Glad for a break away

After so long of not having a holiday, I'm glad that we'll be finally heading out for one in a few weeks. I'm really pleased with making the trip, but the one thing that bothers me is that we won't be bringing the love of my life with us - my boy.

We're headed to Bangkok for a massage and shopping break for a couple of days. Bangkok is not one place I'm comfortable to bring the little boy along, so we'll have to leave him with the grandparents while we go away. I'll definitely be missing him like crazy every single day. But what to do, I think we really need some time away for a break.

I look forward to 3 things during the trip ahead. Firstly, I need to just be away and take my mind off work and stress. Then of course, there's the shopping, if things are affordable still. Thirdly, I could do with some good foot and back massages since they come rather cheap and easily in Bangkok.

Shopping wise, a friend was hoping that I could help her find UGG boots there for less than what they would cost in Australia. I've never heard of this brand, but I'd just keep an eye out for it. Unlike our previous trip years back where our aim was to get some wedding shopping done, this trip there will be rather clueless in terms of a shopping list. So it's going to be a lot of walking aimlessly about just to browse and see what catches our fancy. I got a feeling we're gonna be shopping more in the kid's department this time.

The flights and accommodation have been booked. But guess what? I've forgotten to put in my leave application! I better do it tomorrow first thing when I get to my desk. How could I forget such an important task, huh?

Does anyone know the future of Tunes?

Last year I bought a home insurance policy from Tunes Money. It was the first product from them that I bought. It's also the only one. The policy was really cheap and I liked the fact that I could choose what I wanted to insure and how much I wanted the premium to be.

A year on, the CEO has since left and the economy is at a state that leaves us all nervous. So many huge financial institutions with billions of dollars of market capitalization gone down the drains.

I now start to wonder what the fate of smaller financial institutions are like in our local economy. Probably the banks are still stable, but what about companies like Tune Money? I'm really quite uncertain if there's any kinds of guarantees on their financial products.

As such, I didn't rush to renew my policy with them and am looking to get some other home insurance quotes elsewhere. But I'm not sure where to start either...any suggestions, anybody?

Getting fed up with all the technicalities

In the last 2 months, I'm terribly demotivated at work. I get like this every once in a while. Whenever it happens, I know it's just a cycle and I'll eventually get out of it. But somehow, this time, I feel that it won't be as easy to slip out of it and get back to the time when I loved going to work. I think it's also very much due to the fact that I have a little boy whom I would love to spend more time with.

Anyway, things aren't made any easier when I have to deal with a bunch of people I don't usually deal with, and they are bombarding me left, right and center with all kinds of requests! And these requests, whilst some are simple but just tedious stuff, others are really technical and I seriously have no idea where to start. I hate all that technical jargons involved in the long emails that I receive everyday, and I sometimes wish I were just having a bad dream and that I would wake up to reality where work means taking care of my toddler!

But no, I need to face up to reality and move along with time in a linear motion as I can't escape from all these boring and tedious tasks at hand. I can't wait to get them off my hands but I know they will continue to come at me possibly for the entire year. Oh how I dread going to work! :(

Is three bars of Snickers a lot of chocolate for a week?

I happen to pop by Guardian with a colleague today and discovered that their big sales had just begun. There were several items that were really great buys, but since I'm a little more disciplined when it comes to shopping these days, I only bought my necessities. Actually, I only bought 2 items - my little boy's Eubos Cream Bath Oil and some chocolates for myself.

You see, whenever I'm stressed, I feast on chocolates. And I've been super stressed at work for a couple of weeks now. So I'm perpetually snacking on chocolates over the weeks. I bought 3 bars of Snickers at Guardian just because they were on promotion and it was easy for me to reach for a pack of them while queueing up to pay at the cashier's counter.

My colleague's eyes nearly popped out when she saw me buying the chocolate bars. Because just last week, she was with me when I bought two bars. When I was taking a bite into my first bar this afternoon, she asked me to report to her what my weight is once I'm done with all my chocolates at the end of this week.

I don't have any weighing scale to check, and even if I did, I won't bother using it. Unless of course I'm seriously outgrowing my clothes, then I'd be concerned. But right now, putting on weight by eating too much chocolate really isn't my biggest concern. Sure, I don't want to have to resort to taking weight loss pills to lose weight if I balloon up, but my stress level is just too high for me to think about cutting down on chocolates and not getting fat! :(

Am I really snacking excessively on chocolates? Is there any other better and healthier way for me to snack whenever I am stressed? Anyone, any help?