The end of 2009

Today is the last day of 2009 and I still feel blur. I think it's because I will not be going back to school till February.

Colleagues came to visit me after the staff meeting with a plastic bag full of fruits. Chan passed me my record book and other stuff. This reminded me that the year is coming to a close in a few hours time.

As I look at the new schedule for 2010 and my responsibilities for the new year....I think it is quite ok....no surprises yet. As long as I am not on the Disciplinary Board; everything is a breeze to me. I can do them all!!!

Looking into the new year; I do have my worries.....I worry how left behind I will be in terms of teaching. What if there is no replacement teacher for me (I think they will not be able to get one); my poor girls will be left without a teacher for English and History for a whole month. I will have so much to rush through with them. English is not too bad; but Form 4 History...so much to cover.

I will not think of it; gives me a headache.

For 2009; there has been so many blessings to thank God for. Sometimes things are taken for granted; but I want to remember and be reminded that everything that comes my way; God is in it. So we are so blest this year even though I had to go through the operation (I thought I might die if the op went wrong) and am still healthy and almost strong.

Farewell to a good and peaceful 2009 and welcome 2010. May it be peaceful, stress-free, fruitful and meaningful.

Abram's Daughters by Beverly Lewis

We bought a set of books for Lyn this Christmas. There are five books in this series "Abram's Daughters". Unfortunately we were unable to locate the second book in the series that is "The Betrayal".

I started reading the first book last week and just completed it today. The writer tries to build the characters in the beginning; so it was a bit slow. But it gets more exciting the further I read. What interests me is these books are about the Amish Community and the scandals in the society. It is also very informative to read about the lifestyle of these people and how they conduct their social and spiritual lives. The author; Beverly Lewis' mother is an Amish.

The first book...The Covenant. Very important in setting the background to the story and characters. Lyn finished this book quite a while ago but she refused to move on to the third book. We searched almost all the Christian bookstores in KL but couldn't find the second book; 'The Betrayal'. Oh yes, we saw it in Evangel but it was two times more expensive than Glad Sounds. So I refused to buy. Hmmm.... now I desperately need to make a trip there to get the book regardless the price.


The third book which I just started. Sort of could guess what happened in the second book but it is not the same as all the details are not there. So just guessing.

Finished this yesterday(6.1.10). Real touching. Almost cried a few times. Beautifully written and twisted here and there but tied up at the end beautifully. A good read and the author uses the story to touch on salvation and personal relationship with Christ. Definitely a great insight to the Amish society. Starting on The Prodigal now.




This is how the fourth book looks like.
Today is 7.1.10 and I am done with The Prodigal. Couldn't put the book down. Had to know what happenned next and next and next. Finally Leah and Jonas met again after more than 16years..and much had happenned along the way. What a twist...what I expected was not as I expected but another twist to it appeared. The author is quite good in putting the twist in here and there but some seems quite predictable in a way. Going on to the final book now.


Finally the fifth book. Should be able to finish these books in a week or less. It has the plot like the korean movie romance (I think); so with such plot; I should be able to read quite fast.

It's 8.1.10 and I'm done reading this final book to the Amish family saga. It couldn't have ended any better. Had the ending been otherwise; I would be totally heartbroken and may tear the book. I'm one person who is for to live happily ever after. What a relief the ending has no more heartaches and separations etc....like Nicholas Spark's book.

It's good Christian romance to read and a lot of Christian values versus the world's values touched on. Good read for my girl as she grows into her teenage years. It challenges the mind on choices, being responsible for the choice made, the pain of bad choice, rebellion, unforgiveness, hardness of the heart etc.

Of course, good romance to keep the otherwise bored mother occupied.

Mentality

Was in Tesco one day and saw a mother opened up a bottle of the sanitizer; squeezed into her hand and the hands of all her many children!!! I was shocked. What is this?

I went and checked the other bottles and found that there were many bottles that were below the actual volume. This means many others are doing such thing.

This speaks of our society and its attitude. If one is able to do this little thing without a tinge of guilt; I shudder to think of all the bigger things they are able to do. And here is a mother showing the kids what to do and not one of them would think that it is actually wrong!!!

BBQ Again!!

It's real great when I don't have to do the major cooking but someone else cook and I eat!!! We had barbeque again today. Who do you think is the BBQ expert if not Uncle KC?????


Preparing the garlic bread to put over the grill.



Yummy vienna sausages....done very nicely today. Getting to be quite an expert in barbequeing now.




The garlic bread and chicken soup.




Stingray and petai again....they love this. I had plain white pomfret.

Mushrooms and clams. Clams were good (so they say) but I have eaten better mushrooms elsewhere.

