Pandemic!

It has changed our lives; work from home, social distancing, needing to tap identification just to get groceries.

In-laws got stuck in the Malaysia's lockdown in a routine trip back to Ipoh during March school holidays. I was caught in the dilemma of facilitating them back or just leaving them there... Of cos life is hectic without them to do the household chores, i read books for kids until lips crack and wash dishes until cuticles dried and peeled. However, life is also peaceful without them, and peace is priceless. I'm enjoying the extra space, an extra room for me to work at night, and currently blogging from my workspace set up in their room. We bought a dryer, a microwave oven (yay to homemade wedges!), and ordered tingkat for lunch and dinner. I spent a whole load of time with the kids, and that too is priceless. The thought of my mother-in-law chasing me off so that she can make Rachel nap is already sending my eyes rolling off. Wow and I haven't mentioned, it is soooooo liberating to be able to roam around the kitchen anytime i want! When mother in law in the house, she would be almost always in the kitchen, and I can't find anything, and she would ask me what I'm looking for, then either she don't know what it is, or she doesn't know where it is (?!) and she would call my father in law to come to help to find and make a hooha out of it. Drama, I'm pretty done with it.

The pandemic drove up home deliveries for groceries and food. Alex was just consumed by the huge increase in merchants coming onboard and was working almost 24/7. With his awesome home office setup with 3 monitors plus microphone stand, the kids kept disturbing him, sitting on his lap or even table during his calls (calls after calls.. endless). We worked at night in shifts, he would work from 9pm to 1/2/3am or depending what time I would wake up and knock on his glass door to signal the end of his work shift. Then, there were the all-nighters when the son would look for him at around 7am and then he would begin his sleep when all of us has woken up. Yup, that also meant I was alone with the kids for whole mornings. Those were tough days.

It just didn't help that my work is also essential business so when my mind was on work, I would get more impatient with the kids. That was definitely wrong and not helpful for the kids. So I started regularly waking up to work from 3am to whatever time my son would come to look for me (he has this strange sensor of knowing if I'm near him in his sleep). Most memorable was when I was trying hard to record my training video in the middle of night and he would appear and his voice would get in "Mummy, I want you."

So, I got to the conclusion that my family can only have 1 person busy busy with work. Full Time Work From Home Mum Without Helper is exhausting. I would be washing milk bottles or putting clothes into the washer-dryer from 3am :/ But, I also cannot be completely Stay At Home Mum. I'm actually very thankful for this WFH new norm, it gives me time with kids, lets me go back to office for breather or mental/ social recharge when I need. It is almost the 50% to 70% work arrangement that I had so desired. Just need to see how the meetings stack up from here on and if this is still going to work out for my family.

Which is why I allowed my in laws to be back. Fetching kids from half day school remains a logistics issue, and my father in law being around to take up this daily weekday task would give us more time to play around with.

How will things change when they are back after finishing their SHN next week? I pray for peace at home!

Marriage Convention 2014 Quotables

Fy and Clement invited Alex and I to attend Marriage Convention 2014, I rem it was a rather touching session, ending w couples facing each other, and saying words of encouragement and love. Here's some quotes and handles to last us a lifetime:

什么时候需要婚姻？苦难。感激。疗伤的时候。

Being understanding is more important than being right~~

 Celebrate small wins together. Go through disappointments together. (Stay together).

What man needs from woman: 无论我多失败，他无条件的接纳我。

What woman needs from woman: 无论我分享什么，他都不批判我。

女人是愿意为男人牺牲，只要有讲出感激的话。

把婚姻进行到底～！ 

4 big weddings of 4 close friends coming up end of the year: Damon, Eugene Heng, Mel T, Mandy! 

 

 

 

Goodbye ECOS, Hello Trinity

When I was 4, my aunt brought me and my sisters to church, Emmanuel Church of Singapore. 25 years in this church, this family of brothers and sisters in Christ.

Pastor's Death in Apr 2010 - The Departure of Spiritual Authority
Ever since pastor died, I feel something has changed. Man has come to try to make some changes - renovation, upgrade musical equipment, host children's party with the themes of Transformers, Lego, hold anniversary celebrations a la company D&D. Perhaps these are good things, but I feel that we have lost our focus, there is no spiritual authority to lead us and guide us along a direction we used to be going. I was shocked when David told us at a meeting that we are looking more for a youth pastor than a pastor as the leaders of the church think that's where we need more help. Who are we supposed to talk to when facing a difficult moment in life?

