August 2019 – HEALTH FREAK MOMMY

It Takes A Village To Raise A Child

It’s been two weeks since my littlest one woke up and got disconnected from me and angry with me with no particular reason on the first day of school after the third term school holidays. Thank God she’s almost back to her usual self, though I wouldn’t say that her usual self was how she used to be. I still haven’t accepted the fact that my baby girl is now growing up and she’s no longer a baby; she doesn’t want to be treated like one and I have to treat her like a big girl. It’s been one hell of a difficult two weeks, having to deal with her cantankerous and grouchy behavior and non-verbal communication with me. 💔 But I just knew that it would soon pass and yes it did.

I used to have a very hard time dealing with Sherilyn too when she was at that age. This is just part of growing up. Growing pains for both the child and parent. But I finally see her smile and talk to me again.🧡

Some disrespect is a normal part of teenage growth and development, though not all tweens and teenagers are rude or disrespectful. This is partly because our child is learning to express and test out her own independent ideas, so there will be times when you disagree. Developing independence is a key part of growing up and a good sign that she’s trying to take more responsibility. But she’s also still learning about how to handle disagreement and differing opinions appropriately.

A teenage’s moods can change quickly. Because of how teenage brains develop, our child isn’t always able to handle her changing feelings and reactions to everyday or unexpected things. And this can sometimes lead to over-sensitivity, which can lead in turn to grumpiness or rudeness. So I just have to accept all the crap of black sullen face, rudeness and disrespect from Cass as part of her growing up.

Over the past one week, this tween of mine seemed to be a tad scattered brain. On Monday, she had a hard time waking up and woke up 5 minutes late; her transporter left our condo. I had to bring Cass to a half-way meetup point for her to get up the van. The next day, she lost her new eye glasses in school. The following day, she lost her mechanical pencil in school. Other days, she forgot to ask me for pocket money and forgot to eat the bun that I’ve packed for her in her lunch box. She felt bad over losing her glasses and all the inconveniences that she’s caused me with her lackadaisical attitude. She’s been searching for her glasses in school for the past two days and she finally found it today! It’s inside a glass display outside the office and she needs to see the assistant principal to claim it back next week.

Sherilyn told me that Cass could be influenced by the character of Elizabeth Allen of The Naughtiest Girl (by Enid Blyton) as this is one the latest books that she’s been reading. Perhaps? Cass used to be so obsessed with Harry Potter that almost everything that she said had a little bit of Harry Potter influence in it and she’s still very much obsessed with Harry Potter. She’s still very much influenced by Enid Blyton’s tea time, heavy supper, casserole and pumpkin pasties and often asks me for these English things 😆

I can’t agree more with the African proverb “It takes a village to raise a child”. In my case, it’s more of taking half my life to raise three children. Why is it so hard to raise children? I must equip myself with more parenting strategies to bust away bad attitude and bring lasting closeness and understanding with my girls.

Something that I learned from parenting sites:

Teenage girls are developing their identity and opinions. And part of that is disagreeing with and pushing back against what they perceive as parental control. Difficult teenage daughters aren’t being difficult out of spite. Rather, they are acting under the influence of intense biological shifts.

Practice unconditional love. Therefore, parents should never withdraw or withhold their love based on a difficult behavior. Teen girls need to know that their parents will be there for them no matter what.

Thus, despite all that’s been going on, I still tell Cass – I love you, take good care and God bless you on most mornings before she gets into the school van.

Something that I cooked on a busy weekday this week – fried meehoon with homemade fish balls, cabbage, carrots, loads of scallions and garlic and spring onions from the pot on my balcony. I roped in Cass to roll the fish balls and blanch them and she enjoyed the cooking session with me very much as she got to pop the fish balls into her mouth before her sisters did ❤️

A song for all parents to their precious little ones by Michael Bublé – Forever Now

No. of times viewed = 43

Retail Therapy Hump Day

Wednesday is the only day in a school-going week that Sherilyn is free to go to the mall with me in the morning. There’s no tuition in the morning and no librarian duty in school that requires her to be in school in the morning. We normally have our one-on-one mother daughter shopping trip and nice lunch at the mall every alternate week on a Wednesday, before I drop her off in school. She gets to share a regular cup of Tealife with me, sans the boba and sans any sugar. We normally order classic roasted milk tea with glass jelly with zero sugar.

