我爱我家

回家的感觉是很好的。只是，在槟城自由自在(自生自灭)惯了，没人敢管我，回到来，每天都被妈妈骂，还真不习惯。妈妈看我，每天都很有意见，老说我不懂得照顾自己啦，不运动啦，体弱多病啦，不懂得照顾女儿啦，煮的菜太油太咸啦，乱七八糟一大堆。唉，妈妈就是妈妈。我当然知道她的苦心，可是要让自己习惯挨骂却又不吭声实在是一件很难的事。看着爸拔和妹妹们四两拨千金的功力，还真让我自叹不如！再过些时候吧，相信我的道行和EQ会变得高一点。我爱我的家！

Burnt Toast

A beautiful story to ponder upon … if everyone in this world learn to appreciate and accept others’ mistakes … life will be more beautiful.

This is a nice story ... Embracing Imperfection.

A story by a girl.

"When I was a little girl, my mom liked to make breakfast food for dinner every now and then. And I remember one night in particular when she had made breakfast after a long, hard day at work. On that evening so long ago, my mom placed a plate of eggs, sausage, and extremely burned toast in front of my dad. I remember waiting to see if anyone noticed! Yet all my dad did was reach for his toast, smile at my mom, and ask me how my day was at school. I don't remember what I told him that night, but I do remember Watching him smear butter and jelly on that toast and eat every bite!When I got up from the table that evening, I remember hearing my mom apologize to my dad For burning the toast. And I'll never forget what he said: 'Baby, I love burned toast.' Later that night, I went to kiss Daddy good night and I asked him if He really liked his toast burned. He wrapped me in his arms and said, 'Debbie, your Momma put in a hard day at work today and she's real tired. And besides-a little burnt toast never hurt anyone!' You know, life is full of imperfect things ... and imperfect people. I'm not the best housekeeper or cook too.' What I've learned over the years is that learning to accept each other's faults - and choosing to celebrate each other's differences - is one of the most important keys to creating a healthy, growing, and lasting relationship.And that's my prayer for you today. That you will learn to take the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of your life and lay them at the feet of GOD. Because in the end, He's the only One who will be able to give you a relationship where burnt toast isn't a deal-breaker! We could extend this to any relationship in fact - as understanding is the base of any relationship, be it a husband-wife or parent-child or friendship!! "

"Don't put the key to your happiness in someone else's pocket but into your own." See through God's eyes and feel through God's heart and you will appreciate the value of every soul including yourself.

May God bless you all richly.

Congrats

Yuan & Mun got married!!!! I couldnt have been happier!! It's sooooo comforting to know your good friend is in good hands ... really ...

My dear, wish your married life be filled with love which grows day by day and minute by minute ... CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!

NYE Dinner

New Year Eve dinner at Aquamarine@Marina Mandarin ... Had a fab time with Cindy, Alice & spouse. The food and company were just spectacular!

Look at the balloons!!!

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5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL OF YOU!!!!!!!

My Girl

Here are some of Chloe's pics to ring out 2009 ... My pretty and naughty darling ...

I quickly snapped a few pics when i saw her having fun doing some pretend shopping ... and did u notice? she was on heels! goodness ...

Playing With Isaac

We had a gathering with relatives yesterday, and little Chloe had the most fun playing with Isaac.

This one made us all laugh! Little Chloe's round round belly really made Isaac gor gor curious.

aiyo, Isaac kissed little Chloe without her daddy's permission ... think daddy must have been real jealous huh.

Busy

i dont understand.

i wake up early at 6am every morning, prepare for my lessons, go to work, supervise the reno, come home, bathe and dinner, prepare for lessons again, and BAM!!! the clock hits 11pm and another day ends. my poor little girl always wait for me to coax her to sleep. i m so selfish and i dont want to sacrifice the play with her before bed, cause that's my only time with her! she sleeps so late nowadays, cause her mommy doesn't seem to have enough hours in the day!! i feel so bad!! i m not teaching her anything and we do not have much quality time together ... but seriously, how am i supposed to teach her and play with her when i m running around just trying to keep things up? everything takes longer then i think and to be frank, not feeling stressful is nearly impossible.

some ppl ask, u r just teaching in kindergarten, what's there to do? i m not sure abt other kindy, but our kindy is really a hectic one. look at my pending work list now, i have to do a chart for spelling result, prepare the homework for chinese class, prepare the monthly & weekly lesson plan, prepare myself to teach the egyptian dance for our K2 graduation, prepare K2's art & craft sample for august, prepare some teaching materials and wall charts for my class. all these take a lot of time, believe me. i dont know how the rest of the teachers survived through, but for ME, i only have 1 primary focus, everything i do is to head towards this goal, that is to own my own kindergarten and run it together with my 2 sis!!! i know i should slow down since i won't start commencing a school till 2010 end, but i just think i need to learn more and more ... that's why i refuse to let go any learning opportunity that could enhance my experience.

i dont know how. really. i have been thinking to quit for the past few weeks, cause i want to spend more time at home with my little girl for at least another few months before she attends nursery ... but it is really hard to let go ... my K2 class, my lovely K2 kids, the egyptian dance ... hai ... what am i supposed to do?

