First Love…never let it go

A picture began circulating in November. It should be “The Picture of the Year,” or perhaps, “Picture of the Decade.” It won’t be. In fact, unless you obtained a copy of the U.S. paper which published it, you probably would never have seen it.

The picture is that of a 21-week-old unborn baby named Samuel Alexander Armas, who is being operated on by surgeon named Joseph Bruner. The baby was diagnosed with spina bifida and would not survive if removed from his mother’s womb. Little Samuel’s mother, Julie Armas, is an obstetrics nurse in Atlanta. She knew of Dr. Bruner’s remarkable surgical procedure. Practicing at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, he performs these special operations while the baby is still in the womb.

During the procedure, the doctor removes the uterus via C-section and makes a small incision to operate on the baby. As Dr. Bruner completed the surgery on Samuel, the little guy reached his tiny, but fully developed hand through the incision and firmly grasped the surgeon’s finger. Dr. Bruner was reported as saying that when his finger was grasped, it was the most emotional moment of his life, and that for an instant during the procedure he was just frozen, totally immobile.

The photograph captures this amazing event with perfect clarity. The editors titled the picture, “Hand of Hope.” The text explaining the picture begins, “The tiny hand of 21-week-old fetus Samuel Alexander Armas emerges from the mother’s uterus to grasp the finger of Dr. Joseph Bruner as if thanking the doctor for the gift of life.”

Little Samuel’s mother said they “wept for days” when they saw the picture. She said, “The photo reminds us pregnancy isn’t about disability or an illness, it’s about a little person” Samuel was born in perfect health, the operation 100 percent successful. Now see the actual picture, and it is awesome…incredible….and hey, pass it on! The world needs to see this one!
— with Brittany Ogilvie.

This morning I realised that I stink! I have not bathed for more than 24 hours. As I was taking my shower and scrubbing myself hard and thoroughly, how I wish I have a clawfoot bathtub. Soaking myself in water mixed with lavender oil and listening to my favorite music. I am sure all my pain will go away for that moment. When I open my eyes, eh..where’s my bathtub?

I have been sick for 2 days already. The moment I woke up early yesterday’s morning, I felt something no right with my body. It felt strange. Somehow, I know I am going to fall sick but I tried to shove off the feeling and continue with my daily routine. Just after I am done with the basic house chores, I threw up my breakfast. The headache started to join in and then the stomach upset. I felt so sleepy after that and all I wanted to do was sleep, sleep and sleep the whole day. I tried drinking lots of water as I cannot be hospitalised looking at nursing uniforms and handsome doctors again. I have 5 kids to mind you know.

Today, after a doze of paracetamol, the headache went away for a lil while but once the medicine worn off, the headache came back but not as severe as before. I hope and pray that I’ll be to normal by tomorrow. I have pending 3 days laundry.

Having Michelle as his wife is very challenging when it comes to buying gift her. To this date, he has yet to present the perfect gift for her. The gift must be very practical. Most of the time, he can’t afford the practical gift that she wanted. She used to be very high maintenance but having him as her husband, she has mellowed down a lot. She tried her best to live within his means. She still hopes that one day God will bless them financially; more than they could ever imagine. And maybe at that time, she could afford the perfect gift that she has always dreamed of.

Since I stopped working, I only buy new shoes and new clothing for my children once a year. That is for the Chinese New Year celebration. I have turned into my parents. When I was small, I only get new shoe, not even privo shoes, just a normal shoe from the “Kedai Pondok” a month before the Chinese New Year. Sad huh? At that time lar. Thinking back, it is a good practice because we appreciated our shoes and took good care of them. Now, I want my children to learn the same thing like I did.

We are now in the Hungry Ghost month according to the Chinese Lunar calendar. For the past 2 weekends, the Chinese has been busy praying and offering yummilicous food to the hungry ghost! Ghost can eat meh? Anyway, is Halloween around the corner too because I see some gift shops started selling halloween props.

As for me, I have been enjoying good food for the past 2 weekends. I get to eat the food they prepared before they offer them to the hungry ghost. No wonder I put on weight. Don’t think I can loose weight too soon because after the Hungry Ghost Month is the Mooncake Festival Month. Yum!

I know that buying 4D is against biblical principle because it is a form of gambling.

So, what do you do if you dream of a 4 digit number? For non-believer they will definitely try their “luck”.