Today I gave Sherilyn the liberty to choose what she wants to eat and she chose Fish Bowl, the Hawaiian-style poke bowl. To me, poke bowl is like Japanese + Hawaiian style ‘chap fan’ (aka Malaysian economy rice/dishes). But to the Gen Y and Z youths, it’s all the rage and style. Basically, poke bowl is composed of a protein (optional), greens, seeds, condiments and sauce atop white rice/ brown rice / quinoa / greens. It’s the Gen Y and Gen Z’s version of ‘chap fan’, served aesthetically in a nice bowl at an air-conditioned mall vs ‘chap fan’ served in plastic plates in a kopitiam 😁 Anyone can prep their own poke bowl at home, really – just assemble your fish or chicken along with vegetables aesthetically atop rice 😆

For dinner, I cooked a one-pot dish ~ chicken stew and blanched broccoli.

Chicken, organic purple sweet potatoes, organic orange sweet potatoes, potatoes, carrots, organic leek, organic tomatoes, loads of big onions and small onions, bay leaves, thyme, Italian herbs, black pepper, organic soy sauce and salt to taste. How I love the kaleidoscope of colours in this dish and the broth imparted from all these ingredients is just so flavorful and sweet!

Happy hump day peeps! It’s time for me to resume my Ahmad duties and my duty only ends at 9:45 p.m. tonight 😴

No. of times viewed = 33

Test To Determine Eye Disease

Many of us have suffered from some sort of eye ailment in our lives. However, some can be serious and need to have tests run to determine what is happening and how it can be treated. Here are a few tests that can be run to find out if you have an eye disease.

Artificial Intelligence
Recently doctors have been able to use artificial intelligence to run an algorithm to determine if you have eye disorders. Some of these optometrists such as Kang Zhang have designed this type of technology to diagnose a problem more accurately than a human can alone.

Angiography
When a doctor performs this test, they are applying eye drops into your eye. This medication allows the physician to observe the blood vessels in the eye better so that they can investigate issues. When they are doing a Fluorescein Angiography, they are using fluorescent drops to see the vessels in the back of the eye. If they want to do an indocyanine green angiography test they will use the dye to look at your retina and choroid.

CT Scan Or MRI
To get a look at your entire head, your optometrist might order a computed tomography or magnetic resonance image. When this happens, you will be put inside a large machine in the radiology department and asked to lie still. Scans will be taken of your head and a radiologist and your doctor will look at them so see if your disorder is caused by something in your head.

Pachymetry
When you have this sort of test, the physician applies numbing drops to your eye. When they start working, a probe is set on your eyeball and the doctor uses ultrasound waves to look for issues. This is a necessary test if you have refractive eye surgery.

No. of times viewed = 22

Get The Beat World Tour 2019

Our dancing queen’s haul in the Get The Beat (GTB) Asia dance competition held on Sunday, 25 August 2019 was champion, 2nd and 5th placing in the student’s choreography, jazz and solo contemporary (under 14 category).

With this, she’s now qualified for the world finals to be held in Bangkok from 18 – 22 December 2019. But her dad and I don’t think that she’ll be going as we want her to focus in her studies. Lately she’s been spending too much time partaking in all sorts of competitions and dancing. We’re extremely proud of her prowess and burning passion in dancing but we feel that studies should be above dancing.

Even the day before the competition, Sherilyn had to be in school at 7 a.m. to perform in a Chinese cultural dance in a Merdeka Day celebration. She’s spent every night practising at the gym till 10 p.m. for the GTB competition and during the weekends and holidays, her team mates from school came over to practise the Chinese dance.

Would you believe it if I told you that our dancing queen choreographed for her school’s Chinese cultural dance? Sherilyn stopped going to the dance studio for lessons several months ago as I think she needs a dance teacher who can teach her more advanced techniques and help her to raise her game.

Enjoy the photos…

My dancing queen has definitely come a long way from a 3+ year old chubby cheeked girl who started attending ballet classes to a determined 14-year old who choreographs her own dance ❤️

Sherilyn and Alycia in January 2009.

Backstage after the first event…

No. of times viewed = 76

Dealing With A Difficult Tween

I’ve been feeling a tad melancholic since the start of school on Monday. On the first day of school, my 11-year old found it extremely hard to wake up for school. And when she woke up after much resistance and kicking, she morphed into a totally different person… like someone has just cast a spell on her. Errr, it’s still the 7th month in the Chinese calendar 👻🥶

The moment she got up, she was very moody and extremely stroppy. Suddenly, everything that I said to her wasn’t well received by her. Everything I did and said were wrong in her world. Suddenly she became so volatile and disconnected from me that she’s a totally different person. It’s a shock to me as my previously sweet little baby girl starts tantrumming and hating me! Hate is such a strong word but this best describes her behavior towards me.

