Exhausted

Man, I am exhausted!!! If you notice from my blogs lately, I haven't spend a lot of time on it. I used to write longer blogs but the last few months it has been shorter and this is the reason why...

I simply have too much to do and not enough time to do everything in!

My 2 jobs are demanding...Well, the work itself is not that hard but dealing with the things that come with that job is hard. I start at 7am and usually don't finish till about 5:30pm and all day long I stare at the computer crunching numbers and doing data entries. And in between those, I have supply runs to do as well as dealing with human emotions of my bosses (yes, I have 4 bosses) and fellow colleages. You see, besides than being a financial controller, I am also human resources, counselor, supplier and all around "fix-it" gal. I am kinda the peace keeper of the office. Every little friction, I have to deal with it. So, by the end of the day I am usually exhausted, physically and mentally.

I usually get home at about 6pm. And once I get home, there are housework to do...dishes to wash, dinner to cook, cats to feed. I used to be able to stay awake long enough to watch "Late Show with David Letterman" (10:35pm on CBS), "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" & "The Colbert Report" (12:00am & 12:30am on Comedy Central) every night which means that I would fall asleep at about 1:00am. Nowadays, I am out cold by 9:00pm. I even have to make sure that I set my VCR to tape "Grey's Anatomy" and "Lost" on Thursday nights since they come on at 8pm & 9pm respectively. Which reminds me, I need to make sure that I tape "Grey's Anatomy" for the season finale tonight....

What to do...what to do...I am hoping that my work load will lessen soon. If everything goes the way I plan (or hope/wish), I will be down to just 1 job soon. And hopefully, Jim will be better soon that he is able to get back to work.

Here's to less work and more me time.....

Dancing with the Stars

The finals for "Dancing with the Stars" aired last night and I am glad that Kristi Yamaguchi won the Mirror Ball trophy. She truly deserve to win coz she was good since the very beginning.

Jim & I watched this show from when it first started about 10 weeks ago. I am actually surprised that Jim want to watch it coz he usually doesn't like this kind of stuff. I guess having 2 of his childhood crushes on the show (Kristi Yamaguchi & Monica Seles) made him want to watch it. Sadly, Monica Seles was eliminated in the earlier round. Hopefully season 7 will be as interesting as season 6.

Congrats to Kristi Yamaguchi & Mark Ballas for winning the Dancing with the Stars

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

We saw this movie on Sunday and we both really like it. It was really well acted and full of suspense. It was about 2 brothers, Andy (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) & Hank (Ethan Hawke) whose lives were in downward spirals. They were both in need of money so in desperation, they decided to rob their parents' (Albert Finney & Rosemary Harris) jewelry store.

The robbery went badly and everything after that went from bad to worse. All the actors were really good and the storyline was awesome. I absolutely recommend you watch this movie.

The Mist

We watched the movie, "The Mist" yesterday and I really like it. It was based on a Stephen King's novel of the same name. As almost all of Stephen King's novel, this is a "scary" movie. It is about the people in a small town in Maine who were trapped in the "mist" and this is no ordinary mist. Frightening and scary stuff are in it.

I am not a very big fan of scary movies with the exception of Stephen King. I really like this one except for one part where one of the characters became a little too preachy for me. As with almost all of Stephen King's novel that was made into movies, he usually have a tiny part in it so I was a little disappointed that he wasn't in this one since I kept expecting to see him pop up somewhere in the movie . The explanation of why he wasn't in it was revealed in the "Special Feature" section of the DVD. If you like scare movies or Stephen King..rent this one.

Other Stephen King's "movies" that I like:
1. Carrie
2. The Shining
3. Stand by Me
4. Misery
5. Sleepwalker
6. The Green Mile
7. The Shawshank Redemption
8. The Stand

Idiot

Somewhere out there, a village is missing its IDIOT!!!

Happy Mother's Day

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL MOMS OUT THERE. WHAT YOU DO FOR YOUR CHILDREN CAN NEVER BE REPAID!!!

