Moments in My Life

Last few days have been busy for me.  Even though it was the Thanksgiving holiday but as a mom, you don’t get holiday even if is a holiday.  I didn’t cook for the dinner but instead we went to my IL’s house for dinner.  MIL made a roast turkey and some other dishes to go with it.  We had it the Chinese style … meaning with rice … no mash potatoes this year. 

On Black Friday, we didn’t go out as early as 6am in the morning.  I woke up around 7am and we left home at 9am.  But guess what?  We didn’t buy anything for ourselves on Black Friday.  Then on Saturday, we went out again to gather some stuff for our mini trip. 

We will be off to Las Vegas this morning at 7:30am.  Hubby already picked up the car from the rental place yesterday evening.  This will be a mini vacation for our family as well as my ILs.  There’ll be 6 of in the minivan. Initially, I thought MIL was not going but yesterday she said she will be going too. This is the first time I’ve ever traveled with ‘all’ my ILs. We have never taken a vacation together before. We’ll see how this go.

The plan for today. Leave at 7:30am. It is 6:15am now. Stopping at Barstow for breakfast. Then stopping at Primm Factory Outlet. Check in at Mandalay Bay. Have lunch buffet. Then drive ILs to their hotel at Mirage (north of the strip). Evening will be free and easy. Will see if there’ll any appointments available for a facial at the spa. I didn’t sleep too well last night, Brandon was waking up coughing and crying. I only had 4 hours sleep. Hope my MIL doesn’t talk too much so I can nap in the car. LOL!

Finally, the real estate transaction is closed!  YES!  I can relax more now since I won’t need to spend time calling this person that person asking and checking this and that.  I also received my first paycheck from real estate work for this year.  Not too much.  This is the smallest check I’ve ever received from my real estate work since I am doing this 50/50 with another agent.  Also this was the hardest and time consuming transaction I’ve ever dealt with. 

I also spent a lot of gas driving up to the property so many times.  A round trip drive to the property is around +/- 56 miles.  Also part of the check was taken out for my office fee, which is $50 a month.  I also paid for the sign up fee for the property as well as the MLS fee.  Although it is not as much as I hope for but I am still going to spend part of it for pampering myself.  A big part of the check will be put aside for income tax purposes and also for future payments of office fee, MLS membership fee, realtor board fee and supra key fee.

I am thinking of getting a spa service at Spa Mandalay for myself while in Las Vegas.  May be get another bag from Coach if I can find a nice one while shopping at the outlets.  Wow … can’t wait for my shopping spree.   

This weekend we will be heading out to the dessert for another mini vacation. It will be the three of us with my father-in-law and sister-in-law. We are renting a mini van to drive up to Las Vegas. We had made our hotel reservation at Mandalay Bay for two nights while FIL and SIL will be staying at Mirage for one night and then move on to downtown Las Vegas to stay at Golden Nugget for the second night.

Not too sure what our itinerary for this vacation will be. We might go for horseback riding, helicopter ride for city view, buffet, shopping and may be a visit to Hoover Dam too. I should remind FIL to pack his new Ariat boots with him, just in case if we do decide to go horseback riding.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day.  It is a glutton holiday feast.  There will be so many food served including turkey, ham, sweet yam, different pies (pumpkin and pecan are popular ones), cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cornbread … and the list continues.  So what will I be making for tomorrow?  NOTHING!  We’ll be heading to my in-law’s home for Thanksgiving dinner.  She will be preparing a small roast turkey, mash potatoes and sweet yam.  My sister in-law loves cranberry sauce but not me.  We’ll probably bring a Marie Callendar pie over for dessert. 

We’ll come home and be ready for bed early tomorrow night as we are looking to go out for Black Friday shopping the next day at 6am.  *wink*

Do you usually do your manicure at the salon or at home? I highly recommend that you do it at home for your own health safety. My friend once had her done at a salon for the first time and her nails were infected by fungus and it won’t go away. Until now she is still taking medication for that and vowed never ever to return to any salon for manicure or pedicure.

It is fun to sit there and have someone else to do your nails for you while you can sit back and enjoy. But think about the drive, time you going to spend going there and the cost plus tips. It will end up more than you think.

If you have all the necessary tools, you can too do it at the comfy of your own home. Or even better, you can have a mini manicure and pedicure party at your home. Invite a few friends over and let them do your nails and you do theirs. You can get a bottle of my favorite Black Forest Olan Nail Polish from Hello Gorgeous online website for only $6.00. This particular nail polish has no Formaldehyde, no Toluene, and no DBP which I like. Actually shopping online will give you more choices, selections on colors and brand names.  If you haven’t own any tools, you can purchase them from the same website too.

What you need is a list of friends, even number of people would be best.  Make sure you have all the necessary manicure/pedicure tools, nail polish colors, towels, small buckets for water and different scent of hand lotions.  You can set up the station/s on the dining table or coffee table.  Get ready some soft classical CDs to play in the background.  If you want, you can also serve one or two snack trays and some light drinks or water to your guests.  There you go … a mini manicure party at home! 

Brandon didn’t take any nap at all today and he didn’t even get grouchy or tired by the evening time either.  It is now 830pm and he is still rolling on his bed.  His regular bedtime is around 9pm and I would have thought that he might sleep earlier than that but nope.  He isn’t much tired, eyes still pretty big.  Just rolling rolling on his bed. 

He had a long day.  He woke up at 710am this morning.  Watched some TV after his milk and then we went to Target at 9am.  We let him walked around by himself a little bit while we’re there and sometimes he sat inside the shopping cart.  By 10am, Hubby and him went to the mall to walk around while I was at my office putting together some paperwork.  They came back to pick me up at 11am and we went to lunch at a Chinese Restaurant in Torrace.  Brandon ate quite a bit as he really likes rice and the dishes.

