Our first trial..

Now that we have settled down and with some savings, we plan to have a baby the second year. We prayed about it and waited for God's timing. I have had history of UTI problem (urinary tract infection) and frequently on antibiotics. In Oct 2000, my menses was late by 2 weeks and after tested negative from a home pregnancy test and from a panel clinic I went for treatment for my UTI problem, due to the recurrence problem the doctor decided to give me a stronger antibiotic jab, confirmed that I was not pregnant, we agreed to the jab. Two weeks passed and still no sign of my menses... decided to visit a gynae to sort out the root cause... I was shocked to find out that I was 5 weeks pregnant!

I was happy and at the same time worried as I recalled the jab that I took two weeks back. I called the doctor that gave me the jab and he was quite worried too but since I'm certified pregnant, we will have to wait and see. At the mean time, hubby and I were excited over the thought of becoming parents...

A week passed and one morning I experienced some spotting, went to the gynae and he gave me a jab to stabilize the baby, the spotting stopped but recurred a few days later. An ultrasound scan revealed that the baby was not growing, heartbeat was not detected and I may need to go for a D&C... well, that was the most heartbroken news to hear as a new parent, hubby and I prayed and wept together... we went for a second opinion, went for another jab but unfortunately nothing can stop the work of nature, I had a miscarriage two days later...

I went through a period of depression and kept on thinking about my lost baby, is the baby a boy or a girl, blaming myself for the jab I've taken and went through an emotional cycle of ups and downs. I'm sure hubby's lost was just as deep as mine. I remember during those trial moments all we did were prayed and wept, prayed and wept, prayed and wept......

The sight of babies and pictures of them were enough to send me back to my cocoon and thought of my lost baby... but God is good, somehow time do heals. Hubby and I picked up from where we left and by God's grace we manage to deal with the lost. The way to deal with the lost is to face it and to talk about it. Whenever I heard about couples facing the same situation, I am compeled to approach and comfort them, as I comfort them I found myself comforted as well. The promises that God will not let us bear beyond what we can bear is so true and His grace is indeed sufficient for all of us.

As I recalled, I thank God for this experience for I know He wants to use us to comfort others in the same situation and as a result my relationship with hubby deepens.

In year 2000, we managed to travel quite a bit also... first to Perth (a second honeymoon) and Japan (a trip sponsored by my previous company).. enjoy the shots..

In the beginning....

We began our first year of marriage pretty same like most newly married couple. Broke but very much in love. With just RM4K in our account and a whopping RM80K loan to repay (we bought a small nest with our limited savings and some help from MIL), we thank God for the jobs that we hold that allow us to live simple but contended lives. We were also blessed with family members and friends who love us so much and helped us to furnish our homes some, for free and at affordable price such as the washing machine, air-conditioning unit, ½ hand but good condition fridge (which we are still using now), book rack, electrical appliances etc…

The first year was spent adjusting to one another especially each other’s style and way of doing things; I detested hubby’s way of so call “housekeeping” principle and especially after his toilet session (ah what a mess!). I guessed hubby is always nervous over his grand mother in-law’s visits (ngoi moh tai yen) and sometimes irritated by her sarcastic remarks (can’t help it mom are sometimes like that).

I missed home terribly especially during Chinese New Year’s reunion dinner and first day of New Year. I just don’t feel that I belong to the Ling’s family and with the language barrier (Cantonese vs. Fu Chou) I felt out of place in family conversations. On the other hand I believe hubby felt the same way too, I can still remember my mom making remarks like “What is your husband talking about?” as it seems I’m the only one who can understand his Fu Choutonese during family conversations… LOL

One incident I particularly remembered was one evening hubby tried to cook dinner as a surprise for me when I have to work late. I can still recall vividly what he cooked that night… steamed fish and stir-fry cabbage which tasted………… well…. …terrible, but that’s what makes me crazy over him in the first place right? His spontaneous character, gentleness and loving kindness. I recalled feeling guilty conscious when I got to work late and did not do my part as a loving wife who prepares dinner for her husband but his love is always there to reassure me.

God is good…. We adapted well… minor misunderstandings and hiccups are inevitable but we made it the first year…..

Campus life, can you spot us??


One of our wedding photo...


Taken during our pre-wedding night..


Next post --- our very first trial as a couple

Lessons as a couple

To commemorate our 10th wedding anniversary, I am thinking of posting a series of our life together (hubby and I), how we met, the proposal, the wedding, our first child, our second child, the first 10 years of our journey as husband and wife.... I'm snapping some good old pictures with my digital camera in order to share some of our lessons of life.... do stay tune.....

To blog about it or not??

To celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary in June, hubby and I plan for a short "honeymoon" getaway to Bali. So I was surfing in the internet for some good deals last 2 weeks and being very impatient pestered hubby to confirm immediately through an on-line booking deal.

Well, as far as I understood, the thing with on-line deals are the earlier you booked the cheaper it is right? But after booking we realized it's not so wor... wah really felt cheated meh.. So hubby wrote to the customer service asking for an "appeal" to allow us to enjoy the current lower rates and the "nice" customer service replied by saying that we are under this term and condition thing and we have agreed to bind by the rules and regulation prior to booking and etc....

