Ants

If the old wives tale that having ants in your house = prosperity,... We ought to go shopping!

Bissell Spot Cleaner

So for the longest time, about 6 months probably, we hogged A's deep cleaner. It tooks us a couple of weeks to deep clean the master bedroom, doing it sections at a time during the weekend, and a few more weeks deep cleaning the carpets in the 2nd bedroom. We spent more time cleaning the stairs.

Okay, here's where I get honest and fess up that when I say "we cleaned", it really means "hubby cleaned" around 98% of the time - he did the actual cleaning while I entertained Swe-cha elsewhere.

Unfortunately, we've been using the deep cleaner to suck up excess water that spills out of the washing machine - ugh! It's been a constant strain on us whenever we wash - are we going to get water or not ? By the time that we gave the deep cleaner back (thank you so much, A!), we had already purchased a shop vacuum. It was one of those small 2.5hp wet/dry vacuums that you keep in the garage. It stayed in our living room, still boxed, for weeks and it gave us the confidence to wash at home and that was good. The not-so-good part was that when we eventually opened it to try it out, it didn't work! It wouldn't turn on so we brought it back to the store.

A few days ago, Swe-cha soiled the carpet on a couple of steps again and that prompted us to get ourselves our own carpet cleaner. I had thought that we could hold out and not get one as we're planning to move houses anyway and we didn't want carpets in the new place. As it has been 6 months since we've started looking at houses and we're still here, it looks like we are here to stay... for a few more months, at least.

Sigh.

I finally gave in to hubby's prodding and ordered ourselves a Bissell Spot Cleaner - I was looking for the Little Green Cleaning Machine but looks like it is being phased out for this newer model.

I was able to get it at a good price so it wasn't all bad. SRP was 119.99, it was discounted at 99.99 and I had a 30% coupon on top of that - this is around double what we paid for the shop vac but since the latter didn't work, I don't feel bad about paying extra for a machine that's really more suited to what we need it for which is to clean up soiled carpeting and occasionally act as a wet vacuum to suck up spills.

Can't wait till it arrives.

Apt 9 Extra Low Cut Liners

For the longest time, I've been frustrated by the "no show liners/socks" that I have been. I've tried different brands, bought at different shops and nothing seemed to do what it was supposed to do - NOT SHOW.

See how the liners are peeking out in the front part of my shoe ? and check out the heel part. And these are suppoesd to be low-cut and extra-low-cut liners.

This afternoon, I had some extra time and decided to surf the net for recommendations. I was about to give in and shell out $33 for 4 pairs of Sheec Solehugger Secrets as they seemed to have the best reviews... but I couldn't find it in my heart to click "check out" because $33 was too expensive for 4 pairs of socks - and since I couldn't see / try them, I didn't even know if they were going to work!

And then... *drum roll please* while checking out Sheec reviews, I came across a thread where people were talking about liners that they wear with their ballet flats and someone recommended Kohl's Apt 9 brand.

I dropped by Kohl's after work and browsed through their selection. They have several variants - no show, low cut, extra low cut - and they have different sizes - size 4-8, size 9-12, one size fits all. I rummaged around and found 2 packs (3 pairs each) of the size 4-8 extra low cut liner socks in cotton. They were the last 2 packs in the store and the packaging was torn, I bought them anyway despite them being white - I wanted cream and/or black - but hey, if they don't show anyway, why should the color matter ?

I tried them as soon as I got home and voila! No show! They really were low cut and didn't show. I tried them with the pumps that I usually wear on "business casual attire" days and they didn't show up either.

These socks/liners retail for $12.50 for 3 pairs.

I got them for Buy 1 get 1 50% off. As I didn't have any coupons, I showed the cashier my MVC (Most Valuable Customer) credit card and she took another 15% off.

I paid around $15.xx for 6 pairs. This is way better than the $33 I was about to pay for 4 pairs earlier today.

I'm a happy camper :-)

More cleaning

We threw away sacks of trash this weekend.

Hubby sorted out the boxes that started accumulating in the 2nd bedroom since we had the great flood and I sifted through folders and folders of documents that have accumulated since.. well.. since I gave birth to Swe-cha.

