Back & Back Again!

After a week in home town, housewife finally back to Lion City. Gradually, housewife has called Lion City her home but there’s still an emotional attachment to home town.

Home town, no doubt, is an enchanting place but to housewife, the most beautiful part is the love of family and friendship. Housewife is blessed to have a loving family and true friends whom always try their best to make time for housewife when housewife back to hometown.  

Throughout our stay, parents and parents-in-law as well as relatives have made effort to cook variety of lips-smacking food to feed hubby and housewife, knowing that we miss their home-cook food. In general, we had our meal every 2-3 hours in a day.  Alright, both of us are carrying a round belly now. :P

Of course, not to forget our dear friends who make time to meet us despite of their busyness. After moving to new city, housewife has never been left behind for all the update in hometown. Housewife indeed is truly blessed to have all their update and sharing although not psychically there. They have never known how much their phone calls, emails and sharing means to housewife when hundreds miles apart.

What housewife truly realized is “No matter how busy life gets, a true friend will always make time to meet, to talk and to listen. It’s that availability that makes this friendship so special and will grow from strength to strength.

Last but not the least, our loving doggies has definitely brighten up our days  They are simply amazing and incredible. Laughter filled in the air with their presence and it’s a joy to see them growing up healthily. :D

Medelling Paste - Floral

A first attempt using modelling paste and housewife has fallen for this new technique. :) Although the colour wasn't as ideal as housewife thought, it's a good try though.

- Before painting -

- Final Artwork -

Back to Painting!

After days of back injury that has stopped me from painting, finally housewife is back! =)

Painting heals the pain....

- Orange -

- Lily -

向颜色发脾气!

因为背部受伤,我..

无法上画画班.

无法自由活动

无法集中精神

无法这, 无法那..

结果,我向颜色发脾气.....

颜色也懊恼起来....

它,变污浊了..

这样一来,颜色与我一起闹别扭....

不好意思了.

Health is Wealth!

Today’s 8^th day ever since housewife has injured the back.

Throughout this period, the slow improvement could really test my patience. Whenever the pain was being triggered, so did the fear. Mind was playing the ‘what if’ games and fear started to grow. Worries overwhelmed. Impatience started to kick in and housewife knows this is the emotional struggle that need to go through.

Seriously, losing the ability to move around is a challenge.  Housewife could no longer hop or jump here and there for the time being. Every slow walk means something to housewife. During this period, hubby is the one who take care of every daily needs of housewife. What a blessing of having someone to be there when you need most! The appreciation for hubby is simply beyond words. Honestly, housewife didn’t feel good when hubby needed to run here and there for the house chores while working from home, where housewife could only sit there and seemed ‘helpless’.

Anyway, Thanks God that housewife feels much better than the past 2 days. Hopefully housewife could back to normal daily activities soon.

Health is wealth. How true it is!

The day when I couldn't move around.....

Life can be very fragile, so as the body.

In this moment, housewife is writing blog on bed because couldn’t walk or sit properly.  Yes, housewife has hurt her back since last week. It’s not a very good experience though.

It happened when housewife tried to bend down when washing face and of course it’s just a normal bending posture. Till now, housewife couldn’t figure out how it happened BUT it has happened.

Hubby said it's a sign of aging... what a good hubby!!!  !@#*&$*&*&$

Doctor did give me some medicine to relief pain and some cream to relax the muscle. Well, the condition didn’t improve so housewife went for Chinese ‘sin sei’ for treatment, recommended by a friend in Lion City. The treatment was good but it also worsened the pain, as this is the normal reaction for the first 48 hours before it subsides, according to ‘Sin Sei”. Alright, housewife is going through this first 48 hours now and could do nothing but staying on bed. The intensity of pain increased last night till couldn’t move around.

The incident has given housewife some realization of a patient who lost the ability to move around.  Housewife could understand the emotional and physical struggle they have gone through. Perhaps it’s a lesson for housewife to be their shoes and understand them better. Indeed, it inspired housewife to count blessing from basic and for every single bits and pieces in life.

The incident reminded housewife not to take things for granted but appreciate what we have now. Thank you for this incident that serves as reminder!!

Today, I thank God for giving me the healthy body and the ability to eat, sleep, sit and walk.

A simple stretching means a lot to housewife now. Missing the days....

Rick Warren -The Purpose of Driven Life

A great piece that always speak to my heart....

Source from http://movalumc.org/2011/05/853/

====================================================================

Interview, with Rick Warren

{ May 3rd, 2011 }

Rick Warren (author: “THE PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE”)
Interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren.

Rick said:
People ask me, What is the purpose of life?
And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were not made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven. One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body– but not the end of me. I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal.. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity. We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn’t going to make sense.

Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you’re just coming out of one, or you’re getting ready to go into another one. The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort.
God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy. We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that’s not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.

This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer. I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth.. I don’t believe that anymore. Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it’s kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life.

No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for. You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems. If you focus on your problems, you’re going into self-centeredness, ‘which is my problem, my issues, my pain.’

But, one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.
We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her. It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.

You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life.

Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy.
It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don’t think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease.
So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do,

II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72
First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases. Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church. Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation. Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.

We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God’s purposes (for my life)?
When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don’tget anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better. God didn’t put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do-list.

He’s more interested in what I am than what I do.

That’s why we’re called human beings, not human doings.

Life

It’s been a while housewife didn’t share life here since the last blog. Life’s treating housewife well but it’s getting hectic. Anyway, housewife enjoys it much! Every day is like a new learning day and housewife thanks for the chance of learning... J

During the period of the absence of housewife right here, many things were happening around us, be it our friends, family or people whom we come across. Housewife thinks this is so-called life.

I always remember what Rick Warren has claimed before:

“Life is like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life. No matter how good things are in your life, there's always something bad that need to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for."

Recently, housewife has been inspired by many wise and godly women who take care of family well while having a heart for God and those needy. They have never shown their tiredness on face but trying best to reach out to people while trying hard to cope with their hectic life. God has given them many gifts to allow them performing their multi-tasking capabilities in family, work and community. Housewife has never heard of any single complaint about their tiredness but to serve wholeheartedly and unconditionally. Their names are always on their husband’s lips.

They are someone housewife look up to and the role model to learn.

Still praying for this open door to serve....

"Balik Kampung"

Floral Painting

Housewife has fallen in love with floral painting so teacher suggested to focus on this area till able to master the skill before going to next. Therefore, there'll have more floral paintings for now onwards. :)

Fot those who have some floral pictures, could you please share with housewife? :)
Really appreciate it!!

White Lily - One of the favourite paintings

- Orchid -

This is the first floral painting drawn on the day of our anniversary.

Housewife specially dedicated to hubby as an anniversary gift. :)

We did it!

Excitedly, we want to say:” Yes we did it for our driving test!” 

"Pass-liao, Pass-liao. Phew!!!" was our response after the test.

Alright, some of you may wonder, what should housewife excited about? This is just a driving test! Yes, indeed it’s JUST a driving test but both housewife and hubby have been stressed out, especially housewife (Hubby said he stressed out because of the stressfulness of housewife. :P) for the test after registering it a month ago.

Before registration, we have heard many people have failed the test few times before they got it passed. So both housewife and hubby thought it’s really tough! Again, we couldn’t get a car here without the conversion of driving license. Therefore we hope we could pass once and for all.

Like hubby said, never so hardworking in life for a test. LOL… Believe it or not? we did ‘revision’ and exercises day and night as there has 700 questions in the practice questions. Crazy!

Finally, we could take a deep breath as one less thing to bother. The next mission is to search for a car and housewife can drive in new city… Yahoo!!

Now, we want to officially raise our hand in farewell to this book which we were holding for a month.

 Goodbye! :P

花非花

喷张的花瓣，正面地向四面八方伸展。

像极了对生命的展望，敞开双手去拥抱。

然而，还是会有不安。

因为超出的，是无法预知的地方。

用光包围着，给它力量。

希望呵护着的内心种子，能迎在背影的前头，精彩灿烂。

（可见宗教和信念的重要性）

笔于多丽丝

(http://duolisi-surf.blogspot.com/)

 

(P/S: Thank you to Jie Jie, Doris, for the writing. It gives life to the piece)

Joy of their coming....

Since young, housewife and siblings are not allowed to have any pets at home. To parents, this is a troublesome non-value added job. Therefore, doggies are something new to us. In fact, we scared of doggies because we have never got closer to them.

Ever since the coming of doggies and puppie, the house fills with joy and laughters. Our topic is all about their activities as they have brought so much fun to us. Housewife miss them so much and thanks to sister and brother who always keep housewife updated about these 6 little prince and princess at home....

Trust me, you'll fall in love with them if you meet them one day....

  

Teddy Bear!! 

My Boy!!

Little Naughty!

Experiences in Bandung...

Hubby and housewife had a little getaway to Bandung last week. Perhaps, the 2 shopaholics had some expectation on the shopping spree and  It ended up with some disappointments. Before the trip, housewife only did homework on ‘where to shop’ where hubby on ‘where to eat”.

For those who are going to Bandung, be smart when doing some study about factory outlets. Factory outlets are what Bandung famous for! Check out the date of the trip review. Housewife did find some recommended factory outlets from the reviews of some travellers but eventually we found out that most of them were closed down. We argued with the taxi driver for bringing us to the wrong place. They were right and we were wrong! The info we have had were not up-to-date. The address was right but the outlets have no longer existed. It really spoilt our shopping mood!

