Pampering Each Other 19 November, 2009
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Just last weekend, we went shopping at IMM. We strolled past the Levi Strauss shop and they were having this $39.90 each for a min purchase of 2 jeans promotion plus an additional 5% discount for Citibank credit cards. Sounds like a good deal! But Dear1 current has about 5 pairs of jeans, 2 of which were recently bought (iirc, it was Nov 08). Yes, 1 year old jeans is considered new to me. So despite a number of my jeans shrinking in size due to a recent change in washing powder brands (read: Dear1 is getting fatter), I didn’t even consider the promotion for a moment. After all, why buy new jeans when I still have 5 (barely) wearable pairs? Save money.
That’s the way with Dear1. Dear1 is an engineer by training and by personality. Dear1 doesn’t see the need to spend money on clothes or keeping up with fashion. Dear1 gets his tops and polo-ts from event gifts. Dear1 gets a new pair of running shoes only when the current pair begins to let water seep in from the soles. Dear1 is just extremely stingy when it comes to spending on clothings.
(On a side note, Dear1 likes to spend on new handphone, new camera, new LEGO, new board games… U get the idea.)
So frequently, Dear2 needs to step in and renew Dear1’s wardrobe. Dear2 needs to convince Dear1 that he needs new pairs of jean cos he can’t fit into the current ones anymore. Dear2 needs to convince Dear1 that he doesn’t have enough pairs of socks and that some of them already have holes in them. Dear2 needs to convince Dear1 that superglue can no longer hold his only pair of sandals together so it’s time to get a new pair. Dear2 needs to convince Dear1 that a good pair of sandals cannot be bought for less than $10.
Dear2 has a lot of convincing to do. And it doesn’t help that Dear1 gets pretty defensive when it comes to the topic of buying new apparels.
But Dear1 isn’t stingy of all apparels in general. Dear1 just doesn’t like to buy clothes for himself. Dear1 enjoys spending on nice clothes for Dear2 and for baby. Dear1 is absolutely delighted to see Dear2 dressed prettily everyday. Dear1 very much want to buy a designer winter coat for Dear2 so that she would look trendy in our overseas photos.
The same can be said about food as well. Dear1 likes to eat 3 vege + rice = $1.60 for lunch at the school canteen. But Dear1 also likes to bring Dear2 to dine at Ichiban Sushi, Swensens or maybe just Mos Burger. And more often than not, it is Dear2 who thinks that dining out at restaurants is too expensive.
The point is, that at least for Dear1 and Dear2, we like to pamper each other. We like to spend a bit of time, money and effort to make the lifestyles of each other better. And in doing so, sometimes we don’t pamper ourselves. But that’s only becos its much more gratifying to pamper each other.
So, let’s pamper each other more, dear. I’ll let you buy new clothes for me, and you let me treat you to better dinners. After all, allowing our significant other to pamper ourselves is also a way of pampering them.
We bought the jeans. :D
-Dear1
Financial Plan(s) to acheive your Goal(s) 27 October, 2009
Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear2, Dollars & Cents, For Him For Her, Slice of Life.add a comment
Even before I had any proper knowledge in financial planning, it was already in our blood. Back in those days when Dear1 and Dear were together before our marriage, we had already started on planning our finances for our future. I remembered it was in our Uni days, probably a year or 2 into University, I started a second savings account. This account was purely for savings, for what exactly, I dunno at that point in time, but definitely it was an account to save for our future, ie our wedding, our house etc.
A few years later when the savings accumulated to $5,000, we decided to park it in a fixed deposit account so as to ‘make the money work harder for us’ at 0.75% compared to the 0.25% interest rate in those days. 1.5 years later, the FD matured but we still have no use for it, or rather it was not a ripe time for is to do anything yet, so we rolled the money for another 1.5 years.
