted as much. A lot of whining, complaining and indecision. I had planned to go to both IKEA and Gymboree, I knew it was going to be tight because IKEA opens at 10 am and the Gymboree class started at 1 pm. We queued for a taxi to go to IKEA and the whole time Vince said he didn’t want to go, he didn’t want to go and the line wasn’t moving at all, so finally I stepped out of line and headed towards home and he said, “But I DO want to go to IKEA!” So we got back in line and went to IKEA and didn’t get there until 10:45 am which meant that the Gymboree was not going to happen. I know, I know, lame things to talk about, I know I can only plan on destination per day with the two kids. When I have Jeremy with me, we can usually do 2 or 3 but with me, I only have the energy to go to one place. I’m always so anxious when I’m out with the kids by myself. I’m always sure someone is going to cry or we’ll have to find a bathroom at some incredibly unfortunate time, but even when things like that happen, we all manage to do what needs to be done and it’s OK. But the whole time I’m just anxious anticipating these inconviences. I’m trying to do better. We had lunch at IKEA and not at McDonald’s or KFC or any other fast food place. Hooray. The kids actually at some meatballs and had fun there.

I started my sock project today that my secret pal sent me. Actually, I was going to put it off because socks seem pretty hard to me, but I looked through the instructions and I think I can do it. I didn’t start the actual socks yet, just the gauge swatch and the yarn is so tiny and the needles are so tiny, it’s like I’m knitting floss with toothpicks. It’ll be cool.

Moving Offices… Yet Again….

Heh. On monday we are moving to our new home off of Page Mill. It’s sorta crappy in a way cause it’s nice to be on campus but really it was just a matter of time. I went to some Asian Staff Forum luncheon today, and the provost said basically that a lot of staff will end up in the old Excite@Home buildings in Redwood City, so in a way, Page Mill is a lot better than that.

I’ve packed all my stuff up already. pretty much i just used 1 box. I’m pretty proud of that fact. 🙂

I’m basically not doing anything for the rest of the week. ha

Edda loves, loves, loves, loves animals… All animals. Especially ones she can get really, really close to and laugh at.

My laptop was delivered on a freaking wooden pallet!