On a low, hope to be right back where I was.

It's been a long hiatus from this space. I had been wanting to come and write something to relieve my "stress"  or thoughts, but ... oh well.

Lately, I had been pondering on my "career path", if I had one, may I say. Tending to my own family gives me this much pleasure, but it would be denial if I say I do it selflessly and not expecting any gratitude, results or appreciation in return.

It breaks a lot of me when I see the hubs not appreciating my contribution enough, when the kids misbehave, when the test papers come back with not so favorable marks (when I am pushing myself spending this much time to their books) and my face is sprouting with pimples all over. Jeez, when some of the stuffs go the wrong way, everything else follows.

It's time to pick myself back up again and start afresh. I'm sure things would look better. OXY10, khao saai nei!

Vote of no confidence for the future.

I am back to being paranoid, after reading the second to second details of the harrowing experience of the girl who was almost abducted and God knows what could have happened to her if she had not managed to escape. How truly unsafe our city is now, they are even making their moves in broad daylight, in crowded malls! It' happened so close to home, and thinking it could be myself, or my friends, or worst, my own daughter (after she is all grown up) that I'm feeling very shaky about the kind of life we are living in.

Nowadays, I am very selective where I park my car in the mall I frequent (not that I wasn't before either), preferably near the entrance, or very near to the carwash service. I do avoid going there when I know the timing would be full with cars looking for a parking space as well. Of course, if I can afford to, I would try not to be alone. Worse come to worst, I'm contemplating, I should just send the car for a wash or use the valet parking service! Even then, I really wouldn't want to be out from my home anymore! I'm becoming even more a hermit than before!

Seriously, there is this no-confidence in tomorrow's world, for my children and the future generations. Not only we have to be vigilant of the silent killers, we can't avoid the dreaded big C if it does come. Then, we have to be careful of deadly creepy crawlies or pouncing animals (which rarely happens, but still?), robbers, snatch thieves, abductors, rapists, psychos, all on the prowl anytime of the day, anywhere! I don't even feel safe within my home vicinity! SO SAD!

Then, there are parents raising their kids to be more selfish, "don't let your friends bully you by taking your stuffs", forcing them to do what they think is best for their kids, pampering them with all the holidays and gadgets that's IN (OK! I'm just sour grape *pout*), teaching them bribery from early on with "RM2 for every deed you do as I asked you to", imparting how IMPORTANT it is to get 100% in all their papers, 95 is not even acceptable, the list just goes on! How to be confident in our future generations to be more compassionate, caring, tolerating? I have absolutely no confidence that my kids would find a good spouse when they grow up. Bah!

So, I'm thinking, it is just maybe be a good thing if the world is really coming to an end this year. Let's just all die together! *morbid thoughts*

My career path this far.

I retired when I gave my first birth, and that was 11 years ago. We came to that decision, as most of you ought to know already, because of my hub's working overseas.

On my last day of work, I can still remember very clearly how rejuvenated and glad I felt. Honestly, I really hated working. I hated going to the office, except for the dressing up part, I hated meetings, I hated reports deadlines, I hated presentations, stuck in traffic crawls, and most of all, I hated being so sleepy after lunch times!

Then again, retiring from a paid job to work on an unpaid job of 24 hours babysitting and housework chores without leave or MC wasn't easy at all. But I love it, at least.

After 6 years of the same routine, I was dying to make a change again. I was kinda tired to think about what to cook for lunch and dinner and cleaning up the mess at home which seemed to be endless.

So, I went back to work! Not a 9 to 5 job, it was flexible and I was excited to meet people again! My mom came over to stay full time with me, with a stay-in maid's help. Much too soon, I switched job and landed as a property agent for Sg Wang and BTS retail outlets.

After a few months, I realized it wasn't for me, as the job requires lots of evening time and weekends to socialize and get to know the owners and clients. I hated not being able to see my family at their only leisure hours.

Hence, I joined another venture very soon before eventually landed myself in my hub's office. There, I figured it was very tough working with him! It wasn't easy at all having to face him day and night! My gawd! I wanted to go home and just stay being a cook and a domestic maid!