Lousy customer service.... I even did a case study with my students on this company, how their business model works and why they are able to offer low rates to their customerS and how successful they are and blah blah... arghh... I jokingly said to my hubby that "I DEMAND TO SEE THE CEO AND SEEK A REASONABLE REPLY FROM HIM".

A couple of days back, we logged into the website again and found that the deal has gone even lower... arggh..... must be due to the H1N1 thing... people are more reserved to travel nowadays not like both of us still in cloud nine over our wedding anniversary celebration.. MUST BUY MASK AND WEAR MASK HOR..

Big Fat Noodle - Tai Lok Min

During non-working days, I will cook simple one dish meal for our lunch, on Monday I tried this - stir fried big fat noodle or famously known as "Tai Lok Min". Here is the recipe.

Ingredients:
1 kati (600gm) of big fat noodle - for four
chicken breast - slice thinly or prawns (to your liking)
cabbage - slice thinly
carrot - slice thinly (I skip this)
1 cup of water
1 egg - beaten
garlic - chopped

Sauce:
2 tbsp of oyster sauce
1 tbsp of sugar
1/2 tbsp of corn flour
1/2 tbsp of light soya sauce

Heat up wok, put in 2 tbsp of oil, add garlic, stir until fragrant, add in chicken breast/prawns, cabbage and 1/2 tsp of salt,stir fry for a minute, put in noodle and 1 cup of water, put in 2 tbsp of dark soya sauce, stir fry and cover wok for 3-5 minutes, pour in sauce and beaten egg, stir fry for another minute. Serve hot with your favourite chili sauce (I go for Kampung Koh chili)... hmm... yummylicious.

God is great!

I attended an appeal "court" session last 2 days. A case between my church and MPPP (Penang local council), my church applied to convert our existing single storey semi-D building into a double storey building to meet the needs of our growing church. Mind you the case had been buried and delayed 4 times over a period of more than 10 years. This really communicate our local council efficiency eh..

A few of us went there to support our last appeal (do or die kind of situation), so here we were in the "court" with about 20 so call officials and 20 of us (the supporters). We listened to our representative's argument and the council's lawyers' debate and vice versa....

After nearly 4 hours battling, God allowed His will to be done, eventhough the chairman (decision maker) is a Muslim and this kind of issue is quite sensitive, God use him to do justice for us, for the very first time I can see an efficient, unbiased, objective civil servant at work through the hands of God. Our application has faced opposition mainly from one of the political party in the area and now after 10 years of battling, finally God's will is done.

It's indeed great to see God at work, even if it takes 10 years, 20 or more. He is faithful and those who trust and wait upon Him will soar like eagles.... God is good all the time!

As I drove passed our existing building that evening, I can imagine our new building standing glorious not because of its physical attribute but God standing tall in the community of BB.

Homemade wholemeal bread

We tried this a couple of times but the result is not acceptable (too hard), we consulted an expert, revise the recipe.. voila... finally soft fluffy and yummy bread..

150 gram wholemeal flour
350 gram high protein flour
3 tbsp of milk powder
50 gram melted butter
1 egg
1/2 tsp salt
50 gram sugar
1 tbsp yeast
350 ml luke warm water
walnut or raisin (to your liking)

Mixed everything together with a ladle until thoroughly mixed or you can knead with hand (put a little high protein flour if too sticky).

Placed dough in a baking pan, place in microwave (or any air tight container) to let it rise (the longer the better, I placed it for 2 hours). The dough should rise at least double the size. Bake for 25 minutes at 160 deg Celcius. When done, spread the surface with a little butter.

A lesson worth RM1.20

Michelle asked permission to buy a flexible type ruler. She checked the price from one of her friend and came back to inform me that it costs RM1.20. Since she’s quite keen I gave her the green light and provided her the required amount.

Yesterday while she got into the car (when I picked her up), she confessed that since the stall is not open during recess time she had used the money to buy a drink and a packet of sweets.

Back home, I bathed her and told her that I want to have a one on one session with her. She got the feeling that I’m going to punish her for her action. I let her settled down, closed the room door and begin the “disciplining” session with her.

I asked her to tell me her side of story, why she had used the money to buy something else, something I prohibited and in which she clearly understood. Yeah to many it’s just a small matter but I wanted her to learn that firstly she needs to seek permission if she wanted to use the money for something else, secondly not to be easily influenced by her peers and thirdly to be able to make a wise decision on her own in our absence.

I did not cane her but I stressed that I will not be hesitate to do so if she was to repeat her mistake. I gave her some time to think about her action, (by now she’s already crying), and if she has fully understood why I need to discipline her and later to wash her face and prepare for dinner.