We can do this more often. I just need prepare the fish, boil the soup and sit and wait for food to come to the table.

christmas blessings in pictures

Today is already 2 days past Christmas; nevertheless the spirit of Christmas is still going strong. My pictures goes backwards; ie starting today to 24th December.

Dan was totally overjoyed....he wanted a remote control helicopter real badly and we had to tell him he is beyond toys now. Lo and behold....Aunty Ah Yean passed the belated present to him through Uncle Hoe in church this morning.


Immediately the father and son put the helicopter together and flew it for less than 10minutes before it ran out of batteries!!!!

Christmas Day....preparing for the BBQ.

Can I have some sausages. please???


Feta cheese salad

Double baked potato in jacket.

Stingray in sambal with petai. Real good when bakar-ed.

Christmas morning in church...MYFers singing the carols.

Christmas Eve dinner with the Lim Clan....Shawn's birthday too....his mum baked the cake.

Do they look like sisters??

Second cousins.....they are so many second cousins in the Lim Clan that most of the time they don't know each other unless we meet up like this.

Brothers....the most senior in the clan. Just the two of them left now.

Young and old....three generations.

Nieces with fourth uncle and fifth aunty.

E E gave 6 fishes to Dan for Christmas....so he won't be disappointed when he returns home fishing without fishes. One fish died yesterday.

The new piano came on Christmas Eve morning. Beautiful....totally bigger and nicer than the old.

New Moon

Watched New Moon this morning. Hmm....not so good. Bit draggy and the actors are not natural/spontaneous in their acting. Noticed that in the first movie. Rather slow and hesitant. Maybe that's supposed to be the style.

Remembered a colleague saying to another colleague and I, 'How can you people say Edward Cullen is handsome?' The more I see him the more unnatural he is. Actually it's his character that is attractive but that person in the movie is ... don't know how to describe his sickly look.

Anyway...I'm over with the Twilight crush. Done with.

A lot of rubbish which is not suitable for teenagers and teenagers shouldn't think of living like that. Just abnormal. A fantasy which should not be thought of as real. How easily it influences the young generation to follow and make it part of their lifestyle.

Beware of wolves in sheep's clothing.

Busy busy busy

Christmas is the busiest time of the year for all of us. To make it worse; I am not strong enough to run around and do all that should be done. Last Sunday we had church school christmas party. Being the CS Superintendant; I just had to oversee stuff etc. I was totally poofed when I reached home close to 2pm. That also I just walked around; took pics and talked to people here and there.


Tomorrow the kids have a Christmas potbless to attend. I have to prepare some food. So off again to pick up grocery etc. Thanks to somebody's blog which I read last night; I will make feta cheese salad. Not easy; simple task like driving around town and walking around Jusco actually wears me out. The back is aching slightly. The wound is also throbbing a little.


Thursday...there is the Lim family get together at fifth aunty's house. No need to do anything; just hang around. I am sure the hanging around will wear me out too.


Christmas Day.....in laws and out laws will be over for our annual christmas dinner. KC wants to barbeque. I just picked up sausages and vegetables just now. There are other stuff to prepare. Will have to tell him to tell his mom to bring fried mee or rice. Barbeque is his idea...dare I leave it to him???


Boxing Day....Church School Teachers and Helpers Appreciation Dinner. Good grief...I'm already tired thinking of all these. On top of it, we will have a meeting as we dine and I am supposed to get some paperwork ready. I'm so so so stressed!!!!!


Then there is Watchnight Service (think I will skip this year) and in January next year there will be wedding dinners every weekend.


For an introvert like me; all these activities really sap my energy. Even more so as I am not that well now. Sigh...all I want this Christmas is to be strong like my normal self.

Here we come acarolling......

The Seremban Wesley MYFers went out carolling on 18th and 19th December. They had about 17plus houses for the two days combined. This was real meagre. Looks like the tradition of carolling is dying in this church!!! Why?

When I was an MYFer, we went for two or three nights and covered so many houses that we returned home at the wee hours of the morning. The exciting part of carolling then was going from house to house and singing ourselves hoarse and of course the fellowshipping. The excitement of the host was waiting and hearing the sound of carollers singing from afar.

We have two carollers from our home this year. This young man wanted to wear a tie on the second day; so asked the father to help him. The father had problem putting the tie on him so had to work out another method.





Ok...this is better. He fixed the tie on himself first before putting it on the son.



The end result....a very handsome young man who deserved all the pinching and hugging. But he removed the tie when he realised he was the only one wearing it. He was given a present as the best caroller at the end of the carolling. And he was the youngest caroller!



Aha...the second caroller is here. The carols were spinning round and round her brains for days because I heard her humming and singing to herself.