Somehow, before that happened, I was involved in another business venture again and this time, it was the worst nightmare! F&B is really not an easy line to excel in, and I missed my kids A LOT more than I imagined! Basically, I wasn't there all the time when they were home and I was home when they weren't. Do I need to mention the public holidays and weekends? My hubs, too, wanted me to be home for him and the family.

I was so relieved I was out of that mess after some months, even though we lost a lot of money. A very expensive lesson learnt!

Just as I am happy to be the way things are now, handling children on my own, without a full time maid and my mom around to "jaga hati", I was, again, invited to explore on something else altogether. This time, I thought it's easy job and I did not have to sacrifice my time spending with family and said yes.

BUT..... OK! I have to admit, I AM NOT FIT WORKING!!

6 different types of work in 6 years!

I truly detest working!

I am best staying at home, raising up my kids with my bare both hands.

I have retired (AGAIN!) and I concluded, my expertise is really caring and teaching the kids. They need my attention and love, and I am really not good enough to be able to work and give them the same attention and care simultaneously! And the satisfaction that comes with seeing them grow each passing day is worth more than all the satisfaction I can get from work (which is very negligent, sad to say)

Every choice we make have their own price and sacrifices. I am not saying my choice is the best, just so I am clear, I am happy, the kids are happy and the hubs (maybe) not too happy. I do hope I would not realize, in future, I have made an awful wrong decision.

Korkor, didi and meimei, you had better be good!

My early birthday present.

Last night, whilst grocery shopping at Carrefour, the hub suddenly saw something that didn't belong in the trolley. He picked it up, and asked me "do you need this?". I said no, but I like it, and can? He pulled on a long sour bittergourd face while I turned away to convince myself I didn't see that coming. But I turned back and said "ok lak, jiao dorng hai ngo sang yat lei mud, can or not?" He didn't say anything and paid for it at the counter.

Now, everyone, isn't that so pathetic? Yes, I admit, it's something I don't need but love to have. But I have to justify for something that I like to buy? And that's how I get my birthday pressies these days? Sigh... compared to the dating time, it's sky and ground, man! The perils of marriage!

By the rate this is going, I think I already claimed my future pressies just as well. Will I live up to age 100?

And people, just guess how much he paid for that thing I don't need but love to have? If you guess correctly, I will buy the exact same thing for you!

Running like a headless chicken.

Have you been to any embassy in KL before? I'd been to US and Taiwan's eons ago. Today, I was at UK embassy along Jalan Ampang. Boy, I felt like I was in another country between the tall grilles which made the gap between the 2 guard posts. It was so heavily guarded and I was at my toes, being polite and smiley at all times, just in case they aren't happy with me and locked me up as a potential terrorist.

It was a favor for someone in Miri, to collect her passport with her student visa, before her ETD flight on Friday evening. So I had to start the mad rush to collect the authorization letter from her, firstly, from my hubs' office then to the embassy. The embassy, just like the US, doesn't have a visitor carpark, so for peanuts visitors like me today, have to find a way to park the car and go up to the visitor guard post myself on foot, by hook or by crook.

Fortunately, the road opposite has a small little road which I see cars at the side. However, I just geared up to the pavement outside another embassy just right opposite the UK's. I had to brave myself to cross the very busy Jalan Ampang though.

The procedure didn't take very long, I wasn't even allowed to go in, I was made to wait between the 2 guard posts there after handed in my IC and the letter only. After waiting for, like, 3 mins, the envelope was in my hands finally. Took a deep breath again to cross the super busy road. I had to halved it down and cross a side one at a time, waiting on the divider. Jeezzz... I felt so "naked" standing there. It certainly feels like I would be molested, abducted, robbed or knocked down any minute. Oh, I didn't carry a bag, knowing how "safe" our country is right now.

I guess I had been too comfortable in my own cocoon, not exposing to all these open air traffic like this for a long time. I wonder if it's a good thing or bad thing.

