the other woman...

A few years ago, my uncle married another woman after being married to his first wife for more than thirty years and the woman that he married already have six kids from her previous marriage!!!! Everybody was (and some still is) mad at him for doing that to his wife. His wife is a petite, quiet and timid woman that never raise her voice to anyone. One of the reasons given by my uncle when asked why did he do it was that he was not getting enough attention anymore from his wife who was busy taking care of their first grandchild. Is that a valid reason or a lame one? Did he get enough attention from the woman that has six kids? My uncle now basically abandon his first wife and neglect his duties towards her. He doesn't even bother to divorce her. She is left hanging. Luckily, her kids are around to support her. Recently, their youngest daughter got married and he wanted to be there, so there was a bit of chaos and hostility and his wife stayed in the room until he left the ceremony. It was supposed to be one of the happiest moments for the newlyweds but something like this had ruined their day.

People would say it is noble to forgive and forget but how can someone forgive and forget something like this? His wife is traumatised for being left "just like that" and now even scared (or is it more of hatred?) of seeing my uncle's shadow. She tries to carry on with her life but I must think it is so hard for her to go through life knowing that her husband is somewhere else, in another home, with another woman. What about their kids? No doubt they are all grown up and have their own family, but the fact that your dad is with his "other" kids, that must be hard. I am now sure which one is harder to swallow, losing your dad like that or losing your dad to a heart attack? My siblings and I lost our dad suddenly to a heart attack, 17 years ago. It was so sudden that we didn't have the chance to say goodbye. We still miss him but we know that he is no longer here but will always be in our heart. On the other hand, for our cousins, their dad is alive but is he in their hearts?

Life is full of challenges, so take charge!!!!!

leave my children alone...

This morning in the papers, one mother declared this saturday to be "Independence Play" day where you are supposed to leave your kids in the park and let them be socially independent for the day. Nope, we can not be somewhere nearby spying on our kids to make sure they are okay. We are supposed to teach them the art of survival by letting them roam free in the park. Are you CRAZY, woman?????!!!??? and the age that she suggests we start this "independence training" is around 7 or 8 years old. Once again, are you CRAZY, woman???!!!!??? With all the cases of kids being snatched away by people and not being found until today, what in the world are you thinking? Actually last year she put her 9-year-old son on the subway ALONE and asked him to find his own way home. Luckily he got home safely. Yer la, kalau tak sampai, I doubt she would carry on with this crazy and so so so stupid thing.

Normally, I would stopped myself at judging people but boy, do I judge this lady. She says the goal is to "teach youngsters independence and social skills - within limits". I mean you still can teach your kids to be independent and to be social with other kids without leaving them alone in the park or whatever place your kids are at. There are a lot of pedophiles out there that have so many ways of luring kids to follow them and 7 or 8 or even 9-year-old kids are not wise enough to be on their own while all these sickos are everywhere. Seriously, this woman need someone to put some sense into her head. She is saying that you can just "drop your kids off alone and the park and hope for the best" Hope for the best???? You are like playing with your kid's life by trying your luck!!!! It is like you're saying "If he is okay, then okay, if not..don't worry..I can get another kid" Hello..we are not talking about a puppy or a cat here!!!! Gosh..I am so furious right now. Ok, the papers have set up a voting poll to see if we think this is a good idea. Well, I know which way I am going to vote...

The world is full of ideas..including the stupid ones!!!

in cooking mode

This week I am in my unusual, very unusual cooking mode. By that, I mean I am being so interested in trying to cook something new. Last Tuesday, for the first time in my life and in ten years of married life, I attempted to make beef lasagna. My daughter was whining that she wanted lasagna and we tried one from a Mediterranean shop but it wasn't good. So I tried and didn't fully succeeded. Well, the taste was good but it turned out to be to "wet". Maybe I used too much sauce or maybe because I covered it during baking. But anyhow, my kids were happy and my hubby said it's okay. Not truly happy but then again, for a first attempt, I would have to say it is pretty darned good. Next project was baked chicken with mushroom sauce and roasted potatoes. For some people that would be a walk in the park. But for me, it was indeed a big deal. Checked quite a few recipes and a few more until I got confused about which recipe to use! By the end of the day, the chicken was okay, a bit over baked but the potatoes turned out great!!! There are a few more on my "have to try to cook this" list but it all depends on my cooking mode which doesn't come by ever so often.