Who is this girl?!

What did I do wrong?!

This went on for two days and today is the third day and she’s still behaving coldly towards me. It could be the lack of sleep that’s affecting her growing body and mind. She’s been waking up at 9 – 10am everyday for the past one week during the school holidays and forcing her to get out of her comfy bed at 5:30 a.m. can be ruffling this angry bird’s feathers. Ideally kids need to get 9 hours of sleep but I’ll be happy if she can chalk up at least 7.5 hours. Sleeping early is another issue that I am currently battling with my Gen Z girls. For those of you with Gen Z tween and teens, you’ll know what I mean.

Another factor is at her age, this girl is seeking to find more independence. She’s a tad more sheltered and controlled than her two sisters when they were her age because of her health issue. Until the repeat MRI is carried out (too long a wait at HKL), we are now waiting to know anxiously what’s going on in her urinary tract that’s causing the issue. Because she feels that her wings are clipped and she can’t fly like her peers who are all like birds who have just learnt to fly, she feels that life is unfair to her and she’s left behind in the baby nest alone.

I’ve read that the more I insist on controlling all her choices, I am inviting rebellion, or worse. If I can find appropriate ways to give her independence, she won’t have to rebel against me to start standing on her own two feet. Of course she’ll make mistakes. That’s how humans learn. And of course she isn’t ready to make all her decisions. I’m still the parent. Deciding how much to weigh in is the hardest part of this parenting dance, especially so when I am dealing with a tween who is facing not only wacky hormones flooding her body but also with an undiagnosed condition that may require another surgery that’s causing the both of us a lot of anxiousness. It’s been a long and frustruating 11 years for the both of us.

Feeling down, I had brunch alone today after dropping Sherilyn in school. Hubs was busy at work. At the shop, my eyes were bigger than my tummy ~ I over-ordered and had to doggy-bag some of the food home 😬

Two portions of spinach, 3 types of balls, 1 lobak, 1 stuffed bitter gourd, 1 stuffed brinjal and a bowl of pumpkin barley sago tong sui. This shop uses premium Sanbanto pork in their fish paste. Even their pork balls are from Sanbanto.

It’s an achievement that I could eat so much food for brunch! I was so stuffed to the gills that I felt like my denim skirt was going to burst. I am a pathetically small eater, thus I always find someone to eat with me to share my food. I had to tapau the stuffed brinjal and lobak home. I couldn’t finish the pumpkin tong sui.

I love the yong tau fu from Taman Desa Yong Tau Fu & Dessert but the bill can be a tad stressful on your budget if you, like me, get too excited and ambitious and stack the tray mountain high with all the stuffed items, balls, vegetables, etc. My brunch today was RM18 plus RM1.50 parking ~ budget exceeded for lunch but I felt some of the blues melt away as I tucked into the delish food and yummy tong sui. Food indeed has some destressing effect!

Exactly my sentiments!! A slow death with doses of cortisol injected into the body everyday 😩

No. of times viewed = 54

Academic Excellence Reward

Each time we go shopping, Cass would ask to window shop at the Lego shop. Lego is something that Cass likes since she was 3 years old, besides jigsaw puzzles. She could spend hours on end absorbed in these two toys and be completely oblivious to her surroundings.

The other day I threw a challenge at my Harry Potter fan ~ I told her that if she gets outstanding results in her coming final exam, she’ll get a Harry Potter Lego of her choice.

For the top 3 positions in the entire Primary 5, this Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle with a price tag of RM1,943 will be hers to claim!

And this Hogwarts Clock Tower @ RM499 will be hers if she is within the top 10 in the entire Primary 5.

Let’s see if Cass is able to claim her reward this year. I’m pretty flexible with the prize and it can be carried forward to the following year with no expiry date so long as she meets the target! ☺️

No. of times viewed = 21

Faith In Humanity Restored

When Alycia got home from a day’s outing with her friends yesterday, I was surprised to see her donning on a pair of bright yellow Adidas shorts the moment she stepped into the house. That’s now hers and I queried her. And there’s a story behind this super expensive pair of shorts, which I initially just couldn’t buy the story.

