A few moments of distraction was all it took to overheat the wok. I should have stopped proceeding but I thought I had a chance if I poured in the oil and pushed in the chopped garlic immediately. But it was too late. The garlic were burnt but I still pushed in the ikan bilis. What was I thinking? As I stir fried them around, I realised I had no chance to save this dish. The soup is gonna be bitter with the charred garlic. I'm gonna waste all the ingredients if I continued. I turned off the fire and started chopping fresh garlic again.
Burnt garlic is no big deal. But like burnt garlic, some things in life have no U-turn. A moment of unthinking can be all it takes sometimes to make a irreversible mistake. This lesson was a valuable one for me, especially after the gift saga with KK.
We had bought 2 gifts of games, one Xbox and one PS3, for his friends. They were brand new so they came wrapped in plastic cling wrap. In his attempt to peel out the price tag, my son tore off the whole plastic wrapping completely. Not only that, curious he opened up the box to have a look at the instruction booklet inside, thereby breaking the seal on the Xbox game. Great. Now I not only cannot offer to get an exchange on the gift (if the parents object to the title we chose), it looks like we have bought pre-owned games instead. I was a pretty mad mum.
I know he's still a kid and kids don't think so much when they do things. But the sooner he learnt there are merits to thinking before action or demerits to actions without thoughts, the better he will be at being independent. Too often, we read in the newspapers of teenagers or young people who get caught in situations such as molestation, possession of drugs or smuggling unwittingly. It might not be their intention to commit crime but it's a messy situation they can avoid if they were more alert, cautious and less ignorant. Certainly if they paused to think of the consequences of their actions, they might still be able to save themselves before it's too late.
So the humble garlic has imparted some important lessons to life:
- Be on the watch out, a moment of distraction and you can get burnt.
- If something is not right, stop. You can't save the garlic but you won't destroy the dish.
What do you do when things are not going the way you want and you can't do much about it? You sit around sulking or walk around grumbling or you pour it out in writing? Well I tried the first two, it didn't really help me feel better so I'm going to try the 3rd remedy.
At this final stage, the house is still not settled. Things took a dramatic turn for the worse when we went to do our "PCS" (Project Completion Signoff). Instead of signing off that everything had been completed, we found the site supervisor couldn't make it for the appointment as he was summoned to go to the head office urgently. Turned out he got fired that day.
Turned out also that he has not been doing much at all about our house. Some of the items raised 2 weeks ago were being fixed on the spot by the substitute site supervisor who took over last minute. This new guy seems initially like a nice guy and one who has much higher standards. He saw some of the rectifications and agreed that it was a 'crap' job and had to be redone. Some other rectifications made no improvement at all. Like the garage door, it was still not sitting straight.
We were very keen to move in and even agreed that some issues could be fixed after handover. However, I was reminded many times by different people not to do that. Most people had difficulties getting the builder to come back and fix things after handover. They are not one bit interested in you after they take your money. So we have decided to make them fix all the defects before we take over the house. Which means an indefinite delay.
To make matters worse, we discovered the concrete path outside our house had some serious defects. There appeared 2 long thin cracks in the concrete recently and when I mentioned it to the ex-site supervisor, he claimed it was within tolerance. He asked that we leave it and review during the 3 month maintenance period. I took his word for it then but we met another concrete trades person lately and he highlighted what a bad job our concrete was. Many parts were not even the minimum thickness of 100mm. Indeed it was and from then my eyes opened. I now suspect the cracks could be the result of poor workmanship. We raised a fuss with the builder about the concrete and they have still not responded how they are going to deal with it.
That's not the end. On the day of the PCS, the new site supervisor got someone to come and clean up the exterior of the house. He did a good job but some water from his high pressure hose were forced into the house and there was a puddle on the floor boards near the alfresco sliding doors. It was highlighted to the site supervisor who claimed that he will get some towels from his car to mop it up later. But guess what? In his hurry to go off (to visit Grandmother and it's girlfriend's birthday), he forgot. That was Friday and when I reminded him on Monday, he claimed that it was done on Saturday. However when I went to the site on Wednesday, I saw huge stain marks on the floor and I suspect the floorboards have just got damaged from the flooding. One more major issue to repair = more delay.
I'm getting increasing frustrated especially when there's nothing much we can do except email them every other day about the progress. Yesterday, the furniture company called, claiming they can't hold on to the furniture (2 large sofas and a dining table) we ordered any longer. When we ordered them 2 months ago, I never expect that the house would still not be ready until now.
