Our Christmas cul-de-sac

Our neighbor started decorating their house right after Thanksgiving and as you can tell, they did a really good job! Starting from the left under the star and green string lights, a nativity scene, then four rudolf reindeers - one for each of their family member,... then Santa next to a blue-lit Christmas tree... and then a big blow-up ornament and lots and lots of lights!As for us, just lights around the border of our driveway and on the tree, courtesy of our neighbor! :-) Merry Christmas everyone!

These are a few of my NOT so favorite things...

Leaves, leaves, leaves... EVERYWHERE! I had about 5 garbage bags full of dead leaves today and threw them over the fence. Sssshhhhhh.... :-) And while I was doing that, I noticed a trail of ants and yikes...! They were lifting leaves at least 2 to even 4 times their size. My neighbor was just talking about these ants the other day - on how they chomped off an entire tree in her backyard! Well, seems like they are just using the fence as a byway. Hopefully that will be it for now. But what an incredible sight! And oh, while mowing the backyard, there were also a few spiders that jumped out of my way. I've never had to deal with so many spiders in and around the house before. As long as they are not the infamous Brown Recluse spider. A friend of mine ended up in the hospital for a few days on IV after being bitten by one. Gulp!

First Christmas Tree...!

Our first Christmas tree arrived in the mail today... a gift from Bob's mom. How cool is that! It's a Balsam fir tree from Maine. I'm surprised it survived the trip in a box because the packaging did look like it went through a lot during its journey!
And oh, it smells sooooo good... :-)

"I don't remember it being so heavy..."

Famous last words... ahhh... a self-propelling one would have been so much nicer! But guess I'll have my share of the workout when I have to mow the backyard! By the way, the house in the background is our neighbor's house with all their Christmas decoration. Will post a night pic of the cul-de-sac soon :-)

First hair cut...

Dec 2, 2007 - I cut Bobby's hair for the first time today. It was my first attempt using the clippers and it was a success! Let's just say no one had to be tied down, no screaming and kicking... and best of all, no bleeding,... and no one had to go to work bald :-)

A successful Thanksgiving!

Our first Thanksgiving in Houston and Bob's mom and step-dad came by to visit from NJ (they brought the cold and rain as well). The effort of cooking one day before Thanksgiving paid off. The food came out great! :-) Well... let's just say that no one got sick. It was a typical Thanksgiving dinner - with a 13.1lb turkey, AWESOME stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, yam, fresh cranberry sauce, and homemade pumpkin cheesecake pie. The pumpkin pie was such a hit that I had to make another. Really... it was THAT GOOD! ;-)

More new herbs in the garden!

They were on sale for only $1 per pot... so I brought home some italian oregano, english thyme, dill, and lemon verbena. I also planted some chinese spring onions/chives as well a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, they are struggling a bit! And the one little potted plant is mexican habañero... for Dad when he visits, of course :-)
Looks like an international crowd!
And look how much Britney the celebrity tomato has grown now!

Don't try to fix the toilet!

Just my luck,... the toilet I was using today at a golf club in Lakeland, FL was not working properly. I open up the water tank and there's the problem - the chain looks like it's off the hook. So I try to lean the cover against the wall above the water tank and the next thing I know, the cover drops into the tank and whooosssh...! Water EVERYWHERE!... my shirt is about 3/4 wet,... the bathroom floor is completely flooded, and water is still gushing from beneath the tank because there's a big hole in it! I quickly turn off the water tap (good thing I knew where that was!) and went to look for Management. I hope they don't send me the bill!!!

"Full Moon" in NY

So here we are - my dad, brother (Kelvin) and myself - on a double-decker tour bus in downtown NY. Traffic is stop & go, and we end up stopping by a building where a yoga class is in session. A yoga student, at the back of the class, notices us from the corner of the window. He proceeds to pull down his bicycle shorts and moons us! Everyone in the bus is shocked but ends up having a good laugh. It was definitely the highlight of the day!!! He did have a pretty nice ass... :-)

Happily ever after...

