Ushering in the year of the Rat - squeak!

This year's CNY was one the most laid back ones we ever had. Due to the standoff with my parents and also due to the fact that I had been working for both weekends prior to the CNY holidays, I was not in the mood for visitations of any kind when CNY Day 1 arrived.

It started off on the usual note. It was half day on CNY Eve at the office with less than half the people actually reporting to work. After clearing some paperwork which had been sitting in my In tray for the longest time, I went home for a quick lunch and a snooze. Awakened by clanging pots and pans, I realised that the reunion dinner was at my sis-in-law, Nancy's, place and not ours as was the usual practise. All of us went about preparing our dishes; I was in charge of the cold dish so had to season the jellyfish, prepare the topshell, boil the prawns for making the salad prawns, etc. Dinner was a quick affair as we had to rush home to prepare for the next day's popiah. Bedtime was late as we had so much to do.

On CNY Day 1, we woke up late in the morning, me with a horrible pounding headache (the kind that shoots across the back of your eyes; haven't had this kind for a long time). After popping two paracetemols and going about the usual pleasantries, we started preparing for lunch (Steamboat! Woo hoo!) with the CCK gang coming over to our place. After gobbling up the food, Velouria and my mum-in-law left the house (to follow the CCK gang and to meet her friends respectively), leaving Penny and I to some peace and quiet. We knocked out until about 6pm when we woke up to catch Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone on TV. We decided to sleep early after rotting in front of the TV for so many hours. Heck, we were so lazy to move we just slept in the living room.

On CNY Day 2, it was the same thing again. Woke up late (with the headache that refused to go away), Vel came back with the CCK gang to have lunch, vegetated in front of the TV for the most part of the afternoon, decided to go East Coast for our dinner. And what a ketok case it was! It cost us $36 for 20 sticks of satay and a ketupat, one mixed grill, one plate of fried prawn mee, three coconuts and 2 cups of sugar cane juice. Milled around for a bit looking at the silly people wakeboarding in circles at the lagoon, then we took a drive past Orchard Road just to see how dead it was on the way home.

On CNY Day 3, we decided to drop in on my grandma. Took her out for lunch and went hunting for gifts (for Joel's and Jireh's birthday party later in the day). Before sending her back, we dropped by our place to pick up our swimming gear for later (it was, afterall, a poolside party). Then it was off to Penny's friend, Jean's, place at Bedok after dropping grandma off. Sat for barely half an hour there before we shot off to HarbourFront to get the boys' gifts. Praise the Lord we managed to get everything we wanted there! Rushed to Sarah's place (The Icon) and made it just before 7pm as we planned! Whew! After stuffing ourselves silly and doing a few laps in the pool (it was too c-c-c-cold to swim for too long), we called it a night at about 10.30pm. Rushed home to sleep as we knew that it was going to be another long day tomorrow.

On CNY Day 4, woke up late AGAIN! Arrived at church at 9.30am when the guys were already halfway through jamming! Urggh! We didn't join the rest of the people for lunch as they were eating at Botak Jones. After so many days of pigging out, we were longing for something soupy so we headed for Bao Gong for our favourite sliced fish beehoon. But being the pig that I am, I had to have my beef hor fun. Vel fell asleep halfway there so we just left her lying on the chairs as we gobbled our food and finished it off with a box of durian puffs. We went home for a nap, but I was awokened by the incessant ringing of our home phone. Got so fed up that I plucked out the phone line. But since I was already up, decided to spend some time with my PS2. Spent the rest of the night watching Spiderman on TV and getting ready for work.

Time flies when you're having fun. Just like that, our four-day break was over.

Where did January go?

Time flies. Really. One moment we're busy celebrating Christmas in church, then I got entangled in the whole Sharapova hoopla with the last minute promotion that we slapped together. Before I knew it New Year came and we were making resolutions and the usual nonsense (no countdown party though, we didn't even stay up to watch the cheesy countdown show on TV).

A few wasted parking coupons and some stressful weeks later, I find myself at the end of Janaury. Eagerly awaiting the nice break that is coming with the Lunar New Year, I wonder to myself where did January go? I'm sure February will fly by as fast and I'll be wondering the same thing four weeks later as I wish myself Happy Birthday.

My point? Time flies by whether we like it or not and it sucks. I always don't seem to have enough time to do all the things I'm supposed to.

And all my paperwork from December is still piled up in my 'In' tray.

Old wedding pix

While clearing our stuff some time back, Penny and I found some of our old wedding photos. These were 4R-sized printouts of the same shots being used in our chunky photo album, which we seldom took out of its box to look at it anyway given the bulk of the tome.

It's hard to imagine we've been married for over 8 years now. Looking back and considering the shit we've gone through, I can only say that it's God's mighty grace that has kept us together for so long. Amen to that!

And the pix look damn 'obiang' now! But these don't look as bad as the indoor shots, at least we got to have our photo taken at the famous Katong 'Red House' bakery before it got torn down.