There were some experiences we had in Bandung, be it good or bad.

a. The traffic jam happened anytime anywhere, especially 4 major shopping areas. It sometimes took us an hour to reach a destination within short distance. It’s a pain to be stuck in the jam all the time!

b. There are not many road signs in the city, if you noticed it obviously. Probably they don’t need it. Most of the taxi drivers could simply take a U-turn in the middle of the road whenever they want or go into the road with “No Entry” sign. There are few occasion where the taxi driver made an U-Turn in busy roads and didn't care if it'd cause accident or road jam. Housewife had this palpitation each time taxi driver running risks on the road.

c. Interestingly, when we stuck in the jam or stopped in the traffic light, here come few different group of people playing guitar, selling food or flowers, begging & etc along the road, hoping the car passengers would give them a penny. This is how they earn a living. It etched my heart when seeing children putting their lives on risk by walking along the busy roads to earn every penny they could.

d.  After visiting at least 15 factory outlets (FO) in the city, there’s ONLY one FO, Rumah Mode, that have some overrun/rejected branded clothing but honestly, not as many as they have had over the years. Well, shoppers, open your eyes bigger when choosing one for yourself. Moreover, most of the FO carries ‘pirated’ branded stuff so beware of it. Don’t be blinded by the brands tagged on the clothes or bags. Don’t pay for nothing!

Ok, we also should admit that we had a fruitful shopping spree for ourselves and family although we only shopped in ONE FO. 

e. Not many sightseeing in Bandung unless you want to take about 1.5 hours (or more) journey from city, to visit volcano.

Well, what did housewife and hubby do during this little getaway?

Answer: Eat & Sleep! 

Oh ya, quite happy we managed to watch the finale of TV Series “ House 7” in Bandung. :P

All in all, this is a ‘new’ travel experience we had although we should admit that this is not a place for us to visit again in near future. Who knows we’ll return to the place one day? :) After all, we have had a great time together.  :)

Not many pictures but taken bits and pieces here and there for sharing…

 Airport or Shopping Complex?

Housewife thought it's a shopping complex near airport but in fact, it's airport!

What does it call? It seems like a pet as they were selling it outside complex

Crocodile Fishing???

Feeding crocodile...not fishing...

Street food - sausages!

Indonesian dessert but didn't know its names. It taste quite nice!

We had the most satified meal in this restaurant!

The first "Xiu Long Bao" housewife ever had because it's Pork-free "Xiu Long Bao". Yummy!!!

Our delivery after losing idea what to eat for dinner......

Breakfast @ hotel everyday...

Street food - Bakso. This is nice!

A Food to swallow but not food to savour....

Big No No to plane food!

End of the trip....

Of course, with our fruitful shopping spree....... :P

Out-Of- Town Notice

Housewife is out of town (again!) for a short excursion with hubby in Bandung till Sunday!
You may know that Bandung is a shopping paradise. Thus, the 2 shopperholics are going to have shopping spree soon!! :D

Light luggage go and heavey baggage back???!! *blink*blink*

Wish you have a happy week ahead!!

Little Gift of Appreciation to Hubby!

Hubby is always a supporter of housewife and in order to show appreciation to him, housewife made a first attempt on baking. Some of you might know housewife doesn't really show passion or interest in baking. In fact, housewife has never had any baking before. However, hubby has a sweet tooth so housewife had this idea last week, out of the blue, baked the simplest cake - Steamed salted biscuit cake, for him. Well, the simplest one was a challenge to housewife. Butter and egg were everywhere in the kitchen as well as on housewife's face!!! Gosh!

Nevermind, since this is a  little gift of the day to surprise hubby and appreciate his support, encouragement and love all thie while.
Again, he gave his support by grobbling down the cake! hahha...

What a wonderful hubby!!!

Before steaming....

Steaming...

Done!

Closed-up view

Hubby said it looks like 2 puppies kissing each other.. haha...

Li-Ning Singapore Open 2011

Last Saturday, housewife registered the first time of watching Li-Ning Singapore Open 2011 Semi-finals in stadium. It was an exciting personal experience! Thanks to hubby for bringing housewife along. :D

Well, our Datuk Lee Chong Wei skipped Singapore Open to save energy for Indonesia Open (too bad! Housewife wanted to see the match between Lindan and Datuk Lee!) so housewife’s focus was on Lindan. LOL… sorry, housewife wasn’t good in badminton games and has limited knowledge about the players. The only thing housewife knew was housewife lost the bet to hubby when Lindan lost to Datuk Lee in All England 2011 so housewife wished to win the bet again…. :P

The matches were great but housewife looked forward to see Lin Dan, just like many audiences there.  Heheh… When came to the match between Peter Gade and Lindan, everyone were so excited and you could see many people stood up with camera just for some shooting of Lin Dan. He’s really a superstar!

However, Lin Dan withdrew from the match last-minute during finals, claiming he had gastroenteritis. (Luckily hubby suggested to go for semi-finals.. heheh..) His withdrawal definitely upset audience especially his supporters. Heard that the crowds booing him when he apologized on court.

Alright, here’re some pictures housewife took … :D

Li-Ning Singapore Open 2011

See, Lin Dan from far

Match between Lindan & Peter Gade

Lindan lost to Gade for the first match!

Lindan fought the match...

Finally, Lindan receovered from the set down against Peter Gade to win 20-22, 21-17, 21-15 and

the audience started to capture the moments of him....

Painting & Sketching of the Week

After few lessons, housewife decided to pick up sketching skill too.

Here you go for painting and sketching of the week.....

Pumpkin

 Mangosteen & Vase