The Bub in the Belly

Our weekend was a pleasant mix of everything. Ryan went for his swimming and Shichida classes, but otherwise, we spent a lot of time at home, managed to catch up on some zzz's, attended to some errands, and had more home-cooked food than usual.

Between Ryan's classes on Sunday, I squeezed in some fabric-shopping at Spotlight. I haven't been working much with fabric ever since Ryan graduated from PlayClub, and I've missed it, so I was really happy. Just being there among all the bales of textiles set my creative juices flowing. I only have whimsical inspirations right now, but I still bought seven metres of fabric (seven different designs). Let's see what happens!

We also popped in at the Times Bookstore warehouse sale and picked up a ton of books. I was grateful to Alicia and Shann who alerted me about it, so here I am, passing on the info! The last time we went to the Times Bookstore warehouse sale, Ryan was still an infant/barely a toddler and he already had a healthy collection of books at home, so we didn't pick up many books. Now that Ryan is a little older, his available options are much wider so we ended up with a carboot full of books! I wouldn't say that there is a fantastic selection for children under 3, but if you have an older child, it's worth a visit. Besides the ton of books for Ryan, Richard picked up some graphic novels and technical books, while I picked up a cookbook. The books are of much better condition this year, which is something that is important to me, and there was hardly any crowd (we were there on Sunday afternoon about 4 pm). Check it out if you are free, details are easily available on the internet. It lasts till 18 March 2012.

The other thing we did was to set up a new play area for Ryan in the house. We recently got some contractors in to extend our bedroom space by transforming one of the balconies into a sunroom. Over the weekend, Richard starting setting it up, putting in the carpets, moving some furniture around, setting up the rocking horse, etc. It's not finished yet, we still have some ideas for it, but Ryan already loves it. Will share some photos when it's a little further along.

Hope your weekend was great!

Anyway, a new year and a new season is truly upon us now and I've run out of excuses to keep the Christmas decorations up. Chinese New Year is fast approaching so I need to shake off the rabbit and welcome the dragon!

Here are some photos taken last year (10 December) before the weather turned soggy. It was a pleasant evening so we spent it in the pool at our condo.

This is the children's pool, which is basically a wading pool. Ryan just walks up and down and up and down and up and down.



After that, it was into the big boy's pool! Some serious swimming here!


We had the pool all to ourselves, which was nice (since the pool isn't large at all).





We came across a group of children having fun with bubbles. Ryan jumped right in.

We ushered in the new year with a cozy gathering with friends at our new home. We served dinner at our outdoor terrace upstairs and watched the sunset for the last time in 2010.

Food was catered from Casa Bom Vento - deliciously spicy! Conversation flowed easily and we sat there for more than two hours before going inside to play mahjong. Later on, when the clock struck 12, we went upstairs again to pop the champagne and watch the Marina Bay fireworks. We even saw the flares from the ships at sea near the East Coast.

We played our mahjong game with a new mahjong set. As is our custom with a new set, we randomly picked four numbered tiles and Angelynn bought 4D for us the next day (today) - guess what - we struck 3rd prize plus a starter! A great omen for 2011!

The party ended after 2 am, and we were up quite late after that, cleaning and clearing up before collapsing into bed. Today we woke up at noon and we still felt like staying in bed. We dragged ourselves out of the house and drove over to the beach for a quiet lunch and a short walk before it started to rain.

Then it was off to Parkway Parade, where we bought a new computer (I'm using it now!) - our reward for finally getting our study room sorted out.

A quiet start to the new year, but a good one, I think.

I thought I'd share some random photos of our Christmas.

Our decorations at home were very simple this year as we had just moved in and were focused on getting things unpacked and sorted into place. We were occupied enough with finding places for our daily stuff - we didn't have much energy left over for dealing with major Christmas decorations.  So we contented ourselves with little Christmas reminders here and there.

This is what we have on our dining table. The Christmas card is from Terri - we look forward to it every year. Nothing beats the good ol' greeting card in the post - although I have to confess we ourselves didn't send out any this year.

We chose not to buy another tree this year, we relied on our tabletop tree to look after the Christmas gifts.