Here’s the story…

Alycia and her friend were having brunch at the Lot 10 food court yesterday morning before adjourning to the MABA stadium to watch their friend compete in a basketball match. A man who was holding a tray with food and drink was inadvertently shoved by a staff pushing a pushcart and the black herbal drink was spilled onto Alycia’s long pants.

Rich man to Alycia – I am so sorry!!

The man then left the scene in a heartbeat but moments later he came back with something in a plastic bag for Alycia!!

Rich man to Alycia – I got you new pants as compensation. Sorry again!

And in the bag was a pair of shiny original Adidas shorts in fluorescent yellow with a RM120 price tag! Her jaw dropped. According to Alycia, the man who spoke in a polished English accent wore business suit and looked like some refined and rich businessman.

When I heard the story, I didn’t buy it at all. So did her dad. It sounded too good to be true. Too orchestrated! When I asked Alycia to show me her stained black pants, it was dry. Why totally dry?! Her nosy second sister quickly sniffed the pants like a sniffer dog and commented that the pants didn’t smell like it was soaked with herbal drink. 🤣

Alycia – That’s because I washed it at the toilet and sun-dried it at the stadium. You see, I washed it so hard till I tore the pants a bit (then showed me the tear on her pants). Why don’t you believe me mummy? When a real-life Santa Claus gave Cassandra a RM100 note on Boxing Day for no particular reason a few years ago, it’s also an unbelievable story. No one would believe this story too. Good things can happen mummy! Why would I want to lie to you??

As I grilled Alycia for the next couple of hours, the story seemed more logical and consistent. Perhaps I have too much misgivings on humanity caused by all the negative news that I read from the newspapers everyday. If this story was indeed true, then this stranger has definitely restored my faith in humanity with his responsibility and generosity so that a girl didn’t have to go through the discomfort of wearing a pair of sticky and damp pants the entire day.

No. of times viewed = 26

Papa’s 76th Birthday Celebration

Last Friday, my parents took the morning ETS from Ipoh to KL Sentral. We picked them up from the train station and then adjourned to Brickfields to have lunch of South Indian cuisine at Vishal Food & Catering Restaurant. Exactly a year ago, we went to this Indian restaurant to have lunch with my parents too when they came to have papa’s birthday celebrated in KL. Happy memories when we walked into the restaurant again exactly after a year! Why does time fly by so fast?!!

The next day (Saturday), papa’s birthday celebration was held at Oriental Treasure @ Bangsar South.

Papa’s Hazelnut Chocolate Cake is baked by Front Room & The Kneady Baker again.

The menu that we chose

All the dishes were perfectly executed and right up our alley. Portion was just right and at the end of the dinner, we were not stuffed to the gills. We could still womp up the lemongrass jelly dessert, the ‘sau to’ pau and birthday cake without feeling cloy.

I feel so blessed that papa is able to celebrate his birthday with us again this year. It really doesn’t seem too long ago that he was here with mum to celebrate his birthday with us. I pray that we can celebrate his birthday every year for many more years to come. Happiest blessed 76th birthday in advance dearest papa! ❤️ His actual birthday falls on 19th August.

No. of times viewed = 70

Mr Nice Guy

Fai used to be the handyman engaged by our condo management. But when the condo committee changed management company, Fai was replaced by staff brought in by the new management company. Nonetheless we still call Fai to do repair and renovation works. He’s one of the nicest and most non-calculative man we have known. He doesn’t give you a bill or request for payment after works are completed. Instead, we have to chase him to collect money from us. Sometimes he does minor repair works for us free of charge when he drops by the condo to do renovation works for other units.

Fai and our family have become friends over the years. When he was hospitalized for high blood pressure, the mil made him a specially brewed Chinese tea known for bringing down hypertension. Sometimes we would give him cakes and kuih if he happens to be at our unit.

About two months ago, when the mil called Fai to do some minor repair works at our unit, he Whatsapped a gory photo to her – he was lying on the road with blood oozing out from his leg with firefighters surrounding him. He had fallen from the second floor of a double storey house while doing repair works! We were shocked to see the photo. Thank God he survived the fall with only a fractured leg and needed several surgeries.

A few weeks after the tragic accident and two surgeries later, Fai is now recuperating. He has to move around on a bespoke wheelchair now. Recently he came on his wheelchair to our unit to repair our kitchen drawer. I am truly amazed by Fai’s grit and positive attitude. He only billed us RM30 for the job but I gave him RM50 instead, to cover the cost of Grab. And the mil gave him a bag of Biscotti that she’d just baked.