After lunch, we stopped at Sam’s club to get milk and then we headed back home.  He was about to fall asleep in the car but I kept him awake by talking to him.  The ride back home is not long enough and I didn’t want him to nap for 10 mins and wake him up when we got home.  I wanted him to nap at home.  It was 12:30pm when we stepped inside the house.  At around 1pm, I warmed some milk for him. 

My ex-landlord called and told me he was in the area and if he could stop by a little bit for a short visit.  He arrived at 1:30pm.  We chatted a bit.  Brandon was inside the whole time while Alan was cleaning our bathroom.  At 2pm, Brandon came out to play with Anthony.  He sang to him and even ran around my kitchen while singing.  Then when Anthony left, he was drinking his milk on his bed.  I thought he would go straight to dreamland while drinking the milk but nope.  He stayed up.  Although he didn’t sleep, but he spent almost an hour by himself inside his bedroom … with me. 

It was 3:30pm and he was still awake.  I called the ILs to come over for visit.  They stayed for 30 mins and then left.  I was busy making dinner by then.  We had our dinner around 5:10pm.  Usually if he didn’t take his afternoon nap, while eating the dinner, he would be very tired and sleepy.  Not this time though. 

By 6:30pm, he wanted me to play ball with him.  He was laughing and running around again.  By 7pm, I gave him a bath.  He looked kinda tired while taking the bath and again I thought when we take him out, he will be sleeping already.  But that didn’t happen either.  He got changed into his PJ and Alan was playing with him. 

I called my aunt to chit chat with her on the phone.  7 minutes into our conversation, Alan came to me saying Brandon was ‘fishing‘ (falling asleep while sitting) but he didn’t let him carry him to bed.  So I ended my phone chat and went inside.  I saw Brandon with big eyes asking to watch some TV inside the room.  I went to take my shower and came out, he was still sitting there very alert to me.  Gave him his milk around 8pm, half an hour earlier than usual time but he didn’t sleep after his milk either.  Wah … this boy had so much energy today. 

By the time I finished typing the paragraph above, I went inside to check … finally he is asleep. It is 8:39pm now.

We make the hotel reservation for Las Vegas earlier this month.  Our plan is to be there for the Thanksgiving weekend.  Hubby will be taking two days off from work and spending a total of three days/two nights mini vacation.  Why we choose Las Vegas?  Because is near to drive there.  Gas is cheap now too.  I saw it today was $2.33/gallon. 

Hubby already planned out our meals.  We will be hitting a few buffets in the town.  As you know, when I am at a buffet, it is hard to control the amount I take.  The last time we were at Mandalay Bay’s buffet with my brother back in May, we spent more than 2 hours.  We were there from the time they almost done with lunch menu.  So we were able to taste the lunch as well as dinner menu for the price of lunch.  We ate so much that day.  This time, Hubby planned to do the same thing.  Going to the buffet around 2:30pm and sit till they changed the dishes.  hehehe … I know I know … I already put on 6 pounds from my trip to KL.  Now with this again … I better prepare myself with the best diet pills available. May be I should give some to my Hubby too.

The buyer’s lender didn’t fund escrow today.  The excuse they gave to escrow was they were too busy.  When I was at the escrow office this morning to check the status, the escrow officer said the buyer’s lender called and told her they received everything they needed and will be funding today.  I told her to give me a call once that is done.  It was around 2:30pm and I have yet to hear anything, so I called escrow.  The escrow officer let me talked to her supervisor.  I was told the buyer’s lender was not going to fund today but instead of Monday. 

Our short sale with the seller’s lender expires on Tuesday.  It would be perfect if escrow gets the money today and close on Monday.  But now we have to talk to the seller’s lender to give us one more day.  This lender was very kind to us as he already extended our short sale transaction three times and he said no more extension, or else they will request for more money at closing.  I don’t know what’s with the update after speaking with the escrow supersivor as she said she was going to email the lender and find out more info from him.  The lender is in TX, so he might not reply until Monday.

What I am thinking here is what happened if the buyer lender’s doesn’t fund escrow on Monday.  We have to wait till after Thanksgiving holiday before we can close the transaction.  Worse is, the buyer’s lender is blaming on us for them not able to fund today.  S*T*O*O*O*P*I*D … they don’t ever want to take responsibility that it is their fault since we already provided them everything they need and was told they were able to fund today. 

It is not a sight you want to see or experience when you have sewage backup to your backyard. It happens every few years at our home because the roots from the trees get into sewage pipe from the house to the street. We won’t know that had happened until I smell the problem as we don’t always go out to the backyard. In that scenario, we will not be able to use the bathroom or kitchen sink at all until the problem it fixed or else our backyard will have a pool of sh*ts. We won’t want that to spill into our swimming pool. But luckily, the service we use to clear the root problem can come the same day within a few hours and we get to use the bathroom afterward.

It was 8:20am this morning when I changed Brandon into his going-out clothes.  Packed his bag and we were ready to leave the home.  Put him on his car seat, closed the car door and drove the car out the garage.  Half way towards my office as I was driving pass a traffic light, my heart skipped a beat.  I quickly turned back to see if I had secured my son with the seat belt.  Ahh … a relieve … he had his seat belt on. 

Sometimes  I do things so mindlessly that I don’t know if I did it or not.  Another example is locking the house door.  I usually have the key on the lock before we leave the home.  I am pretty sure I will lock the door immediately when I closed it.  These are things that I do without thinking and sometimes it gets to me if indeed I actually do it or not.