Drove back to my familiar mall to look for a courier company to send this package immediately. And I was told it takes 2 working days. *wide eyes*

I wasn't very satisfied so I looked for Pos Ekspres and same answer. Then I walked up to the information counter to ask if they have any other courier companies and the helpful girl told me the 2 that I had already been to. When probed further, apparently there is this new one across the busy road on a new block with DHL and Citylink. I sighed and pushed myself to walk the extra mile for them.

It was still the same answer and do you know? Courier charges for that package I found out -

Nationwide- RM16+
PosEkspres - taktau
Citylink - RM13.50
DHL - bugger RM40+!!!

I asked why DHL costs that much, the person told me they used Benzies to send the packages. OH OK!

When it was done, I can finally breathe! It's a favor, sort of like a returned one, since the girl's parents were nice to us when we were living in Brunei. Though not very close, but we had maintained contact so far. Hubs and the pups definitely more in close contact than me.

I was very reluctant to spend the afternoon running like a mad chicken for them like this initially, as I really prefer to stay at home, cozy and safe (I'm not really that a good person, admittedly).

But since my mom was here and I was free, I couldn't have the heart to turn them down too. And after the package was sent out, well at least I comforted myself that I've done a good deed anyway. Heart feels so much better when the papa sms-ed me to thank me very much for this help. okkiiee.. now let's see what I'm going to ask for when he grants me a wish *rub hands and licking lips*

It's the mid autumn festival today so we ought to be joyous. Never mind the hiccups I got in the morning and the mad rush in the afternoon part and never mind the fact I still do not know what this festival really means. Yeah, I admit, so? Happy playing candles and lanterns and eating mooncakes, you all!

I used to be a nice person, seriously.

Until I got married and have 3 kids.

Now I'm just a couldn't-care-shit, selfish, lazy, uncaring, unloving and mute-black-long-face woman whose husband feels sien to come home to every day after a long stressing day at the office.

Maybe he deserves someone better to look after him. I'm just too unqualified for this job.

Just another manic morning.

This morning, I was as usual, getting ready the boys for school. While I wait for didi to finish his cup of water, I was standing beside him holding his piece of white bread, sapu-ed with orange marmalade. And I was getting pissy that I am such an accommodating mom.

Here I was, getting everything done for him, from getting him up, carrying him to the loo, making sure he piss and aim in the toilet bowl, brushing his teeth, bathing him, putting on his uniform and filling the cup with water and put right in front of him, it's just only that he needs to walk the few steps to the kitchen and drink to be said as doing anything at all.

As I grumpily took a plate to put the bread on and let him take his own sweet time, I hurriedly finished off every other tasks that I do each morning, get their snacks ready to bring for schoo lrecess , fill up their water tumblers, blend fruit juice for them while I was getting more and more mang jang. Grr... why do I need to do everything for them? Can't they be responsible for their own stuffs? Am I spoiling them by doing all these? Should I be? Should I not be? Are they grateful at all? Shouldn't I be giving unconditional love and support? ....

Anyway, after dropping them off at school, I came home and hugged meimei while in her sleep. At that moment, I felt how blessed I am and all complaints are wiped away. Life is just too short to be thinking of these trivialities.

You know what I mean?

It was interesting in the beginning, then it became draggy, predictable, boring but it's my principle to follow it to the end, so I am wasting my sleeptime over it and I am so sleepy everyday that I hate I slept late the night before and before too, so I promised myself I would sleep very early last night and just as predictably of myself, it ended up just the same, hence I pressed the fast forward button, watching the show in an animated fast forwarded motion to catch the last episode and end my darn addiction once and for all when at last, I realized this is not the final disc yet and dammit, it's already 1am which means in another 5 hours' time I have to wake up to get them going to school, causing me zombified now when I know I can catch a nap but I can't because the part time maid is here and I'm waiting for korkor to come home from school. End of rant.

