Thursday, July 29, 2010

Spottie and hubby playing catch bone game

Enjoy below video of Spottie and hubby playing catch bone game :D



Spottie being a super smart puppy will only entertained us a couple of times, maybe 4or 5 times before deciding that enough is enough. When he thinks it's enough, he'll totally ignore our instruction and play "could not be bother" game with us :D

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Dream #2 fulfilled

This is a sequence of my previous entry on achieving dreams, here I am sharing with you one of my dreams achieved, Dream # 2.

Dream # 2 – Going to Disneyland
I cannot recall when I was first introduced to this magical land called Disneyland. I guessed probably through Disney cartoons that I watched from our old black/white TV back in the late 1970s.

All I know is Disneyland is a place for every kid, young and old from 2 – 92 years old. So you see there’s no exception for me, I dreamt of going to Disneyland one day and took the ever famous “It’s a small world” ride and of course to meet up with Mickey in person. Though I don’t know much about this place until I grown much older but all I knew back then is going there will cost a bomb and my parents could never afford it.

So… my this childhood dream was kind of slowly getting off/deleted from my mind until in year 2000. This is the year where the first manufacturing company I worked with earned the most and where the revenue grown many hundreds fold, it was also a year where we worked the hardest and also a year where I had a miscarriage too.

After recovered from the D&C, my lady boss actually proposed to our HQ that the senior staffs deserved a good reward and demanded that 4 of us be entitled for an overseas trip. At first we opted for New Zealand but due to last minute booking we were not able to find any tour operator that could accommodate us for such a short notice, my boss then later decided that we should go to Japan.

One of the itineraries was to visit Disneyland Tokyo, how delighted I was! Suddenly my childhood dream resurfaced and I felt like a kid again. Best of all my hubby got to go for the trip also, 100% funded by the company! Wow, this is what we called double blessings!

So from 23 Dec 2000 to 1 Jan 2001 we were in Japan and we got to countdown in Disneyland, Tokyo on 31-12-2000.

Below are some snapshots of us in the magical world.
Our passport to the magical land!

The hero of Disneyland, can't leave without meeting Mickey! We waited and queued so long..
The happy Tigger and I, I chose to be like Tigger!

Ah, the long awaited "small world" ride..

Hubby and I with Cinderella's castle as backdrop..

Ah, the ever famour Disney parade.


More than over 20 years later since I first captured this vision, I’m delighted to announce that - YES, I DID WENT FOR THE “It’s a small world” boat ride in the magical kingdom after all.
Dream # 2 achieved!

Monday, July 26, 2010

SAHM - 4 days 3 nights

I had the most pleasure of being a SAHM for 4 days last week when MIL went for her annual leave. Yeap she applied leave for 4 days and was on a 4D 3N trip to Sibu with a group of church elders lead by our church pastor.

Thought that I shared the chronology of some of the days I had with the kids

Day 1 – 21 July 2010, Wed (hubby was on leave too)
6.30am –Woke up and washed up
6.45 – 7.45am – Prepared breakfast for the girls, hubby and doggy, prepared Emily for school
7.45 – 9.00am – Planned and prepared stuff for lunch, took breakfast
9.00 – 10.30am – Michelle woke up, took her breakfast and guided her homework/revision
10.30 – 12.30pm – Cook lunch, did housework, took lunch with Michelle while hubby fetched Emily back from school
12.30 – 2.30pm – Emily took her lunch, guided her homework, fed the dog
2.30 - 4.00pm – On FB, attended to miscellaneous matter
4.00 – 5.30pm – Gardening and sweat it out
5.30 – 7.00pm – Brought Spot for his long overdue jab, took away dinner, fetched Michelle back from school
7.00 – 8.00pm – Dinner
8.00 – 10.00pm – Fold the clothes, did the dishes cum laundry, read the paper, story-telling and slept with the girls
10.30pm – Went back to my room and completely KO, wow what a day!


Day 2 – 22 July 2010, Thur (hubby went back to work)
6.30am – Woke up
7.00 – 7.30am – Went to the wet market, super fast marketing, running out of time
7.30 – 7.45am – Prepare Emily for school
8.00 – 9.30am – Took breakfast, pulled a chair to the backyard garden, read the bible while Spot busy with his new bone
9.30 – 10.30am – Michelle woke up, prepared her breakfast and guided her homework
10.30 – 11.30am – Prepared simple lunch, all cooked up in the rice cooker..
11.30 – 12.30pm – Fetched Emily from school and dropped Michelle to school
12.30 – 2.30pm – Emily had lunch in the car and off we went for our hair cut, bought some grocery from the hypermarket
2.30 – 4.30pm – Nap with Emily
4.30 – 7.00pm – Gardening, cooked dinner, fetch Michelle from school
7.00 – 8.00pm – Dinner
8.00 – 10.00pm – Sent the girls to art class, did the dishes and laundry, fold the clothes, hubby fetched them back from art class
10.00 – 10.30 – Slept with the girls
10.30pm – KO, wow what a day 2!
Day 3 & 4
Basically all quite routine, except in the evening hubby brought us out for a short shopping trip, I bought “The Last Lecture” book from Borders, I completed the book in 2 days, did all the crying for the entire year (the book is sad, funny and inspirational).