Fai is currently unable to do restoration and repair works that require him to climb and move around vigorously but I hope that very soon he’ll be fit as a fiddle to resume working at full-swing once again. He’s got a whole family to feed.

No. of times viewed = 48

Down Memory Lane

Alycia has been assigned by her high school Drama Club teacher-in-charge to organize an end-of- year school trip for Drama Club members. The destination of choice is Ipoh but she’s open to other places as long as the trip is within the budget of RM200 per student. So Alycia called my parents to ask them for contact numbers. Today my mum Whatsapped me the brochure of YMCA Ipoh. And the sight of YMCA on the brochure flooded my memories back like torrential rain!

That year was 1987. I was in Form 2 @ MGS Ipoh. The forth formers (just like Alycia who’s in Form 4 now) organized a trip to KL and I begged mum to let me join this trip with my besties. It was a dream come true when she agreed. The day came and we took a big long tour bus with air-cond (very rare in those days!) to KL. That was my maiden school trip out of Ipoh and into KL, a place that I’d always wanted to visit.

When we reached KL, we were checked into YMCA. We were brought to visit all the fun-filled places in KL (Batu Caves, Zoo Negara, Museum, The Mall, airport in Subang Jaya, etc) and from KL we adjourned to Melaka for a day trip before heading back to Ipoh. At YMCA, about 4 or 5 of my besties and I were placed in a room. There wasn’t any en suite and we had to walk a few meters away to the bathroom and toilets which were not well kept or cleaned. Till today I still have nightmares of those bathrooms and toilets 😱

Besides the nightmarish toilets, there were cockroaches flying in our room. Mother of all horror for me!!!!! I remember screaming and running like a headless chicken when chased by those huge roaches with flappy wings Oh. My. Gawd.!!! Also, beside our room were a bunch of rowdy gangsterish Malay boys who kept disturbing us by knocking on the wall to ‘call’ us. They also kept wolf calling us and knocking on our door the entire night. We were scared to death that we would all be gang raped and murdered in the room at YMCA KL. We dared not even go to the toilet and had to hold back our pee the entire night for fear of being raped by those boys 😆 We even pushed our beds against the room door as we were scared shit that those boys would break down the door to look for us 🤣 Yeah, can’t blame a bunch of 13 and 14-year old melodramatic girls, can you? Besides all these discomfort, we nonetheless had TONS of fun throughout our trip. If only I could turn back the clock to relive those happy carefree teenage days!

Besides a once a year school trip or holiday that my papa would bring us, our daily lives were pretty much mundane and simple. We were usually already in bed by 9:30 p.m. We had no electronic devices and our only entertainment back then was TV. TV programs were pretty limited too and I whiled away my time watching female wrestling series at night – whatcha call that series already? Gladiators or something?

My Gen Z / dopamine frazzled zombies teenage girls – can’t live without their phones and boba tea. I have banned them from adding boba / pearls into their tea and they can only order milk tea without sugar or with the least sugar.

No. of times viewed = 18

Sunday, 4 August 2019

The mil left for New Zealand last night, for a 2-month stay with her third daughter and family；which means that I’ll be slogging in the hot kitchen for the next 2 months dishing out lunch and dinner. No fun for someone who finds cooking a chore! But what choice does a health freak mommy have huh? I haven’t found the mojo nor momentum to cook yet but I’ll soon wing it. Bring on the pressure cooker! But I’ll need to have a short refresher session with my mum when she visits this Friday before I use the PPC again. Mum is an expert in pressure cooking. She uses it to make all her dishes and some of her bakes.

Sunday for me is all about leisurely lunch with family, indolent and languid, best time in the week. But I had to be up at 4:45 a.m. today. It’s day two of Cass’ camp in school today. Though I had a hard time getting this slugabed out of bed and only left the house 10 minutes before the session started, we weren’t late. It took me under 10 minutes to reach school vs. 20 – 25 minutes on a regular weekday. The roads were super clear. If only KL roads were like this every single day, my life will be so much less stressful!

Lunch with hubs and the two older girls was at Paradise Dynasty @ Pearl Shopping Gallery.

Paradise Dynasty Restaurant is well-known for their colorful Xiao Long Baos, handmade noodles and Shanghainese delicacy.

The dry la mien noodles look simple and unassuming but they pack a phenomenal flavor punch of fried onion oil. Springy, silky and flavorful, each mouthful offers so much euphoria that you’ll have to stop yourself from stuffing this sinful oodles of carbo into your mouth!