After Dear1 proposed unexpectedly in 2005, it was pretty much still dating as usual for the then 1 year working Dear2 and Final Year Dear1, until one day when Dear2 spontaneously wiped out an empty sheet and paper and proclaim that ‘we must draw a timeline and cost to it.’ We thought about when we will get married, and buy a house, and the amount that we’ll need for the wedding, house downpayment, renovation, honeymoon etc. Some rough calculations and estimates, and some rough idea of what are the impending big ticket items, and our initially blank sheet of paper now tell us that a lot of money is needed ya. Nevermind that the figure is daunting, at least we now have a plan to work towards, and that we already have $5k ready to be deployed.
Along the way, we deflected from the original plan. Instead of having all the events at one go, we settled 1 event at a time – ROM, house, renovation, wedding, honeymoon in this order. Slowly and steadily with an income stream, plus our frugal lifestyle hinged on a systematic income and expenses control, we saw our goals falling into place 1 by 1, unknowingly.
Today as Dear1 and Dear2 are finally done with the important events of marriage, and are settling into a ‘no need to start our balance sheet from zero state’, we almost unconsciously forget to plan for our later future. Things are now getting quite dangerously comfortable for us (and how common is this the state of most people!!!). Marriage is not the only event in life, although it is one of the first few goals that most young people have to work towards. And upon the passing of that phase, there are still other important events or goals that we have to work towards, more commonly the planning for a comfortable lifestyle, now (together with baby(s)) and ongoing into our retirement.
Have you have a financial plan/ goal in place?
- Dear2
New Milestones Sidebar 23 October, 2009
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Oh, we’ve added a new item to our sidebar – Our Milestones! It is located just below the Category Cloud. Our Milestones is a chronological representation of Dear1 and Dear2. It lists some of the more significant events in our courtship, such as our first date, our first travelling experience, the proposal, our wedding, etc.
We got this inspiration from visiting other peoples’ blogs where they placed links to special events in their sidebar too. But being the systematic engineers that we are, we decided to start right from the beginning and clearly label the months and years. Haha.
This chronology of Dear1 and Dear2 serves 2 purposes. First, remembering blog as a history log, it allows us to look back in time and appreciate the many wonderful times we spent together. It allows us to take in major events of our lives in a single glance. And perhaps, it can also act as a time ruler with which we measure how long has it been since our last holiday. Hehe… :P
Second, it allows for our readers (yes, u!) to find out more about us and our past, and possibly use our timeline as a sort of guideline for planning your major events as well. Of course, our way of doing things aren’t perfect, but it’s a good starting point for those who are starting from scratch.
Very soon, hopefully over this weekend, I will start putting up links within Our Milestones that will point to specific posts where we’ve talked about the particular event. With that, searching for specific events will become much more efficient than using the search bar or the archives links.
We hope to add more and more events in the future as we continue to write the days of our lives. At the same time, we’ll also be nostalgic and continue to add significant past events when we recall them. These short titles will also serve as reminders that we can write an old story about to fill in the memories of our past.
Take a minute to read Our Milestones. :)
-Dear1
Setting (Good) Examples 22 October, 2009
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Dear2 often chide Dear1 for not saying what he wants. Come to think of it, it might be a habit that Dear1 inherit from his 25 years of living in his family. Dear1’s parents are those who always dun say what they want (not that its uncommon in families, I know). ‘Mother ask you to come home this weekend for dinner’, says father-in-law. This kind of thing frequently happen in Dear1’s house, when most of the time it is FIL himself who intends this. And apparently, Dear1 has inherited this trait himself as well…
And so, Dear2 has to remind Dear1 that, please verbalise what you want, really. ‘Anything’ is not ‘Yes, I want’, and black means black, and not an intense shade of grey.