Also on hindsight, it was ultra silly of us to spend such a bomb on photos that we seldom take a look at. If my memory serves me right, I think we forked out something to the tune of $5ooo. Crazy! I suppose our only consolation is that at least we had a chance to be professionally photographed and that the pictures will stay with us for a long time to come, providing a good laugh every now and then...

'Guan beh zuay lee eh meng tor'

All of us have our guilty pleasures; some listen to Backstreet Boys when they are driving alone, some gorge themselves silly with potato chips when nobody is looking. Me, I love listening to Hokkien songs. There's something heart wrenching yet at the same time endearing about Hokkien songs that no other English song is able to express in a similar capacity.

Just a few days back, Penny came to me ranting and raving about this Hokkien worship song that Nancy had passed to her. She said that this song somehow touched her and she cried when she first heard it.

So this morning we played it in the room and I was amazed. Such simplicity in the lyrics but yet so true, I wanted to cry as well. Below is a rough English translation of the song:

BEING THE LORD’S DISCIPLE
words and music by Kelvin Soh

Hold my hand, Lord Jesus
I ask for Your protection and your guidance
Protect my heart and guide my steps
That I may never stray from Your way

Hold my hand, Lord Jesus
I ask of You to open the way for me
Step by step, following Your footsteps
Never afraid of how difficult the path may be

CHORUS:
Lord Jesus, oh, Lord Jesus
I want to be Your disciple
Lord Jesus, oh, Lord Jesus
I want to be Your disciple

Somehow the English translation doesn't seem to carry across the same sentiments as the original version. This song is just beautiful and I can't it out of my head.

It's beautiful because it basically summarises Luke 9:23: Then he said to them all: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me".

And we all know how difficult that can be.

Jurong 'ink'

After another long, tiring day at work - we had a last dance rehearsal at the event location of our sales conference- I finally got home at about 9pm. I could just muster enough strength to down some porridge (despite having a 2 pc KFC meal earlier) and get down to preparing for the next day's program. This included ripping off the sleeves of my T-shirt and applying fake tattoos on my arm. We were, after all, doing Kal Ho Na Ho (a Bollywood dance item).

I never thought much of fake tattoos before. Applying these now brought me back to my younger days when we used to play with those on the wrappers of 10-cent bubble gums available at mamak stalls. Velouria was her usual curious self and kept insisting that she get one as well. Since I had one whole sheet with me, I thought why not and decided to give her a small one.

It surprised me how easy it was to apply. Cut, slap, douse with water, peel and - voila! - there it was! When we were done we were so proud of ourselves that we just had to show them off.

Sometimes, it's these silly little things we do as a family that keeps me going. Takes my mind off the mundane things that keep me awake at night.

Praise the Lord for blessing us with such a nonsensical daughter.

Robbing God

8 "Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. "But you ask, 'How do we rob you?' "In tithes and offerings.
9 You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me.
10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.

Malachi 3:8-10

Just had a sudden revelation while praying to God. I mean, I've known this for a long time, but it never occured to me with such clarity. All this shit that we've been going through with our finances and all, boils down to one simple fact.

I have been robbing God.

It has already been ordained in His Word that tithing is part and parcel of obeying him. But time and again, I have been compromising on my tithes to pay our bills and trying to resolve everything MY way. I decided that this has to stop somehow so I started my New Year with my tithing again. I even forced myself to give more than 10%, not so that I can claim credit for it but because God deserves all the glory and honour.

My prayer and resolution for 2008 is that God will fill me with His Holy Spirit so that I will learn to fear and revere Him even more through His Word and that He will break this stronghold of finances that continue to bind me.

I am, after all, the strength of the household and all things must be set right in me first before everything else will fall in place.

Rest

Come to me, all you are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Matthew 11:28

The past few weeks have been really depressing. Had another disagreement with my parents so we aren't talking to them now. Penny and I just have so much to deal with at the moment that we decided it's best for everybody that we leave them alone for now.

Our finances are becoming a strain on us. Again, this month I've compromised on my tithing to pay our bills. Guilt stricken, I keep crying out to God to forgive me for 'robbing' His kingdom. I've got so much to do at work, what with the new product launch in January, keeping up with all the paperwork and with dance rehearsals (for our marketing conference in Jan 2008) coming up.

Haven't been sleeping well either. The slightest noise keeps me awake at night (there's a lone bird that keeps chirping at night) and I had to put on ear plugs to go to sleep. But that didn't help much too as the sound of my own breathing was amplified a hundred fold within my ear canals. By the time I got to sleep, the birds (all of them, not just the loner from the night before) started chirping and it was dawn again.

Prayed to God two nights back and told Him that I was really drained and all I needed was some good quality sleep. For the first time in two weeks, I fell asleep without ear plugs. I woke up to the sound of chirping birds and the purplish sky outside the window. I thought to myself 'Wow, what a beautiful day!' (though the sky turned dark later in the morning and rained for the next two days; I'm sure this was God's way of motivating me). For some reason, that depressive feeling was gone. Not that my problems had gone away; I knew we still had bills to pay, I knew there was still shit to clear at work. But somehow I felt a heavy burden being lifted from my shoulders and felt so much lighter and happier.

All because I serve an Almighty God.