New Year Resolutions 2008

New compact powder, new blusher, new bag. That’s what Dear2 bought yesterday, and excitely packed in preparation for the new year, much like a student getting her school bag ready for the new academic year. Hee…

As we bid farewell to 2007, it’s time we lay out the rules for 2008. That’s what people commonly call New Year Resolutions.

Dear1 and Dear2 reviewed our 2007 resolutions during the “Retreat” to Bintan. Out of the 5 Joint Resolutions, we fulfilled 2 of them. Hmm… Nice try, gotto work harder the next time. And for the Individual Resolutions, we are proud to announce that we have fulfilled 100% of them. Congratulations.

Tomorrow is the new year, and with a new year, let’s set new goals for ourselves.

Joint:

1. Hold the customary wedding

2. Achieve better timing for Half Marathon and more

3. Complete 2 model robots

4. Do sit ups/ weights 5 times per week

5. Find a source of passive income

6. Get golf licence

7. Go for body check up

Dear1:

1. Clear all academic requirements

2. Be focused in work

Dear2:

1. Be a leader

2. Maintain sunshine personality

New year resolutions are all but goals or motives that keep you in check of what you want to be or do. There is a reason why they are penned down, and not verbalised only, for resolutions act as focal points which you keep in view while steering the ship. Let’s all have a bountiful 2008!  Cheers!

– Dear2

Washing cushion covers

Part of our spring cleaning effort involves washing the cushion covers. We have 2 sofas in our house, a regular 3 seater sofa and a sofa bed. These cushion covers, delivered straight from the factory, seemed dirty. So it only make sense to wash them before using. After all, we’re going to sink our clean bodies after a warm bath into these sofa seats and enjoy some tv programs every night. That’s what we did for the sofa bed in the study room, but we didn’t do it for the 3 seater sofa in the living room! What an irony! So we’ve been sitting in this ~dirty~ sofa covers for the past almost 10 months. Yucks! It’s about time we washed it.

After our dry cleaning experience with the sofa bed, we decided to try a different company of dry cleaners to check out any differences in pricing and quality. We decided to give White Wash a shot since they put a brochure in our mailbox. They offered some online services and also free delivery service so it seemed rather attractive. We rang them up and described the sofa that we had and got a quote of a whooping $55 estimate. Actually price to be confirmed on collection. Remembering how we spend $18 on our sofa bed, there’s no way we’re spending $55 or above for this same seating capacity sofa.

Next, we got a quotation at a shop in West Mall, called Kleenwash. Omg, they quoted us $75 after we drag the entire set of covers all the way to West Mall for their inspection. No way we’re paying that money. So we decided to return the same dry cleaners that did our sofa be. But alas, luck is not on our side, they’re closed for the day. Anyway, we suspected the quote will be in the $60 range too. So what the difference between these 2 sofa covers? These are what we think. The sofa bed cover is made up of 2 large pieces, so the washing is charged as 2 pieces. However, the living sofa cover, although same sitting capacity, is made up of 2 large pieces, 2 medium pieces and 5 small pieces, which make the quotation so expensive. Dry cleaner dun go by weight or volume or area of the cloth. They go by pieces. So if the entire cushion cover can be sewed into 1 gigantic piece, they’re just charge us the price of washing 1 large piece. Interesting find.

Back at home, we remembered one criteria we had when shopping for sofas. The covers must be machine washable. Yes, both our sofa covers are machine washable but we are unable to wash the sofa bed ourselves becos they material is too bulky and our washing machine is too small. The living room sofa is a different story though. The material is micro-suede, so it’s not so bulky and there are many small pieces so we can split the washing into smaller loads for our washing machine. And that’s exactly what we did!

We divided the covers into 2 washes, by their colour, light brown and dark brown. We used delicate wash to avoid harming the material. And always remember to wash inside out. Also, spin dry at a lower speed. With the semi dry covers, we hang it out to dry our a warm and sunny weekend. The result is a clean, soft and fluffy, seemingly new sofa covers. Hohohoho… And we saved a potential $75 spending. Now we can truly enjoy our clean and smooth post bath skins on our clean and soft sofa. :D

-Dear1