Hubby dreamed of a 4D number a few days ago. We are in need of some extra cash. Our conscience tells us that we cannot buy. Hubby told his mom and his mom bought the number! The number is 7273. So, did we strike rich with that number? Definitely not! The number that came out was 2273. Miss one number.

Hubby said, the moral of the story is…Don’t gamble coz the gambling company is the one that will always win.

Guest post written by my buddy Keith Kramer

My mom thinks we don’t spend enough time talking so I came up with a really great solution. Every week on Thursdays we have a movie appointment where we watch a movie on TV together over the phone. She loves it and I get lots of credit for being a great daughter! We both have tvBYDirect.com satellite so our channels are the same and we alternate who gets to pick which is a lot of fun. I know she really appreciates the time we get to spend “together” and I just like getting to watch the newest releases when they come out. The only problem is that we have totally different tastes in movies but I guess that’s why we alternate, right? I love my mom to death but I can’t afford to get on a plane and see her as often as I like so this seems like a really good solution in the long run. Mom, if you’re reading this, know how much I love you and how much I want to be a good daughter!

Most homes have more than one tv. I am one that do not like that idea. I used to live in a house that has more than one tv. One for the grandparents, one for the parents and one for the children. The reason is no one fights for the channel that they wanted to watch.

Now, having my own family, we hope not to do the same. For the past 10 years, we have only one tv at home and we hardly watch it. We limit the hours my children can sit in front of the idiot box and the channel they can watch. However, a month ago, one of my BIL’s brought home one of those 29″ samsung lcd tvs from his friend’s who has migrated oversea. My MIL wants to keep it so that she can watch tv from the kitchen. Aiyo! She hardly watch tv when the maid is not around. She does not have to “fight” with us for the channel that she wants to watch. Why is the need of having another tv at home?

Saturday is my busiest day in a week. I don’t even have time to relax and smoke my macanudo cigars. Hehehe, I don’t smoke but just to let you imagine how busy I am lar. When the kids are not at school, I have more work to be done. First of all, my “working” time is shorten because I woke up 2 hours later than on weekdays. I need to catch up on my lack of sleep during weekdays.

The moment I wake up, I need to do my laundry, some I did the night before, I just have to hang them under the sun. Their school uniforms and shoes to hand wash. I need to prepare breakfast, sweep the floor, mop the floor and wash the verandahs because I need to keep the house clean for the children to play. I need to cook, feed my babies and bathe them. Later in the afternoon, there’s clothes and cloth nappies to fold and uniforms to iron. At the same time, I have to attend to my children and try my very best to stop them from messing up the house.

Since I did not get my day off last Sunday, I’m claiming it today because hubby is around. He did the sweeping, mopping, and washing the verandahs. My eldest helped to wipe off the dust on the furniture, bookshelf, tv, dvd player and Astro decoder. As for lunch, I packed Chicken Rice for everyone.

I hope to have a relaxing weekend this week.

Today, our maid should return to Malaysia and it has been an hour since the plane touched down LCCT. We still have not received any call or sms from her. She did not reply my earlier sms too. Even though we lose in term of the expenses incurred when hiring her and also sending her back for the holiday, we don’t feel upset that she did not return because most of us don’t like her attitude and she is rough with my children too. My eldest girl shouted “Hurray!” when I told her that Kakak is not coming back. We do not plan to hire a new maid either. By God’s strength and wisdom, we can managed the household and also taking care of MIL.

One of the disadvantagse of not having a maid is, we can’t leave MIL alone at home when we need to go out. Either we leave our children to accompany her while we go dating or bring her along with the whole family. If we need to bring her out with us, our sedan can’t accommodate her. Time to buy an MPV? A motorhome would be fun but motorhome repairs can be quite costly right? We are praying that God will provide us with finance to buy an MPV soon.

Picture source

Hubby is back from Medan and he did not forget the Ambon Cake that I asked him to buy. He bought one original flavour and another, pandan with cheese. I prefer the original ones. Unfortunately, I forgotten to take photo of it. However, the taste is not as good as the first one that I tried many years ago. Too commercialize already until the quality deteriorates.