Front of hand is skin, back of hand also skin

Today, I'm stuck in a war between my own mom and dad. Worse when there are no rights and no wrongs, and both are claiming they are right and the other party is wrong. And when this happens, I'm the only sau hoi jeah. Kau meang ahhh....

What happened is my dad wanna buy something, and my mom who is keeping all his fortune, do not want to give him the money. So he said the money is his wor, and she replied "ok lor, I give you back all, and we draw lines from then on...." and hang up on him. Then he called me and asked me to borrow him some money.

Me being the entire opposite whose fortune lies in the hands of my boss, have to ask this favor from him instead. Then he said "Why give all the money to your mom?" *scratch head* (Hello??? Like you, good meh?")

In the end, I'm asking myself this question all the time, am I cleff to be surrendering all my choicharn to a fler and nothing left for my own self? Poor me. Yeah, I'm a real silai.

Halfway through the holidays.

Wow! Have I been away that long? Can see the thickness of the dust here.

*blows dust into the air*

Today, I think I had got all the barang-barang ready for "Balik Sekolah 2010" for the 2 boys. Earlier, I took them to choose their own stationeries. And by getting mainly didi's uniforms and shoes, he's all set to go!

To be frank, I'm rather worried of him with his pelik behavior in a brand new environment. This son of mine is making me pulling my hair out, making me almost at wits' end on how to deal with him. I think he's gonna be making frequent trips to the discipline teacher, though I pray so hard that he will not.

I am just trying so many different approaches in parenting him.

1. Strict punishment - I just try not to use this on him as much as possible, as I can see it hurts him so. Too much of negative punishment, would drive him to the corner anot?

2. Then again, when I don't use strict punishments, am I spoiling him? Am I being just too soft on him? That's what others or observers are telling me.

3. Talking to him. Yes, I do that, but how many times can I keep my cool when I have to handle and manage all the things that often come together?

Nevertheless, I'll continue to strive. A few days ago, I went to the library and found a book on hyperactive kids. Reading the book, I believe that he doesn't belong to this category. So what is?

And I google and found this site to answer a set of questions to roughly estimate what kind of a child he is. It says here that he is an Introverted Intuitive Judging person. By reading that article, I think it kinda depicts quite accurately of him. It's like finding a light at the end of a tunnel, or probably some kind of help for me to refer to.

Pray that I am doing the right parenting way with him, so he would be a great person with good morals and virtues.

It's time for some serious studying.

Korkor's exam results are back and sad to say, it's not very good. *tau tap tap*

Don't misunderstand. I don't have high expectation from him. I always tell myself, as long as he doesn't fail in any subjects, it's fine for me, better still, more than 80 marks. Or even more than 90, why not, huh?

Then, when he came home and showed me his BM paper, only 60 and 58 in 2 papers, jeez.. that's not so good, kan? Like it's dangling on the dangerous fence between FAIL and PASS. And instead of scolding and whacking him, I felt awfully guilty myself for not assisting him in this VERY difficult subject. Tuitions?? Nooo... I'm a child-friendly person (read: kiamsiap!), I don't like to see kids who are already spending half the day at school and the other half buried in school books.

I remember I spent my childhood half the day in school, the other half playing with my cousins and the kampung kids around my granny's neighborhood. My brothers and I never had tuitions until we were in secondary schools, like Form 5 or 6. We were so happy.

But then again, how many kids are sent to tuitions those days? I suppose with the standard hovering around the same, we had no problem catching up and facing those exams. These days, I guess most of the kids go to tuitions somehow or rather, like facing their STPM paper, or, I can understand, parents working and can't help sending them to tuition cum daycare centers. That solves their headache to check their homework or catching up with the syllable.

But me being a full time mom and an educated person myself *clears throat*, I am sure I can guide him, except for mandarin. The last test he had, I promised myself to really "bersungguh-sungguh menjadi guru tiushen". But I didn't.

This time, I really need to. Still not late for that, right? Else, he really would be struggling in this subject even more, just like the time I did when I was at his age.

Thus, I went to the bookstore that very next day, and bought a big pile of books, consisting of BM, English, Science and Maths for both korkor and didi.