On 19th December, the carollers arrived about 6.20pm. Quite punctual. They started at 5pm. MIL and Uncle Hoe joined us; Vincent came to the house too.

Here they are, singing....

This camera is either not so good or I don't know how to handle it. The pics came out all shaky. Mine has gone to Chiengmai.

After singing; was food. This was what I served....junk food!!! None of the houses they visited had this. I thought it would be good to give them something different from the normal. It was popular with them and of course Dan had more than he should.

What we enjoy about carolling is the fellowshipping time where we just eat and chat and chat more. This group was not in a hurry to move (which is nice) unlike when I was an MYFer; we were always rushed and hurried by Mr Ling Keng Neo (because there were so many houses to cover).

I was surprised to see a student of mine; Nicole. She came right up to me and called ;'Teacher!!' Of course I had to get our picture taken.

So that was carolling in our home. We have not invited the carollers to our home for more than five years now. That is how the tradition dies when we get complacent about it. This year we invited the carollers because our kids were part of them. I believe many others in the church are like us...complacent; children have grown etc. So...how can we keep this tradition going?

Anyway, a blessed Christmas to all as the day to remember the birth of our Lord draws nearer. May we have time to reflect the true meaning of Christmas and not just run around partying.

Monopoly

Played Monopoly with the kids yesterday. Usually I wouldn't attempt this game as it is too long but since it was holiday and I couldn't move around much; thought this would be good bonding time. So out came the Monopoly board.

We had to consult the official Monopoly rules via internet as we had lost our copy. Then we realised that we has not been following the rules. We played and played from noon till evening and we were still far from bankcruptcy(does this look right?)....so we took a break to get ready a quick dinner.


Then dad came home and he was horrified that we were so slow. He checked on Dan's two rows of property with 3houses each and declared; "Dan, you should buy hotels now." We protested that he had to get 4houses first before converting to hotels. But since we had run out of houses; he couldn't do anything because the official rule says so. Dad said, "The girls are bullying you,Dan. You will buy hotels." Since he is the head of the house, we decided not to argue with him and let him help Dan buy hotels.



That was when Lyn and I came spiralling down. Lyn had the most cash and she lost them in no time paying Dan. I had the most property....stretched everywhere and I was paying Dan in hundreds almost all the time. Finally, I gave up and merged my property with Lyn's. Even with this merger we couldn't beat him because I just build tiny houses compared to the big HOTELS which killed us almost immediately!!!!


Here is the money of the rich boy. He blurred all the way through the game. He threw his money all over the floor. He took risks...even though he didn't had much left he still wanted to buy more houses. Lyn and I were extra cautious. We were so scared that we would run out of cash. So we kept hoarding our money instead of investing in more houses. But Lyn had only one stretch of property and she had already bought hotels there. So I was the one who was silly to just hoard my money. And I realised that both Lyn and I had our money organised properly in denominations while Dan couldn't be bothered with his.



Look at the $500s that he had. I only had $500s in the beginning of the game. Well, that was a long game and I knew I would lose. I have never been good in this game.

Missing you

I am actually missing Ing this time. Am sure she will say I miss her cooking and not her. Maybe a little true.

Cooked my own meals yesterday and today. So plain compared to hers. So tiring also. Never found cooking meals as tiring as this. Probably I am not totally well yet.

Miss her loud voice. She is so loud and you can just hear her presence everywhere. Not just loud but she will throw herself all over the sofa. Her presence is definitely loud and clear.

Then when she was around, I would throw little tantrums here and there. Just little....I have thrown bigger tantrums. I can't help it sometimes because I like the house my way and .... sigh. A bit fussy; I know.

After the tantrum that day, I asked KC if I am too fussy bout cleanliness etc. He said my expectation is a notch higher than others. Oh well....glad Mila came yesterday to clean the house. But I was fuming when she left. Her assistant; (giddy goat and silly) left the tap running in the garden again. She left the tap running in the kids' toilet the other time.

Anyway, to my dear sister; thank you for helping me during this time. Really appreciate it.

fishing part 2

So off the boys went fishing. Don't know what he was up to; did he almost slip and fall into the river?



My prawns.....the fish didn't enjoy it I think; otherwise they would have caught that king fish that Dan saw. Anyway Jackie enjoyed it for his dinner.


Fishing is fun? But what is that chocolote on the thumb?


The cousins....bonding time.

Hah!!! Caught you...drinking instead of fishing. Of course can't catch any fish la.

Wow.....that is finger licking good. I don't think this makes a good fisherman.

The smelly river; full of rubbish. Who gave the idea to fish here???

E E came along and provided food..... how to fish with such distractions?

Fishing or pretending to fish?

Smile...we are fishing!!!!