The lights were bought on our recent trip to Chiangmai. Love the shadow patterns they cast on the wall.


Here's a photo from our customary walk along Orchard Road to check out the lights.


There were a few Christmas "traditions" that we didn't observe this year - like putting up our Christmas stockings. But we had a lovely Christmas, which was also our first in our new home. I'm already looking forward to next Christmas! Next year, I think Ryan will be better able to appreciate the season (and the reason for the season) so there will be lots of little things we can do - like setting out the milk and cookies for Santa! I can't wait!

We still have lots to sort and unpack, arrange and re-arrange. We haven't really been doing it consistently, especially not over the Christmas weekend, so it's stretching out a little longer than it should. Hopefully, we'll be done by this week.  The contractor is supposed to make one last visit to tidy up some loose ends, hopefully that will also happen this week.

Yesterday we bought carpets for the living room and we also went shopping for living room seating. Actually, we bought a small couch from Molecule earlier, but that didn't work out - Tiger decided that it was the perfect spot to pee and poo. Although the couch was all right (it was made of PVC so it was very easy to clean), we didn't fancy coming home and receiving "presents" everyday. So we gave the couch away and went to look for an alternative. We saw something we liked yesterday, a lounge chair at air division, but they only had one piece and we want two. We have to wait three months for the new pieces to come in, which is quite disappointing. Still, we like it very much so we might just go ahead and place the order.
Otherwise, we are enjoying our new home. There are a number of adjustments that we have had to make, which is part and parcel of migrating from a landed property to a condominium, but by and large, it's been all right.

Richard is not working this week and I am also taking a few days off so we will try our darndest to get the place in shape by Friday.

When we brought Ryan back from the hospital after he was born, Richard carried him through the house, introduced him to each room and told him that this was his home. On Saturday evening, after the Big Move, we went through the same ritual. We brought Ryan back to the old house and we took him to each room and showed him that we were saying goodbye.

Well, Ryan seems to have understood and seems to have no problems with the big change. I think two very important factors helped - first was that we have been bringing him to the new place quite frequently, so he wasn't freaked out when we stayed put there and second, I set up his playroom straightaway. He absolutely loves being in the playroom, surrounded by his books and toys, with endless activities to engage him. The playroom is not quite done yet, I'll put up some photos when it's finished.

As for Richard and I, we're happy about being in the new place. There is however a small negative - the renovation works aren't complete yet (although the contractor handed back the unit to us last week). We virtually moved into a construction site and this was amply represented by the huge scaffolding in our living room.

The contractor used the scaffolding to prepare the ceiling wiring for the lights in the double height space and they would also use it to install the lights when the lights were delivered. The good news is that our dining set and our Kartell lights came this week, which was much earlier than we thought. The bad news is that, since the lights were coming in just a week after the contractor handed the unit back to us, the contractor decided to leave their scaffolding in our living room till the lights came.

The scaffolding in our living room

Well, the lights were installed yesterday so the scaffolding is now gone. But we're still unsettled because some of the built-in furniture is not done yet and there are some little adjustments to be made here and there to the furniture that has already been installed. As the works aren't complete, we can't unpack all the boxes yet, so there're just boxes and boxes everywhere. We can't even tuck the boxes away neatly because we need to clear some space around the areas that still need to be worked on, so the boxes are in the most inconvenient spots at the moment.

Anyway, the rest of the works are expected to be completed next weekend so there's about one more week to go before we can finish unpacking.

The cat and the dog seem to be adjusting well. The first few days, I think they thought that we were on some sort of outing and that we would all go home soon to the old house. Tiger spent a lot of time on the terrace, pining for his unbounded outdoors (either that or he hid out in the household shelter) and Max spent a lot of time lying by the main door. They seem to have became much closer though, they hang out a lot together now - Richard says that they're combining forces to figure out a way out of the unit. After a few days, I think they've caught on to the idea that we're not leaving this place so they've settled themselves in. Both of them are eating well and look relaxed and happy.

