Bits and pieces

The ants are officially gone. :) My kitchen is mine again.

Haven't had the energy to blog of late.

Work has been hectic the past two weeks because I had to cover for a colleague who went on holiday. Basically, the company I work for deals in branding promotional products. We purchase products from Australian and Chinese suppliers and get them branded (e.g. embroidery, screen printing, engraving etc) and delivered to the client. The products involved are quite diverse. There are corporate uniforms, signboards, name tags, pens, biscuit tins, lanyards, enviro bags etc.

I have been placing purchase orders, doing artwork, ordering samples, chasing deliveries from suppliers (and the various accompanying muck-ups), letting the guys in the warehouse know where the goods have to go and making sure that the goods are delivered to clients on time.

Every job has different deadlines and within those deadlines, there are mini deadlines. For instance, if we purchase some shirts from one supplier, we still need to allow time for us to send it to another supplier to get embroidered or screen printed and then also take into consideration how long delivery to the client will take.

I am so glad that my colleague is back on Monday. Starting work at 7.15am and leaving at 5.30pm was a bit depressing.

Spent Friday evening after work buying baby clothes. :D I love baby clothes! They are so cute. It helps that I have ten nephews and nieces (with another one on the way!).

I see my niece for the first time tomorrow. She is the newest addition to our ever-growing family and just turned 3 months old. I hear she is a gorgeous little thing. :D

Here are the clothes I bought for her. Cute right? :D



They even had jeans!!! How sweet!



Sorry. Not sure why the photo is sideways.

Ant Update

By this morning, the ants had consumed half the ant bait. This photo was taken at 7.40am.



These two photos were taken closer to 5pm. Notice how few ants there are compared to the photos on my previous post?





Dead ants on the counter directly beneath my kitchen cupboards.



I didn't expect it to work so soon. Maybe it won't take a week after all. :D

How I Spent Valentine's Day

"The pest control man came today!", I happily announced this evening when on the phone with my better half. "He filled these little triangle-shaped boxes with liquid ant bait and the ants are swarming in!!"

"Somehow I can imagine you leaning very close the bait boxes for a really good look", he replied in amusement.

*pause*

"Eh? How did you know?"


Its funny how he knows me so well. :)


I am so pleased that the pest control man came this morning. Over the past three weeks, my house has been besieged by an invading army of very determined ants. Do not be deceived by the cute ants in A Bug's Life or Antz. They are nothing like that.

I have laid bait, obsessively wiped the counter and sprayed them with Mortein and Raid (the cockroaches and spiders that I got in the process were collateral damage). I even sprinkled ant sand in the back garden. They returned with a vengeance every time.

For about a week or two, my brother and I were debating whether to call in the professionals. The ants had invaded our pantry and the casualties were my stash of rock sugar and tropical fruit muesli. The ants were even roaming to our bedrooms and bathrooms which are absolutely devoid of food. Losing our pizza to marauding ants after leaving it on the dining table for just over 30 minutes swayed our decision in favour of hiring an exterminator.

So now we have to wait a week to see if there are less ants.






I'd say it was a Valentine's Day well spent. :)

Good News

The police caught that twerp of an arsonist.

The maximum jail term for arson is 25 years. I imagine he should be more afraid of the community he betrayed than a jail term though. His mental state has been described as "fragile" by his legal counsel. That comes as no surprise. Most Victorians would lynch him at the first opportunity. Then again, he is going to suffer either way. There are inmates in jail who lost relatives and friends to the fires.

Who knows what interesting things might befall him in the near future?

Victoria's Bushfires

The bushfires that have been going since last weekend have been described as the worst natural disaster in Australia's history. At this point, the death toll is 181 and climbing. Worst hit was Kinglake where people were literally cremated in their homes. The fierce winds threw burning embers as far as four kilometers ahead of the actual fire and set homes alight.

While it is true that the 46 degree temperature and the tinder-dry conditions did nothing to help things, it riles me that one of the biggest bushfires was caused by acts of arson. The Churchill-Jeeralang fire has been going since the weekend. I followed the Country Fire Authority's website in horror as I watched the number of firetrucks in the area climb from 99 to 113 within 24 hours.

In terms of loss of life the Churchill-Jeeralang fire is nowhere as devastating as the one in Kinglake. It still does not negate the fact that 21 people are now dead because some bastard decided to deliberately start the fires.