Dear2 suddenly felt that this is an important point to remind Dear1 again, cos when baby is out, we want to be good parents and pass on good habits to our children. Dun people always say that kids pick up habits from their parents, and even if we dun have a talented musical skill to infuse to our kids, nor super fantastic linguistic skills to share with them, but at least be able to spread such ‘normal’ habits such as practicing good hygiene, good eating habits, regular exercise habits, no foul language, no digging of nose in public (haha), amicable relationship with people etc. Some of these things are not things that can be taught, rather, they are a way of life that can be spread to your kids through setting self examples.
Being good examples should be a way of life. It’s not about trying to be somebody that you are not, nor does it have to be going super out of the way just to show others that you care. It can be a simple demonstration of your inherent graciousness, your ambivalence towards human and towards others, and being who you really are by showing the good side of you. In Dear2’s daily MRT trips, I sometimes get seat offers from commuters, not just fellow women who understand the hardships of pregnancy, but from young people as well as men. These little acts of gestures often makes me very touched, cos it just shows that in this harsh Singapore society, there is still humanity left, be it how little. I’m sure that through their own graciousness, these offerers have, and will pass on good examples to their kids when they do have kids of their own.
- Dear2
Love is in the Air 16 September, 2009
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Dear2 was pleasantly surprised to find the dishes washed one day.
Dear1 usually bargains with Dear2 to wash de dishes later, or tomorrow, but as a strict no-no rule to leaving dirty dishes overnight for fear of attracting unwanted cockroaches and lizards, Dear2 always insist that ‘if you dun wash it, den I will do it now.’ But Dear1 dotes on Dear2 too much and to keep her hands smooth, Dear1 will always reluctantly and grouchingly wash the dirty plates and cups.
So on a typical day with many bowls and glasses lying in the sink as usual, Dear2 was very amazed to find them cleanly laid on the drying rack already. Oh, Dear1 had washed them just before going out. And it is this simple act that made Dear2’s day. Thank you dear dear!
We often take things for granted, that we have parents who did all the housework for the house when we were younger so that we dun have to lift a finger, that we have siblings who shared our joy and temperaments with, and that we have our better half who tolerates our mood swings and our ups and downs. All this comes about becos there is love.
But while we are loved by our dearest, we sometimes forget to love them back, only wanting to receive more love and care from the people around us. So, love more, and be loved.
I love you, Dear1
- Dear2
National Day fireworks story 31 July, 2009
Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear1, For Him For Her, Slice of Life.2 comments
Singapore National Day is just round the corner and we really getting excited. The 9th August has always been a special public holiday for us. And it also partly contributed to our small obsession for fireworks displays. Here’s why.
We started dating during our school days, JC time to be exact (that’s about 11 yrs ago), around June. At that time, things were very ‘raw’. We were each others’ first dates and we weren’t really sure about the whats and hows of a relationship. We were young, we were shy and we were in love.
I tried to think of romantic things to do together with Dear2, but young as I was, I didn’t have many ideas nor money, so that ruled out candlelight dinners and such. Large bouquets of flowers was also pretty much out of the question. It was several weeks into our relationship and national day was drawing near. “It is going to be our first public holiday together, gotta do something special.” That was the thought.
And all of a sudden, a light bulb went off in my head. Romantic national day fireworks! Yes, yes, that’s a great idea. Gee…
It was too late to try to get NDP tickets, so that meant we needed to find a good place to watch fireworks from outside the national stadium. But there were some hurdles. First, internet wasn’t that widespread at that time (we were still using 56k dial up plans), so there was no information about fireworks viewing sites. And also, at that time, we still weren’t very public about our relationship yet, still worried that parents might scold us for getting into relationship while schooling. Options were limited. We just have to make a guess about the best place to view the fireworks. Eventually, we decided on the broad outdoor open-air stairways from Marina Square leading to Esplanade (note that Esplanade was nonexistent back then).
So on national day, we went on our date, our romantic date. Gee… We arrived early at Marina Square just to hold hands and window shop. I liked holding Dear2’s hands, the simple joy of courtship. And I still do. We went for an early dinner so that we could catch the fireworks later.
