There’s no denying that as a stay-at-home mom, one of the things that you easily forego is time for simple pampering or personal beauty care.  It is easy to lose the motivation to even brush your hair during the day because of the round the clock house and motherly duties.  That is why many TV shows and magazine articles offer many beauty tips and products especially for busy moms, ranging from DIY (do-it-yourself) hair care or acne treatment.

But even with these, I still find it challenging to squeeze in some ‘personal time’ in my schedule these days. Imagine not having the chance to use the foot spa kit that the husband gave to me last year?  Sigh.

Two weeks from now, we’ll be in Manila.  Yipee!  So, along with the mini- birthday party we’re preparing for our daughter this week, I’m also busy with our holiday-related tasks.  What’s left outstanding are:

1.  Hunt for peach ballet shoes that she’ll wear with her gown in her first ever flower girl stint in Manila.

2.  Buy snacks and new toys for the actual trip.  Having new toys and snacks to keep our daughter busy throughout the flight are so helpful!

3.  Transfer files from my Dell laptop to my ibook.  I’m halfway done on this.

4.  A few more Christmas gifts to buy.  Now I have only 6 left on my list. Whew!

5.  Pack.

It really is crunch time for me.

After my first appointment with the chiropractor, I felt a sudden improvement in my appetite. I was told that I have learned to live with my back pain for so long that I didn’t even notice how it has affected my day to day life. That is so true.

Although I still eat in small servings, I now crave for snacks. I’d have a donut or cookies or prepare something just to relieve my hunger pangs. Is that a good sign or not? Ha ha. For sure, I don’t want to end up going to the doctor to ask for the best fat burners in the market.

With our excitement to plan for vacation trips next year, we thought of listing our top three options. We have Melbourne, New Zealand and Gold Coast. All three have their own travel highlights that we surely want to explore. What’s good is that we can time the trip when there are tour promotions for flights and vacation rentals or accommodation. But if you ask me, I’d prioritize to see New Zealand then Melbourne and last will be Gold Coast. I’ve always been intrigued with the NZ tourism campaign, Green and Gold, that was once frequently advertised on Australian TV.

I’m starting to feel the Christmas shopping rush now that I have barely three weeks to complete my list. If we were based in the U.S., I would probably take advantage of Black Friday ads so that by end of Thanksgiving, I should have all the gifts ready. These ads are available online, hence, they allow shoppers to decide on which items to buy prior going to the shops. I wish we have something like that here in Sydney.

This weekend, I need to spend half a day alone to shop. You read it right, alone. It’s a challenge to go shopping with a 2-yr old! Also, I need to keep in mind to focus on my shopping list. Otherwise, I might end up wandering around and do a bit of shopping for myself. Tee hee.

It’s so nice that we are closer now to a bigger mall. Macquarie Center is just what I need to buy all the personalized gifts I need. Let’s see how I’ll fare after this weekend. I hope my next entry will be about completing my shopping list.

A week after our scheduled move-out, we need to meet with our current agent to go through the apartment checklist. What happens is that both the lessee and agent go through all the details of the whole apartment (yes, from the door knob down to bathroom faucets!) to check if everything is still in place and functioning.

Hopefully, the inspection goes smoothly as this is usually the time when things get “shaky” between a landlord/agent and the lessee. We don’t know how fussy this agent will be.

With the house move next week, the preparations for my daughter’s birthday picnic has been put on hold. I’m even thinking of calling it off, just so we can iron things out before we leave for Manila by end of November.

But for the post celebration in Manila this December, we have made a big progress this week. We have chosen the venue and party planner and finalized the guest list. There are still a couple of things that have to be done, so I hope to spend some time this weekend to finish them all.

When we were still house hunting a few weeks ago, we saw this really nice house located at a place called Lane Cove. I love the layout of the house, the wooden floors, the kitchen and each room has a motif of yellow, blue and green. It is a nice, cozy house.

The downer though is the backyard where parts of the fence are broken and some areas look weak. I think the landlord never bothered to have it fixed or spend money on better pvc fence installation. In the end, we decided not to give an application because of this, since we don’t want to bear the costs of fixing it. And second, because the house sits right smack at a corner of a busy road, we thought of our safety.

During our photography workshop excursion, I brought my newly-purchased tripod. Although I have a smaller one at home, I didn’t use it very often. That’s why, when I had to setup my new tripod, I had no clue how to lock that piece of plastic that holds the camera and tripod together. Too ashamed to ask for help, I played with it for a while until my instructor approached me and helped to tighten the lock that looks like ball lock pins. He smiled and said, “It’s obvious you don’t like tripods very much.”