Just a few days ago, while I was driving on the highway, the sky was unexpectedly blue with white marsh-mallow like clouds soaked in light purple color. It was breathtaking.
]]>This is working out between me and mum lately. I used to argue with her all the time. When I think of the root cause of any little arguments between us is that we are so much alike - dominant, difficult to please, a bad communicator, etc. I was mirroring what she did. Now she is an old lady, I cannot expect her to change. I need to change. Compromising without losing my stand point is working magic for our relationship. This week, she even listens to my suggestion when she normally turned deaf to what I said. Isn't that wonderful ?!
]]>When I nearly finished my hot chocolate, Gasper had finished his chicken burger and took a zip of his hot chocolate. 'Um...so yummy !' one second after he said that, bang ! the glass of hot chocolate slipped out of his hand and the hot chocolate was split all over the place, the table, the floor, the chair, a few drops on the woman sitting next table. The poor cleaning lady came out clean all the mess.
'Sorry, mum.' This time I have the feeling he knew he was careless.
'It is OK.' the moment I saw his clothes soaked in chocolate stains, I wanted to laugh. He was just like me, Mr. Careless & Forgetful.
A little chat goes on after dinner.
'Have you ever thought of openning up a restaurant ?' I asked.
'No, it is a different thing when you cook for living.' Karina said.
'I find it a lot more difficult to cook for a group of people than just 3 to 4 people.' I said.
'Yes, all you need to do is to have the correct amount of ingredients. I cooked for a gathering of 200 people last month.' Karina said.
'Wow !' I was amazed.
Here is a soup Karina tought me :
Sai Yeung Choi Soup
Ingredients : Sai Yeung Choi, pork bones, carrots.
Steps : 1. boil water and put pork bones together with 1 pc of ginger into the boiling water for about 1 min, when change color, throw away the water, keep the pork bones for step 2.
2. put a pot of cold water, add in all ingredients, after boil, change to low flame
stew for 2 hours.
Tonight we will go to an Italian restauran, yeh, just the 2 of us. (Candle light dinner!)There is an Italian restaurant in Melbourne (inside the Crown Towers) that provides delicious homemade Taramitsu. Last week when my sister in law and I were chatting after dinner, (she cooked the most delicious spegetti with bacon and mushroom in cream sauce that night) That we have found that most Chinese people would fry the spegetti together with other ingradients after boiling spegetti in water. Well, now I learnt from her how to cook spegetti properly.
I am gonna try spegetti in cream sauce next week.
]]>Would it be a nicer world if we buy less ?
]]>Today was the first day of my new partime helper. I don't know if she will last or not. It is very difficult to hire someone right now especially the Chinese New Year is just around the corner. The first thing she told me was she spent an hour in traffic. I feel bad for her because she needs to spend 2 hours for both way. However she has already negotiated this during her phone conversation with me to raise her hourly pay. Well... let's just see if everything turns out OK.
]]>This lunch time, just before going to school, we went to McDonald close by. While we were enjoying food, a mother and a son came in. The mother had no smiles on her face and kept scolding the son. The son was reading a comic book and the mother was trying to get him eat his lunch first. The scene had attracted me and also freaked me out. It was quite familiar because sometimes I was just like that mother. 'please CHANGE immediately !' I said to myself. Look at that poor boy he had no idea what had irritated his fussy mother.
]]>Today, her salary is way up high,
she takes housing allowance,
she gives the company's apartment for her sister to stay in
without telling her boss.
She takes 1 month's leave, the company pays for her flight ticket back home.
Now she holds all back and forth emails with customers,
yeh, she is reluctant to hand over to anyone else in the company
before she leaves for a holiday.
She wants a KAOS.
What would happen in 5 years' time ?
]]>So, you could guess how excited they are. Last night, they wanted me to wake them up at 6:00am this morning. I have put the smaller gifts into the Christmas socks that they prepared for themselves, the big ones in another packing. My old boy got up at sometime around 4am when he went to the bathroom and put his gift at my bedside, how sweet ! I pretended that I did not know.
The moment of opening wrappers came ! I opened up mine, it is a book that my old boy chose for me, a story book called "The Dowry Bride". My little one gave me a little book called "To a lovely Mother" by Helen Exley. I love the presents they chose.
They have opened up theirs. They love the electronic toothbrushes the best.
It is the 1st year that we did this presents exchange program and it turned out to be very fun. It is also the 1st time that everyone obeyed the rule of "open gifts only on boxing day". We usually open up presents very early.
]]>Well, this is life. Now the 'float' is gone and we are on our own. We will just have to go on and start a new page.
]]>We have a helper at home I guess that is a very good excuse of not doing housework. Everything comes so easily, all of us start to take things for granted. At the same time of things are taken for granted, we also forgot how to appreciate what we have.
]]>As a parent, we always tend to place ourselves in a higher position that we end up in a power struggle with our kids. "no, you should do that first" What have they learnt from us ?
"we are never equal.. you do not respect me...I cannot tolerate..." these ideas usually occur in their little heads. Day after day, the power struggle becomes a routine work and it creates a DEPDENDENT, INDECISIVE, STUBBORN,IRRESPONSIBLE kid.
Having a child is a lot of responsibilities, now I understand why people refuse to have kids.
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However, just within 2 days after 6 'cleaners' had been added in, all the leaves have turned bright green, all moss have been eaten up. These fish are really hard working and they are wonderful !!