On the other hand, I'm glad that all these things happened now, before we sign off and while we still have a bit of bargaining power to make them fix the problems. I thank God for the people He sent to remind and advise us. The contractual completion date is 23 December, after which the builder will have to start paying us $250 per week as damages. I wonder if this will really happen? From a project that have so much potential to be completed in 5 months to one that is overdue. I have no problems moving in next year but where am I going to settle the furniture in the mean time?
The boys in our family have added 3 little trophies to display on top of the tallboy at the entrance, together with the collection of photo frames showing memories of our lives together. The trophies are nothing major, just a little recognition for their love of the sport but I'm still proud of them.
Hubby got a trophy for being the Yellow Belt Grading Champion for Taekwondo at our club. This is in recognition of him having the highest grading score amongst all the yellow belt gradings. He claimed this was the first time in his life he ever received a trophy for anything.
Last Saturday, at the annual Christmas dinner organised by City West Taekwondo, KK was nominated and won the Junior Encouragement Award for Point Cook branch. There were 3 awards, Junior Champion, Junior Most Improved and Junior Encouragement. I supposed this is an award for showing encouraging performance during his training. For someone who started not serious and nearly couldn't qualify to take his Yellow 2 grading, KK has indeed come a long way. These days, his TKD instructors are happy with his improvement and commitment during training.
And our dear XX, not of age yet to join the Taekwondo club but already so inspired by the trophies (he calls them 'Piston Cups') his dad and brother had received, decided to make and award one to himself. He asked me for an empty drink bottle, started pasting paper all over it and finally had me write his name and the words 'Junior Champion' on it. I did an impromptu award ceremony on the spot, shook my little champion's hand and congratulated him as he proudly received his 'Piston Cup'. He took the 'trophy' and put it right next to his dad and brother's. One day, I know he will get a real one back to take its place.
There is never an end to the things we can learn. We thought that with a combined experience of over 70 years on earth between us, there is nothing that will faze us. But building our first house in Australia has given us that opportunity to feel like a little confused child again. Our latest crash course now is on 'Landscaping'.
In Singapore, landscaping was never an agenda for us. We kind of take it for granted that it will be there when we move into the HDB or condo estate. That timber deck, paved footpath, lush green lawn and stone benches, it's all done up nicely by the developer. We walked around and on them but have we ever wondered how it was made? Here in Australia, we're learning for the first time how to turn a piece of muddy ground into a garden. Where do we even begin?
Apparently, the land has to be 'prepared' first. Like before putting on make-up, you have to clean your face and put on moisturiser first. The land has to be excavated by a bobcat and the trash soil taken away. Then you can put on the weed mats before you pile on top soil (which you got to buy). Only then do you plant the grass or turf.
And if you want your garden to be more than just grass, a space that is both decorative and usable, which in our case consist of some timber decking, footpaths, garden beds and paving, the jobs add up. And getting landscaping done here is not cheap. The labour cost is high and can make up 60% of the total cost. We have gotten quotes ranging from $16,000 to $50,000. Which makes us think that it makes a lot of sense to DIY some parts of the landscaping ourselves. But how?
Unlike most Australian men who grew up watching their dads doing gardening and handy jobs around the house, my born and bred in Singapore husband is a total green horn when it comes to such tasks. And I'm even worse, can't tell the difference between a rake and a fork until recently. We are both very willing to take on the labour, especially if it saves us so much money, but our lack of technical and practical knowledge is a major setback.
So that's why currently we are on a steep learning curve. No doubt we will have to get the professionals to do some jobs like preparing the land and setting the concrete base, but I feel we should attempt to do the timber decking, garden beds and paving ourselves. There are some friends we know who has done theirs and we are hoping that we can learn from them. In the meantime, we have visited a few places that sell pavers and stones to learn more about the different materials available and their prices.
The range is mind boggling. Pavers comes in all sorts of shapes - rectangle, squares, irregular... and thickness, colours and feel. Even rocks are not so simple....Basalt, bluestone, sandstone....The strangest part is these rocks that comes freely from the earth are not cheap. One shop quoted us $80/cubic metre. Sure, some of them had to be mined and broken down but you know what, when builders build your house, they make you pay like $16K to excavate and remove rocks (called site costs) from your land. The rocks are taken to factories to be broken down and then sold to landscape suppliers...for you to later buy them back for your garden.
I'm pretty sure that even with research and theoretical knowledge, we'll never be able to fully understand landscaping until we sink our hands into the mud. I just hope to be able to carry them rocks when they arrive.