I indeed had a terrific SAHM time, now I’m back to work and equally happy and fulfilled. God is good… all the time.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Dream 1 fulfilled

Watching the last lecture video of Randy prompted me to consider my own dreams, what are they, their status and what I'm going to do about them. So I'm going to share some of my dreams in no particular order for next blog entries.

I'm a simple woman and shared with my hubby that if we ever get to move to a bigger place (while having this dream we don't actually have any idea when this is going to happen as I've just gone into lecturing and our household income has been slashed by 30%) I have two little tiny dreams... what are they?

A garden to tend to and an island in the kitchen where I prepared love meals for the family.

Well thanks to hubby for enabling my dream, instead of a garden we are blessed with two! We have a front porch garden and a backyard garden and I had a beautiful customized island.
The island..


The front porch garden

Our backyard garden..




Dream no 1 fulfilled... and I'm a very fulfilled wife, mother and daughter-in-law :D

Monday, July 19, 2010

The Last Lecture - Prof. Randy Pausch

"Your last lecture" if you are a lecturer and were given a final chance to deliver just one last lecture, what will you share and tell your students? I remembered hubby once downloaded this video and asked me to listen to it but I was not able to do it then, this morning I stumbled upon it while doing my daily devotion over the internet. I downloaded it and thought that anyone out there may learn something out of Prof. Randy Pausch's final lecture. You will hear that in one of his final comments, he stated that he believe in Karma, as a Christian I do not believe in Karma but I do believe that we will sow whatever we reap according to Galatians 6:7-8

Some notes that I personally jotted down:
When you do something wrong and if there's someone to tell you off or criticize you, it means they haven't given up hope on you..

What are the dreams you have? Walls are there to see if you really want that dream bad enough to achieve them..

When you want to pass the baton, pass to someone better than you

The best thing a teacher can do is to get your students to be self-reflective

To achieve your dreams or to become the person you are capable of being rest in the people around you, your parents, mentors, friends, colleagues, students...

Final note that stick into my mind - Do not focus on yourself but on others... Philippians 2:3-4

Most of his notes I can relate to dedicated bible verses.. may you be encouraged.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Cameron Home Stay at Ah Mah's Place

Here is the long overdue posting of our recent trip to Cameron Highlands. The trip was our 3rd one, first one when Michelle was about 9 months old, second trip was when Michelle was 4 years old and Emily was 2 and now our third trip, the girls are 8 and 6 now, so I guessed when Michelle is 12 we'll make another trip (we even can called that Camerolympic, a four yearly affair).

What's so special about this trip is the place that we put in. We went with 2 other families and some church youths (they were there for a camp and we thought of taggling along). Normally we would booked the hotel/apartment ourselves but this time round we passed the baton to a friend, little did we know the surprise that we were going to get.

All that we know is we are going to stay real near to Brinchang town where it is real convenient, to the night market, places of attraction, a lot of convenient stores etc.. So after our afternoon tea, we went straight to check in with hubby's car leading the way, hubby mentioned the place is called Holiday apartment. So we turned in Brinchang town and all of us busy looking for the signage to our apartment, this is what we saw!!


We could not believe our eyes and hope to spot another signage with the word "Holiday apartment", but there was none. OK, now that we have arrived, hubby suggested that we went down and investigate, we don't even bother to take our luggage because deep inside us we do not want to accept the reality that this is where we are going to spend the night in.

Hubby found a place to park, the men went down to check while we wives were still in a daze and try to talk ourselves out of the situation. OK, hubby went in, showed the fax to one lady, the lady who look like a typical "pau chou poh - rent lady" got the key, opened the grill door and lead hubby up. We waited anxiously for hubby to report the situation, hubby said "Yes, this is the place, OKlar not that bad... we can take our luggage down already". In me I was like thinking....oh boy, aren't this going to be interesting, my other friend still couldn't accept the fact but the children were like so looking forward to it.

We climb the stairs, a living hall awaits us, pity we didn't take any pictures but I'll try to picture the place to you as vividly as I could. In the living room there is a set of rattan sofa, a small TV with lots of notices pasted on the wall, one of the notice reminded us, the tenants to keep quiet after 12.00 midnight (can you believe it??) Next the rooms, wooden beds with cartoon bedsheets (the girls just love them), the dressing table is older than my late grandma's. Okay the best part are the switches, they are those way back black round bulky type mounted onto a wooden plank. Can you imagine the place?? Wonderful isn't it?

Well after coming to our senses, we might as well make the best out of the situation right, forget about self pity, we were trying hard to figure some of the good points, well the place is pretty clean, the heater works, the toilets are clean too, the bedsheets look new, it's a walking distance to convenience and best of all the kids love the place.

Well, slowly but painfully we learned to accept the reality and it was not that bad after all, we enjoyed the fellowship and time spent together in "ah mah's place". We actually experienced a truly authentic home stay.

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