Happy Birthday Kevin!

To most, it's New Year's Eve today. For my family, it's always been my brother's birthday. So Happy Birthday Kevin! And to everyone else, let's get the ball rolling (dropping). 2 more hours to go here in NYC. I am not sure if I could & would stay up until midnight to see the silver ball falling. I have never seen it in person, but I don't envy those who have. :p

Another year has zoomed by fast. Esp for me. I feel like we've just moved out of the house, but it's been 4 months already. What's been done there definitely doesn't look like 4 months worth of progress. Ha ha. But it's slowly getting there... The wood floor has been installed upstair. And the basement has been framed. And we have installed both the upper and lower kitchen cabinets. Now left the counter top and doors & knobs. Wooohooo! The kitchen will look 90% done after tomorrow.

So everyone, have a Happy New Year.

Another year

Time surely is flying. I feel that time goes by faster and faster every year. Come to think about it, that means we will be moving back to the house soon. HA HA! This is the way to think to make me feel better. :p I just hope that we can move back before our trip back to Hong Kong, so that they won't be unsupervised for two weeks. But then, who am I kidding? I am not holding my breath. I don't wanna pass out and suffocate.

New Year's Eve is coming up soon. For all these years in New York, I have never once spent my New Year's Eve in Times Square. I find it SUPER DUPER scary. Being packed with 1 million minus 1 people on the street JUST to watch a silver ball dropping from the sky...I really don't find it amusing. I would rather spend it at home with my family and watch it on TV.

Upper cabinets are UP!

Wooohoo! We got the upper kitchen cabinets up today! We couldn't do the lower because there is still no grout for the kitchen floor tiles. But we did what we could and yay, so happy. Feel so good seeing it accomplished by ourselves. Can't wait until everything is done. Hopefully we can move back before we go back to Hong Kong (Jan 18th)...otherwise, no one will be bugging the contractor for TWO WEEKS!!! :S

All this food!

Are you guys all holding your tummy in pain from all these holidays meals? I am sure you have all had more than just one holiday meal!? Three for me so far. Friday night, we celebrated the "arrival of Winter" -- Chinese style: with chicken, shrimps, etc. Last night, we went to our friends' house for hot pot. There was enough food for us to have two more nights of hot pot! Then went to my brother's for a more traditional Christmas dinner tonight. There was ham, turkey (well, they used small chicken, LOL), corn, yam (sweet potato), cheesecake and much more... I ate so much I am about to burst! :S

Every year during the holidays, I go through the same "oh my gosh, I have eaten so much, I am actually in pain" routine. I wonder when I would learn and control my holidays food intake. Only a week from now, we are going to celebrate New Year...meaning more big meals!!! No wonder they say in America, a person pack on an average 10lbs during the holidays from all the food!

Last min X'mas shopping

I only needed to buy two gifts this year... Actually I already had the gifts, but they were packed away along with my whole house. I really thought we would be able to move back to the house by X'mas. So when that failed, I needed to do some last min shopping. The office closed early today at 3pm, so I rushed around trying to find the perfect gifts. Obviously I wasn't the only one who left the office early. :S The parking lot for a Toy'R'us was just packed. The line of car was so long it nearly went out to the highway. When I was in there, I didn't even know what to get! I know gift card would be the best option, but I always find it not very personal at all.

Anyway, at this hour, I have bought the gifts and whether they like it or not, that's their concerns. LOL I am sure no one is having a headache wondering what they got me was right or not. Why? Because no one would be giving me a gift. HAHAHHAAH!

US$54M Bonus?

Yes, someone got it, but that wasn't me. Yes, someone from Goldman Sachs got it, but that wasn't Gary. :'( The CEO of Goldman Sachs got a year-end bonus of $54 Million in US! That is HKD418,500,000. I can't even imagine how much that is. My boss has no imagination, all we got is an extra week pay (every year is the same; so it's very predictable). Not even a month pay... And for 20 months straight, we haven't had a raise... Something tells me I am in the wrong field...or I am just working in the wrong office.

Hope you all did better!

It is almost that time of the year...

Christmas party, Christmas shopping, Christmas decorations.... Have you done yours? I plan to only buy TWO presents this year, but I still haven't done that. And only a couple more days to go...OH NO! What am I going to do???

We had our company holiday lunch yesterday. We went to the same Japanese restaurant we did last year & the year before. Food was good, but nothing fancy. Bonus was given out and nothing fancy either. Ha ha.

At least the boss has the decency this year to let us go home early at 3pm both this Friday and next Friday. Woohoo! What luck!

Finally it's our turn

My contractor has been very busy. He and his people are working on a couple of homes and they are trying to finish all of them before the winter (luckily we have a late one). And when they do, they send every single worker and focus on one house at a time. Finally it's our turn! Supposedly they did the porches today and put the tiles in the kichen. And would start painting, etc. I am going over there tomorrow and my friends would help us put together the kitchen cabinets. Would see if those are really done. If he could really go full force and manpower on our house, hopefully in two weeks, it'll at least LOOK finished.

