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Taking over from the helper - Part I

Within the first week of moving into this house, Horsie, then 3, used a marker on the wall. Various marks and dents surfaced over the years. I told myself it was ok - we could do some major works when the kids are older and less destructive. The kids are still kids and as destructive as ever. But I had undertaken some serious works already. Reason? We gave up the helper. Unless you have a wonderful helper who cleans very well and takes care of things very well, or your threshold for cleanliness is very low, chances are high that there are serious jobs to be done once you take over the house. Sharing my experience in two parts: *** *** *** Summary for Part I - clean, repair and replace! C lean if it is possible and not too gross R epair if it is possible and not too gross R eplace if it is impossible to clean or repair, or it is gross I'll go by the different segments of the household to assess for CRR, instead of listing by CRR. Laundry Iron: Replace - likely scratched. My helper b
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Recent posts

Introducing (and reviewing) Robot-kun

Robot-kun (Robot-君 in Japanese) is our favourite helper whose sole mission is life is to vacuum and mop the floor :)  Ours is a Xiaomi Mijia 1C. I took some time to read reviews and comments from users on this vs. other Mijia models and other brands, before deciding on it.  After using Robot-kun for some time, I realised that there are various types of product reviews: Online ratings. Such ratings may not be about the product itself. For example, when I buy things on Shopee, I see many ratings saying that the buyer has not used it yet. I don't know why they bother to rate *.* I use such ratings to tell me if the seller is reliable, whether the plug is a local plug, etc, but I really appreciate reviews of the product by buyers who have actually used it.  Professional reviews. I think it's wonderful you can review products for a living, ha! Check out this  fantastic review by SRR  which links to reviews of other robots as well. I referred to this website a lot during my research.
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Airing my dirty laundry

TL;DR: Wash daily and hang dry overnight! + update: Wash full loads only! For years, we washed clothes on a fixed schedule: Monday: 2 loads - helper, kids Tuesday:1 load - The Hub and me Wednesday: 2 loads - kids, bathroom mats Thursday: 1-2 loads - bedsheets; we rotate bedsheet changing schedule for all of us Friday: 1 load - The Hub and me Saturday: 1 load - kids Not counting bedsheets, that was effectively one load per pax per week.  Now, it's simplified: Daily: 1 load comprising mix of adult and kiddy clothes Monday: +1 load comprising bathroom mats, robot mop pads, steam mop pads, other wash cloths Tuesday: +1 load of all our towels so I can wash at a higher temperature Thursday-Saturday: up to +3 loads comprising bedsheets or The Hub's laundry from business trips Now that the kids are not babies anymore, there is really no need to split our laundry. We have been using the same detergent for quite a while now anyway. So no smelly piles of clothes waiting for their day in t
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Is afternoon sun really that bad?

This has been a wonderful week, and not just because term 3 has started (which is great, btw!); after all that rain, I'm welcoming the sun back into our lives! One of our duvets sunbathing, cover and all We didn't know that three of our four bedrooms would get the afternoon sun (or 西照 in housing speak) when we bought this house. When we got the keys and saw the sun, we had the windows all tinted. Blackout curtains definitely but those were more for the kids' nap time as they were all still taking afternoon naps at that time. When we moved in, we realised that it got really hot after 3 pm as the sunlight goes about 1 metre into the bedrooms.  Solution? Aircon. But this doesn't affect our electricity bills: The kids napped with aircon with or without afternoon sun. Now that the kids are not napping, we are also not in the bedrooms in the afternoon. And I'm at home the whole day most days! Until WFH happened as The Hub converted a bedroom to his office. But even if the
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Let's recycle!

Somehow, Monday is recycling day in our household. Maybe it's because the kids are home a lot more on weekends and drink milk like it's water *.* Every week, we drain three to five 2L cartons of  this milk . Seems that recycling is quite big these days? Keep seeing the CNA green plan  on TV. Well, Auntie started when I was a kid in the early 1990s ok, with the "I'm a young environmentalist" badge , woohoo!  Then in my uni days, when I discovered that my lawyer friends printed their cases on only one side of the paper for ease of reference, I took their discarded printouts to use the other side to do my maths tutorials instead of using fresh paper.  In my master's year, I rented a room in a house instead of a college community space, and found that the town council provided free recycling boxes so I wrote in to get one for our kerb side :) And that summer, I was in Germany and found recycling bins everywhere. Back then, they weren't as common in Singapore.
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I love CCA days!

Coz Dragon and Horsie come home at 5 pm before I leave to fetch Monkey, i.e. plenty of time to do more work in the house, write or go out :) I love them to bits but it's great to have some time for myself too. But there is no CCA since last week due to midyear exams. And I realised that when Monkey goes to primary school next year, I would not have this luxury as Monkey is unlikely to have CCA. Enjoy it while it lasts! The Hub and I had a nice lunch date on the last CCA day
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Cleaning the drain for the first time

I give our bathrooms a wet wash at least once a week, down from three times a week when we had a helper. Yup, not my favourite chore! But I do spot cleaning all the time, and the kids' bathroom often get more wet washes thanks to boys being boys. Anyway, I keep a trusty Ikea squeegee in each bathroom to sweep water down the drains. Each bathroom has two drains: one in the shower area and one under the basin cabinet.  Recently, water pooled over the drain under the basin in my bathroom. Uh oh, blocked :( If you discount all the cleaning I had to do after helper left, this was my first challenge.  That day, I really didn't feel up to clearing the blockage, as I was still tired from the latest kiddy COVID infections. So I swept the water into the bathroom drain instead.  The next day, I pulled up my sleeves and found three layers in the drain cover. I cleared out the top two layers.  Wipe debris off the top and lift up with the nail of my thumb The shadows are due to the cabinet r
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