On the 21st day of October, 2007... Bobby and I hosted our wedding reception at Pine Hill Golf Club in Pine Hill, NJ. We could not have asked for a nicer day! It was sunny - 75F, with pretty foliage all around us. The ceremony was held outdoors by the 18th green. Thankfully, no golfers sliced their shots into us (there has been one incident during a wedding party at this same location).

The wedding party then moved indoors into the banquet hall for lunch. Speeches were made by the bestman - Parker Pridgen (Bobby's nephew); bridesmaid - Monika Smith (a good friend of mine), and my dad (a very emotional moment). After the luncheon was over, we cut our cake, which was topped with a golf bag filled with white roses. Thankfully the feeding session was not a messy one! :-)

New family member in the garden

Today, we welcome a new plant in the garden patch - a "Celebrity Hybrid Tomato" plant. When transplanting, it is said that the plant needs to be 75% buried. Well... I started out this morning with burying just the roots but then decided,... ok, let's do this right! After about another 10-15 minutes digging through clay in the backyard, I think I have about half of the plant buried now. That's close enough!

So, since it is a "Celebrity" tomato, we shall name it "Britney";-) Let's hope it grows now! According to the same article, ... "watch for fruit to appear within 45 to 90 days after transplanting"... I'll keep y'all posted in Nov/Dec!

Our new home in Houston, TX

Here's our new home... I love it! It is rather large for just the two of us - 4 bedrooms, 3 baths and we do already have a guest bed, so all are welcome! :-)

I did start a little garden patch. I bought some basil and parsley before this last roadtrip and the day before leaving, I decided to dig up a couple of holes in the backyard... at 9pm... (so Bob will quit complaining about how he has to look after my stuff when I'm gone). Well, so far so good... although the basil leaves are being attacked by something and the parsley leaves are a hint yellow... looks like I'm going to have to "google" on these! And oh, that's a little gecko (like the one in GEICO) wearing a straw hat. I just had to buy when I saw him at a Trading Post in New Mexico. He is yet to be named...

And... I finally got to move my piano from Phoenix into the house today. Yay! But now I can't find my piano books!!!

1,197 miles later...

Yup, finally made it home from Phoenix to Houston in one day! I started at 5:30am and stepped through the door at exactly midnight (or 2am Houston time). I was definitely giddy when I got out of the car and seriously needed to lie down!

I was stopped at the Border Patrol in El Paso and not having my passport, they pulled me over. After waiting 5-10 minutes and explaining to them that I only have copies of my passport (by the way, it's illegal to make copies of your passport!) they finally cleared my record and off I went. "Please have your documents at all times"... was the officer's advice.


It started raining halfway through the roadtrip and I saw the biggest rainbow ever! It was a complete rainbow, where I could see both ends of it. I wonder which end the pot of gold is at...

Off to LPGA Q-School

So I'm actually writing this blog in Tempe, AZ. I'm at my old roommate's place and just around the corner is the Honda Service center. I almost ran out of gas yesterday in the middle of Texas (well, it was either some shady gas station or pushing it another 20 miles). Anyhow the low gas indictator didn't even come on yet and my car started to have the "hiccups"! Honda is going to change the fuel filter and run some fuel service thingy. Yup,... I sure know my car! I was going to stop over in Tempe anyhow because I wanted to get my piano ready for the movers next week. Yay! :-)

It's been a long journey so far from Houston to Palm Springs, CA. Heading into El Paso yesterday there was a Car-B-Q on I-10 West. I've never seen one before but heard of plenty. The Scooby-doo Dream Machine look-alike was definitely "well done"... and smelt horrible! While waiting for traffic to move, I turned off my car on the freeway, got out and started chatting with a couple of truck drivers beside my vehicle - Art and Leo, both heading into El Paso. And in the meantime, the guy who owned the car behind me wanted to check Leo's cable connection between the 2 trailers... code for "I'd like to pee between the trailers, please". Hehe... Thankfully it wasn't quite 100F and the wait was only for 25 minutes or so, which built up traffic for about 3+ miles from the site.

My car won't be ready for another 3 hours. So it's either nap time... crochet the baby blanket for sis... or make ribbon roses for the wedding reception in Oct. I'll let y'all guess! :-)

Last paycheck of the year!