Hubby left for Medan today for a mission trip. He will be there for about a week. I hope he would be able to buy Ambon cake for us. The last time he went to Indonesia, he brought bake one Ambon cake and I couldn’t get enough of it. This time, I told him to buy 2 Ambon Cake. Gonna eat till I drop. At the same time, I hope he would also have sometime to hunt for log furniture. I heard they have good quality log furniture at a very cheap price.

On a serious note, please pray for him and his team that they will be able to minister to the Christians in Medan. Pray that their presence there will be an encouragement to the Christians there and also to his team members as well. Don’t forget to pray for me and my 5 kids.

Thank you!

I am currently watching Perfect Match. It is a romance, comedy Korean drama. The lead actor (Lee Min Ho) is so good looking. His feature is more beautiful than the lead actress. hehehe. Anyway, in one of the episodes, one of his construction worker met with an accident. He was hospitalised and managed to claim his social security benefits. Case closed? Not yet because the villain in this drama bribed him to press charges on the lead actor. The villain wants to get back at the lead actor for taking his ex-girlfriend. In this world, some people will do all kind of bad stuff to get whatever they desire.

Finally Baby-Faced Beauty has ended at episode 20. This is the Korean Drama that hubby and I has been following since last month. The story is about a 34 year old lady striving to achieve her dream of becoming a fashion designer. Throughout the challenges that she has to go through to achieve her dream, she received much help and support from her colleague, a young man 7 years younger than her. He even put up a Trade show booth to help promote her design. In the end they fell in love and live happily ever after.

The cyber cafe that hubby bought over needs more desktop computers. The previous owner only placed 10 computers in the CC. Out of the 10, I think 3-4 of them is not fit to use anymore. We are currently waiting for desktop computers sale to get a good bargain on the desktop computers. In the meantime, we just reformatted those computers and hope it will last till we get new ones.

I wonder whether my previous employer would be willing to employ me again. If they want me back, I wonder whether they will allow me to work half a day only. They know I am an efficient and fast worker. When I was working for them, I can complete all my job within half a day and the other half of the day, I would be reading, chatting or on the web. hehe. I am good at multitasking too that is reason I can complete my work fast. Sometimes when I am bored in the office, I will go down to the production area and help move things around with the material handling equipment of course. And sometimes, I will be at the lab, learning from the chemist about the basic lab test. Who wants to hire me? Half day only arh.

A year ago, we got summoned by the traffic police during a road block coz my old junk car’s road tax expired a day before. The reason I forgotten because I was hospitalised a few days before that and I have not been driving my old junk. This year, I set a reminder in my cell phone. Not gonna get summon again this year. I still have 3 more weeks to hunt for the cheapest car insurance rate. Starting this year, car insurance rate for old junks are very expensive and not many insurance company want to sell it. I am checking out Wholesaleinsurance.net to see whether they got sell cheap car insurance for old junks or not.

Hubby and another church member bought over an internet cafe. As you all know, we do not have any savings besides our gold investment account. To get the capital to start the business, we were planning tosell gold at goldfellow.com. I was kind of reluctant to sell my gold because they are our children’s education fund and the price of gold keeps on increasing each year. The percentage of increase is more than the bank loan interest. And yet at the same time, we do not want to borrow from the bank. Thank God I have a retired dad who is quite spendthrift. I managed to loan from him some cash. I still have to sell my gold but not so much anymore lar.

I really appreciate that one of my SIL is willing to care for my MIL. She brought her for her follow up check up, she cooks for her breakfast, lunch, dinner and also Chinese herbs to help expedite her recovery. She and her husband even sleep in the same room as my MIL.

Unfortunately, she is not considerate enough when it comes to sleeping with my MIL. She is fat and no doubt that she feels hot most of the time. So she needs the air-cond on from the moment she goes to bed till the moment she wakes up. On the contrary, my MIL is thin, old and she can’t be exposed to cold temperature for a long period of time. She hardly switch on the fan even when she is napping in the afternoon. What more at night when the weather is cold.

My MIL is a very nice lady. She did not complain but uses 2 layers of blanket when sleeping with them. For the past 2 days, it rained in the wee hour of the morning. Instead of switching off the air-cond, my BIL covered his mother with another layer of blanket!

Almost every morning I ask her whether she is cold because my bedroom is just next to hers and I felt so cold with only a fan spinning at No.2. Surprisingly she told me she did not feel cold because she was fast asleep. Well, I hope she won’t experience aching bones in the near future. Tau-tau aja lar, dah tua kan.