Still a lot to do

There is still a lot left to do in the house. The contractor hasn't done much for the past weeks. He said he needed heat in the house order to paint etc. And I was like what are you waiting for them? Install the unit already! It's like he's waiting for ME to install it. Geez... We are not holding our breath until moving in. Whether it's weeks, months... I just hope he'll finish whatever he has to finish. I don't wanna rush him either. That's the problem when you don't have enough money and say: Screw you! You are fired, and I am hiring someone else. :'(

Luckily the weather has been warm, so my mood isn't dragged even downer by the cold weather. I heard it's going to be a warm winter, I surely hope so.

Christmas is coming soon, I can't believe another year has zoomed by. No Christmas decoration for us this year since we haven't got a house. Next year would be super. And hey! I will be the one throwing a Christmas party, so mark your calendar! ;)

Kitchen Cabinets

Woohoo! They have been delivered. IKEA gave us a time frame yesterday that they'd be delivered between 7am to 11am. This morning at 6:30am when I called to confirm, it had changed to 10am to 2pm which worked better for us. So we just jumped back to bed...

There were 116 pieces...and of course, there had to be something missing. 3 packs of shelves were missing and one of the counter tops was damaged. So we got a case no. after calling IKEA and drove back to get the missing pieces and got the counter top replaced. When we were at the store, I asked the person who placed the order for me whether my order came with a sink (since everything was broken down with codes on the receipt, it's very hard to understand), and she said yes. Then I remembered NOT seeing a sink, but we did see a very small package there that didn't look like it was a sink (it was the size of a keyboard). So while we were in the store, I got the sink just in case. When we went back to the house, we were right about that package that's the size of the keyboard NOT being the sink. But then we realized that the lady gave us the WRONG sink...

So there we went again...back to IKEA. To get a refund on the "keyboard-size" sink and got another sink. And silly of us, we didn't bring the wrong sink...so we have to go back to IKEA again tomorrow. Ha ha. Fun isn't it?

Now I just can't wait to assemble them and have them installed by the contractor. It'll be so nice. New kitchen...woohooo! New house...double woohooo!

PS Just a side note, the set of cabinets cost about US$2450...and to have it assembled and installed by the company suggested by IDEA, it would cost US$2400 + tax. How crazy is that?

How cold is this???

-17C with wind chill. How cold is that??? I am surprized my eyes don't freeze shut when I go outside! Luckily the weekend is going to be a bit warmer. It'll be about 1C! At least it's positive.

The kitchen cabinets will be delivered tomorrow. We won't be able to assemble them as the kitchen is not ready. The contractor is really taking his time. He hasn't done much in the past two weeks. As much as I wanna move back now, I don't wanna rush him. So we'll just have to be patient. He did say we'll be able to move in by Christmas. I think he meant NEXT Christmas! ;)

Office Puppies

The benefit of working in my office is that we gotta play with the office's puppies. :D The office is located on the lower floor of my boss' house. He has two golden retrievers. One named Maddie (front) who's 8 and one named Cady (back) who's 2. They are the cutest things. They always make me laugh. Work surely wouldn't be the same without them.

E. coli outbreaks

We are having E-coli (大腸桿菌) outbreaks near our area. First in Central New Jersey now in Long Island, NY... Most victims had eaten at Taco Bell before they got sick. And Gary and I just ate there yesterday, and that Taco Bell is now shut down. How scary is that?

Better wash your hands and keep everything clean.

Casino Royale 007 & Dejavu

Watched Casino Royale yesterday and not sure if I understand the plot totally. If you do understand the entire film, drop me a note.

Saw Dejavu today. It's good. Believable enough and pretty much everything detail was picked up. Quite smart, really. Funny thing is that Gary said he's never experienced dejavu. And I had to explain to him what it was. He's a non believer though. I am pretty sure everyone has had dejavu before. He's just strange I guess.

Nail Art -- DIY

I saw this most wonderful thing over the weekend. I think it might put nail salons out of business. LOL Basically it's a plate with patterns which you can put nail polish over, then scrap (so that the nail polish would only set into the pattern), then you use a rubber stamp to stamp over the pattern, transferring the color onto the stamp, then restamp the pattern onto your finger nail. It's fast and easy. It's guaranteed that all the patterns will be identical with the same details. Ha ha.

If you wanna know what I am talking about, go here:
http://www.konad.co.kr/english/index.asp

I got a set with 4 plates (each plate has at least 7 patterns), 3 bottles of nail polish (red, white & green), a rubber stamp and a scraper for $30. Knowing that each professional session would cost $15 to $30 and you'd have to sit for an hour... I just spent 5 mins and see what kind of result I got? Now I just need to get a bottle of top coat.