Planning Ahead

 My Daddy..miss u much!

All grown up and taller then Mama

Thats kinda tough. Especially when I am not sure were I will be in 5 years time. Been in this quandary for 10 years now. With my other half halfway round the globe and me minding the kids. We have been living apart for yup...10 years now. Wow! Thats a long time. The kids love Malaysia and so do I but my other half wants to 'take us out of that place' as he puts it.

Bringing up these three kids without him around wasn't all that difficult. Boy, they sure keep me busy, busy, busy.  So much so, I didn't have much time for myself, to even think that I missed him all that much, to worry myself to death. Now especially, that they have grown up a little,  4 schools to ferry them to and fro from and the different times that they come back.

 Like most moms, I almost live in the car. Right hand driving here in Malaysia and the hot weather and my arms don't look like they belong to the same body. One is more sun burnt that the other.  Hahaha.

So I've spent most of the year end holidays in doors, to even out the shade. : D

I've had the same drum of questions over the years and sometimes it becomes tiring trying to respond. You would ask me the same questions too. Mostly pertaining in the region of to 'how do we do it and still stay married'.

Oh.. here's me and my niece. It was very hot so I hid under a batik sarong. Had loads of fun canoeing at sea.

LIVE ONE DAY AT A TIME.

He does all the long term planning. I do very short term planning. Like a week or two tops.  Heeehee. Less stress that way. Things don't really go according to what I plan anyway. I am a person who is very much erm..what's the word for it, pessimistic and keep putting off things. Help! Forgot the word for it... procrastinator.

This school holidays I was determined not to do much cooking. Just so that I can ensure that my daughters and I don't spend our time munching endlessly. My boy can eat anything and still look like he was half starved. However, the plan to indulge in  physical activities still remain a plan. I'm putting the blame on bad weather and a small apartment. Probably the most popular  is trying to avoid bumping into the sofa or dining room table.

The first three weeks of the holidays was pretty lame because I hurt my knee and had to be very careful not to make it worse. I've made a mental note to always step out of the car with two legs and not one as I do believe that was what caused my misery. 10 years of doing the one leg exit must have been too much stress on my right leg/knee. So drivers out there...BEWARE OF THE ONE LEG EXIT SYNDROME!

On the other hand, I did start with my other projects, though at a snails pace.

Finally after years of disuse, I got the water tank in our small bathroom removed.The apartments were built in the early 80s. Small 2 bedroom apartments about 625sq ft in all.

I shut of the water supply and emptied out the contents. That was a lot of water that went down the drain. I felt guilty to a certain extent but I had no where else to store all that liquid. Watering the garden was also not too good an idea as it rained constantly everyday.  I connected a rubber hose all the way into the drainage pipes so that it wasn't going to be a mess with the rust that had settled at the bottom of the tank all those years. The guys didn't come until the next day so we had to keep opening and shutting off the mains several times and removing the water that once again filled the tank. (My water bill was higher than usual this month as a result).

The boys who  helped out were young men of 17 years or so with their father who was around my age. There wasn't much space for them to work in or even move around in the first place.  I don't understand what the developer was thinking of when they put it in that tiny bathroom. They decided not to  take the whole thing that measured like 6 ft X 8 ft X 1 ft out the bathroom door as it was just so impossible due to the position the tank was mounted. They decided to then cut the rusty thing into two.

I've never used an angle grinder before and on metal boy, did it produce a lot of sparks. I kept telling the young man,"you need to be wearing goggles or something". So he goes out to the van and comes back donning a pair of sun glasses. Oh well, better than nothing I guess. The first angle grinder they used became so hot that the cloth the boy used to wrap it in caught fire. So I gave him a pair of leather heavy duty gloves that I had lying around. Then he used another one that did not get all that hot. Finally after almost 3 1/2 hours, they managed to 'slash' old faithful in two. The top half was lighter so they just carried it out.

Bringing out the bottom half was an adventure in itself.  First, was the sheer weight of it, second, the small space to move it out of (i.e. having to pass through my laundry space, kitchen and living room and third... horrors of horror, that tank accumulated a fair amount of rust.

We lined the floor with old curtains and cardboard from boxes. And the block of rust was dragged across the floor. They didn't damage the floor, just that it got quite dirty from spilled rust all the way to the gate.  My washing machine suffered a gash and so did one of my kitchen cabinet's doors.  A little souvenir for the occasion. The cats had fun, changing the colour of their fur to rusty brown, I noted the next morning.

I RECEIVED RM30 for the huge piece of rusty metal which was going to be recycled. That was a huge difference of having to PAY RM200 which some of the neighbours had to do to get the job done. He had promised RM50 initially but I didn't want the rest. The boys did a good job and it was a tough one and....

I'm happy the eyesore is gone....