I forgot to mention that, last Friday I brought Tiger to the vet for a follow-up on his kidneys and got some great news. Tiger had been eating well but had been refusing his fluid therapy for the past few weeks so I was a little worried. Well, the vet did some tests and the tests show that Tiger DOES NOT HAVE KIDNEY FAILURE!!! What incredible news! Apparently, his kidneys are working fine now so the vet thinks that the previous episode was probably a one-off inflammation or infection which we managed to treat in time. I was stunned! The vet did say though that this is a lucky result and we should monitor Tiger closely as he is an old cat. But I was just so happy about the news, how absolutely wonderful!

After all the filtering, sorting and de-cluttering, we managed to finish packing in good time for the Big Move on Saturday afternoon. Ryan's nanny kindly agreed to take him for the day so we dropped him off in the morning at her place.

Bye bye, old friend.

I mentioned in a previous post that we have a LOT of stuff, some sentimental, some useful, some utterly outdated and irrelevant. It's not that we want to hang on to all this “treasure” rather, we don't have the time to consider whether an item should go or stay and, there isn’t a lot of pressure to sort everything out because, fortunately (or unfortunately), our present house is large enough for all the clutter to "disappear" neatly. I read this article on Apartment Therapy on de-cluttering, which basically said the same thing: the lack of time can lead to accumulating clutter:

"We live in a culture where we're supposed to be busy, working on this working on that, making progress, getting things done. But if this level of activity crosses over into a frenzy (always going out, never staying in, never having a moment of nothing in your day) there is no time to be thoughtful about what you keep around you or how you really want to live. And if you're in a state of busy-ness most of the time, you're not only more likely to hang on to things you don't love but you're more likely to keep buying things too!"

This is definitely the case for us. Richard and I are starved for time. Our family, work and social commitments are heavy and we want to meet all these commitments, be it a deadline at work, a walk in the park with Ryan, curling up on the couch with our pets, a game of mahjong with friends, or a family trip overseas. As a result of all this rushing about, we tend to buy indiscriminately and sometimes in bulk. We "buy first, think later". We simply don't have time to stop and consider whether the item is going to be loved/used or not.

So, I have clothes and bags which are brand new, with their tags still on and, yes, still in the shopping bags that they came home in. I have brand new shoes which I'd forgotten I had. I have CDs still in plastic wrap, because I don't have time to think about getting the disk changer out and deciding which CD stays in and which goes out.

We just don't have time to keep up with what we bring home.

Actually, ever since Ryan came along, we slowed down the buying, because now we don’t even have time to shop! On weekdays, by the time we get off work, fetch Ryan from his nanny and have dinner, the shops are already closing. If we still want to go out at night, we end up at the bookshop which stays open late. Weekends are shopping-free as they are devoted to Ryan and he isn't into shopping. Whatever trips we do make to the mall are short and focused - we zip in and we zip out.

We do still have our weaknesses and when we have the chance to buy things, old habits die hard and we still buy like there’s no tomorrow. We buy five to ten books and magazines at one go (when Ryan was starting his library, I would buy 30 at a time). We hardly have time to take them out of the shopping bag before we go and buy another lot.

Nevertheless, it is true that, overall, we now buy much less than we used to. So, hopefully, that will take care of the front end of the problem.

Next, we have the back end - the storage issue.

First the paper problem. we have stacks of old (paid) bills and other historical documents like bank statements. The correct thing to do, I suppose, is to keep perhaps 3 to 6 months' worth of statements and discard the oldest one when you get a new one. We just don't have the time for that level of organisation. We probably get more than twenty bills/statements every month and, after a long day at work, I'm certainly not in the mood for sorting and filing into individual files. What we do is leave it in a pile and when the pile gets too high, we do the filing at one go. Our sole aim is to file everything in so that things are neat and tidy, which already takes up a few hours each time (with two of us on the task!). We don't have time to discard the old statements, so our archive continues growing.

Come to think of it, that is how I ended up with a huge collection of clothes hangers. Each time my clothes came back from the laundromat on hangers, I would just hang them up in the wardrobe. When I put on the outfit, I would throw its hanger into a large box next to the wardrobe. The outfit goes to the laundromat and comes back with a new hanger and I hang it up again. I've been doing this for years. When I packed up my wardrobe last week and went through the hanger box, there were HUNDREDS of hangers in it. I was shocked!

