My man's birthday

Today is my man's birthday, I baked a special peach and almond cake for him and we are going for a day out with the family and the whole church as today is also our church family day. I also had a surprise gift for him and the kids are coming up with their own special gifts for the man of our life.

To the man of our life:
"We love you and thank you for the sacrifices you made for the family, thank you for the evening pecks that you gave us at dinner table, the many family trips that you brought us to, patience for the whole group of girls/female at home, spiritual food for the entire family and for always being there for us. We thank God for you, we rejoice for this is a day that the Lord has made and also not forgetting my MIL/ah mah and FIL/ah kung for such a fine man"

Class of '89

Before - 1978 - Then, when we were 6 years old

After - 2010 - Now, when we were 3X years old


Last Saturday my family and I made a trip down to KL, mainly for my high school (Class of ’89) gathering. We made a stop at Kampar, picked up my dad and off we drove to my sister’s place for a 3 days 2 nights trip.

When one of my friend (Gek Soon, wonderful guy, thumbs up to him and the rest who chipped in to arrange things for this gathering) posted on FB that the gathering is on, I was a few early birds that actually clicked “Accept” to the event invitation. Soon after many who were aware of the event also clicked “Accept” and in 2-3 months time we have over 20 who confirmed their presence and on that day itself almost 50 turned up (some with spouse and kids).

As hubby dropped me at the hotel lobby and I took the lift up to the venue, I’ve mixed feeling, it’s like every step I took leads me down to memory lane.. 38, 37, 36 and when the lift finally opened and I stepped into the private hall I was 17 again. Truly it was like 17 again. I began to see familiar faces and as I walk further into the room it was like back in the good old high school times. We hugged, shoke hands and exchanged those familiar nostalgic smile with one another, it was awesome and amazing.

It’s really nice to know that those who turned up are doing well and in best of health, of course after some 21 long donkey years, appearance wise some have gone bald, some double the size, some never change with their ever famous hairstyle but deep inside everyone I could see, feel and smell the 17 year old in us that night.

I would say we all made it, maybe not exactly what we inspired to be in our younger days, we all turned out to be fine individuals contributing to the society in one way or another and most of us are raising kids of our own.

Well, I don’t actually get to catch up with each of them but seeing them that night was truly magical. When we got back, posted our photos over FB, from the comments posted, it seems that we could not get enough of each other, 4 hours that night was really too short for us.

So we are planning for the next big one, some suggested that we have it on the 31.08.2014 (that will be our 25th Anniversary) and the venue will be in Kampar, our dear hometown, that would be wonderful. I’m imagining us walking through our school compound, lying on the big field, taking “loh shue fun, chee cheong fun, loh mai fan etc…” and with a wide grin on our faces.

Class of ’89 is surely a great gang. Long live all of us so that we may be able to gather years after years. God bless all of you.

To catch some of our photos (now and then), please click here… and try to spot me :D

My "tim chai"

Over the radio this morning, the DJ invited callers to call into the station and shared about their memories of the good old grocery store in their neighbourhood. The topic arised due to recent government’s effort in wanting to help owners or potential owners of such enterprise to improve their business as I believe they have difficulties making ends meet due to the mushrooming of the giant retailers out there.

Well since I won’t be calling the radio station, I decided that I’ll blog about it – my very own version and fond memories of my hometown grocery store.

Situated a few doors away (less than 100 meters) from my parent’s home was our “Seven Eleven”store back then. Owned by two brothers, the elder one we used to call him “fei loh” – fat man in Cantonese because he’s short and fan and the younger and more handsome brother “eng jek” – his last name is “Eng” and Jek is the term “uncle” in Hokkien, yet to know the origin of the Hokkien name as majority of my hometown are Cantonese and Cantonese is the dominion linqua franca of those days. We used to call our store “tim chai” or little shop back then.

Being the youngest I serve as the “mooi teng” – “little servant” in Cantonese and was usually assigned to order/buy stuffs from the “tim chai”. So a common assignment will sound like below:

My mom : Wai Wai, go to tim chai and tell fei loh or eng jek that we need ………..
Me : What is??? And what is ??? (Clarifying her orders)
Me : That’s all? What about the money?
My mom : Tell fei loh “oh tang” first, means “hutang” or on-credit first and ask him to write on the little book.
Me : Hah? What is “oh tang”?
My mom : Just said “oh tang, write on the little book” and they’ll know what to do.
Me : Oh.. Okay

So, down I run to our little “tim chai” and carried out my duty diligently. I was pretty surprised that I actually get to bring stuffs back by saying “oh tang” every time and guess what, the little book is a credit book with “555” printed on top of its cover. My first lesson on credit buying, see we were so advanced back then, everybody trusted everybody. I still remember my mum will confirm if the goods were packed my fei loh or eng jek because mum commented that eng jek is a more honest businessman.

Of course I patronized the tim chai (more than once) on my own everyday to buy junk food (my favourite satay fish, packets of cruncy and spicy ikan bilis, twisties, po-po muruku and a whole lot more) and tried my luck on the “lucky board” game where you pay 5 cents, choose a number/paper and see if it comes with a price in which often times it doesn’t (must be fei loh cheating!).

When mum cannot find me, 99.9% of the time I’ll be at the tim chai and mum will shout from the main gate and I’ll sprint back. As some of you might be brought up from small neighbourhood or kampong, you would agreed with me that back then we have care free lives, everybody knows everybody and our parents never worried that we will be snatched away by bad people as everybody is on the lookout for one another.

Besides mum, I’m also the “mooi teng” for my elder brother and sister, God knows how they abuse their seniority on me! And I’m no free labour cause I’ll demand some form of tips or wages from each trip, it could be 5 cents, a free snack or something else (Clever, I guess Emily inherited my wisdom, LOL).

Sad to say our tim chai has closed down, I think quite some time back, still see eng jek (but now fatter than fei loh) whenever I go back to Kampar. I really hope the government can actually do something for such micro enterprises, revived the business and really carried out their promises, it’s very much a part of our lives and I hope kids nowadays get to experience what we used to, back in the good old days.

Long live our “tim chai”s.

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

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!

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.

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