I am emoing about the fires because a good friend and her family live in the area. They are the most genuine, warm and loving people you could ever hope to meet. I panic whenever I hear news of the bushfires because I worry about whether they are safe. The fire was a suburb or two away from her parents' house and they live near a National Park. God knows how flammable eucalyptus trees are. I was so glad when she said that she and her family were all right. She says they were lucky. Other people they know lost their homes.

The other reason why I am so emotionally involved is that part of me still calls Churchill home. It is a wonderful, sleepy little town that I have grown to love. It is impossible not to love the place after being there for three years. I even know the road where the fires were because I used to go for walks in the area.

I hope the culprit gets lynched.

Surprise

My doorbell rang at 9.30 on Tuesday night.

When I opened the door, John was standing there in his work attire with his office bag and suitcase in hand. :D

I went to work on Wednesday and he accompanied me to and from work, competing with thousands of rush hour Melbourne commuters. He even cooked an awesome dinner of spaghetti bolognese with capsicum, onion and button mushrooms for my brother and I.

I'm glad that I took unpaid leave for Thursday and Friday. :) Spending time with my better half is definitely worth it.

It has been long established that a major part of our relationship revolves around food. We share almost exact tastes, which is nice because we both really enjoy eating. I theorize that it is uniquely a Malaysian trait.

On Thursday for lunch, we had Vietnamese beef noodles in soup with copious amounts of beansprouts and spring onion. We washed the meal down with coconut juice. After lunch, we decided to go shopping. John bought a work shirt, a tie and some studs for his football boots. Later for dinner, we went to Lygon to have the best woodfire BBQ pizza. The chunks of chicken on the thin, crisp crust drizzled with BBQ sauce and mixed herbs tasted amazing. :) After that we happily skipped across the road to Lygon's most popular gelati shop for durian gelati. It is the closest you will ever get to the real thing.

On Friday we chose to stay close to home. I think it was 32 degrees. Went to a nearby Japanese restaurant that we hadn't tried before. It was so-so. I wouldn't go out of my way to eat there. John had unagi with rice while I had some deep fried prawns with eggy sauce on rice. For dinner we went to an Italian restaurant down the road. It has the best spaghetti marinara that I have ever had. The prawns, mussels, scallops and calamari is incredibly fresh and the dish itself is prepared in olive oil as opposed to a tomato or cream base. We also had some beef pasta with mushrooms. Dessert was a light, creamy tiramisu sprinkled with chocolate and topped with strawberries.

We woke up early to do the marketing on Saturday and then rushed back home to hide from the heat. By about 3ish we got bored and decided that we would venture out to the city by train. 10 minutes of waiting at the station in 46.4 degree heat made us change our minds. The strong, hot wind made it feel like we were in a fan-forced oven. We made our way back home to the comfort of airconditioning. It was just as well because services to our train line had been cancelled due to "extreme weather conditions". The cool change took place at around 6pm. We went to a small Japanese restaurant that I had been to a week ago with some friends. The food was nice so I wanted to take John there. I don't remember the exact dish that we had but it was yummy. Also had sashimi and green tea milkshake! The green tea milkshake was really thick because they used lots of homemade ice cream in it. We spent the rest of the night at home talking.

I drove John to the airport this morning. It is the first time I have driven there without my brother or cousin there to be my GPS. I'm glad that I did though. Now I know how to get to the airport and back on my own. :)

Kind of spent the rest of the day moping. Its a coping mechanism of sorts. Long distance sucks. Anyone who has ever been in a long distance relationship can tell you that. This is our third year and saying goodbye never does get any easier. The trick is to keep looking forward to the future and to remind ourselves how close we are to being together for good. In 2007 when we first started, I was thinking of how happy I would be to be in my 2009 self's shoes... And that's where I am now.

I believe that there is a reason for everything. I know that long distance will be good for us in the long run. :)

Resolutions

It is February.

You can tell by now that "I'm going to stop procrastinating" is not one of my New Year's resolutions.

Generally, I'm not the sort to make resolutions. 2009 however is different. I have decided that this is going to be a year of serious budgeting. I need to start saving for air tickets (mainly) and a house. The three realistic areas I can afford to cut back on are:

1) Junk food (That means goodbye daily chocolate fix and potato chip addiction)

2) Mobile phone bill (3 Network is helping unintentionally with patchy reception)

3) Eating out (Major challenge. I love restaurant food)

4) Clothes shopping (No more apparel shopping till December!)

Technically speaking, I should be able to save money if I avoid going over my mobile phone cap limit and stem impulse spending on food. That is.. technically. I -love- food and that is where most of my money goes. :p