I remember bringing Dear2 to Macdonalds for dinner. It was considered quite a luxury spending for us because we had very little pocket money then. But still, we wanted a mini celebration for our first holiday together. I remember Dear2 ordered a McNuggets meal that day, and it made me a little unhappy, almost angry. It was because I felt that McNuggets was the most not-value-for-money item in Macdonalds, so little meat and no bread nor vegetables. It was not until several years later that I found out the reason why. Dear2 had wanted to leave a good impression with her new boyfriend (me!) and she felt that biting into a burger would look unglam and not girly enough. Eating bit-size chicken nuggets would be much more manageable and feminine. Dear2 is so vain. Gee…
After dinner, we started to look for a place where we could sit down and wait for the fireworks display. To do that, we would first need to know the direction of the national stadium. So we went to Pan Pacific Hotel, took the outdoor capsule elevator up as high as we can and looked out of its glass walls in search of the national stadium. There! Now we knew which direction the fireworks would come from.
We went back to the open-air stairways we decided on earlier and sat down. Lots of people had already gathered to view the fireworks. This reinforced our decision that this must be a good place to catch the fireworks display. We even spotted some people with pocket televisions and they were monitoring the situation at the national stadium via the live broadcast of the event.
Boom-pok-pok-pok… The fireworks had started. We were very excited. We could hear the explosions but couldn’t see the fireworks itself. Clouds lit up in shadows of red and green. “Wahhh…” we went. So far, we had only caught glimpses of coloured reflections off the clouds, but not the real fireworks yet. “No worries, the first few shots are usually small and low. The finale will be the big ones high up in the sky, surely we’ll see those. Surely…” I quietly hoped.
BOOM-POK-Pok-pok… The explosions were getting louder. The reflections off the clouds were getting brighter. Yes, yes! So exciting. BOOM-Pok-BOOM-BOOM-Pok-BOOOOOOOMMMMMMM…… Silence. It’s over??! But we haven’t seen anything yet. Wasn’t the finale supposed to be high up in the sky where everyone could see? It couldn’t be over. All we had seen was coloured clouds. Maybe there’ll be a second round of fireworks, let’s wait. Minutes passed. Nothing happened. Had we missed it all? The crowd had started to disperse. Clearly, everyone was disappointed. We were too.
We went back into Marina Square shopping mall. Our romantic date was ruined. I still couldn’t believe it. I decided to seek confirmation. There was no handphones at that time, so I went to a nearby public phone and called a classmate who I knew was at home. “Hello? Are you watching the national day parade on tv? Is the fireworks over?” I eagerly asked. “Huh? Finished quite long ago already leh.” The painful truth replied over the phone. :’(
It was getting late, so we decided to set off for home. I was dejected. I guess I didn’t speak much along the way. I didn’t want our romantic date to end like this. We were merely a few weeks into our relationship and I didn’t want to disappoint Dear2. I liked Dear2 alot and I wanted for us to continue building wonderful memories together. I decided to make a promise.
“Dear2, I’m sorry we couldn’t see the fireworks today. I promise I will find a better place next year… Will you be my girlfriend for one more year? I want to bring you out again on national day next year.”
I knew Dear2 was the one for me and I wanted to give her the best I could. I wanted to bring her out again year after year, to watch fireworks together, to spend every national day together. I glanced over at Dear2, she looked slightly hesitant. After all, I am asking her for a long commitment. Shyly, she nodded.
“Yeah…” My heart cheered. I broke into a wide smile and gently held Dear2’s hand. We happily chatted on the long journey home and talked about better viewing spots for our date next year. I walked Dear2 home and kissed her goodnight. That was our first romantic national day date. Love you my dear. Muck!
-Dear1
Ranting about the Marriage Life 23 June, 2009
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“So, how is marriage life?” This sort of question usually comes from ‘friends’ who need some filler to fill in that silent conversation. The worse thing is, Dear2 still get this kind of question 2.5 years after our marriage! Duh.
