Happy Diwali

Wishing everyone out in blogosphere a very Happy Diwali!

Diwali is a festival of lights and as I write this, my home is all lit up. I've got diyas, tealight candles and some pretty lights on, along with normal tubelights.

There are a couple of mythological reasons behind Diwali. Mostly in North India, it is celebrated as the return of Lord Rama, back to Ayodhya after his 14 year banishment. Dusshera was the day he vanquished King Ravana and it took him the next two weeks or so to reach his home in Ayodhya. Hence the population of the city lit lamps all around their homes to welcome him. In the South, it is mostly celebrated as Naraka Chaturthi where Lord Krishna defeats the demon Narakasura. Wikipedia has some more details of how Diwali or Deepavali is celebrated across India and Nepal.

Usually we wake up before sunrise, and go to the prayer room. Then my mother (and now me) will put oil on everyone (minimum the hair, and maximum all over the body). Then bath and prayers where new clothes are given. After some coffee and breakfast, it's time to burst crackers. These crackers are supposed to dispel evil as well as let the Gods above us know that all is well in Earth. After this it's time go to the temple, take the blessings of the elders and followed by a scrumptious lunch. Then the oil bath in the morning along with waking up early makes you sleepy, so a siesta is in order. That pretty much sums up what we do in Diwali in our family.

Phew!! Finally…..All Ends Well.....

I guess the post heading says it all! We finally got our new home…

After looking high and low for about a month, we finally saw one last property on Saturday (October 03) and as soon as we were out of the place, DH decided this was it! I also liked the place, as did the kids and what sold it to us was the fact at 145 sq m (about 1560 sq feet), it was the largest Executive Apartment we had seen till date.

Then started all the fun! Once we were out, we went back home, got the chequebook and decided to pay them $1000 as a signing amount. Then while our agents were talking, we realized that while my seller (of the new home) wanted to move out only after Chinese New Year (Feb end), my buyer (of my current home) wanted to move in before Chinese New Year. There we were, stuff between these two! After going back and forth the whole day and me praying madly, on Sunday (October 04), this whole issue got resolved and we signed the Option to Purchase.

We also gotten our first appointment with HDB fixed on 19 Jan (my dad’s birthday and so hopefully a good day for us) and so the second appointment should be around 16 March. This will give us only around 10 days to renovate the place as we need to hand over the keys to the new owners on the second appointment.

Here’s my wish list of what I want to get done in the new place. Out of all these, what I will actually get done is to be seen.

• Make a new room where the dead space is there.
• Make a vanity and add a shower cubicle to the common toilet and change the toilet bidet.
• Add some storage space in the master toilet and change the toilet bidet.
• Replace all the veneers in the built-in furnitures and fixures
• Put my existing store room storage in the new store room
• Add ceiling fans in all rooms (hall, dining area, four bedrooms)
• Change the veneers in the kitchen and redo the drawers. I have not yet seen the drawers in the kitchen, but I want pull out drawers and also make a small pantry.
• Add some storage shelves in the balcony where I can keep the cleaning and laundry supplies.
• Buy a new bed and cupboards for the new bedroom
• Add electrical sockets in the new room.

Here are some pictures of the new place: 

This is the view from the front door. The small patch of green that you see at the very end is where the new guest bedroom is going to be.

This is a view of the Master Bedroom. The bed which is built in is a queen-sized bed. We now have to get used to sleeping in that after years in a King sized bed.

This is going to be the Pilot's room. He has chosen yellow as his room colour.  It does look like a boy's room. I'll try to get a better picture the next time I go to the place.






This is the bedroom that the Princess has chosen for herself. We want the kids to have a say in their rooms, down to the paint colour. She predictably has chosen pink as her room colour.

This space is where we intend to construct a guest room. This space meant that we did not have to sacrifice our dining area to make the guest room.

This is the kitchen with the common toilet just off the entrance. I liked the curved breakfast nook but am not too fond of the veneer colour scheme. If time permits, that's gonna go.

Last, this is the service balcony. I plan to make some storage space in the far wall near the washing machine to store laundry  and cleaning supplies. Maybe something from my current home could go there.

Happy Dusshera!

Here’s wishing everyone a very Happy Dusshera! Navratri and Dushhera is celebrated all over India, Nepal and the Hindu parts of Bangladesh with great festivity and gusto! This festival, which comes at the end of the nine nights of Navratri is a day where good triumphs over evil. Navratri is celebrated all over India and is a celebration of the Mother Goddess. This celebration takes the form of keeping Kollu in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, dancing the Garba and Dandiya in Gujarat and Durga Puja in West Bengal.

