MONTHLY BLOG: February and March, two months in one

Family photoshoot with Depth of Tales
Photoshoot with Depth Of Tales in February

I am really really trying to blog more, write more. I was appalled at myself when I realised that I had only published 8 blog posts last year. Well done me, shame on me.

I am seriously hoping that this writing habit would kick in again and stay. I do miss those days when I poured out my mind and well... leave to regret later on when I am 5 or 10 years older, reading back on my old blog posts. Technically I never do, because I know that I'll cringe. What usually happens is that a follower would drop me a DM and say "oh hey I read your blog post... from like 8 years ago!"

Me when I read that line:

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Date of writing: 7 February 2020

Life has been a whirlwind for me. I have been sick half of January and the illness has now followed me thru to February. I honestly hope that I do get better soon. Ethan has skipped school for close to a week now, what started as a fever that lasted for 3 days became mouth ulcers... I seriously hope that it doesn't develop into HFMD. Keeping my fingers crossed.

My new maid should be arriving in about 2 weeks time. I told the husband that I want to go to a temple before she arrives to pray for luck because my luck has seriously been crap for the past two maids. Ok to be fair, the second one was not as terrible, she was pretty okay but I had to release her due to her hearing issues. Whereas the third one... as y'all know from my previous post, she really is shit.


Before his morning school bus!
Ethan started taking the school bus (to school) during the first week of February!

Date of writing: 11 February 2020

Good news! My new helper will be arriving in 2 weeks time. I am refraining from talking much about her, for fear of jinxing myself (AGAIN!)

Calista and I were saying about how whenever we talk about our helpers online and express our gratitude for their presence... shit happens. Shit always happens. So the best thing is to just not talk about our helper, have little to no hope/expectation – or rather we have but we just don't talk about it online – and maybe then perhaps... the helper would work out. What do y'all think about this? Rational or just superstitious?


Date of writing: 15 February 2020

Keys to our Bidadari BTO

Collected our BTO keys in end January, and nearly after half a month... we finally went to open the doors! We did the usual superstition stuff... roll pineapple (read: in our instance, it was THROW pineapple), sprinkle salt and rice, also did a check around our 3-room apartment at Bidadari. For its size... really very ex lor. $350k 🤯

Don’t even have space to put a regular fridge in the kitchen, I’m thinking that we either put the fridge outside of the kitchen or we’ll have to get those super slim fridges made for tiny new HDB apartments 🤭

The estate is incredibly dusty and messy. They are still doing finishing touches around our area and the construction for the other estates are still ongoing. We took a walk on our floor and there were so many families who have either just started renovation or if not haven’t even open doors — we can tell they haven’t opened their doors yet from the flyers that are still littering their door and doorway. I guess maybe some might have opened but never pick up? 🤷🏻‍♀️


Date of writing: 30 March 2020

Ethan's First Day Riding The School Bus Home
He started taking the school bus back home in the first week of March. Because Ethan was crying so hard on the first day, the bus uncle told me to get on the bus and ride home with Ethan, LOL. #freeridehome

It's been more than a month since my last update. Life got the better of me (again) - oops! I talked about it on IG story, but I'll share briefly about it on here again. I failed to get my new helper in the end and am currently still stuck in a "maid-less" situation.

My 3rd helper arrived in the third week of February and we were psyched. A night before the scheduled pick-up date, my agent dropped me a text to inform me that she was caught by MOM and we were not to go pick her up at the agency the next day. My heart sank. More problems? Sianz.

Till today, I don't know the reason of why she was caught and detained. She went through 3 rounds of interview (including a lie detector test) and was made to stay overnight at MOM's lodgings for over a week. The entire interview process took close to a month before the final verdict came out – she was to be repatriated back to her hometown. Victor and I don't think that it is a simple matter of being underage... we say so because, where got just because underage need to do lie detector test, get detained by MOM to stay at their lodging, and after they issued their conclusion they didn't release her immediately to send her home either. They continued to keep her at their lodging for almost a week more. Everything was just... so strange.

I have selected my 4th maid but because #covid19, Indonesia is under lockdown, their embassy isn't working, all paperwork has halted and my maid is stuck in Indonesia. I have no estimated deadline on when my new helper is able to arrive.

The daily cost to house in a suitable accommodation for her to serve her stay-home-notice is exorbitant... $84/day. Which amounts up to over $1000+ for 14 days. And we don't qualify for the subsidy because albeit I chose my 4th helper super early, the agency had to wait till my 3rd helper was sent home before they could send in the application for my 4th helper and Indonesia's side was taking their own sweet time to send my agent details of the maid for the application.

Thankfully our previous home hasn't been sold yet (property market in that estate isn't doing well ☹️) and so we've seeked permission from MOM to use it as a location for our 4th helper to serve her stay-home notice. Okay la, at least a bigger space for her so she will feel less confined and I'll stock up the place with sufficient Indomie, Indonesian sambal and Keropok for her to snack on 😂

I'll also be video-calling her everyday to check up on her and because she will have access to a smartphone, she can watch youtube videos all day long. So shiok hor, come Singapore to work but the first 14 days is almost (note: I used the word 'almost') like a vacation.