I finally got our docs organized into binders - health records, certificates, tax returns, coins (we collect coins), stamps (yes, we collect them too!) and Swe-cha's school records - and filed neatly in the filing cabinet.

We're both aching, sore and tired. I have long scratches across one arm (got them from the plastic folders).

Ang saya.

We're doing this not just because my family is coming for a visit... but we're also doing this as part of the cleanup effort for when we move (hep hep... no getting excited yet, we don't have a house yet... this is just to get things ready "just in case"). As friend E says, "wag na ilipat ang basura, pampabigat lang yan."

Proud

Today ended on a high note, we are finally *drumroll please* citizens of this wonderful country.

Not that we didn't have it good back in the motherland but we can't deny that this country has been very good to our family and have provided us with countless opportunities.

On an even higher note, remember all my angst about our immigration journey where it seemed like we were getting the worst schedules all the time ? Here's my post about our biometrics appointment and here's the one about our interview appointment.

The Saturday interview was a breeze. There were hardly any lines. The federal building seemed like a ghost town when we got there and there was only one other person on her way in with us. When we got upstairs to the waiting area, it was less than 1/3 filled. We got there at 11a for our 11:30a interviews. Hubby got interviewed at exactly 11:30, I didn't get called in until 12:45p. The last oath-taking ceremony for the day was at 1p and it got pushed back to 1:30p because they had to wait for us stragglers.

I had learned and practiced the national anthem the week before so I could *ehem* belt it out at the ceremony but I realized how off-key my singing was so I respectfully kept my voice low. ;) That morning, I teased hubby about crying when he finally takes the oath, he didn't (his immigration journey is actually the easiest!). Despite thinking that those who shed tears during the ceremony are overacting, I did find myself teary-eyed while watching the "Proud to be an American" video.

Okay...  I looked up "Proud to be an American" on Youtube just now and found myself teary-eyed again.

Nutrisystem - Day 17

It's been 17 days, a little less than 3 weeks and the weight loss is at 6 lbs.

Yesterday, I fit into last year's jeans. Yay!

I'm keeping my goal simple - eat right and lose whatever weight I can. I'm not pushing for any big numbers. What pushed me to do this was the fact that my A1C showed that my blood sugar was at pre-diabetec levels.

When I started this program, I remember complaining about being hungry all the time. I still am, though probably not at those levels anymore. The best part is that I haven't been strictly adhering to Nutrisystem food so I never felt deprived. I bring my food to the office but if I see something good in the cafeteria, I buy lunch instead. The caveat is that my criteria for "good food" these days is fish and veggies and if the serving is big, I bring half home in a doggie bag.

Last night, I made pork chops. E I love these.... so I skipped the Nutrisystem meal and didn't have any rice. I just munched on the pork chops. Okay na rin.

Nutrisystem - day 6

My plan didn't include Nutrisystem meals during the weekends - that was how I wanted it and as we do eat out a lot, I didn't want to feel deprived. I also figured that it would be great if I could figure out how to eat on my own early on so I won't have any weight-gain issues (or have less of them) when I eventually leave the program.

As it turns out, my first "weekend on my own" was a bit rough but it went fairly well. I feel less hungry compared to when I'm in the office. I'm not really sure if it was because I was more relaxed and wasn't as stressed  - work always made me hungry!

We had our usual Vietnamese fare on Saturday lunch and instead of my usual 3pcs of summer rolls plus some rice and salmon casserole. I stopped at 2 pcs of summer rolls and didn't have rice w/ my salmon. Swe-cha, happily, had some salmon too! He loved it.

By dinner, I had the grilled Vietnamese porkchops with a bit of rice.

Sunday lunch was dimsum, my blood sugar went a bit high after this meal but I kinda knew it was going to happen as I still ate even after I wasn't hungry anymore. At least, this gives me an idea of when I should stop eating.

Sunday dinner was home-cooked beef salpicao with a small portion of brown rice.

The good news is that the weighing scale this morning tells me that I did not just maintain the few pounds that I lost in the earlier days but I lost another half pound !

I have never been obsessed with the weighing scale and couldn't understand why my Mom would keep weighing herself all the time. Ganito pala, it's fun to see your weight it the number is going down.

Total count: -3