Valen’s Vanity Square

Weekend. Time to de-stress. And the way to do it is to shop! Chinese New Year is less than a month to go, have to get myself some new clothes, of course!

Visited few of my favourite boutiques, got some tops but they are not entirely meant for CNY. Want to get a simple dress that has soft, light colours like pink, peach, orange and the likes, and may be with floral prints. Not going for bright red although that’s the typical colour of CNY.

But sometimes it’s not easy to get what you said you want. Went round and round the whole shopping mall, I just couldn’t find the right dress. Call me fussy or whatever. But I realised that evening dresses seemed to be in every boutique.

I remember I was looking for an evening dress few months ago but had to finally settled for something not what I initially hoped to get. But now, all of them seem to be just what I needed last year!

Well, it’s okay. I will continue with my ‘mission’ next weekend. There’s still a lot more to shop!

Went to One Utama shopping mall during the weekend and saw a gift redemption booth outside Papa Rich restaurant. That reminded me about the sale promotional gifts the shopping mall is giving out.

I want to get a desktop calendar, where there is a box for each date so that I can jot down my assignment deadlines and appointments. To redeem this calendar, one has to spend RM150 in one single receipt, in any retail outlet in the shopping mall.

That’s not difficult, as hubby had bought 4 shirts and spent more than RM200. Happily, I went to the redemption booth and told the girl sitting behind the counter what I want.

She said, “Oh, we have finished giving out the calendars, but we still have the red teddy bear. Spend RM1000 in one single receipt and you will be entitled to redeem the bear.”

What? No more calendar? Why on earth do I want to spend RM1000 to get a teddy bear?

All I want is a calendar. Why didn’t they print more calendars? Why didn’t they offer a couple more types of gifts that can be redeemed at lower expenses?

Jeez, luckily I didn’t go on a shopping spree that day, except to buy a bottle of drinking water and a cup of latte. Haha!

It’s the last month of 2010, and it’s time to make a list. A list of 2011 resolutions? Of course not. A list of things to buy before 2010 closes its curtains. Haha!

I have already got a list ready, nothing fancy though. Just the usual wants and needs. But this time I remembered to add in an item that I had always missed putting it in my shopping list - a pair of sunglasses!

My one and only pair of sunglasses were bought, like, 7 years ago? The small-frame design is out of trend now, and it doesn’t really block out too much of the sunlight. It is so the right time to get a new pair.

I thought to get a pair from one of those cheap eyewear stores, but hubby insists that I should get them from an optometrist shop.

Okay, whatever. That just means that I will be spending more on the sunglasses and have to cut down the budget on other stuffs. Hmmmm….

Year-end sales is every where at this time of the year. Good for me - a way to de-stress. Bad for me - my wallet is gonna bleed profusely. Haha!

If you are living and working in Malaysia, you probably will like the fact that: 1. we observe many public holidays here, and 2. There is almost always a sales some where in town, for every occasion or for no reason at all.

On the other side of the Earth, in the US where Americans observe their traditional thanksgiving day, there are also a thanksgiving day sales and Cyber Monday sales.

At first, I thought Cyber Monday was a day that has to do with the cyberworld or internet, haha! Actually, it is simply a marketing term (created to boost sales, I think) for the Monday immediately following Black Friday. Black Friday in turn is the Friday following Thanksgiving Day. (What is it about Fridays?)

Cyber Monday is also celebrated in some of the European countries, and the sales last for eight days. Seems long, but not as long as what we have here in Malaysia; sales can last for a whole month.

Oh well, if you have something you have longed to buy for quite some time, sales is indeed a good opportunity for you to grab hold of your desired item at a discounted and more affordable price.

Was at Sunway Pyramid Shopping Centre yesterday, and saw that a new shop is going to open soon right at the entrance of the shopping centre. And it looks like it’s going to be a … Coach outlet! Yay!

It seems that Coach is opening more and more outlets in the city, which I think is good. I would say it is a considerate and understanding brand, because it tries to cater to a group of consumers who have a smaller budget, and not only targeting the high-end spenders.

Other designer brands, such as LV, Fendi and Hermes, are so, so, so ‘premium’ in their price tags, which I don’t think I can ever afford unless I double my current income, haha!