Anyway, seriously after 2.5 years of living together with Dear1, there’s still a lot of conflicts day in day out, and still a lot of things to learn with each other. Enough about understanding the inherent differences that these 2 INDIVIDUALS have from 25 years of different living habits that each of us have. It’s about accommodating each other’s style, or coming up with something that the 2 of us can share.
But talk is easy, worse still, words dun seem to translate across the meaning that they are supposed to convey. Discussions cannot become discussions if 1) Both people are talking at the same time, or 2), Both or either 1 person is not listening, or 3) Words dun mean what they mean because the interpretation is different by different people. As one can see, the problem of (3) is the most serious problem, resulting in what is commonly know as mis-communication.
Dear2 has repeated this dunno how many umpteen times, and on and on and on, it’s the same thing. There’s always a good side to everything, it’s just a matter of whether you want to bring yourself to see it. Marriage life can be interesting and fulfilling, but I need cooperation and collaboration from Dear1 for the both of us to have a meaningful life.
Are we doing enough?
- Dear2
KBox KLunch 29 March, 2008
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KBox is the name of a karaoke service provider here in Singapore. And KLunch is one of their lunch promotion that includes 3 hours of singing, 1 bento lunch set and 1 drink. The catch is you have to ‘check in’ between 11am to 2pm, so if you check in at 1pm, you get to sing until 4pm. The good thing about this deal is that it is available every single day, yes including Saturdays and Sunday. And it’s pretty cheap too! If I remember correctly, it’s $10+++ per head. Just last weekend, Dear1 and Dear2 went for one of our regular karaoke sessions and paid $27 total for 3 hours of food, drinks and songs. Gee…
I enjoyed going to karaoke with Dear2. I really like Dear2’s voice and really enjoyed Dear2’s singing. But sadly, I can’t really sing that well. More often than not, Dear2 can’t even guess the song I’m humming, and it’s not because she doesn’t know the song. =( But I still like going to sing with my dear, and just to sing that few songs that I know my voice range can handle.
As for the lunch set, Dear2 dun like it too much, so most of the time, she’ll just eat slight more than half of it and I’ll finish the rest, which is an excellent arrangement in my opinion. Firstly, I like to eat (yum yum yum) so I dun mind eating my dear’s share of the lunch set (hehehe…). Secondly, I dun need to put my horrible singing to the mic during the time I’m eating (and I will try to eat as slowly as I can). Thirdly, I get to listen to more of Dear2’s great singing. See! So many plus points. Gee…
I sure hope this KLunch thing is here to stay, otherwise it’ll really burn a hole in our pockets visit these karaoke places. The reason it is so cheap is because of the awkward timing. I dun think many ppl wants to sing in the morning and around lunchtime, which is why they need to lower the price to attract more customers during this kind of down-times. We dun really mind the timing that much. It’s more of enjoying singing with each other at a value for money pricetag. If I’m not wrong, the price is $25+++ on weekend nights after 7pm and *without* a dinner set! See the difference!
Sometimes, I just so happy that I found Dear2. That we have a common understanding on the ways we want to spend our money, our time, and to make the most out of a simple and happy lifestyle. Thank you dear dear.
-Dear1
Nintendo Dual Screen Lite 12 January, 2008
Posted by dear1dear2 in Consumer Electronics, Dear1, For Him For Her, Leisure & Games.1 comment so far
Hohohoho… Dear2 gave me a Nintendo Dual Screen Lite (NDSL) for my birthday present. So happy so happy. Gee… Thank you my dear. I’ve definitely always wanted a handheld console since the introduction of Gameboy Advance some years back. Back then I was still serving National Service and Dear2 is still schooling so really not much extra income to speak of. Now that both dears are working, we can afford just a little bit more and so Dear2 gave me a DS. So happy so happy.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that we just go shopping and just get a DS from any store out there. Normally, parents or people looking for gifts spend more than required because they were in a hurry and there’s sort of willingness to splurge when people are gift shopping. Well, not us. Dear2 informed me that she intends to get me a DS for birthday present quite early on. My task, as a tech savvy person, is to source around and look for the most economical means of getting a DS and all required accessories. And that’s exactly what I did.