I also found that we have about twenty caps which we accumulated from all the events we attended (actually, Richard had a period where he had long hair and wore a cap all the time, but that was a long time ago back in university). I also collected the pillows from all the bedrooms - I ended up with ten! Ten pillows! Every time we bought new ones, we kept the old ones because they were still good and we thought that our guests might need them - but I'm sure we didn't realise we had saved ten!

Well, we threw out all the old and irrelevant documents (it took us one entire night to sort through all the files) and we gave away all the extra hangers, pillows and caps, and more.

Then there was the other stuff I mentioned in my previous post - odd earrings and buttons, old red packets, stationery and stuff like beauty product samples, essentially stuff which I never had time to properly consider. Many of these items have become un-usable or irrelevant. I never intended to hang on to these things, my thinking was simply to keep them for a little while and deal with them later. Of course, "later" never happened, and I never had the time to sort everything out, until now.

I gave away what was still useful and I threw away the rest. I told myself that, if it was not "beautiful, useful or loved" it would have to go. I was never more happy to see a passed expiry date - it made my task so easy. Clothes and shoes that no longer fit or which we no longer wear were given away. All our bedsheets (about 10 sets) had to go, because they were queen-sized and wouldn't fit our new king-sized bed.

The last category of stuff was the most difficult - things that were still "beautiful, useful or loved" but just old. The stereo set in our bedroom works fine (and we do use it) but it is nearly 20 years old. My wok and some of my pots and pans are ten years old, although I still use them. Some of our electrical appliances are also old, although we still use them, like our rice cooker, our iron and our fans.

I gave them all away. In time, we will replace some of them with new versions.

All this de-cluttering meant there was less to pack which was good because, again, we didn't have a lot of time. We could only pack late at night when Ryan was fast asleep and some nights we were too tired from work/play so we didn't even bother. We tried to be as consistent as we could though, and I'm pleased to say that we now only have a few bits here and there left to pack and it looks like we'll be good to go on Saturday.

As I mentioned, we've been making good progress with our packing, assisted in large part by the departure of our furniture.

I mentioned that we are not able to take most of our existing furniture with us and that we put up online advertisements to sell the furniture off, which was pretty slow-going, so I started giving the furniture away. I got the idea after looking in the SMH forum for people who needed things. There was a lady who was looking for a small shoe rack so I posted in her thread that I had one that I could give her and suddenly I started receiving emails from other people who were interested. It was too easy. I started advertising to give away the rest of our furniture and we got tons of responses, even for items which I never imagined anyone would want.

One couple came in their MPV to take away our TV console, a small cabinet, our large shoe cupboard, our extra dining table with 4 chairs, one bookcase, two wall-mounted mirrors, two light fittings, one small wardrobe, Ryan's chest of drawers, and some small items. They had to make five trips. They were a lovely couple with three children (including a pair of twins) and it was nice to meet them.

Other items we gave away - a smaller wooden shoe cabinet, an aquarium, a cat bed/house, two queen beds and some electrical items. I also gave away my huge wardrobe. I was a little worried that it would be hard to get rid of because, when I bought it, the shop told me that it was too large to fit in some homes.

Just a note that the people who responded to our advertisements didn't appear to be poor or needy. The couple who took more than half our house had their own MPV. The couple who took my huge wardrobe wanted it for their apartment which they were renting out. I responded to an advertisement by a lady looking for cotton wool, cloth diapers, nappy liners and a rubber changing mat. These are cheap items so when I met up with her to give her the items, I was a little surprised to see that she didn't look at all like she was in need of money. She even told me that she was planning to buy them from the store if she couldn't get any responses. So these are people who are just extremely prudent with their money.

We did donate some items to a welfare home: our rice cooker, airpot, two fans, pots and pans, extra tables, extra chairs, extra clothes hangers, extra pillows (we have ten!), old bedsheets, old clothes, stationery, bags, shoes, etc.

I also managed to sell off Ryan's jumperoo, one of his large ELC toys plus his brand new never-been-used steriliser.

What was also interesting was that, when the ladies changed their minds and decided not to take up the item they had expressed interest in, many lay the blame on their husbands - "Discussed with my husband and he doesn't want it" or "My husband said it is not child-friendly" or something like that.