While Pastor has not been one whom u can just call up to lim kopi, he has been the one who make decisions on how the church spend its resources. He was a thrifty man, he focused on building relationships, he would go around asking how are you in his sincere manners. We lost a good man.

Where are we now?
Uncoordinated schedules - discipleship class that goes fortnightly that is the same time as youth bible study.
Youth succession plan of a brother who has left and a brother who is not interested in leading.

I made up my mind to leave the church, but keep the relationships. So we toned it down and gave the convenient reason that Alex doesn't understand the Chinese sermons. Lo and behold, Zhenzhen's reply is to take it as learning Chinese. Her persuasion to stay is that the church needs people to serve in PA and other areas. Really difficult... even Jiayan could say that this is not appropriate reasons, people simply don't go to church to learn chinese?!

But I have no guts to rebutt Zhenzhen. And I'm not interested to argue with her.

Hello Trinity
So we are attending Trinity Christian Centre at Paya Lebar now, few reasons:
- Alex used to attend Trinity at Adam road
- we are comfortable with the worship and sermons, there is a key message every week. sometimes a theme runs through a few weeks, such as the Open Hearts Open Heaven over the past two weeks and Attributes of God over the next five weeks. i love the challenges from the pulpit every week which make me be more of who i want to be during the week
- we would love to join a small group to share our lives with a closer group of like-minded people
- my cousin also attending Trinity clearly has well-behaved kids. she is also able to talk about her pastor like a friend.
- i love the large scale events at Trinity, especially the musicals. hehe. Another one coming up this weekend!

To find the one thing i cannot quit

Always love the sunshine-y voice of Zhi Yong aka Cruz Teng aka WOOHOO! When you hear him, you see sunshine.

He's back to radio, with this statement: "I can quit smoking. But I can't quit radio... Radio is a lifetime passion."

http://www.cruzteng.com/2014/08/04/i-can-quit-smoking-but-i-cant-quit-radio/

Wow right? I'm always envious of people who know what they want to do for life. To be a teacher, a geek, a businessman.. To have a dream, to build a library... My ambitions are small, and my dream is just to have a potato farm. I enjoy engineering because I do well in it, but it never felt like it gave me life.

To find the one thing I cannot quit...

Positive Net Worth!

Net worth turned positive when bonus came in this month! Means if I liquidate all my assets I can choose to pay off the HDB already! of cos, there are some constraints.. cannot liquidate my endowment funds. if pay off HDB then no money left for reno or buy car when COE expires in 2016. no more emergency funds. but that aside, the thought of positive net worth is really shiok! It also makes me feel that i should become more serious in investing the money so it makes all the saving worth it. if not ppl who dont save so much but invest will have more than me... dont feel that i will enjoy that feeling. 

Next step is to reach the 1 mil checkpoint, debt-free (the day when i fully pay off the house) and financial freedom (the day when we can choose to work or not to work). For the house, we will still choose to take a 30 year loan, so we may be financially free but not debt free. the next ten years will be exciting and it will be our goal to reach all the three status by then!

Alex and I thinks that we may never stop working, him wanting to continue his business - even if it's just going down once a week, and me wanting to continue to have a social life by working, even if it's just giving tuition or volunteering.

Photobook, ordered!

There was a promo for a free photobook on groupon last year. and i grabbed the most basic one, really going for free! the promo code expires on 15 Apr.

chose this ready book template. seriously this online scrapbook rocks! tons of fonts, borders, backgrounds, even thematic deco items! super loves.
http://www.photobooksingapore.com/photobooks/everyday-photo-books/item/a-year-in-review

we've spent a few weekends working on it, ploughing through photos of the past 5  years.. gosh! so many photos. 45,000 of them!!! we were supposed to finish the photobook over the past weekend. we were done, except with some captioning and polishing. then we watched soccer. ya that liverpool man city match. and so, we didnt finish. imagine the panic i had last night, at 11pm trying to beat that overloaded server cos i thought by 15 Apr, 12midnight cannot use anymore. that server kept hanging and we couldnt access the page!!! mehhhh.

just tried to use the voucher code and it works! super looking forward to receiving our first ever photobook! :):)

more to come? :)

Home decor

Without knowing which style our house would eventually take on, Alex and I have bought some items which we've both loved! Adding to the confusion, cos all different styles!

Homely resort.

Vintage. Had the idea of one room one country. Quite awesome thought.

Industrial. Typography.

How to mix them together for a coherent style?