Oh well, perhaps the designer bags are meant for the riches, and not for us normal, ordinary, office ladies. Sniff…

Went to the Levi’s store in MidValley after work yesterday, hoping to find a pair of nice jeans since they now claimed that they have sizes and cuttings to suit every woman’s shape.

And what a bummer - all the jeans with designs and colors that I like are out of stock for my size! The same happened when I thought I could instead go for a pair of khakis from Padini Authentic. What’s wrong with the shops? Why don’t they stock up more on popular sizes??

And clothes are that one thing that I cannot buy online because I know I will have problem fitting into those clothes if I don’t first try it out. Although the green study conducted by the Carnegie Mellon University’s Green Design Institute found that “shopping online consumes less energy and reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 35% compared to shopping at traditional retail stores”, and is thus friendly to our environment and the Earth, I still have to shop them the traditional way when it comes to clothes.

Hopefully I can find my sizes when I go for shopping tomorrow.

What a bliss, when I could sleep like a log through the whole night and woke up naturally this morning… at 11 am! 10 hours of sleep, what an indulge!

Really, being able to wake up and see the sun bright and shiny gives me a cheerful start of the day, so that I’m in a good mood all day long, even though I started to get sleepy in the late afternoon. Haha!

Wonder if you have had experience this: taking a nap in the late afternoon, while the day is still bright, then wake up from your nap and find that it’s already dark outside, and in a very depressed kind of state? That’s how I will feel if I fall asleep when it is bright then to wake up in the dark. It’s our biological clock issue. We are made to wake up in bright light, not darkness.

Can’t imagine in countries with winter where people wake up to a dark morning, how they would feel when they first get up from bed. No wonder they said winter can be depressing, not only because of the low temperature, but also lesser sunlight during the day. But something can be done.

One can use a sunrise simulator alarm clock, such as the Bio-Brite sunrise clock. You can set the clock to slowly lit up before it rings and startles you out of your dream. So you feel like you’re really waking up in the morning and not at night. Your biological clock will accept it better. You feel more cheerful and alert, instead of depressed and gloomy.

You can check out various types of Bio-Brite sunrise clock at Amazon.

When I was much younger, during my school days, weekends were the best times because I got to watch TV for whole day long.

Now, as an working individual, weekends are times to get out of the house and into the shopping malls to spend, haha!

So I did some shopping again yesterday at One Utama. I only went into two shops, Iora my favourite boutique, and Viss the shoe shop. Got myself a skirt and two tops. Have to work this coming Saturday and need to wear formal attire. And I didn’t have any really formal attire in my wardrobe since I quit my previous job.

Also got myself two pairs of flat thong sandals. I took one pair, but the shop only accept credit card for purchase above RM50. So I took another pair. Luckily both pairs of sandals were sold on a discounted price. Jeez, how they smartly make us spend more!

While I tried out many clothes in Iora and took me some time to decided which items to buy, it only took me just a short while to choose the sandals I want, but sort of got delayed a bit because their barcode scanner seemed to have problem scanning my items. Well, may be it’s not the scanner, but the price sticker that was sort of smeared. Poor hubby, he had to wait for me at Starbucks. Luckily, he had his laptop with him so I didn’t feel guilty too much, hehe

Okay, budget utilized. Have to wait till mid of next month before I can shop again.

Think I’m going to come down with a flu. Started to feel sore and scratchy throat after lunch. Now I feel slightly feverish. There’s too many sneezing around me recently. May be I got the bugs from one of them. Or may be partly it’s my own fault, that I have been eating hot and spicy food regularly.

Not sure if I will fall terribly sick tomorrow. If I am too sick to get out of the house, then I have to postpone my shopping plan. Yes, it’s the time of the month that I’m going to use my credit card. Too bad the credit card I use doesn’t come with a travel reward card, otherwise I might have enough points to redeem some free 2-night hotel accommodation kind of voucher.

Am planning to get a new bottle of perfume. Aiming on Estee Lauder’s Pleasure Exotic, although I still have a quarter of bottle of Pleasure Intense on my dressing table. I have finished a mini-sized bottle of Pleasure Exotic that my sister gave when she came back from a London trip. I kinda like it. Well, I like most of Pleasure’s range of fragrances anyway. So I think I should to get a full-sized bottle. But perfumes are expensive. Perhaps I should wait for another couple of months, by then some of my monthly credit card installments will be settled, I should have extra cash to buy a new fragrance, hehe.

Good plan.