I did receive some strange responses - one lady saw all my furniture advertisements and emailed me asking if I had any unwanted and unused baby items to give her. I replied that I could give her some new baby bottles and old toys and she told me that she would take the bottles. She said she couldn't accept any old baby clothes "because of hygiene reasons". I was a little stunned - did she think my baby wore dirty clothes? or did she think that I would give her urine-soaked cloth diapers? doesn't she wash her baby's clothes before use in any event? Come to think of it, I didn't even offer her any old clothes!

Another lady who wanted to buy our mattress asked me so many ridiculous questions that I started to get annoyed. She herself had advertised for a pre-loved queen-sized mattress and I responded to say that I had one, brand new, still-wrapped-in-plastic and would sell it to her for $60. She replied asking what size it was and whether it was brand new as she was only looking for a brand new mattress. So, this was weird - she had advertised for a queen-sized mattress, why would I be offering her some other size? She had also advertised for a pre-loved mattress, so how come she now wanted a brand new one? Anyway, didn't my email say it was brand new? She also asked me what the mattress brand was and she wanted photos. My goodness. Photos of a mattress still wrapped in plastic?

Well, I kept my cool and gave her the answers she wanted. I even asked her what parts of the mattress she wanted me to photograph, hoping that she'd see how nonsensical her request was and tell me oh, photos are not necessary after all. I was flabbergasted by her response - she wanted a photograph of the mattress tag showing the brand! Did she think I can't read? Of course, she also asked me to photograph the front, the back and the sides! She said that this mattress has a massage function plus a soft side and a hard side - but come on, can you really see whether all those features are working from a photograph?

Well, I tried to be nice and I responded to tell her that I would send her the photos but that I was surprised at her request because I surely wouldn't produce something different when she turns up at my house for collection. Her response? She asked me, "How long have you had this mattress?" Gosh, I really wanted to call off the deal at that point. So I wrote back and told her frankly that, this was getting a little annoying as I had already said that it is a Seahorse Diamond queen-sized mattress, still wrapped in plastic and, for $60, she would not be able to find a better deal and that we were initially going to donate it to a charity to save us the hassle. After a day or two, she wrote back to say that she really wanted the mattress. She apologised and explained that she wanted to find out if the mattress was dusty as she wanted to let her one-year old son sleep on it.

Now, here is what I don't understand. The mattress is still wrapped in plastic (actually two layers of plastic) - so how can it be dusty? And what makes her think that I don't keep my house clean and free of dust? Anyway, why didn't she just ask me if it was dusty instead of asking how long I have had it? The latter doesn't necessarily lead to the former. What difference does it make if her one-year old son is going to sleep on it? Does she mean that adults can sleep on dusty mattresses? Even if the mattress is not hospital-grade clean, surely she should clean the mattress regularly?

Sigh.

Ok, that was a bit of a rant. But I've got it out of my system now. :) I sent her the photos and she's coming to pick up the mattress on Saturday morning. Hopefully she won't ask me to sign a guarantee or to swear on my son's life. I'm keeping my fingers crossed on this one.

So, yes, back to the furniture. We've got one last item to deal with, which is a vintage wooden radio console with an attached LP player. Richard had it painstakingly restored but we haven't had a spin on it for years now so it's time to let it go. We made an inquiry at Lorgan's Retro Store to see if they'd take it and hopefully they will, otherwise it's going to be a tough issue.

So these past two weeks have been about posting advertisements, dealing with all the responses, answering all the queries, lining up the individual collection times, negotiating prices, meeting up with various characters, etc. The funny thing is, as I managed to give away/sell some items, I started looking for more items to give away/sell. It was addictive! Although it was hard to let go of some of the items due to sentimental reasons, overall I felt more happy than sad. I was wondering if it was because we were unburdening ourselves of stuff, but then I remembered that we have the same amount of new furniture in our new home - we're just replacing and renewing the old. So, then I realised that I was feeling happy because, by letting go of our old stuff, I was able to open myself to newer and better things. I was moving on.

So, back to packing!