Well, I made the cut for the last event of the FUTURES Tour and made a whooping $632. Yay! Unfortunately, it's already money spent! I finally managed to convince Bob about moving my piano from Phoenix to Houston and once it gets to Houston, it still needs to be tuned. Guess he doesn't know about the expenses for that yet :-)
It will be back to FUTURES Tour q-school again later this Nov. Can't believe it will be my fourth season next year. If my golf doesn't improve, I better start looking for a day job... (NOT) or start popping out a kid or two ;-)

Found the mitten!!!

The mitten finally appeared today. I was getting a pot from the bottom cupboard of the stove area while I was cooking tonight and there it was... falling onto my feet! How I put the mitten in the cupboard is beyond me. Must be getting old... :-s Well, at least the 24-hour mystery is over.

Missing oven mitt

So I bought a new fancy oven mitt today... and after using it only once tonight, it's missing!!! It's been 3-hours now and it is still missing. I have no idea where it is. I'm trying to back track my steps but I can't still can't figure out where it is. :-s

Too hot to handle!

What a HOT and HUMID week! The heat index was between 100F and 105F. It was a caddie-only event in Gettysburg and unfortunately, my caddy on Day 1 struggled with heat exhaustion after 8 holes and after carrying my own bag for half a hole, my caddie was replaced by the walking scorer of our group. He decided that he would caddy me for the rest of the day. By the 17th fairway, the volunteer caddie for another girl in the group also went down from heat exhaustion and again, was replaced by our new walking scorer, Greg. I was told later the next day that a total of 6 caddies went down on Friday.
Greg ended up being my caddie for Saturday and fortunately for me, he is a volunteer fire-fighter.... just in case he needed to carry me AND my golf bag going up the last hole on Saturday :-)

Poor kitty...

Well, Beethovan the cat did survive the 3 1/2-day drive down to Houston from New Jersey. But unfortunately, he was still not eating after being in Houston for the last week or so. So I finally summoned enough courage to ask Bob to take Beethovan to the vet to put him to rest. And quietly, Bob said that he already did (on Aug 23rd). He didn't want to tell me as I was still on the road playing golf.

My poor kitty... :'( I think Beethovan got really depressed after losing his buddy of 10 years - Spike, and I guess he finally decided that he didn't want to live anymore. It sure has been a rough year with the pets. Looks like it will be a while before I have anymore pets in the Lee-Pridgen household.

Back on tour!

I'm finally heading back on the FUTURES Tour this week. There are only 4 events left for the season - Morgantown, WV, Queenstown, MD, Gettysburg, PA, 1 weeks off and then Albany, NY. It's been hectic the last couple of weeks since I've been back in NJ from Malaysia. Bob and I are moving out to Houston so the apartment here is all empty now except for us, the cat, and an air mattress (twin size no less!) The cat will be travelling with Bob in the car for the next few days. Hopefully they will survive each other!

Count my lucky stars

As we were driving back from Keningau this morning, our vehicle ran into some issues with its brakes. Funny smells and smoke are never a good sign!
This new road was recently opened from Keningau to Kota Kinabalu and is built within the Crocker Range of Sabah and hence it's steepness. Realizing that our brakes were not working, we stopped the vehicle just as we were descending a slope. We were then able to reverse the car back up the slope and park it on a flatter part of the road. Within seconds, a tow-truck pulled up next to our car to ask us if we had seen an accident down the road. We said no and continued to tell them about our brake issue. So, we ended up having our car towed down the next few steep slopes before finding level ground about 20 minutes later. Funny enough, I found a lady bug crawling on my passenger window just as we were resuming our drive.

Junior Golf Clinics

With 2 weeks to go before heading back to the U.S., me and Ben Leong (another Sabah-bred pro golfer) are going to host 1-day junior clinics throughout Sabah, organized by Sabah Golf Association. We just made our trip to Kudat - a small town located about 3 hours away by car, where I also got the opportunity to visit the Tip of Borneo. Tomorrow, I will be flying out to the island of Labuan, and then on Wed, the clinic will be held at my old home-course here in Kota Kinabalu. We will probably be heading out to Tawau, Sandakan, and Kundasang/Ranau as well. Have fun locating each town in the map attached! You can click on the map to enlarge it.


