| This month has been filled with food, food, food and more food! Not many pictures though as I could not/forgot to take photos before the food was devoured... | ||||||||
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1st Wedding Anniversary (10.12.2011) We celebrated by having dinner at a Michelin star restaurant, Le Bon Accueil. Too shy to take out my camera to take photos. It is after all a Michelin star restaurant...
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Work Party (22.12.2011) The party was in the same place as last year. Did not take photos because I did not want to explain what the photos are for. Let's keep this blog between family and friends for now!
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Christmas Eve (24.12.2011) We were invited to a friend's home for dinner, and so we celebrated with the friends family and had a really good time. No photos again...
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Christmas Day (25.12.2011) We celebrated at home and instead of having a big meal, we decided to have many appetizers instead! It worked out quite well as we did not feel stuffed at the end. Totally forgot to take photos!!!
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Celebration with Friends (28.12.2011) We hosted a steamboat party for some friends to celebrate the end of the year! Aihhh... again, forgot to take photos... only remembered after when the food was gone.
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New Year's Eve (31.12.2011) We will do what we did for Christmas day again! We will be Skype-ing with our family in flamenco land especially for the 12 gongs & grapes at midnight! I got some photos! Thankfully evil saint reminded me!!!
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Saturday, 31 December 2011
Year End Parties, Celebrations & Food!!!
The Makings Of a Nursery (Part 2)
| It has been over a month since I updated photos of popcorn's nursery. I must confess that when I started thinking about the nursery, practicality and necessities were my only goals. And so I have always had the disapproving thought when friends who are parents tell me the amount they spent. And then came December... in my defense, I am after all, a shopaholic who is not required to go to work anymore... | |
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The collapsible-travel playpen. This will be popcorn's temporary cot for his first 2 months as he will be rooming with mommy & daddy. |
The inside of the playpen.
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| Lighting for the nursery, a wooden toy aeroplane. | Hard to resist with Christmas sales and 25% off! |
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popcorn's bath & changing trolley. The cheapest item in the nursery! |
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| Dangling circus from Ikea. Hangs over the changing table to serve as a "distraction". | The wardrobe, diaper bin, changing table & mat, dangling circus toy and bath & changing trolley. |
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popcorn's real cot.
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And finally, my Xmas gift from evil saint...
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Thursday, 1 December 2011
Couples Counseling in Basel
And so evil saint and me spent 3 days in couples counseling in Basel earlier this week. The course was fun and I truly enjoyed myself. I discovered that,
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| The start of the Christmas market | Christmas lights decorating the city streets |
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| Right in the center of the famous Basel Christmas market | 5-carriage pumpkin ferris wheel for little children |
Another "Gift Box" from My Pre-natal Class
I say "gift box" because I actually have to pay for my pre-natal class. This Baby Gift Box was given to us (4 moms-to-be) on our last day of the class. If I remember correctly, I should receive another one of these either from dr cool or the hospital once popcorn is born... in any case, here are the goodies 
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Remember my free baby bag gift coupon from the Sun Store pharmacy? I went back to the branch that was in the same building as our office to buy my wrist brace last Friday. bad mood pharmacist was not there and so I shamelessly flashed my coupon to the lady behind the counter and got another free baby bag  Thing is, she did not take my coupon after giving me the bag! I am out of control... just take the coupon from me before I am buried in baby bags!!
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A Taste of Bvlgari
And I mean it literally... if you cannot afford the jewelry, try the water
Why would San Pellegrino do that??? Would you drink more San Pellegrino because the label now has Bvlgari on it? I had it with my pizza... classy... |
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Friday, 25 November 2011
The Downfall of a Pregnant Speed Coder
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16 years ago, I started my career as a computer programmer and was loving the fact that I was doing the same thing in school but instead of having to suffer through exams, I got paid instead! Even back then, I would morph into a monster when I got into my "coding zone". A note would be stuck to the back of my chair with the sentence, "I am coding". People learned to stay away and I was left to speed type my hundreds and thousands lines of code in peace. I would start my days early and finish late as I was so consumed by my work. Occasionally, my fingers would lock up and it would take 10 seconds or so before I could move them again. That was when I first heard about Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. I learned that most computer programmers suffer from it. I was only 22, it was not possible... As I grew older, my career progressed and I coded less and less. There were times when my speed coding services were needed but it got progressively lesser and lesser. I forgot all about Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.