We've been oh so busy and I feel like there should be three of me to tackle everything that's been on my plate this last week. I shall do a proper in-depth update in the next few posts, for now let me just get the "what did we do all week?" stuff out of the way.

Well, last Saturday, we went over to Rahul's new condo for Richard's Junior College class almost-annual reunion. It was great fun for me too because I'm familiar with the gang - Richard and I are from the same Junior College and same graduating year plus I always tag along for the get-togethers. This was the first time that the gang was meeting Ryan though. We had lots of good fun and ended up staying later than we thought we would.

Ryan at S03G reunion

The next few days were spent getting our packing into high gear. We had a lot of furniture which we had decided not to bring with us to our new home so our first priority was to see if they could find good homes. There was some sentimental value attached to some of the pieces so we didn't want to simply throw them away. We put up some ads on the internet to sell the pieces (for ridiculously low sums) but they weren't moving quickly enough so I decided that I would just advertise on the SMH forum that we were giving the items away for free. I got responses literally minutes after I posted on the forum. It was so competitive, people were willing to "queue" for each item!

I also looked out for people who advertised that they were looking for stuff. For some I just gave them what they needed for free and for others, I sold the items to them for a small payment.

I will always remember this exercise because of all the different people I met - it was a real eye-opener, to say the least. Maybe I'll write a separate post on it another day.

Anyway, the next part was the packing. All the furniture leaving our home actually forced us to pack faster. Our TV console was taken from us - so all our electronic stuff had to be packed up. Our large shoerack is gone - so all our shoes are also packed up. My huge wardrobe is gone (!) - so my clothes are all in boxes now. Ryan's wardrobe has also been snapped up - so his clothes are packed up in a large suitcase. So lots of packing already done but we still have lots more to get through. I'll do a proper post on our packing once we are more or less done.

Wednesday was a public holiday and we spent the afternoon with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. Richard and I used to enjoy going to the SSO but we have not been to a performance for a very long time, so this was a great opportunity to get re-acquainted. However, this was not the grown-up version - this was the annual Babies Prom! This is a basic introduction to the orchestra, tailored for the little ones. The conductor, known as "Uncle Peter", was basically the emcee at a huge children's party. Everything was fun, fun, fun! Some of the older children were even invited to conduct the orchestra (that was a real hoot!)

Ryan was still sleeping when the performance started and I was thinking that he might actually sleep through the whole thing but fortunately, once the orchestra started playing, he woke up. Having just woken up, he took some time to warm up but I suppose that the important thing was that he left with a big smile.

Ryan at SSO Babies Prom 2010

Dinner at Por Kee

For me, the hardest part about Project N is not packing up our stuff. The hardest part is leaving behind the stuff which we can't bring with us.

I keep everything. EVERYTHING. Old photographs, old journals, old greeting cards, every letter and every gift I have ever received, old school T-shirts, every soft toy. When I watch a play or a stage musical, I always buy a souvenir programme as a keepsake. Every year, when my university hostel put on its annual musical and sold commemorative T-shirts, I would buy two - one to wear and one to keep. 

You might say all that is fine and normal. After all, everyone keeps old photographs and autograph books and sentimental stuff like that.

But that's not all of my treasure.

I kept every credit card bill and bank statement that I have ever received. Every phone bill, even the bills for the phone numbers we no longer use. All our expired credit cards and old bank account books. Shopping bags. Red packets with zodiac animals that won't be relevant for another 12 years. Magazines that are nearly ten years old. Earrings which have lost their partner. Buttons which came from goodness knows which blouse. Cups (including the ugly ones). Stationery that I never use, including notepaper that is turning yellow with age. Empty boxes which are too pretty to throw away. Old spectacles, watches and wallets. Old mobile phones.

I know it's ok to keep some treasured items but I also realise that this sort of "collecting" can get out of hand. Most of the time, I just keep stuff until it becomes irretrievably irrelevant or useless, which may take years. Then when it comes time to trim the pile of irrelevant/useless stuff, it is too much, too intimidating and too pressurising. So we chicken out and we leave it. And it grows. Essentially, I have an ongoing battle between wanting to hang on to my stuff and wanting to get rid of it.