July 19: We didn't make it to Tawau and Kundasang/Ranau, but here's a pic of me being mobbed by the junior golfers in Keningau!

May She Rest In Peace

On June 19, 2007, Mom passed away in her sleep in the early morning. After 2 days of viewing at the funeral parlour, we paid our last respects and laid her to rest at noon yesterday. She looked at peace and we all know that she is at a better place now.

Tea Ceremony

On June 13, 2007 - Bob Pridgen was officially accepted into the Lee family clan! The tea ceremony went well. Bob had to serve tea to my grandmother, mom and dad, sister (in pic) and all my aunts and uncles. He also had to call them by their appropriate names in chinese according to rank within the family and in return received "Ang Pow" or red packets containing money.


Since my brother (Kelvin) recently registered as well, him and his new bride (Sylvia) also performed the tea ceremony.


We also celebrated my grandmother's 89th birthday by eating "long-life" chinese noodles during lunch. Yummy!!!!
And I celebrated my birthday yesterday (yes... 21st :-) I almost forgot that it was my birthday, since it took almost 37 hours to get back Malaysia!

Going back to Malaysia

I have to cut my golf tour short and head back to Malaysia. My flight leaves Newark this saturday, June 9 at 10pm. After 18 hours on the plane with a 1 1/2 hour layover in Stockholm, Sweden, I'll arrive in Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia at approx. 6:45am, Monday June 11. Then, an 8-hour layover at KL International Airport and finally I'll catch my flight from KLIA to my hometown Kota Kinabalu - a 2 1/2 hour flight - arriving on Monday, June 11 at 5:30pm. And thankfully, my hubby Bobby will be travelling with me as well!
Mom has been trying to beat cancer since early last year. Hopefully with us being there, she will do better...

Do you sell golf balls?

So... I'm at a McDonald's - located by the border of IL and IN. And I'm standing in line to order my sandwich, when this guy saw the way I was dressed (in my Srixon rainsuit) and asked me "Do you sell golf balls?" I smiled while deep down I was laughing quite hard. "No", I answered politely... "I play". And he continued to ask... "Professionally???" Almost seemed like he didn't believe me. I said "Yes, we just got done in Lake Geneva". Thankfully by the end of my sentence, he got his order and went away.

Hole-in-one!!!

On this day... Monday, June 4th 2007 - during a Par 3 challenge at Lost Marsh Golf Course in Hammond, IN - Cindy Lee-Pridgen scored a hole-in-one on the 1st hole 169 yards with a 5-iron! It was a perfect hit as she recalls... a slight draw to it and with the wind blowing from right to left, the ball hit the green about 12 ft away from the pin and rolled into the cup. :-) Ahh... life is good.
The pin was moved since this pic was taken. The ace was scored with the pin position more towards the back left portion of the green.

Close but no cigar

Well, thankfully the weather held up today. There was a 60% chance of rain but I think we've learnt now NOT to trust the weatherman. Although, yesterday, it sure seemed like the storm was right over our heads. We could hear the thunder and they didn't pull us off the course till 3 holes later! Had to get up really early this morning to finish up 3 holes.

Round 2 was a lot better but not good enough. I did have 3 birdies on the back-nine though, so need to look forward to the positives. :-)

Will be heading out to "exciting" Hammond, IN next week. There's a Par 3 challenge on monday with a purse of $5000. Definitely some good gas money! :-) And Bob will be coming out to caddy me next week. Yay..!!!

So close...

I thought I was so close to a good round. 14 greens hit in regulation last friday in Kansas... but I still ended up with a score of 80! It's too bad that golf actually requires 18 good holes, not just 14.

Nothing much to report this week. Just back home, trying to get the wedding invitations ready and sent out. Beethovan, the cat has been going crazy - meowing constantly for attention. It's bad enough that I have to deal with hubby bobby! Just kidding, honey :-)

Speaking of pets... here are some pet pics:


Here's my baby, Spike. Unfortunately, Spike had cancer and I had to put her down this past March. It was the most horrible day of my life :-(


This is Doobie... Bob's dog. He lives with mom-in-law and loves pop-corn.