And this holiday, there would be a time everyday for the books and exercises to do. I'm throwing in some lessons or two in learning Art as well. "You can draw meh?" I heard you ask. Well, not bad gah.. (who cares!) I'm sure I can do it. I promise I will. I can... I will... can... will... can... can.........

My little pink book

Do you write journals last time when you were young? I did, I guessed it's called the traditional or conventional "blog", but supposedly to be kept private, not for any 8poh (yes, you!) to see.

I think I started writing short notes when I was in my teens, in those small pocket diaries that someone (dunno who) gave. Then I advanced to nice nice books, with sweet looking covers to pen down the happy moments in my life. Now that I look back on them, I did seem to have a very happy childhood, and a very happy growing up life.

One book was dedicated specially just for dear, then later known as loekung, then also known as banker, sometimes hub, sometimes ...

It helps when I read back on my little pink book. Especially when the marriage is in a "challenging" mode. When I question myself why the heck I chose him. And it warms my heart to look and recall back the intensity of love we both felt for each other at that time (hoi! dun be dirty minded, that's not an x-rated diary ah).

Surely it meant something when that happened. I'm just so glad that I had chose to pen down the happy memories instead of the unhappy ones. And by doing this, I had made the happy memories stay stronger in my mind, helping me move forward with my life with a bright outlook, and trashed all the unhappy ones to the bin.

English lesson II

Children,
today teacher is here to teach you what "putting words in people's mouth" means.

By a classic ekzampel, listen to this conversation between 2 people:

Anybody: Why is he sleeping, huh?
Somebody: Ohhh.. he's tired, after a long drive, as he's also very old. So let's keep quiet and let him rest, k?
Anybody: Ohhh.. i see, i see.

Hours later, Somebody told Everybody "Any is so panai, she tells everyone that he is tired and drove a long journey, so he's sleeping and asked everyone to keep quiet"

This is what we called "putting words in people's mouth", sometimes can be translated as "eat dead cat" too (sek sei mau).

Class dismiss.

Something's not quite right today.

• woke up earlier than usual to send mama and ahyi off. me cry? no la. just a bit mm-seh-tuck, got. heiz.
• after less than 24 hours here, I figured I have to search high and low for my things in the kitchen. my mama. don't you *hate* it when someone else touched your stuffs and relocate the things to don't-know-where?
• I spent some time revising musical pieces with didi and found myself tearing his clothes! He was so testing my patience, but I was adamant and in the end, I am hanging low with misery and guilt. Scared to bits what will possibly happen when he's not that forgiving later. I swear I'm gonna practice more self-control.
• My heart feels so empty, my mind is blank, I had the shock of my life when I opened up my pc this morning.
  
• the short chat with a good friend yesterday who dropped a bombshell, still lingering in my mind, hoping, praying he's ok, and worried this kind of thing happening to my hubby. last night, he put his arm on my hand and I could feel it burning. He wasn't feeling well and is having a terrible sore throat. Though sometimes (ok, very often) I nag and complain about him, I really do not know what I will do if something happens to him. (Time to go to temples and churches?)

Or maybe, I am missing my mama already. Hope she'll be home soon. *sob*

Di persimpangan dilema

My mom, had worked in HK for a rich fler for a short stint of 3 months before she came here to stay with me 2 years ago.

It was a babysitting job, twin babies of 1 month old. The parents tried a long time to conceive and when they finally succeed, it was extremely precious to them. They recruited my mom through a sister of hers who was working in HK for another rich tycoon.

Mama had been very envious of her sister's life thus far, who not only earning a fat income and receiving tips here and there, she also had the privilege to travel together with her employer and the kids in tow. Shanghai, Sydney, Caribbean cruise, UK... it surpassed my list of places I visited already. I too felt envious, don't talk about my mom!

