First Love…never let it go

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.

I appreciate the guest post, Jewel Rodgers.

Why in the world would anyone choose not to have air-conditioning? I mean, I guess I understand if you live somewhere like Canada, but I live here in Texas… I don’t know how the previous owners of my house possibly made it through one summer without AC. I didn’t even think to check when I bought the place since the idea of not having air conditioning was so absurd and I bought in December when it wasn’t needed. It’s been really expenses putting in a brand-new air-conditioning unit but I think it’s finally installed correctly and now my home is cool. It runs off of electric, so I did some research on sites like http://www.texaselectricityproviders.com/stream-energy-texas/Texas/A/Aransas-Pass/ to make sure I was getting the best electricity rate for my money. I was so sick of walking around my house sweating, and I couldn’t understand how anyone had ever lived here before. Thank goodness all this is getting resolved just in time for summer since last week this adventure was over 90° every single day. Crazy people!

Looking at hubby’s business sales, I am so tempted to start working again. I dislike the thoughts of having not enough by month end to pay for our monthly expenses. I dislike having to think twice before having a meal at a food court. I dislike having to choose a cheaper food than the food that I want/like to eat which is sometimes (ok, most of the time) expensive. I wonder whether my ex-company is willing to hire me again after leaving them for 3 years. I wonder whether they will allow me to work only 5 hours a day for half the pay that I used to be paid. At least with that half month pay, I can cover the home loan installment and education insurance. Then maybe wealth management company like Missoula, MT wealth management group can help me manage my income so that I can gain more from it. But then, I can only work when my last baby can eat adult food, that is another half a year to go. Let’s see how things go by then.

I was pretty upset with myself for forgetting my firstborn son’s birthday. He is the son that we have been waiting for after having 2 girls. How could I forget? He is also the only child that I gave birth without hubby beside me in the labor room. I asked my son whether he is angry at me for forgetting his birthday and not buying any birthday present for him, not even a barcode scanner. He told me this, “Mommy, I cannot get angry because today is my birthday.” He also forbade me from scolding him throughout the day. He said, “Today is my birthday, you also cannot get angry with me.” 0.o

To compensate my forgetfulness about his 5th birthday, I allowed my son to spend his birthday angpow money to buy a few kids games of his choice. He bought a kite but got no chance to play with it yet because daddy is busy working in the evening and no one can bring him to the beach to fly his kite. He bought 2 water guns to play with his 2yo brother and a set of shooting jets. We also brought him to McD for dinner on his birthday.

For the first time after 8 years of having children, I forgotten one of my children’s birthday and he is my firstborn son. Months before his birthday, I did plan to have a birthday party for him and get the jungle gym installation connecticut to put up a swing and slide set in our backyard for his friends to play. Unfortunately when his birthday month came, I was down with mastitis, my MIL was hospitalised due to appendicitis and one of my nieces was hospitalised for a day due to a deep cut on her nose bridge. Due to all those, I totally forgotten about my son’s birthday. If not for my hubby who told us about it on the day after he came home from the hospital, I will totally forgotten about his birthday day.

Praise God after more than a week, I am completely healed from mastitis. By His blood I am healed. I must remember that Jesus has suffered for me on the cross, so that I do have have to suffer anymore. I must remember to claim His healing power. By His stripe, I am healed.

But then if someone injured me intentionally or accidentally, I must claim my medical cost from the other party. If they refused to pay, I shall get Austin Personal Injury Lawyer to help me out with the claim. The attorneys and counselors at O’Hanlon, McCollom & Demerath – Personal Injury Lawyers – 808 West Avenue, Austin, TX. 78701 – 512-494-9949 concentrate their practice on personal injury and auto accident cases. These professionals will vigorously fight for my full recovery.

My hubby is on a stingy mode now. No more dining out after church with the children anymore. Can only dine out with the children on special occasion only. That will be probably less than 10 times a year. I have no say coz I do not bring home the bread anymore. In time like this, how I wish I am still earning my own income.