3 months ago, my right hand started to get tingly sensations and would fall asleep at night. When the same thing began to happen night after night, I googled my old friend again. I learnt that 20% of pregnant women suffer from it just because the body accumulates too much water and blocks the little Carpal Tunnel nerve. There is basically nothing a pregnant woman can do about it as pain relievers such as steroids cannot be taken while being pregnant. It usually disappears within a few months to a year after giving birth. As my pregnancy progressed month after month, I began to notice that the tingly feeling crept into the day, and slight pain started creeping into the night. In other words, it began to get worse. I could still sleep and so I pushed the matter out of my head. Until this past Wednesday. The pain crept into the day and on that night itself, I woke up to an extreme sharp and throbbing pain that went from my hand all the way down to my elbow. I tried putting my hand under cold running water hoping to numb the pain to no avail. I wanted to scream and cry but all I could do was get back into bed and whimper as I knew there was nothing anyone could do about it. I rested my right arm across my chest and the pain subsided a little, after a while, I managed to fall back to sleep. Fortunately, the next morning was my scheduled visit to dr cool. I told him about my night. As expected (although I was still hopeful!), he confirmed that there is nothing anyone can do about it. The only other option was surgery, to which I declined, of course. And then he delivered my death sentence... he explained that it is aggravated by too many wrist movements and what he can do is write me a prescription for a wrist cast to keep my wrist still. How can I not move my wrist when typing or moving my mouse? What is a Computer Scientist who can't use a computer? He then gave me a medical certificate to cut down on my work. And so from the 1st till the 22nd of December 2011, I am allowed to only work at 50%. I was still hopeful when I came into work yesterday as I now know that wrist movements aggravates it. All I have to do is reduce my wrist movements and I will be ok, seems logical to me. Oh, how naive I was... when the evening came, the pain came as well... no amount of shaking or keeping my hand still could stop the pain. Eventually, I got up from the couch and went in search of something that could keep my wrist and hand still... This is what I found... old and broken stockings and rolled up old socks. With evil saint's help, we managed to get it around my wrist and keep it still enough. We are engineers after all and this is really putting our studies to good use! I could finally sleep last night... as you can tell, the need for sleep conquered all the vanity that I have... the time has come for me to hang up my speed coding gloves... |
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Update (Thursday 01 December 2011 10:31): Bought a proper wrist brace from the pharmacy last Friday evening. I can wear it all the time now  It was not cheap though...
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Friday, 18 November 2011
Cheap Chinese in 80's Land
One month ago...
Two weeks ago...
Two days ago...
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And so, the minute I arrived home from work that day, I opened up the gift bag and found lots of nice goodies for popcorn! Some nice items include,
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| Collection of free gifts thus far!!! | All the items inside the Penaten blue bag... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This morning at breakfast...
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Monday, 14 November 2011
The Makings Of a Nursery (Part 1)
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And so evil saint has returned home and completed the assembly of the wardrobe!
popcorn's nursery is slowly beginning to take its shape... it definitely still needs more decorative touches. We shall see what can be done as the weeks amble along... |
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| popcorn's assembled crib. Transformable into a child's bed for when he is older. | popcorn's assembled wardrobe and chest. Note the little caterpillar on the crib! |
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| The crib is positioned in the "center" of the room to enable access from all four sides. | The wardrobe is positioned at the corner of the room with the highest ceiling. The chest is positioned next to the wardrobe for easy reach. |
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popcorn would like to say a huge thank you to his,
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Friday, 4 November 2011
The Beginnings Of a Nursery
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As I mentioned in my yesterday's post, all of popcorn's furniture was picked up by Saturday afternoon. On Sunday afternoon, after a hearty meal of raclette, evil saint began the assembly... I helped a little by holding panels, non of the heavy work. Even with my little contribution, evil saint got as far as assembling the crib and the chest with the changing table. Very good and hard work, I must say... And so, this is how a nursery begins to form... |
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| The entrance to the nursery. The assembly tools are stacked on the right wall. | Cardboards are laid on the floor so the furniture can be assembled on it without scratching the tiles. |
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| The assembled crib, drawer beneath the crib and chest! Pushed against the wall to make space for wardrobe assembly. | The still packaged wardrobe stacked against the wall waiting to be assembled. |
| Will have to wait for evil saint to come home to finish assembling the wardrobe. Then we can go pick up the cheap sofa and coffee table from Ikea and the nursery's furniture will be complete! | |
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