"The Savages"

We just finished watching the movie "The Savages" on DVD. It was really good. Though the movie was categorized as a comedy, it was more serious and sad than it is a comedy. It is a story about 2 siblings, John (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and Wendy (Laura Linney), who had to take care of their ailing dad (Phillip Bosco).

The movie shows the relationship between the siblings and their father and how they deal with death. It was a very good movie, so watch it if you can.

"No Country for Old Men"

We saw this movie, "Old Country for Old Men" on DVD earlier today and I have to say that it is pretty good. Javier Bardem was really good in it and it is no wonder that he won the Oscar last year. Josh Brolin & Tommy Lee Jones was in it too and they were equally good. Watch it if you can...

Happy Birthday, Tiger!!!

Happy birthday to my baby boy, Tiger William Pergo, who is celebrating his 3rd birthday today.

Life is not perfect, so....

A few days ago, I chatted on Yahoo Messenger with 3 other bloggers and we decided to write on a topic called "He/She/Life is not perfect, so..." So, this is my entry...

Life is not perfect, so... deal with it!!! Nothing is perfect in this world and we just have to make do with what we have and make it "perfect" in the best way we can.

As for me, the last 15 years of my life has been up and down. I came to the US 15 years ago in the hopes of getting my college degree and going back to Malaysia. Well, that plan went out the window...at least the going back to Malaysia part. You see, when I came here I did not forsee me still be here 15 years later. Why am I still here? Well, I met my soulmate and with his encouragement, I did get my degree...

I love Jim very much. Early this month, we celebrated 14 years of knowing each other and this November will be our 12th wedding anniversary. In this almost 11 1/2 years of marriage, there is nothing more that we would want than having kids, but alas after all these years, we still haven't got any....Life is so unfair...

About 5 years ago, we felt that we are ready to have a baby so we started trying but to no vail. So, we started seeing a fertility doctor about 3 years ago. We tried A.I. but it wasn't successful. We would have tried IVF but the cost is about US$12,000 and there is only about 30% of it being successful, so we decided against it. We figured that we could try adoption but as we were doing the research and application, Jim got sick...so we postponed the adoption application.

Now, that Jim is slowly but surely getting better, we started talking about having a baby again. We are hoping that we could adopt from Malaysia though there seems to be some resistance from my family back home. It makes me sad that here we are, Jim & I, who really wants a baby...who will love it and cherish it with our lives and here I see on the news, parents abusing their babies......LIFE IS SO UNFAIR!!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Daddy

Happy birthday to my daddy, Raja Jalil, who is celebrating his 62nd today!!!

Earth Day

Today is Earth Day. We only have one planet to live in so please lets do our best to protect it.

"Walk Hard - The Dewey Cox Story"

We saw this movie, "Walk Hard - The Dewey Cox Story" on Saturday. We both liked it a lot and thinks that it is one of the better spoof movies. This movie was spoofing "Walk the Line" & "Ray".

John C Reilly ("Chicago") played Dewey Cox. There were quite a few famous actors in this movie and lots of them were cast members of the "Saturday Night Live" show on NBC such as Jack Black, Jenna Fisher, Tim Meadows, etc. There were also some famous singer who made cameos on the movie. Watch it if you can...

Pisang Goreng (Fried Banana Fritters)

I woke from my afternoon nap earlier with the cravings for pisang goreng (fried banana fritters). I've never actually cooked one before though I had quite a few in Malaysia. What to do, what to do? Picked up the phone and called my aunt, Wan Chik, in Kuala Kangsar (that's in Malaysia, for those of you who don't know where Kuala Kangsar is).

Wan Chik started laughing when I asked her how to make the batter ;-). Said to mix some tepung beras (rice or glutenous flour) with some water & salt and sugar to taste. Well, since I don't have any glutenous flour, I just used the regular "white" flour instead and hoped for the best.

I have to say that the result was pleasing. Sprinkled some "Splenda" sugar (I'm diabetic so can't use regular sugar) on the hot fried banana and voila! Jim tried one and ended up eating about half of the batch that I made. That means he really liked it coz when I had him try the first piece, he had mentioned that he wasn't hungry... he he he.