I had a morbid thought the other day. A friend's relative had passed away and I had this picture of my friend sorting through the relative's belongings, deciding what to do with all of it. And then I thought, what if someone had to sort through my stuff? Oh my. I certainly do not want to wish such a task upon my son. It would be a terrible burden.

I know, I know. I'm supposed to de-clutter, to simplify. I'm not supposed to let myself be bogged down by stuff. I need to clear the decks, make space for the new and get some good chi flowing, instead of allowing myself to grow old, stale and irrelevant. 

I recently read this article on Apartment Therapy, one of my favourite interior design blogs, and the author put the issue so well.

"...we all still harbor a little voice in our heads that wants us to hold on to stuff "because we might need it."

Don't believe it.

It's that ancient caveman survival voice, and it's not going to help you now. Now, we run the greater risk of suffocating our life under an accumulation of small and large possessions (and their attendant upkeep) that no longer serve us in our daily lives.
The secret to dealing with clutter and changing your life is to realize that 1) you don't need as much stuff (you are no longer a Caveman, after all), and 2) that by having less you are opening your life up, lightening it and creating an environment that will allow you to flourish and reach your greatest potential. It's not just about letting go, it's about realizing how much more life you can have.

One of my greatest sources of inspiration is Karen Kingston, who wrote Creating Sacred Space with Feng Shui. She helped me see something as simple as collecting books (a great source of clutter) totally differently. While books are great resources and markers of experience, we all tend to hold on to more than we actually use. And many of us hold on tightly! In order to declutter them, we need to realize that books are collections of memories and OLD THOUGHTS, not new ones. As she says, "Holding onto old books doesn't allow you to create space for new ideas and ways of thinking to come into your life."

I would even take this further. Holding onto ANYTHING that doesn't have a working role in your home won't allow you to create new space for ANYTHING new to come into your life — things, jobs, people, opportunities, etc. Even as we bring new things in, we need to bring old things out. In this way, we ensure a vital life flow in our lives."

It reads like what I wrote last Monday, about how letting go of the old lets you be free to get hold of better things, about how change can be a good thing.

Every once in a while, I do look around and try to do some spring-cleaning, throw out stuff, give away stuff. Not a lot though and it doesn't make much difference to the clutter. It isn't that much of a problem in our present big house. I suppose clutter looks less like clutter where there's lots of space for it. Unfortunately, we are moving to a smaller place and we can't bring everything with us. So we are going to have to go through the painful process of pruning.

In truth, I am really looking forward to a massive garbage day. As I grow older, the "wanting to get rid of it" feeling is stronger. I am more inclined to let go of stuff now. I guess with more life experience, I now have a better idea of what's important to me and I can do without all the rest. I know that, however attached I am to my stuff, I will feel much better once I am rid of (some of) it. It's that nice light feeling you get after you have tidied up, cleaned up and thrown out the garbage. It will also give us a fresh start to the next exciting phase of our life.

Here's to de-cluttering!

These are the lights we bought for the living room - the Kartell FL/Y designed by Ferruccio Laviani.


Not so many of course! They are gorgeous but they are huge! We bought three in three different colours and let me just say that it was a nightmare picking the colours.  They will be hung in the double height space in the living room.

For the dining area, we need a strong big light because we foresee that the dining table will frequently become a workzone. We decided on the Neutra light, also designed by Ferruccio Laviani for Kartell. Although there are only two colours (black and white), we still agonised over which one to pick! Eventually we chose the white.

When we bought our first apartment in KL many years ago, we had it done up as a luxe bachelor pad. We didn't do any renovations but we went crazy with the loose furniture and bought some iconic designer pieces which we had always lusted for. The place was a yuppie haven - dim lighting, heavy curtains and the only things in the living room were a very large and deep sofa, a Le Corbusier chaise lounge, a Noguchi coffee table, an Arco floor lamp and all the electronics a guy could ask for (TV, stereo system, home theatre system, game consoles, internet, etc.). There was not a single family photo in sight, no ornaments, no bookshelves.