]]>Sometimes we might have hurt other's feelings just by speaking things that was not meant, however, it was heard and already hurt others.
Sometimes we gossip about others that somehow gave us the pleasure of doing so, however, time was wasted and could have helped someone in need with that time.
Sometimes we speak of our prouds showing off to our friends how superior we are, however, what we speak are meaningless.
Lot of the times, our wealth, valuable assets, how good we look is a vague identity we carry them on our shoulders like a heavy stone.
Speaking is what we were given for communication, not for other purposes, we should never abuse.
I always wondered a writer of a long story is so great, he/she can come up with any ideas that can grab hold of readers' heart not only for 1 chapter but throughout the whole book.
]]>Money had been poured into properties but less to research which in turn contribute to a better living for our offsprings.
]]>I went over to him, and couldn't help laughing because I bought everything overpriced. He also started laughing. I laughed and laughed until I felt a drop of tear in my eyes. "You are the queen of overpricing." Sure I am.
]]>I will cook Italian vegetable soup, chocolate cake for dessert. Yesterday I tried to bake French bread but unsuccessful. It was a pity because it could go very well with the Italian vegetable soup. I said to everyone, "I will hit you with this bread if you do not behave." The bread comes out as hard as stone. However, the taste is actually OK. I know what to do next time to make it a real French bread.
]]>Last night we went to a piano concert. It was recommended by Gasper's piano teacher. As we have had quite a long day yesterday as usual, by 8 o'clock at night we were quite tired already. The pianoist was excellent, she won a few worldwide competition before. We got more and more sleepy once the music started. Charles fell asleep 10 minutes after the concert started, After 20 minutes later, I heard some snoring. That was from Gasper.
At mid session, we left for home to SWEET BEDS !
]]>Back in my age, I did not do lots of reading. The only book I could remember which interest me a lot that was a Kung Fu book written by Jin Yung a great Chinese author. I finished that series total of 7 books in one summer.
A book called 'how to help kids in their homework' has given a guideline for homework session. For grade 1, should be 10 minutes, grade 2 20 minutes and so on. Maybe my kids are too slow, it is almost impossible to finish homework within less than half an hour. Then the dinner, shower, school computer work, bed time stories, by the time all is quiet, it will be already 10pm the earliest.
I really envy those parents who are in good control of the situation getting a balanced lifestyle with playing and studying at the same time. What is the tactic ? Can anyone give me a good advice ?
]]>Today after sending kids to activities, me and my husband had a quiet time chatting. "I am very happy with our current living environment except the view." He said. It is quite true because we don't have a view. We are at the base level of a high rise building, since it is the base level so we have a 'garden' area surrounded by walls. "Oh yes, I think so too. And I think we are like those frogs who live in a well." Suddenly this Chinese saying has popped into my mind. We both burst into laughs.
]]>It is my turn to go into the bathroom. His pyjamas is on the floor, his face towel is still dry obviously he is not going to wash his face with towel.
This afternoon when he comes home, I sit with him, "Can I have a word with you ?" I ask. "Yes..." He answers. "There are things you are not doing properly during the past 2 weeks. Do you know what they are ?" I continue. "I did not make my bed ?" He takes a guess. "Yes, that is one thing." "I did not put on my jacket before I leave home ?" "Yes, that is another." I can see that he does not have a clue. "did you flush after using the toilet ?" "Uh.." He does not remember. "you did not flush, you did not wash your hands, and you brush teeth in your bed." I list out his 'guilts' and continue, "you are a big boy now, you need to be responsible for your behaviour. Do you know how many germs you have carried into places where you do not even know where ?" "Oh..." He seems understood. "you need to remind yourself of doing the correct things, do you know that ?" "Yes."
Let us see what will happen tomorrow.
]]>Because the school starts at 8:30am, the mother - me would not like to see Gasper going to school so early playing rather than studying, I find a chance to talk to him.
"Gasper, I think we have to do some adjustments from now on. Can I send you to school a bit later, say 8:10am ?" I started the conversation.
"No, mum, my boss asks me to get there by 7:45am, or I will be fired." Gasper stopped me there.
"What do you do with the 45 minutes before class start ?" I asked.
"Well, I play. Actually I only play for 30 minutes, 10 minutes to put my school bag upstairs into the classroom and come down to the lobby. 5 minutes to get ready for morning assembly." Gasper thought he has many good reasons.
"Ok, you have recess during the day to play. So we could leave home 20 minutes later that you can watch some morning news at home. It is also better for all of us, instead of the 10 minutes stuck in traffic, we can have that 10 minutes fully utilised." I also gave lots of points.
"You just want to sleep 20 minutes more." Gasper was offended.
"I will still wake up at 7am like you do, it is really unnecessary to arrive school so early just to play. If you have better reasons like you want to help teachers, you want to do some reading, or you have to join the basketball team, I will be very happy to send you there earlier." I said and continued, "Tomorrow you talk to Jack let him know that and we will start on Wednesday, OK ?"
"Al..right.."
Guess what ? this afternoon, I picked him up at school and asked, "How did you go ?" "Jack said OK. I can be there by 8:10am." Gasper has a happy face now without any worries. "Good, you still can have some time to play." I also has a relief.
]]>The movie carries out a topic everybody talks and at the same time refuses to talk. It really brings out a topic for everyone to think through where they should stand.
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