I visited the departmental stores yesterday and was pleased to see the twin-pack Transformers movie deluxe figures consisting of Bumblebee and Optimus Prime, retailing at SGD 59.90 in the departmental stores.  At last, the kids here can have a chance to lay their hands on the lead Transformers movie characters.  Last month, the local newspapers ran an article citing a waiting list for deluxe Bumblebee islandwide.  I am glad to see Bumblebee on sale and widely available in the stores now for children.  I hope their parents will not hesitate to buy the twin pack while stocks last.  I know the Transformers toy collectors, traders and speculators will descend upon these twin-packs real soon and wipe the stores clean.  At the moment, there is no sale on all Transformers toys.  Thank goodness!  At least this will slow down bulk buying by opportunists for re-selling and ‘investment’ purposes.

The spring cleaning I did yesterday got me in close contact with the accumulated dust on the stuff in my room.  I sneezed so much that I ended up with a running nose.  Despite the great discomfort with my itchy nose, I persevered and cleaned up the part of my room according to schedule. I went to bed last night with a flu and though I have not fully recovered today, I went out to do some Chinese New Year shopping for decorations to adorn my home.  The heat outside made me perspire and I think it helped me to recover a little faster.  Tomorrow, I will have to continue spring cleaning the other parts of my room and home.

Spring cleaning in general is harder to do than said.  It is appalling to realise how much junk and clutter I had accumulated over the past year in my room.  Many of these items (e.g. magazines, brochures, reports etc.) were the results of my new found interests last year and I had yet to go through or read all of them before disposing them.  There is always this mentality that I might need them in future, so it is a waste to thrown them away now. 

Then again, a close friend once advised me: any thing that has not be in use for a year will not likely be useful in the coming years, so junk it now.  This is easier said than done.  It is difficult to throw away stuff when we have too much unnecessary emotional attachment to those things.  Nevertheless I have to ‘harden’ my heart and just ’spring clear’ away the useless stuff so that I have available hidden places to ‘hide’ my precious collectible toys.

Yes I have finally started the laborious task of spring cleaning my room for Chinese New Year.  There are loads of papers destined for the recycling bin and other non-recyclables to be disposed.  All my toys that are currently out on display need new temporary homes to hide from visiting kids during February.  I also hate it when non-toy collector adult visitors pass unkind insensitive remarks when they see my toys on display.  Sometimes I lock up my room when there are visitors.  The best solution to such unnecessary stress is total prevention by ensuring zero contact between all visitors and my beloved toys.

The Chinese New Year public holidays fall on 7-8 February this year.  Besides reunion dinners and endless feasting on loads of sweet savoury snacks, Chinese New Year here in Singapore is also celebrated by visiting the homes of relatives and friends to wish one another “A Happy and Prosperous New Year”.  There are no kids in my house throughout the year so my collectible toys have ’naturally’ settled on any available shelf in my room and the hallway.  Usually, I tend to display some of my favourite toys on any place that can accommodate them.

During every Chinese New Year, visitors might bring along their little kids and I never take my chances with their kids.  The best way to prevent unnecessary distress to me and my toys is to hide every single one of them from sight, until the house visiting has come to end, which will be around the end of February.  We usually do a round of spring cleaning, starting from a month before Chinese New Year.  I also use this period to ensure that all my precious collectible toys have been ’safely secured’ in their ‘hiding places’ until ‘the coast is clear’, which will be in the last 2 weeks of February.

Also read: ‘Protect’ your collectible toys from kids and pets.

Over the weekend, I accompanied my pony collector pal to Orchard Road to check if there were any new stocks of My Little Pony toys in the stores there.  We found the second set of 4 Best Friend ponies at Takashimaya.  My pony pal bought 3 of them while I did not buy any.  I only want the white unicorn Valentine pony, Sweetie Belle for now. 

As we checked out the other stores, I was very tempted to buy some Lego knights sets but in the end I did not.  The emotional battles of the angel and devil within me were quite strenuous to bear.  I was still waiting for payday to top up my toy budget so that I can splurge on more toys.  Hence my next toy purchases would have to wait.

Also read: To buy or not to buy more toys?

It is already 15 days into the new year of 2008.  My goals for 2008 have been set.  Though I am proud to say that so far I have been able to keep to the schedules, there is still much room for improvement where I can still push myself more and I must also procrastinate less.  I need to be more productive and efficient with my time and resources. 

Thinking of and setting goals are already quite daunting.  The next step of taking constant strategic actions to achieve them is even harder.  This step is prone to many distractions and temptations to delay or give up the ‘journey’.  Currently, only seeing my vision board daily keeps me going.  I must make this year 2008 a fruitful year of memorable achievements to remember by and to kick start the even longer and harder ‘life journey’ beyond.

These are a sample of the Patterns of Excellence skills that I picked up last year during a seminar on Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP).  Life is meaningless unless we learn to take charge and give meaning to it.  These are the Secrets of Success that propelled many successful people to the top.  As long as I model their success blueprint, someday I will be up there with them all!

The photos are uploaded at last.  View them here in my previous post on “Curing tail rust in My Little Pony”.  Please note that the post may take a while to load.

The pony has dried and I took more photos this morning.  I have re-attached the pony’s tail and head to the body.  Then I re-wet the mane and tail to style the hair and let the pony dry off again as the finishing touch.  The photos should be posted by tomorrow.  Do come back again to view them in the previous post below. 

See my previous post on “Curing tail rust in My Little Pony” here.

I have just done a curing tail rust procedure on a My Little Pony that I was about to sell.  I used the opportunity to take some photos of the process and I will post them here soon.  Currently the pony is being dried and I still need to take the photos of re-attaching the the tail without having the tail ring.

See my previous post on “Curing tail rust in My Little Pony” here.