Chloe

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hahaha ... i think she looks mighty cute when making faces.

omg, who's this???

Renovations

our renovations are still underway but at more rapid pace these days. we have so far completed all the hackings, plumbing, tiling, wiring, plaster ceiling and half way through the painting ... somewhat, choosing paint colors was really painful and frustrating because of the seemingly infinite options. i chose a few colors from the paint chips, but when the painter tried them on the walls and some of them just looked NOTHING like i envisioned!! the painter almost gone crazy after a few trips cuz i really couldnt get the "right tone" of GREEN!! (we need to use green in many areas due to geomancy reason.) GREEN?! omg, how nice can it be?? i really dont know. i can tell u, it is really hard to choose nice green tones for so many different areas. i had a tough time getting just right after all the jumps.

here are the rooms when we first entered the condo.

entrance

living room

kitchen

master bedroom

study room

Little Chloe

ok, here are a few more pics as promised.

last evening, when we were in bed ... our neighbour at the back on their kitchen lighting ...

chloe: mommy ... lightning ah?

me: no, chloe, there is no lightning. it is not raining now, so there is no lightning.

chloe: 没有 raining ... no lightning ah? ...

me: yes, we usually see lightning when it is raining. there is "no" lightning now because it is not raining.

chloe: "no" lightning ... 没有raining ah?

me: yes ... it is "not" raining now. when it is raining, you can hear the rain pounding on the window and the roof. listen, it is not raining now.

chloe: 没有 raining ...

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can you see ... she started to speak broken english with "la la leh leh" and a little bit of chinese here and there ... hai ... it's all mommy's fault.

Updates

k ... it is fairly obvious that I haven’t been around here much lately and it has been quite a while since my last update about little Chloe. i will try to post more pics later.

i was back to kindy again, teaching k2 now. phew ... cant imagine, being a kindy teacher is much harder than most people could imagine. the work is hard, and there is so much to do, and never-ending lists. however you are never bored, the people who work in kindyland are all lovely and the kids become such an important part of your life. well, of cos i wont want to do this forever, but it is a learning process that i m pretty much enjoying with. the fun i have had always outweighs the stress! while busying with the kids, i m busying with our reno too! i m getting very paranoid and sick of renovation ... our reno has been ongoing for 1 mth plus and still not done. gosh ... i really need a break and i am hoping that time will pass faster so that i can have my new home very soon!! will try to post some of the reno pics soon.

need to apologize. i know that many of you keep visiting my blog and hoping to receive updates on Chloe. well, little Chloe is fine. very naughty as usual and she has learnt this yago pose recently (hubby really likes it). hubby said i MUST post this picture. hahaha, isnt she cute?

Maid

my maid is going back on april, and we have yet to get a new one. i think i m going to hire a philipino maid this time.

my current maid is our very first maid. she is 28 yo, muslim, divorced and has 1 son. initially i thought she was quite lazy, not very honest and has a bit of attitude. after having her for 1 year plus, now i think she is quite ok. i think she adores chloe and she's rather reliable. when i mention reliable, meaning when i instructed her to get certain things done, it would be done. of course there are times that we need to close one eye when come to certain things, and she has other characters that i really dislike (eg. find lots of excuses when she does things wrong, never admit own fault, sometimes do things according to her own liking, tend to "forgot" my instructions, so on and so on.), but overall, she's ok ... and if i would have to leave her and chloe at home for few hours, i m not that worried. one thing i like about her is her personal hygiene is pretty good, she bathes and washes hair twice a day, and she's not smelly.

at first she told us she's going to renew, but after she spoke to her mother on phone, she said she needs 2 months break cuz her grandma has just passed away. not that i dont want to wait for her ... but i think she doesnt have the heart to work anymore. well, she's human being afterall. just like myself, i m now thinking of the new year break and my germany trip, so i simply just dont feel like working at all. same thing for her i guess. therefore, we have decided to get a new maid. at the moment, we are quite worried ... cuz we r not sure if the new maid is going to be ok. really have to pray hard on this.