The ninth day of Navratri is dedicated to Goddess Saraswati who is the Goddess of Learning. On this day, you would keep your books and other implements of work (like plough for a farmer, needles for a tailor etc) and pray over them. You could also not use them on that day. On Dusshera, you had to take out the books and implements from the altar and use them. When we were in school, Saraswati Puja would invariably come during exams, which meant we could not study on that day. I would always ponder on the irony of the situation – on the one day of the year, when my parents would not want me to be near books would be the day I actually needed to study!!

Dusshera is also called Vijay Dashami, which literally means victory on the tenth day. There are many legends for Dusshera – the most popular one is from Hindu Mythology which concers Lord Rama, his wife Sita and brother Lakshmana. The nine days of navratri is supposed to be the days when he fought the evil king Ravana of Lanka who had kidnapped Sita and kept her in his kingdom of what is today known as Sri Lanka. On the tenth day, Lord Rama finally defeats and kills King Ravana. In the northern part of India, there are huge communal Ram Leelas which enact the battle with the culmination on Dusshera of the victory of Lord Rama over King Ravana. You can read more about this story as well as other mythological tales attributed to Navratri and Dusshera here. These include stories about Durga and the demon Mahisasura and the Pandavas and the Kauravas. This link will also let you know how different states in India celebrate this festival.

Dusshera or Vijaya Dashimi is also traditionally the day for starting formal studies and/or any new course. This day is called Vidyarambham and when my kids were around two years old, we did this in Mumbai so that they could start formal schooling when they came back to Singapore and turned 2.5 years. I also remember starting music lessons when I was young on this day. I did think of starting carnatic music for the Princess today, but decided to leave it for another year.

Home Hunting Updates

Ah well, what do I write - we still have not managed to seal the deal for our new home. We're two weeks down of the four weeks plus 2 weeks deal that we have with our buyer to buy a new home.

We've seen some - ones we like are either too over priced (the cash over valuation component) or else we don't like something about the house. We did see one that we both liked - everything seemed perfect - location, floor, condition of the house etc. But the seller's agent (the seller is supposed to be in Australia) didn't have the valuation of the house and says that he has gotten offers for it. Now this is a risk we do not want to take as we will get a loan only for a maximum of 90% of the valuation of the house. If we agree to the rate and the valuation turns out to be much less than the price, then we would have to fork out all that extra money in cash - which is not the most prudent thing to do in this economy.

Please, please pray for us that we can buy the home we like and not have to settle for something just because we need to close a deal!

Happy Birthday Sweeties!!

Today the Pilot and the Princess turn 6! I can't believe how time has flown - I can still see them as new borns! The only thing I wish for my darlings is that they have a life that is extremely fulfilling and that they achieve happiness in whatever they do.

Home Hunt Update

I'm writing this post at home, while the Princess and the Pilot finish their Kumon homework. The reason for this sudden leave is that hubby's aunt last nite developed some pain in her side and the doctor they saw at around 11:30 pm advised her to be moved to a hospital immediately. We thought the hospital will run some tests on the heart and leave her by this afternoon, but it looks like she will be in hospital till Saturday!

Last Sunday we had an 'Open House' for our current home. This is something that works like this - you choose a day and time when you would have people traipsing through your home for a few hours while you stay at home or choose to be out. Since we didn't know what to do, we decided to be at home. And I regretted this! We were sitting around like fools while people looked the house over - opening cupboards and peering inside the bathrooms. I had decided that if we were going throgh this once more, we will not be inside the house while the Open House was going on. Luckily for us, there was someone who liked our home so much that he quoted the highest buying price and as of Tuesday we signed the papers to sell the property! By the calculations of the agents, since the buyer can start the buying process only after he finishes selling his current property, we are looking at a first appointment at HDB (Housing and Development Board) sometime in early Jan with closing the sale and the second appointment sometime in late February or early March 2010.

Now for us comes the hard part - buying a home. We still haven't seen any homes - we plan to see one tomorrow and hopefully some more by the end of the week. I have a picture in my head of my perfect home - lets hope the picture turns to reality very soon!

Since this is an update of selling a house, I'll do an update of buying a house once we start looking at properties.

Weekends

Weekends - What does this work evoke in you? For most people, weekends mean lazing around, getting up late and having long afternoon siestas. In our home, weekends are probably the most hurried day. A typical weekend looks something like us....

Saturday - During term time the Piolet and the Princess have Hindi classes from 9 am to 1 pm. This means that mom has to wake up atleast by 6 am so that I have some sense on the day's meals before the mad scramble starts at 7 am when I wake them up. If hubby is around, he will drop the kids to school and I have some time to finish my chores, otherwise I try to complete my cooking and bathe and start the machine before we leave the house at around 8:30 am.