So, here's to the yummy pisang goreng....

Juno

We watched "Juno" last night and I would recommend everyone to watch it. It was a really good movie about a teenager (Ellen Page - "Hard Candy") who got pregnant and decided that she's going to have the baby and put it up for adoption. Michael Cera ("Superbad") played her boyfriend and J.K. Simmons (tv's "The Closer") and Allison Janney (tv's "The West Wing") played her dad and stepmom. Jennifer Garner ("Elektra", "13 Going on 30"" and Jason Bateman (tv's "Arrested Development") were the potential adoptive parents.

Ellen Page was really great in the movie and I am not surprised that she was nominated for an Oscar last year. The movie also won the Oscar for Best Screenplay last year. If you have a chance to watch this movie, WATCH it!!!

Other recommendation(s):
- "Hard Candy"
- "Superbad"

Happy Birthday Sammy!!!

Happy Birthday to my boy, Sammy James Pergo who celebrated his 7th birthday on April 12th.

BUZZ!!!

I have this little pet peeve... I've blogged about it before (sometime last year, I think). It's when someone chats with you and as a way of greeting, they BUZZ! you (especially on Yahoo Messenger).

Personally, I feel that it is rude to do so. The more appropriate greeting would be "Hello" or "Assalamualaikum". When someone just buzz me, I feel like I'm being summoned by my master. So, to all of you whom I communicate thru instant messaging... if I ignore you when you buzz... I just don't consider you my master...

Happy Birthday, David

Happy birthday to my boss, David who is celebrating his 39th today.

Weed

Because of the rain that we got a month ago, our back patio is now overgrown with grass and weed. Some of those weeds have grown to be about 2 feet tall!! I have been putting off cutting them but I finally broke down and bought a weed wrecker/edge trimmer from the Home Depot on Friday. I had planned on cutting those grass and weeds over the weekend but of course me being me...I got lazy and put it off.

Anyways, after we got home from Jim's doctor appointment yesterday morning, I left the back sliding door open while I took out the trash. Sammy and Tiger were in the back patio. Tiger as always was eating the grass and Sammy was in among the grass and weeds. Sammy was almost hidden among the grass and weeds that I finally decided that it's time to cut those blasted things.

After cooing the boys back into the house and closing the sliding door, I took out the weed wrecker and have a go at it. Man, it felt so good to cut those things. Finally our back patio looks like someone actually live in the house. I planned my flower seeds on the left side of the patio around the bird bath, cleaned and refilled the bird bath with water, refilled the hummingbird feeder with necter and the finch bird feeder with tisle seeds.

Phew! That was hard work... This weekend maybe I'll replace the dead plants that are in my flower pots....

"Windy City" Temperature Conversion Chart

60F (16C): Arizonans shiver uncontrollably; Chicagoans are still sunbathing.

50F (10C): Californians try to turn on the heat; Chicagoans plant gardens.

40F (4C): Italian sport cars won't start; Chicagoans drive with the windows down.

32F (0C): Distilled water freezed; Lake Michigan water gets thicker.

20F (-7C): Floridians don coats, thermal underwear, gloves and wool hats; Chicagoans thown on a light jacket.

15F (-9C): Chicagoan have the last cookout before it gets cold.

0F (-18C): All the people in Phoenix die; Chicagoans close the windows.

-10F (-23C): Californians fly away to Mexico. The Girl Scots in Chicago are selling cookies door to door.

-25F (-32C): Hollywood disintegrates. Chicagoans get out their winter coats.

-40F (-40C): Washington, DC runs out of hot air. Chicagoan let the dogs sleep indoors.

-100F (-73C): Santa Claus abandons the North Pole. Chicagoans get frustrated because they can't start "da car".

-460F (-273C): All atomic motion stops (absolute zero on the Kelvin scale). Chicagoans start saying, "Cold enuff for ya?"

-500F: Hell freezes over. The Chicago Cubs win the World Series