So, when the opportunity came, she dived into it, not knowing the days would be so torturing. 3 months, and it seemed like 3 years to her. Taking care of twins, the new mom wouldn't allow the twins to sleep separately, and it was a very stringent and rigid environment where the comfort to the new nanny wasn't even a priority. The stress was too hard to bear, coupled with the fact that her employer ate back her words on some of the conditions and she wanted out after a month. But this fler held her wages and wouldn't let her come home until 3 months full, after my aunt (mama's sister) went over to take over the task from her.

The work environment was so bad that this aunt too, had wanted to quit after 1 month.

Anyway, when she did return home, she looked a few years older and so much thinner. Poor mama, I felt bad, really bad. It's simple to me. If our parents are suffering so much to work for money at this age, it's us, the children who failed miserably to provide them a comfortable and happy retirement.

Now, after these 2 years, the employer called her again, and trying to coax her to go to HK with my aunt to work as a babysitter one more time. She's having her 2nd pregnancy and going to deliver soon, I suppose. Mama is very tempted to dive in again, though I strongly disagree. Is it worthwhile? Not that she doesn't have enough to spend, really. Though it's just plain rice everyday, not with sharks fin and abalone, but at least can afford fish and chicken.

Why she wants to be separated from dad at this old age? Why does she want to suffer? And with the bad records of the employer eating back on her words, why she's still trusting her?

I guess it's plainly, all for money. And it falls back on us, we fail miserably, don't we?

First post for 2009, the beginning.

The new year began with some clickety clack of mahjong tiles, hands busily "swimming" and exercising.. It was a 3-kaki affair, and both women lost over 20 bucks each to the only male there. But the joy is of course, not in losing or winning, but in the process of plotting and trying to win the opponent's tiles. Such were the gracefulness of both ladies. :D

For some trivial matters, hubby and I striked on a bad chord to began our year, and thus, didn't end up making love on bed, while I shutdown my system, unaccessible until the smoke diminish. And almost there after msn-ing my 2 best buddies today. Sigh! This is how things work, over and over again. Whatever will happen if best girlfriends are not around to provide a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, dissing the villains together, dousing the fire, is beyond imagination. For the men, you really got to thank their best girlfriends!

Apart from that unnecessary distraction, everything else is looking quite good. We went to shop around, hunting for some good bargains, as almost everywhere and everyone were saying "Keep your cash, 2009 will be tough!". It's been a long while we had been ogling at some home theater system and a big plasma TV BUT... finally we made the purchase to welcome it in into our home. Watching late night movies at home won't be the same anymore. I am so looking forward to it. Yeah, I know, most of you might already have that long long time ago, what's the big deal, huh? But new toilets do smell nice in the beginning, don't they?

I do have a few resolutions in my head to work on this year though. And one of them is to work on more charitable work. Anyone with me?

Recollecting my thoughts

Just for the records, the past few days had been rather pleasant, albeit a little bit confused with contradictory thoughts playing, rewinding and playing again in my mind.

I think it had been quite sometime since the last when we had stayed around in KL for the longest weekend break there is. 5 days. It seemed weird banker hanging around stepping on my toes for that long.

The dinner with our VIP guests turned out ok. Too much food on the table, about 8 dishes for 12 of us, old and young, all inclusive. I cooked 4 while the rest were brought over by them. Yes, there were char-siew and grilled chicken wings. Her Majesty commented the char siew could use more sugar for marinating. I admit I was slightly disappointed that the effort to "fish" for some nice comments came to null. It came from His Majesty though, telling everyone the chicken wings was good, well marinated. And that feels good. Is saying something nice about someone's cooking so difficult? Or it hurts that I can cook? blek!

The other 2 dishes were assam nyonya prawns with different kinds of veggies, which was almost untouched, until the end, when I noticed that she did picked a few more to munch on. And the other is what they called "the-big-4-kings". She commented I should have fried the brinjal so it would be soft inside and not hard as it was then. Sigh! OK, maybe I should take these comments constructively, huh?

What they brought over was a crispy duck, pork leg, roast pork (which was saved for another day), choy sum fah, and fish where we steamed it with grind ginger. Not one was finished up, in fact when we were done, the table looked as if dinner was just to start. What a total waste of food!