The fried rice is gloriously good and filled with ‘wok hei’ (that complex charred aroma that fleetingly cloaks the rice).

After lunch at Paradise Dynasty, hubs segued into KyoChon to get takeaway Korean fried chicken for the girls’ dinner as I don’t cook on Sundays 🤗

Happy Sunday folks and may your new week ahead be filled with incredible luck and joy 😊

No. of times viewed = 40

Simple Secrets To A Svelte Figure – Portion Control

For the past two months, I have brought almost ten of my old skirts and pants to the tailor to have the waist part tightened. I know that I’ve lost about 2kg since early this year. But what I didn’t realize was how much my waist has shrunk. It’s a frigging 3cm! No wonder my pants and skirts kept dropping off my waist and I thought that they have shrunk in our rather new washing machine that seems to spin rather wildly.

For the record, my waist is now 68cm, down from 71cm! This means I’m almost back to my pre-pre-pre-pregnancy waist and weight! I used to be 42~43kg before I became a mother.

Besides ramping up my 5-day a week exercise duration and intensity, I am back at cutting down bread and noodles. Another secret is portion control on food.

I share EVERYTHING that I eat with my daughters, hubs and mil. They are happy too as everyone is very, very cautious on their weight and sugar level at their age now!

In the trunk of my car, I have a tiffin carrier and multiple stainless steel food containers in various sizes. Whenever I eat out, I stash a food container in my tote bag or lug the 2-tier tiffin carrier along. When my dish arrives, I place half or three quarter of the food in the food container first before I dig into my portion. Thus, I only eat a quarter or half of what I’ve ordered. This way, I always leave the eatery feeling half full and without guilt!

This is what I had for lunch with the hubs at LDG yesterday ~ chicken chop.

Before digging into it, I quickly kept three quarter of it in a food container for Sherilyn who’s waiting for her lunch at home:

My lunch at PappaRich with Sherilyn earlier this week:

And I kept three quarter of the food in a food container, for Cass’ lunch later.

I don’t really snack in between meals and if I have to, my go-to snacks are always nuts, seeds, sugar-free skinny yoghurt, nut butters, organic milk kefir or organic almond milk with oat bran.

But I’m no angel, I still indulge in sinful carbs and my kryptonite is kuih-muih! 😆 But instead of stuffing the entire kuih into my mouth, I share half of it with my daughters.

Sahara is my current favorite brand of organic milk kefir, imported from Australia. It has assisted me greatly in my evacuation job every morning! Love the taste too.

No. of times viewed = 55

How Often Do You Service Your House Air-Conditioner?

An air-conditioner has to be serviced regularly so that it can perform optimally. Regular servicing also improves the efficiency of our air conditioner. Experts warn that for every year of operation in which you do not service your aircon, it loses 5% of its efficiency. After 3 years therefore, the efficiency of your air conditioner will have decreased by 15%. This adversely affects its performance, as well as your electric bill!

I clean our air conditioner filters regularly – at least once every 2 weeks – as the filters often get clogged with dust and pollutants. When the filters are clogged with dirt, you aren’t getting the full effect and your air-conditioner has to work harder to push cool air out, thus more power is used, which means you’ve got to dig deeper into your wallet every month to pay your electric bill.

For air-conditioner, ideally it should be serviced at least once a year. But we don’t. Both hubs and I are usually so occupied with our work respectively that servicing the air-conditioners will be the last thing on our mind. Plus, the thought of cleaning up the mess that the technicians leave behind after the job is done is enough to make me procrastinate this yearly affair! Instead, we have them serviced once every two years. And this is how shockingly dirty the insides of our air-conditioners are after two years from the last service!

Oh. My. Freaking. Gawd!! Check out the inches of dust, dirt and mold!

I can’t believe that we’d been inhaling such dirty cool air every night for more than a year! No wonder there was a period of time that I kept getting the flu no matter how hard I work on at preventing it. But after switching the position that I sleep on the bed and the air-conditioner no longer blows at my face directly, I’ve not had another episode of flu. I now sleep on the inner side of the bed, next to the wall, directly beneath the air-conditioner and no longer feel any cold air lashing out on my face. Poor hubs has to sleep on the other side of the bed, facing the cold air (23C). Sometimes he sleeps in the living room to avoid the air-cond (good, as I don’t have to be tortured by his thunderous snores 😆 ).

How often do you service the air-conditioners in your house?

No. of times viewed = 20