Loren: Sometimes all you can do is hum, and click.

Although my parents have left, there still remains traces of their presence around my house. A stack of tupperware, loads of bread and chocolate, and bottles of health supplements scattered in the corners which would make an unknowing guest believe that we are either health junkies or we have a-paranoid-mother-who-is-a-health-junkie.

And of course, lets not forget the layers of flesh that has been stripped from my body and shoved under my bed to rot. Another sign of my parents visit. Very, "Hey, kids, how have you been? I bought a new skinning knife! Let's test it!" feeling to it. Well, I jest. Kind of. My mom did nitpick me to the bone, but I had to keep reminding myself that she only means well (in a warped way) and since I don't return to Singapore for her to nitpick at her own leisurely pace, she has to do it in an intense concentrated form that is probably tiring to her as well.

"Loren, why are you making your face like that?"
"Loren, dont do that with your mouth/eyes/hands/legs/feet/tongue/eyebrow

s/nose."
"Loren, dont touch your face!"
"Loren, why is your hair like that?"
"Loren, why are you dressed like that?"
"Loren, don't walk like that."
"Loren, don't stand like that."
"Loren, don't talk like that, its annoying."
"Loren, dont use that pitch!"
"Loren, stop sighing."
"Loren, eat/stop eating!"

The last one is kind of funny. On the whole, the one good thing that my parents told me, is that I have lost a lot of weight. Even my Dad, who deems calling me F-A-T repeatedly as a form of affection (warped, again), asked my mother why I lost so much weight. Woot. So my mom is now half convinced that I have an eating disorder because I rarely eat/drink bread/sugar/pastries/caffeinated drinks, and yet at the same time, she snapped the box shut when I tried to reach for my second quarter piece of a doughnut. Yeah. A quarter piece, not the whole ring.

Oh well. Mothers.

Between thinking about how would I go about tearing my ears and eyes out with optimum efficiency (and then finding the cleaning supplies to clean up the mess), and fretting about whether I had the same bad traits as my parents, I distracted myself by doing a little bargain shopping on the side.

I think, and Tilly would probably agree with me on this, that one of the reasons why this blog has been a tad sluggish is because we haven't been shopping. Heck, I havent shopped since August 2008, and Tilly has only managed to buy new shoes every now and then.....not regularly. And just shoes, not clothes/bags/accessories, just shoes. And we're talking normal shoes, Dr Martens, Converse, homegrown brands like Siren - not Louboutins, Miu Miu or Prada.

So when I finally got to shop a little, I turned to ebay to search for something that I really reallyreally want. I love ebay, and I especially love ebay during the recession. Not only can you source the clothes you love but didnt managed to get from previous seasons, but people are selling their most treasured and rare pieces now for lower and more affordable prices. Totally awesome. Only when you have the extra cash.

So what did I get with my extra cash?

(pictures from ebay)

I know I was supposed to steer away from the frilly and the froufrou, basically stuff that makes me look like I stepped out of a cartoon - but that just tells you more about myself than I can in words. My brain says one thing, and my heart says something else. Or should I say my right forefinger has a mind of its own? Frills? Click. Stripes? Click. Poofy? Click.

To be fair, the items I bought are items from previous seasons that I have wanted, for a really long time. And I managed to procure them at much lower prices than I had expected. So...yay me.

Darn it, I feel so defensive about my bargain purchases. Must be leftover Chinese-Mother guilt.

What can I say? The woman is good at what she does.