In contrast, in Singapore, our previous homes have always been done up very simply. There were just Richard and I at home, so the emphasis was on low maintenance and high practicality. We keep rather long hours at work and by the time we get home, housework is not a priority. Things have to be fuss-free. Keeping pets also influenced our choice of furniture, we try not to buy anything that would cause us heartache if damaged by them.

Things changed when Ryan came along and our latest apartment in PJ is the opposite of our first, it's more of a family home. We collected our keys earlier this year and did some moderate renovations, keeping the place bright and spacious. Lots of photos, books, trinkets and travel souvenirs are on display. Now for our new unit in Singapore, we also want to it to have a family-feel. We want it to be bright and cheerful, with lots of areas for children to run and play. We want feet to be put up, pets to lounge about, children to make messes and adults to relax. Again, nothing too precious that would cause us a heart-attack if damaged by children or by pets.

We spent quite a lot of time dreaming about what we wanted the place to look like. Initially we were very keen on the Scandinavian style - open- plan, light-filled layouts, clean lines and natural materials. We thought of a white space, with pops of bright colour. You can check out the house visits at Dos Family for what I mean. There are more pictures at Emma's blog. Just lovely. And so child-friendly too.

We bought our dining table and chairs while we were still in our Scandinavian phase. We chose a Tulip table by Eero Saarinen with a white marble top. The matching Tulip chairs are candy-coloured. We bought lights from Kartell for the living and dining areas. I'll show you in the next post.

Since then, we have moved on from the Scandinavian look. We realised that it was all bright, pale and light in Scandinavia homes because of the long dreary winters and the lack of natural light there. They used all that white to reflect whatever light was available. In Singapore where the sun shines all year long, all the white walls and furniture would just give the place a harsh feel. Nevertheless, we still want the place to be bright so we don't want walls or furniture that is too dark. We did consider putting up wallpaper and even went through reams and reams of samples at the wallpaper store but in the end, we decided to keep the white walls but tone the effect down by getting some furniture custom-built in medium dark wood.

There is not a lot of custom-built furniture but all of the custom-built furniture that we do have, we designed ourselves with some inspiration from Italian furniture brands. There will be wall-hung bookshelves and a wall-hung TV console in the living room, a simple buffet table/sideboard in the dining area, wall-mounted storage along the passageway to the rooms and a working desk and floor to ceiling bookshelf/TV stand in the study. All this carpentry will be done by our contractor at the factory and will be installed at the unit in about two weeks' time, after the walls are re-painted and the floors touched up.

In the meantime, we are trying to sort out the smaller details. As I mentioned in a previous post, we had the covered pergolas installed on the terraces. Yesterday we put in new ceiling fans to replace the existing ones. We also bought some additional lights last week, which the contractor will pick up from the shop and install for us when she installs the furniture. The contractor will have to come again in December to install all the Kartell lights, because they are only arriving in late December (takes three months to be shipped into Singapore). Hopefully we can have them in time for Christmas.

We plan to move in November because after that, there just won't be time. Richard has promised his present company that he won't go on leave for the remainder of his time with them so we are left with weekends to pack up and shift. Weekends in December will be filled with Christmas lunches/Christmas dinners/Christmas shopping so it is not realistic for us to expect to get much done if we wait till then. After that, it will be the run-up to New Year's Day (Richard's family are planning to visit during that time). Richard starts at his new firm in January so it will be a little stressful and definitely not a good time for packing and moving. Then, Ryan has his birthday in late January, quickly followed by Chinese New Year in early February 2011 and we'd prefer to move before rather than after Chinese New Year.
 
So we've got just a couple of weeks left to sort out a whole list of things. We still need to buy some furniture (we have yet to find beds and living room seating) and electrical appliances (kettle, fridge, washing machine). We still have to buy curtains/blinds. There are still some decorating issues to resolve - we haven't planned our bedroom or Ryan's playroom yet. We need to sort out our stuff - what to pack, what not to pack. We need to change our mailing addresses, decide when to terminate the water/gas/electricity supply, get the internet and cable connected at the new unit and book a professional mover.

Ok, so lots and lots of things on our to-do list, which I've termed "Project N". The letter "N" is related to our new address, but I suppose it can also stand for "New Nest". Good stuff, whichever way you look at it.