I went in for a shower and saw this note on my dressing table (bear with her broken English and wrong spelling):


This is what she wrote:
"I take my friend twenty sen
can I take twenty sen back to her tomorrow
sorry mummy
plese fogive me
plese don't rod me
I love you mummy
I am sad"

Still crying she confessed that she has done something very wrong, she asked RM0.20 from a friend to buy a packet of sweets as she has lost the 20 cents I gave her earlier. She asked for forgiveness and whether she can have 20 cents tomorrow to return to her friend. Suddenly I found my eyes were in tears, not because of her disobedience but I was touched by her openness to admit her wrong doing. From her note I can see how sorry she was and how bad she must have felt for doing what she had done. She can choose not to tell be about it, quietly took 20 cents from her coin box and pretend nothing has happened, but I’m glad she choose to be honest and brave enough to bear the consequences of her action.

Michelle, mummy is proud of you and mummy will love you just the same….

This morning, she called me repeatedly while I was in the kitchen, I went into the room in which she said “mummy let’s hug hug”…ah what I wonderful moment, I won’t want to miss this for anything….. Oh God grant me wisdom to be a good mom.

Say NO to plastic bags

Well, that's the slogan at one of the shopping complex that I went to the other day and the irony is they printed this on the plastic bag! (I hope it's biodegradable)..

In fact recently hubby and I have started this exercise for our weekly marketing in the wet market. We invested in a trolley and recycle our existing containers. We were not completely plastic bag free during the first two visits but we did significantly reduce the use of plastic bag. Let's do a simple calculation, if we manage to cut the use of plastic bag by 20 per week, in a year we cut 1040 and in 10 years we cut 10400 pieces of plastic bags and multiply it by 10 households we can say NO to 104,000 pieces of plastic bags...

Last week was a better attempt, I use containers for the meat and tauhu and I brought along a big plastic bag for the vegetables which I intend to recycle it. The sellers were quite happy with my approach and besides receiving some stares from onlookers, hubby and I were proud with our little effort to save the environement. I hope we will be able to influence the rest to do the same as time goes by.

Australian government is phasing off the use of plastic bag and I personally think its a brave effort, I hope Malaysian government will so something soon...

Reaching out to the youth...

A church sister approached me one Sunday and asked if I could gave a short talk on dressing for a group of 13-18 year old (the teenage group in my church). Hmm... I'm certainly not an expert in this field, but on the other hand why not. If we don't teach our young generation to dress appropriately, the TV, magazine, media and especially their peers are going to do that.

For me any teaching should be coming from the Bible as it is the source of knowledge and wisdom, well did God say anything about our dressings? Sure He did... especially to ladies, it is recorded clearly that we should dress modestly..... I searched the dictionary, modest means humble, unpretentious, simple, reserved in our speech, dress and behavior. Wow... it's indeed a big word.. now how do you communicate this to a group of teenagers who advocate style, fashion, brands, individuality....

I do not want them to have an impression that being modest is to dress like their grandmothers, pale looking, old fashion, unattractive and boring, in fact being modest is being ourself (unpretentious, genuine), simple and humble and that's perfectly nothing wrong with it.

Well, I got to know that this creative lot plans to organize a fashion show kind of session, they welcome feedbacks on the dos and donts which I think is good and serve as a good entry point for me to speak to them. God helps me to be an influencer to our future leaders in church and society and most importantly to teach me to be modest in my dressings as well...

My garden..

I spent time in the garden yesterday morning, uprooting "deceased" plants, repotting the "children" to their own pots, gave the old ones some uplifting and also relayout the whole family. Ta da the results...



Gardening also means contributing back to the environment for plants purify the air around us, greens also help to relax our tired eyes. I'm no expert here, learn basic gardening from my mom and I find tendering to the garden quite relaxing while allowing me to sort of "exercise" at the same time.

Let me introduce you to my garden species...

This is our very first plant and by now it should be our 10th generation (great, great, great....grandchild), we bought this during our honeymoon in Cameron Highlands in 1999.. I have 4 pots of them..

Syngonium podophyllum..originated from tropical America, I bought it from the nearby nursery.. one of the plant found to be infected by "worms" in the soil, let's see if I settled the problem..

Sansevieria... gave birth to a few "babies" which I uprooted and planted independently, time to live the nest...
Dieffenbachia... rob this from dad's collection.. the second generation... one friend thought they were artificial...

Not sure what is this called... a gift from my ex-colleague... it has since multiplied....


The "onion" flower, planted my MIL, since it's flowering, we decided not to eat it..

The purple pandan... MIL use this to cook with barley..... as a result we consumed "pink barley"..
This is suppose to be a bonsai plant... yeah I know it looks nothing like a bonsai but like curry leaves...

The "fan" plant..with its thorny branches...


Chinese like to plant this for prosperity and tie them with red ribbons.. this is a gift from a friend..

The yam plant... we have plenty of them..

Haworthia.... I did not do anything to this plant....

I'm not sure what is this called... have been living with us for quite some time through many generations..

Herbs... function is to cleanse blood, known to prevent arteries blockage, MIL took this with bread almost every morning...
Of course the famous pandan... MIL requested this from one of the neighbour..., since we feed it with rubbish enzyme, it has thrive into a fertile plant


The famous Aloe Vera plant.... a friend used to share with me that if you cut the flesh and mix it with honey, add some ice, it makes a delicious dessert... yet to try..
Well, that's about all........... I can plant so do you....you must be willing dirty up your hands only..