Then you have Beethovan (aka Snowflake - because there's always a layer of white fur in the apartment). Such a needy cat and meows REALLY loud! He's sitting at the back of my chair as I'm working on this blog...

How to 3-putt from 2 feet...

The wind was already blowing pretty hard friday afternoon, but on saturday morning, the wind gust was probably up to 35 or even 40mph! There were a few times when we had to hold on to our caps and brace ourselves. At one point, one of my playing partners was squating on the green covering her head with her hands! And then... they blew the horn. And play was suspended for the rest of the afternoon. Talk about not being fair! Oh well, guess it's the luck of your draw.
As for 3-putting from 2 feet, well... never leave yourself above the hole, down wind, downhill. The gust of wind will make your miss your putt from 2 feet to about 12 or even 15 feet!

Almost lost my car keys this past week. I was having an greasy breakfast burrito wednesday morning. When I got grease on my shorts (yup... that's how I started my day) I left to clean up and forgot my keys on the table outside the club house. Long story short, the keys were turned in after about a 45 minutes of hunting them down on the golf course. And yes, I do have a spare key now.

So after missing the cut, I went out golfing with my housing host at the course outside the house. And... I shot 69! And that's with 2 bogeys on the last 2 holes! I started putting so well from the 10th hole onwards. Perhaps it was the sour skittles, or the 50s music coming out from Jeff's personal golf cart. Golf is such a crazy game... maybe I should have taken up bowling instead! :-)

Welcome to El Paso!

Funny enough, as I was leaving McAllen and surfing for a radio station, I ran across a country music station and the song "El Paso" was playing by Marty Robbins...
... Out in the west Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican girl....

The drive from McAllen to San Antonio took 4 hours. There was a border checkpoint out of McAllen. Good thing we all had our passports! The next morning, after only driving for about 10 minutes out of the town of Boerne, we had to stop in the next town of Comfort, TX to wait for the storm to pass. The clouds sure had a funny color to them,... almost green-like. Anyhow, in this tiny town of Comfort, we met up with parents of a player at a gas station. Talk about a small world.
The 8-hour drive was rather uneventful. Glad it was over. Time to start a new week! And oh! I can't believe it's already MAY!!!

Missed Cut :-(

Another missed cut. It's that darn putter! Lesson learnt... never leave your putter in the room when there's a 3-year old in the house. Those extra dings on the putter must have thrown off my game this week :-)
But looking back at my scores from last year of 81, 80... this week's 78, 74 ain't too bad then. Haha!

Off to McAllen, TX

It will be a long 10 to 11 hours on the road tomorrow. Thankfully, I will be joining two other girls driving in their cars as well. My housing host in McAllen last year was quite a nightmare, so hopefully this year will be a little bit better. I bought a Tiffany style lamp in a silent auction this week and it's big box just manages to fit into the backseat of my little 2-door civic :-) Sad thing is I don't think that lamp is going to get back to New Jersey till perhaps July!!!

Finally...!

Finally made my first cut of the season! Hoorah! And it was a low one too... the cut was only at 3-over this week. Sunny skies and little wind are making this course play easy it seems. Well, tomorrow is moving day - moving up the leaderboard of course to make more money! Need to finance the wedding reception fund. Funny enough, this first cut comes during the same week as the new name change. Hubby Bobby has to be happy with this...

Name change

By the way, if anyone hasn't noticed yet, I did have my name changed this week on the FUTURES Tour... Cindy Lee-Pridgen. Bob and I tied the knot this past Jan and we are doing very well. Probably because we haven't seen each other very much :-)

The housing committee in McAllen almost gave my housing assignment away because she thought I was no longer on the roster!

Lucky day!

Went to the "Meet the pros" party tonight and won a travel voucher for $375! I also bid in a silent auction for a tiffany style lamp and won that too! It's all wrapped up in a big box now and I did managed to squeeze it into the backseat of my little Civic :-) 167,000+ miles and still going strong!