I could have saved my time and energy in the first place. But there were really several reasons why I did what I did. I genuinely wanted to cook something for them in return, for all the meals that she had done for us when we went back home. I too, wanted to show off, that my name is not Lulu, that I can cook as well. How would I possibly look like to serve just plain rice to them, right? And to have thought over, planned, arranged days before that day, it came sort of a failed mission to touch their hearts.

After cleaning up and hanging around at home, with the "cheerful" sounds of mahjong, TV, children voices, it was time to open christmas gifts. Oh yeah, we finally did make it to try giving them a memorable christmas with us, and banker told me to get them the gifts in the morning. I was very excited at the thought of shopping, but with time constraint, I couldn't browse around more to get the nicest gift I can possibly get for them each.

In the end, it was clothes for all the ladies and socks for the 2 men. And the children have building blocks to play with, didi is thoroughly enjoying himself each day playing with it. I am thrilled to see that actually.

My mom loved the blouse I got for her, apparently, mother and daughter do have the same taste, almost, at least. BUT, for the other "mother", it's just almost definite that what I like seems like what she doesn't like, vice versa. I should have bought her the worst looking dress I think, going by that logic. But how could I do that? In the end, I picked what I think the best looking blouse for her, something which I thought I would love to be in too, but as it is, in the end, I don't think she had liked it. It was rather obvious with the expression in her face when she opened the gift. I do hope I'm wrong though. To be honest, it's really upsetting. When you hope to just get a simple beaming smile in return, it's truly... what a sigh!

The next day we went to Crab Island, and the weather was really in our favor, without the hot sun, just good enough to walk around without even an umbrella. Perfect. That made everyone in a good mood, especially when the whole entourage was there, without any absentees. Even when one who might not choose to be there but obliged to just because..

I'm not much of a hypocrite person, I show much of how I feel inside on the outside. That might be good but yet, can be disastrous at times. I can't imagine how stressful it is to put up a good show all the freaking time. Then again, for some, it could be a good thing, especially for filial sons.

We talked about this, apparently what I think doesn't seem to be what he thinks. It makes me frustrated indeed. Am I not good enough? Then again, I think about how scary it is to be seeing face to face with someone who is not what she might seems to be. Makes no sense, right? I think that's the intention.

We had a great seafood lunch and were home by evening. It was good I managed to steal a quick nap in the car on the way home, something which rarely comes by nowadays.

The next day we took them to Cheras Yulek famous charsiew wanton mee. Then dropped by at Sg Wang where everyone had something home, the simple yet effective way to end a short break happily. They packed their bags and went back after a late lunch, leaving the mess to me, which I don't mind really, as most importantly, I did have a good time as well. I did, but just some question marks always hovering on my head following me around. And it's these times I would ctrl-alt-del to think deeply in my thoughts. BUT, this time around, I chose to spill it out, let it out of my system. I guess I know who I want myself to be in the end. I chose to be myself.

What can ruin one's day..

Conversation overheard...

Granny: Hello? Who is this ah?
Little boy: I'm the little brother ah..
Granny: Do you know who I am ah?
Little boy: (cheekily replied) You are *the other granny* (though he knows she's not! He was being playful)
Granny: WHY ARE YOU SO STUPID??

??!!

Impulse buying a woman's strength.

The other day, I was rather mood-less, so the best thing to do is to go for retail therapy. So easy peasy for a woman to be happy, don't you agree?

So, I was wandering aimlessly with nothing in particular in mind to buy. Lucky for my hubby, I am not the kind to stray and look see look see in jewelery shops. Else, I don't know how many jobs I have to blow to get myself off the hook.

I suppose the next best thing is those accessories shop, don't have the real thing, just get the pirated stuffs la. And pirate way is the way to go nowadays. I lingered around, found some girly stuffs for my girl and there I saw a nice looking bracelet. I sure have taste, I'd say, because when I look at the price, it's always much higher than the usual ones. Others tagged at RM20-30, this particular one need to fork a blardy 80 bucks out for it. And it was not even silver (I like silver)

So, I put it back very very reluctantly, told myself to save money la, don't waste money like that, nanti hubby screw me again...