What's for dinner?

Mother's day...

Had a wonderful mother's day yesterday. Woken up by hubby and kids barging into the room, shouting mother's day..yep..woke up late yesterday..mother's day what!! kasi can la..anyway, my son was complaining that mommy's mouth stinks (whose doesn't in the morning? All the stories which show people waking up in the morning and kissing each other is total bulls**t..heheh). I got a really cute picture frame and a few cards, even got one from hubby (that's a first!). Then hubby made breakfast (well, weekends are always his cooking anyway) and then went out for lunch and watched Iron Man 2. As usual, my son didn't want to go and was making a big fuss about wanting to stay home during weekends and relaxing. I had a slow talk with him and said I really wanted to spend this day with my family and by that I mean, watching Iron Man..:)). So we went and he did enjoy it!!!

Happy as I was yesterday, it was a bittersweet day actually. This is the first year that I couldn't wish my mom happy mother's day and only God knows how much I miss her. The hard part is that whenever I think of her, I think of all the suffering that she went through and wish that she didn't have to go through all those things. For me, my mom had a hard life and just when I thought things were getting better for her, she was hit with the cancer episode. But God knows what is the best for us and whom am I to decide what is good and what is bad and what is unfair? I can just hope and pray that she is in a better place now. I really miss you, Ibu, I really do and I love you..Happy Mother's Day...

friendly people..

Today, I met a few friendly people. I was waiting in line at the post office and this lady who was behind me started talking about the weather (that is always the opening line) and we just hit it off. I mean it was a short conversation but it was really nice talking to her. Plus she gave me tips where to find designer clothes at a fraction of the price. Yeay!!! She told me that she heard a Malaysian singer at a jazz bar in town and she was good. Too bad she didn't remember her name. And we talked about going to the gym. Well, she talked about going to gym and she goes EVERYDAY!!! As for me, nada!!! I just do it at home. I find it intimidating to go to the gym, takut orang tengok la, malu la. Perasan jer, padahal no one cares really..anyway, I just do my pilates at home.... Anyway, back to the nice lady, she is a freelance art director. Not really sure how that works, but it sounds interesting. After saying good bye to her, got my stamps (chit-chatted with the lady at the stamps counter for a bit, she's friendly too) , I went to do some groceries and this nice man working there asked me how was my day. And I sort of blurted out that I was feeling tired because last night I didn't have enough sleep. I think he asked me out of courtesy, but when I told him that, he seemed really concerned and wished me well and hoped I can get a good rest tonight. Somehow it made me feel good. I guess meeting friendly people is good for your health and what is even healthier is that we can be friendly ourselves. But that comes with some consequences as not everybody is friendly, so sometimes we would end up being like a fool if orang tak layan our friendliness..but there is no harm trying.

Smiles make the world go round...

His 9th birthday..

My son celebrated his 9th birthday a few days ago. We had a small simple celebration, just the four of us. He wanted to go to Toys-R-Us and before hand he had made a very looooonnnng list of toys he wanted to buy which came up to 400 bucks!!! Hello...ingat mommy cop duit ka?? Before that, we had to go and get his eyes check again!!! Apparently the glasses he's wearing now is not helping him to see clearly in class, we just had that made four months ago!!! Ni kes tengok TV and computer tak pakai cermin mata la ni...so we waited for nearly two hours to see the doctor, even though I have made an appointment earlier but somehow other people went in before us. Not wanting to make a scene (one of those rare days where I don't feel like scolding people..), we waited while my son was asking every five minutes when are we going to go to the toy store. My daughter was also excited to go because she knew she can tumpang her brother's birthday and get herself a brand new toy. That's happens every year...anyway, after all was checked and paid and done, off we went to Times Square. As usual, there was a sea of people, it was a Saturday and the weather was nice, even though a tad breezy. We went straight to the LEGO section and boy, he took his own sweet time in choosing which one to buy. I told him that he was not going to buy ALL the things he had on his list, and he could choose only one, a big ONE box of LEGO. So he had a hard time choosing which one to buy first. He was scared that the other ones would be out-of-stock the next time he comes here. The reason why he had that phobia is because, once we went to a different toy store and he wanted this Lego and we said we could come next time to buy since we didn't have time that day (at least that's the reason I gave him) and when we did go for the second time, the Lego he wanted was not there anymore. Not only that, most of the Lego was gone, a mistake to go that time as it was after Christmas...so he had the right to be scared this time around and worried that it would not be there anymore the next time. Anyway, as we were waiting and waiting and waiting (we were being extra nice since it was his birthday after all), I decided to bring my daughter to look for her toy as my hubby had the "hard work" of helping my son to choose. Well, our little girl didn't give me an easy work either. Since there were ssssooooo many toys to choose from, she was rambang mata already, not knowing which one to choose. After quite sometime, both of them decided on their toys, at last!!! Then, my hubby and me felt hungry from all the waiting and persuading, so we decided to go have lunch (a birthday lunch). Well, the birthday boy decided that he didn't want to go for lunch and he said he felt tired and wanted to go home. Old trick!! Because we knew that the reason why he wanted to go home so soon was to play with his new Lego set. So we dragged him to lunch and he was being such a grumpy boy, he complained that he was feeling cold and his tummy hurt and what not. Mommy's hungry and mommy wants to eat so your Lego just have to wait. But when the food came, he was enjoying his food all the same!!! Siap pau mommy's food lagi. Then we headed home and straight away he opened his new toy and he really like it so all in all, it was a good birthday for him...

