Merry Christmas!

Here's wishing everyone Merry Christmas and happy holidays! Let's all eat, drink and be merry!

See you in court!

I took time off work today and headed to the Tribunal for Homebuyer Claims to submit my claim on the developer's late delivery. For weeks when I was planning to do this, I felt a nervous because I don't really know how to go about it. I read and re-read the website's instructions on the procedure, guessing how to fill the application form, asked a lawyer friend for some advice and kept wondering how I should even begin.

Finally, I just made myself do it. With all the necessary documents photocopied and the forms left blank, I headed to Pusat Bandar Damansara where the office is. I got a new set of forms and to my comfort, an example was provided on how to fill it, complete with the formula too. It was quite clear and the officer assisting me was friendly and helpful. Best of all, there's no queue. No need to be there first thing in the morning to take a number and wait in line for hours. I filled out the forms and had it all stamped and paid for in no more than 20 minutes.

I'm so glad I did this because the calculations on the amount I'm entitled to claim is no small sum. On top of the 100% claim on the late charges on delivery of the unit, I also made an additional claim of 20% on the common facilities. So my worst case scenario would be just receiving 100% late charges on my unit, I suppose.

Once I had all that done, I headed to the developer's office to hand-deliver a copy of the claim to them. I had such satisfaction in doing that because I've been getting crappy service from them so far. Now, all I have to do is wait for the call to trial.

If anyone out there is thinking of not going through the hassle and accepting a less favourable sum, please don't. It really isn't that difficult or intimidating as I had first thought. I just wished that someone could've told me so, so that I didn't have to wait that long to take action. So now, I'm sharing the experience and please share this with anyone you know who's in the same situation. It's worth it. Just do it.

All-in-one update

I haven't updated this blog for a while. All the weeks gone by, so many things I've thought to write about, but didn't have the time and sometimes the mood to blog. Many a time, I would begin a few lines and then I'd just delete the post way before I could finish. I'm not sure why. I wonder if this post would see the Publish button.

Here's what life has been like so far.

The dog
Pretty has been with us for two weeks now. I can't say she's on her best behaviour. After all she's still a puppy. By next week she'll be exactly three months old. She's kept Ray very busy in the last couple of weeks. She doesn't have routine times to do her business so he has to endlessly clean up after her. We can't even detect when she's gonna let go because she doesn't sniff around before she does her job!

Pretty craves for lots and lots of attention. She barks, whimpers and cries when left alone too long while we're at work. For many mornings, she's been waking us around 6am. Ray has to sleep on the couch to keep her quiet while the rest of us get some more sleep before our alarm clocks are set to go off.

She's so playful and full of energy. She walks over me like I'm a piece of furniture. She climbs on me and thinks my fingers and toes are chewable toys. She doesn't do this to Ray though, because he's her Trainer with the rolled-up newspaper as a training tool. When I let the cats in, she wants to play with them by dashing towards them the way she does to us. Obviously the cats hate it and end up running away. They hiss at her. On the one hand, I pity the cats because they're frightened by this girl's energy at chasing them. On the other hand, I also pity Pretty because she must be wondering why the other four-leggeds don't want to play with her.

In just a span of 2 weeks I've seen her grow. She's much taller now. Though taking care of her is not easy, we still adore her and her funny antiques.

Pretty in training to poo and pee on newspapers in her barricade.

The cats
The girls have felt somewhat neglected last week because we couldn't let them in when Pretty was indoors because she had just taken her vaccination. I'm slowly trying to make it up to them and hope they will get used to having Pretty around. Prue and Phoebe lie low hiding behind curtains or in corners. Piper is a little more daring and walks about. But she feels safest being on top of some stacked boxes that Ray brought home. Look how comforted she is knowing that Pretty could never jump that high!

Piper takes the "high road" and Prue is behind that curtain while Phoebe is nowhere to be seen.

Yesterday I found them to be part of the 365 Cats 2007 Calendar Girls when I browsed through a copy. I submitted their photos early this year, hopeful for them to get selected to be in print and I was delighted to find them each gracing a day of the calendar.

If you want to help out in this independent pet rescue effort, get a copy of the calendar for yourself or as gifts for cat and dog lovers. :)

Christmas time
Christmas is just a week away. We've been busy doing shopping for christmas presents. It's never easy thinking of gifts but once you get into motion and ideas start to come to mind, it gets you motivated and excited. Of course, in the expense of the purse. I would say we've worked very hard, walking about for majority of our weekend time finding all the gifts. Some of the gifts are all nicely wrapped up while some are still pending boxes that I don't know where to find from.

Some of our Christmas gifts for loved ones.

Right now Pretty is barking like crazy. I can't write anymore. Till next time when my days are not as boring and revolving around only the 4-leggeds, I'll post some more.

I'm now on Blogger Beta

Blogger has finally upgraded my blogs to the beta version. I haven't got the time to meddle with it other than to add a few labels.

The one thing I don't like about this is the Nav Bar on the top that covers a portion of the blog. Anyone knows how to remove it?

Updated 12 Dec: I managed to remove the Nav Bar :)

We're gonna have a baby!

We're gonna have a baby, and it's gonna be a baby girl! We haven't thought of a name for her and we haven't got much time to think of one because she'll be with us sooner than we think.

Here's a shot of her. Isn't she just adorable?



Ray with our 8-week old baby girl.
Ray found her from a breeder and tonight we had an appointment to see her. When Ray first showed me her photo, I thought she's cute. But when I saw the real her tonight, she's so much more than cute. I fell in love with her. She's a shy puppy, mild temperament from what we saw and so pretty.

She'll come live with us, together with the feline sisters Prue, Piper and Phoebe in 2 days' time. Will this new addition to our family be named Paige to form the complete Charmed sisters?

Now that's what I call service!

Last night was my company's annual dinner. It so happened that during the day, I had a facial appointment scheduled from last month. I told my beautician not to do too much blackhead extractions just in case I get red-skinned. I surely don't want to go an event looking that way. She asked about what I'll be wearing, make-up and hair. I told her I don't even own a lipstick, so what make-up?! And the hair, well there really isn't much you can do with short hair.

Not happy with that, she told her partner, another beautician and make-up artist that I was gonna attend an annual dinner with over 1,000 guests plain and simple. They began to blend some natural lip colour with gloss and made me promise to at least put that on. Testing it out on my lips and finding that it was just gloss, I agreed and happily took it.

Then, still not convinced they've done enough, they told me to return to them an hour before I had to leave for the dinner to get a quick fix-up. They promised it was going to be just a little touch up. With that, I agreed.

At the appointed time, I showed up and let them work on me. As promised, they didn't transform me into someone I'm not. I only got my eye-bags covered, a very light blusher so that I don't look pale and that lipgloss. They also worked some hair-clay into my hair and blew it into shape.

What I was impressed with was the level of service they were willing to undertake just to keep a client happy. Now that's what I call first class service!

As for the dinner, it went OK. Great entertainment most of the time. Ray and I were hoping to win some lucky draw prizes but got nothing except for our door gifts. But I've gotten enough of freebies for the day already, haven't I? :)