In the end, we bought an export set black colour DS (they call it Onix colour) at $215 from qisahn using the sgclub discount coupon. Then there’s the $4 for the screen protector. After some sourcing around, I found out that DealExtreme (based in Hongkong) is selling some DS accessories quite cheaply and decided to order from them. I ordered a black soft pouch with strap, a pack of 4 retractable stylus and a retractable USB charger from them at $12.62 including free shipping. Cool ya? The shipment took 12 days to arrive in Singapore by registered Airmail which I thought was reasonable enough. The only thing about ordering from DealExtreme is that they only accept Paypal orders and that meant I have to open a Paypal account. At least now that I have a Paypal account, I’ll be able to shop online more frequently. Gee…
These few days, Dear1 and Dear2 both had a lot of fun playing with the DS. If Dear2 grows fond of it enough, maybe we can even consider getting a second set so that we can play games with each other. Gee… Let’s see about it when our year end bonus comes in… (I know, but our companies pays end year bonus at the beginning of the year. -_-)
-Dear1
Spring cleaning 27 December, 2007
Posted by dear1dear2 in Around the House, Dear1, For Him For Her.1 comment so far
So tired! And we’re not done spring cleaning yet!
Dear1 and Dear2 did the long over-dued spring cleaning on Christmas Day. Yes, Merry Christmas to us. Let’s just do a simple recap of the layout of our house. We live in a 3-room HDB flat. There’s a living room with 2 panel window, a kitchen with 4 panel window, a study room with 2 panel window, a bedroom with 2 panel window, a storeroom with no window and 2 toilets with the standard ventilation panels.
We started the day with furniture cleaning and wall cleaning. Dear2 was the Chief Operations Officer for this event while Dear1 was the assistant. So Dear2, equipped with 2 pails of dettol water and 2 rags, cleaned all the surfaces that required wiping, like walls, window grills, cupboards, tables, some interiors of cupboards, etc. Dear1 performed the supporting roles like changing the dirty water, clear the surfaces of objects to prepare for wiping and other things to make Dear2’s task simpler. Dear1 also cleaned all the glass surfaces because they required a different solvent to remove the built up oil stains. Finally, Dear1 swept the floor using the static duster and Dear2 finish it up by mopping the floor.
For some reason, our house have a lot of insects, tiny little wall crawlers and some spiders. We have no idea where they come from, but we do have some theories. Theory 1: We live near forested areas, so they came from the forest. Theory 2: We live near forests, so the air is more humid and this resulted in mould growing on our walls and so the insects were eating the mould, and the spider came to eat the insect. Hmm… That would also mean that our paint isn’t really mould-proof. Since we dunno what is the cause, the only way we can solve the problem is to clean the house more often and open up all the windows frequent to ’sun’ and ‘air’ the house.
After a day’s work, we still haven’t finished cleaning, there’s still the 2 toilets unwashed. But it’s late and we decided to leave it to another day. It’s already dinner time, so Dear1 and Dear2 prepared a sumptuous and healthy steamboat dinner for Christmas night in our clean living room while we relax with some local tv programs.
The next day, both Dear1 and Dear2 felt aching muscles all over. Didn’t know that spring cleaning can be such a physically demanding task. It’s not as tiring as running a marathon but it certainly takes the same amount of time (the whole day) and it takes a lot of muscle work. The result is that we have a sparkling clean environment to live in that can lift our spirits. The air feels fresher, the floors no squeaks, the wall bright, the mind satisfied and the heart proud.
Thank you my hardworking dear. Together, we can do anything. Muck!
-Dear1