I went to the counter with my loot, cashier ding ding here and there, and said "That will be RM47. But now, we have a promotion, if you buy RM60, then we minus RM10 for you straight away from the bill, would you want to top the amount to 60?"

Aiks.. just what I needed. How can these people take advantage of women's weaknesses everytime like that?

So.... that day, after pondering long and hard, in the end I paid 117 whereby I should have just walked off just 47 cash poorer. Die la this time..

Then again, when I came home, yes happier, I happily show my little dotter the girly ribbons and nice nice clips to put on her hair. I admit I am sending the wrong signals. This is not the right thing to do to train girls to be vain from young!! Yes, I'm guilty like hell. Will slap my own self when she wants to be sexy and pretty all the time when she reaches puberty.

But... can you control yourself?? Come on.. she's the Barbie doll I never had in my life.. this the fun in having dotters, right? After all, I only have one. OK dude, I am really contradicting myself, don't know what I want. Enough rant.

Creating your own story book

Over the past, I was very engrossed in a hobby, clicking my digital camera, learning Adobe Photoshop, editing the pictures which is aka playing Barbie doll, don nice make up and wear nice clothes for her and go kaikai (around the dollhouse).

Then, I learnt html programming from this hilarious website tutor. His explanations are so darn funny, it wasn't hard at all to learn the basic from his webpage. But I stopped after the Frames and Tables, as it was too confusing for my humble little mind.

After learning of the basics, I went to create my own webpage and surf the internet to look for a free server to store my files and publish my website. And here it is, I found out it's still around, notably gathering dust. At that time, I had even bought a domain name and named it w w w. storyinpixels. c o m for USD5. That was all for the sake of fun and it died a natural death after one year, as I didn't have time to update it much and the traffic, I think consisted of 1 visitor only, that's me.

But heck, I was happy with my little achievement, for someone who's not very IT intellect, and gaining household name as a see-lai, it's not any see-lai in the wet market, yeah?

Then again, I had this dream of turning my hobby into a business venture, just like most business models which started from just a hobby or a passion. What I wanted to do was to compile pictures of memories and personalized it into a book, a story, which would be able to convey to the next generation. Everyone in this world is the main actor or actress in their own story, waiting to be unfold to the next generation and after. Isn't that good?

I mean, if I had a book which my granny or great granny wrote in her lifetime, that would be such a treasure.

And coming to this point, my 2nd son just proved how right I was. One day, I felt "hiao" and took my old albums out to look at, my son was so enthralled with the pictures of me para-sailing in Penang, shots of me putting on the vest, to flying up in the sky, and coming down after a round. He asked me what I was doing at that time, and I told him the entire process from beginning till the end like we were reading a story book. And his deep interest in it was clear, he had to look at the pictures all the time for a few days straight. Kids' gestures are really funny at times.

I could be rather sure there are many people, especially sentimental women, are like me. And that's why we are here blogging, writing stories, partly for enjoyment, partly for our children, partly for entertaining, what's your reason for blogging? Well, that's another story for another day.

Back to this dream of mine, sad thing is, it just remained a dream. And the dream was materialized, but for some other people. I was shopping the other day and found out that this idea is IN business.. We can be ordering our own books from Photobook, and the book is really of good quality indeed. Not to mention its price, it's relatively affordable, depends on how you look at it. And I'm not even advertising for them. *Sob*

Thing I want to say is, this is just yet another moment of "seeing things happen" instead of "making things happen". How ironic is that. And that's also the difference between the normal person and the other. So sad. So sorry. Sorry that I felt sorry for myself.

I'm considering to order a book for my 3 little ones, telling the story of their birth, childhood, parents, or maybe meanwhile this blog would do for the moment?

Meantime, I stumbled upon some of my own creations stored in my hard disk from some years back.





It meant nothing to you, but it is everything to me.