Once I am back from dropping them, I start tackling the week's ironing and then cleaning the house. This keeps me busy till around noon when I have lunch and then go and bring them back.

After they are back and are done with lunch, at this point, there are no more classes till evening, but there was a time not so long ago when we used to go to art classes at 3 pm. Now there is just the Princess's ballet - which should also end in November 2009 as this class is her exam class. Ballet ends around 8 pm when it's time to get home, have dinner and go to bed exhausted.

On Sunday the pace is slightly slower as there is only the Princess's ballet class from 10 am till 10:45 am. Once that is done, we're home for lunch followed by some lazing around. Although this Sunday, we did anything but laze around - I'll talk about it tomorrow.

So what do you do on your weekends?

Update on our Home

Here the latest update on our home hunt! I thought that instead of giving an update on a daily basis, I'll do it one or maximum twice a week (if something comes up)

Our housing agent came home yesterday with the Valuation report as well a contract for us to sign. This is an 'Exclusive Contract' meaning that she will be the only person we appoint to market this house. She also said she was willing to co-broke, meaning that she would not just restrict the buyers to her clients, but share the commission with another broker. This will ensure that we get the best rate for our home. Also she is planning to put the selling price above the Valuation price. Here, in Singapore this is called Cash Over Valuation. This is essentially the rate the market forces put on your home based on various factors - like location, floor, decor, renovation etc. We have a superb location in our area - just minutes from the public transport interchanges, the mall which houses a supermarket, library etc. The first viewings should be this Sunday. Gosh, I better clean up the house by then.....Now we also need to start looking at houses to buy so that we can do what is called a 'Contra' deal. This means we sell our current home and at the same time and place, sign the papers to buy a new one. I have so many ideas to do up the place that I am real excited. I also am praying that both the deals get done quickly and we are settled in the new home as soon as possible so that the kids transition to Primary School is as smooth as possible.

I doubt I will be posting over the weekend, but then given my new-found enthusiasm, you never know. So have a great weekend and see you soon. What are your plans for the weekend?

Home is where the heart is....

Hubby has been transferred to a new work place within his organization. He works in what is called a 'Stat Board' - a sort of semi-government organization. His new office is literally a 5-7 minute walk from our home. He started on September 01 and we (me and the kids) were quite happy initially since we thought he would be home for dinner each night. Well he is home for dinner, but his version differs from ours. He reaches home just in time to tell 'goodnite' to the children and tuck them into bed. Ah well! What would this country without workaholics like hubby!!

On another note, here is a tip! If you are wearing a dress/skirt/blouse which is clinging to your body due to static electricity, then to avoid it, just use a safety pin and pin it in a discrete place in the inside of your dress/skirt/blouse and the static will disappear. If you can't find a safety pin (like me today), then use a paper clip! Open it up and use it the same way you would use a pin. It works!!

Our housing agent is going to come home tonight to talk about what we want in a new home and what will be process of selling our current one. We're going to sign contracts also - if she doesn't brting it up, I will be insisting on it. So more details on it the next time I log in. Till then....

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

Today is my birthday and I turn...well I wont say it! I just realised that I've not blogged in like...forever. Hopefully this will change...

Invariably my birthday brings to my mind my birthday six years ago. I was heavily pregnant then - around 32 weeks - with my kids and the night before I could not feel their kicks. I waited till morning and called the gynae who told me to get to the hospital asap. Once there they ran tests on me and put me on a fetal monitor. Turned out the kids were probably asleep when I checked on them but with the monitor on, we could tell they were kicking merrily! In fact the nurse had to come and change the position of the monitors a couple of times as they were moving around so much! I was never so scared in my life. They were born two weeks later.

On another note, I am going to start writing more frequently as I blog my way to a new home! Yes we plan to move soon to a bigger home. Our current home was perfect for the two of us and adequate when the ids were babies. Now that they are growing up and will start formal school come January, we feel that this is the perfect time to make the transition. One of the main criteria to the housing agent is to find us a place with a minimum of four bedrooms. We plan to stay in the same area - for school and other enrichment activities. A piece of good news is that our current home has been valued at a price slightly higher than I was expecting. But the flip side to this is that our buying price will also be higher! Ah, well, you can win everywhere! I have loads of plans for the new place. Hopefully all information I've gotten from the design and organization blogs and websites that I have been reading over the years will pay off. I'll post pictures and detail what we've done. But at the moment, that's putting the horse before the cart. We'vce not seen anything yet. I'm praying both the selling as well as the buying goes on smoothly as well as fast. So wish me luck!

Here's a picture for you. This was taken at the Hongkong Disneyland at the start of the fireworks which marks the end of a wonderful day!!

Take care and see you real soon....