All ends well..even though the journey was not that easy sometimes...

how i appreciate good health..

I haven't been blogging for quite a while. Been sick for ages, well, at least that's how I felt. It started with a slight fever, then fever gone, came the migraine for three days, decided to change the medication since the one I was taking was not doing me any good. Bad move! Turned out I am allergic to that medicine, so what happened was what usually happens when I am allergic to some medicine (I have a long list of what type of medicine I am allergic to..and it keeps on changing, doctors are quite puzzled when they talk to me about my so-weird allergic problem). Where was I? Oh yes, my eyes got swollen, couldn't barely open them, my daughter said that I looked like my chinese friend. My son reminded me of the promise to bring him to watch "The diary of the wimpy kid" movie. Sorry dear, not when mommy's eyes are like this!!!! So had to postpone the movie outing to the next day! After that episode of swollen eyes, I had a bit of cough. After two days, it got better so I thought the worst is over!!! Well, I thought wrong. The worst was yet to come. Tuesday night, I felt all chilly and my whole body was aching..a sign of getting a really bad fever. True enough, the next morning I woke up all groggy and my head was spinning. Took panadol and went back to sleep (hubby had to handle the kids, sent them to school and picked them up..). Woke up a few hours later, my tonsils were swollen!! Couldn't even swallow my own saliva without feeling like there were millions of pins down my throat!! I am not exaggerating..it did felt like that! Went to the doctor the next day...I was so glad to see him!! I hadn't been eating normally for two days..all i had was yogurt (even that hurt like..like..like..well like swallowing pins and needles). The doc prescribed antibiotics, and I thought, yeay, I am going to be okay in two days' time! I thought wrong once again!!! The next day my gums got all swollen, so add that to the swollen tonsils, I had a field day, of not being able to get anything into my tummy without crying because it hurt ssssooo much! Called the doctor and went to see him again (twice in five days!) and he discovered I was allergic to the antibiotics (remember I have a llooonnng list of what I am allergic to?). So stopped taking that antibiotics and took a different medicine to reduce the swelling. So after a few days, I got better, thank God. Now the gums on the back of my mouth are still a bit swollen but I now appreciate drinking water without feeling any pain and the fact that I can eat almost normally now. This event made me realised how important being healthy is and we should not take it for granted. When I was sick, I couldn't kiss or cuddle my kids and I miss taking care of them, even though I always complain that I am so tired doing the housework and taking care of everybody. My hubby was extra helpful, he took two days off to take care of me and to take over "running the kingdom". I missed having my morning coffee but one thing that I am not going to eat for quite some time is yogurt because that was all I had for nearly a week and the sight of yogurt reminds me of how sick I was, so now I am yogurt phobia (I am sure that's a word for it..). When my gums are 100% ok, the first thing I am going to do is to buy the foot long subway sandwich and really bite into it! I think the 2 kilos I lost when I was sick will be regained in no time...oppss!!!!

Being sick is no fun!!!!