The company James Hardie here in Australia is making many mesothelioma lawyers busy with their current press release about fund shortfalls thereby affecting the asbestos compensation.  Just last Thursday, James Hardie was slammed with the court’s verdict finding them guilty of misleading conduct about an asbestos compensation trust.  While I’m happy for the victims and their families, I’m sure their fight against JH continues on.  I hope everything turns out favorable for the victims.

Although buying a property here in Sydney is not a priority for us right now, the husband and I still talk about our dream home from time to time.  One of the things that we strongly agree on is not to have a backyard pool and a huge garden.  Both requires too much maintenance effort (e.g. pool supplies and gardening equipment) and not to forget, the expenses involved.  We only want a small patch of garden in the front and a space in the yard for the kids to play at and for small barbecue parties.

If I would be given a choice to rate my travel preference whether by land, air or water, I would definitely choose the land then air and forego the third.  I am just scared of the big seas and I’m not too keen to go on cruises even if it’s the last leisurely thing I can ever do.  Here in Sydney, when the huge Queen Victoria ship docked, there was a great deal of welcoming activity that happened.  Almost all the local news network has had a feature about the ship and its passengers.  Even then, I still prefer going on road trips and be able to enjoy the wonders of nature while on course.

The more I spend time being a stay-at-home-mom, the more I am valuing the opportunity to take care of my family hands-on.  That equates to not missing my past life as a career woman.  At some point, I even thought of home-based businesses, in the event that my kids are big enough for school.  It is too far ahead, you might think.  But it’s no loss to be thinking about the future.  If only I have gifts in arts or crafts, or sewing or baking.  But who knows if I can make a home-based business out of credit report services, what do you think?  It sounds boring and technical but possible, agree?

What I like best about staying at hotels is the freshly made bed every single day.  Food standard or quality varies, the same as with the customer service.  But the standard fresh sheets, fluffy pillows and cozy mattress can make me stay in bed the whole day! I love it when they leave yummy sweets, chocolates or flowers on your side table after they make your bed.  Gee, thinking about beds make me want to book a room at the Riviera Hotel! Hee.

It was only last year when I started experimenting with a few skin care products, mostly moisturizers and lotion, to address my dry skin problem.  So far, the more popular and foreign brands are no match to my skin’s needs and its either my face and body becomes drier or oily after weeks of consistent use.

Then,  a sample bottle of moisturizer from my sister’s company, JNJ solved all my issues!  A very light application after every wash or bath leaves my skin hydrated. It’s cheap, bought several bottles from Manila and I just found out that they are sold here in Sydney, too.  It feels good that I’m over the trial and error phase and that I could be loyal to this on brand from now on.

Tomorrow will be a busy day for us.  We’ve got three appointments to go to, two in the morning and one in the afternoon.  If we still have time after our third appointment, we need to get some groceries that should last us the four-day weekend.  Just a few more items to stock in our pantry.  And we if still have teeny weeny time left, I’ll get my iMac an external hard disk.  I haven’t backed-up my files on this computer and I get nightmares of the disk crashing (cross toes!).  I hope they have good brands on sale that day.

It’s getting much colder these past few days.  It has become more challenging to get into the shower without first switching on the bathroom heater.  Also, it takes a while for the water heater to work now that the temperature is in the low 20s.  So, you have to let the Danze faucets flow until you get the right mix of hot and cold water you prefer.  I just noticed the difference now that we moved to a landed property because it wasn’t like this last year when we were still renting an apartment unit.  Oh well, we’re in for a surprise in the coming winter season.