Archive for October, 2010

After all this while I’ve been blogging on this blog, I didn’t realize that this blog is actually slightly more than 2 years old.  Which reminded me to check my webhosting account. I’ve first managed web hosting of my own since 3 years ago I think. But I’ve been with my current webhost for about 2 years. How time does fly. I didn’t notice that I’ve used quite a lot of disk space.

I’ve been blogging about all sort of things since 2003. Stopped blogging when I started working so I didn’t have the time to blog. Only to start back again when I got pregnant in 2005 and been blogging and got a few other blogs set up ever since then.

It is true that when you are enjoying something tremendously, you wouldn’t even notice how the time passes by. It’s been 5 years since I started blogging actively. And I do hope there will be more years to come.

It rained the whole day yesterday, so we are quite thankful that today is such a sunny and beautiful day. Last weekend we spent the time clearing up the weekend house garden again. Took us nearly 8 hours to rake all the leaves and burn them. Next week, we may have to go to help grandma clear up her garden. 95 year old living alone, she really couldn’t do much. At her age I suppose, even the best msm cream wouldn’t make her move her joints faster. There is one benefit about living in a flat that you can’t get when living in a house – you don’t get to work too hard maintaining your garden.

Reviewing back my Japanese studies today. The teacher is moving out of the country to find a better future else where. So there’ll be a new teacher taking over. Won’t be the same that’s all I can say. Different teacher, different way of teaching. But we all manage it.  The  next time, I’m hoping to look for a native Japanese teacher. Saw some advertisement by private teachers from Japan at the Japan foundation. Just thought that it might help with my listening skills and get to know the language from a native perspective.

I just hope that both this Saturday and Sunday, we’ll be having good weather to do garden work and go hiking at the nearby hills to enjoy the Autumn scenery.

As a teenager I used to love to read about anything and everything about vampirism. I still can remember how I had a crush on Brad Pitt when he acted on ‘Interview with the vampire’. I even did a special report on vampirism in English class at the University – the history of possible origin, myths, legends and also the scientific explanation and such.

I’m not sure why actually I like all things vampirish. Perhaps the mystery of walking the earth and seeing through all the historical events, or perhaps because of the beauty and forever young look – no need for the best anti wrinkle cream (Well, at least that’s how they romaticised the vampires on Western television).

From where I come from – South East Asia – vampires are not potrayed as beautiful, flawless skinned, walking dead. But a woman with long, ugly, wiry hair, wearing a soiled white robe, and have a white faceless face. They don’t mingle with people like the western vampires do, but fly around, sitting on trees, laughing and screaming in an eerie way. Not at all like Anne Rice’s vampire. When in Europe and America, some people even dream of turning into a vampire, but nobody would want to be a South East Asian vampire.

I like the western vampires better I think. They are much more interesting. And the fact that they look somewhat human, they aren’t as scary.

I’d like to think myself as a person open to change. Most of the time I am. But the rest of the time it can be pretty tough to be so. I’m open to new ideas and information. Willing to adapt if I can. I have no particular best night cream that I use for example. Well, not yet at least.

But I do have a comfort zone that is far to comfortable for me that some people even told me to change a little bit. For years I would order the same value meal everytime I go to Mc Donalds. I prefer to wear the same type of clothes. Things like that. To some friends, it’s annoying. Unadventurous they say.

Sometimes I do think about changing. Be more adventurous. Brave to try. But as they say, sometimes the hardest part is taking the first step to change. Well, perhaps I should start small first – order something new when I go to McD. LOL

Give and take, we have about 2 more months to prepare for Christmas. I mean to prepare the money for Christmas shopping if you haven’t done so. I suppose it would be the time to find for the best diet pills for women too since there is still ample time to lose weight and look great for Christmas – I always look forward to compliments about how much slimmer I look when visiting relatives for Christmas celebration.

Knowing what to buy and at what price is always a good start. Collecting the catalogues from the supermarkets and checking out the things that they have to offer – mp3 players, books, wallet, perfume are a few things in mind. I really look forward to Christmas shopping.

Isn’t it just wonderful that happiness can come just by merely being appreciative of the littlest things that you have in your life?? Like knowing you have enough milk for the week for the whole family sitting in your fridge. Or the delight you felt eating that nice, sweet, and juicy corn for lunch. The comfort of getting to buy stuff  online easily – nds games, levi’s jeans, books, apidexin in stores online, and so on.

I’ve been doing that mental exercise for the past couple of weeks and I have to say that it makes me calm. Makes me feel like I don’t have to worry anymore. Allowing me to focus more in the present. Be appreciative that I am living today, well and healthy. As long as I stay that way, there is hope for my tomorrows to be better.

Cool thing this appreciation thing.

I have been doing a lot of reading and soul searching lately. I would drink in any information that I feel would make me feel good about my circumstance and help me be a better person. I am open to anything that is good.

Recently I came upon the teachings of ‘Abraham’ through Esther Hicks. The first time I heard a talk by Abraham, I just felt that it was true. Felt it. Though I am not so much into believing about channeling spirits or what not. As that is what Abraham is , a non-physical being speaking through Esther a physical being, giving answers to how we can be happy or achieve our dreams. (Law of attraction) Although I have this skepticism, and have this thinking that this may be a fraud. But I follow true to what Buddha recommends: “if the teachings work for you, then adopt them, if not, then leave them be.” If it does good and it doesn’t hurt no one to follow it, why not? It’s all about the message and not who the messenger is, they say too.

The main part of the teaching that I understand is to be appreciative first of what, who and where you are. Find happiness in every little things in your life. When you have done this successfully, you will be aligned with your Energy source and the universe (call it God if you may) will provide you with everything you need in your life to make it easier and comfortable. The only encumbrance to the fullfilment of one’s desires are usually oneself, when one dwells in negativity and unhappiness. If you get a free loaf of near expiring bread from the local baker, you ‘milk’ the experience as being a happy one. You save money and you get something to eat for your family. Something to be thankful for and feel good about.

From listening to workshops or talks by Abraham on Youtube I hung around at the forums. Reading more about the teachings, the manifestations that the followers claim to get after they applied the teachings into their lives.

Today, while meditating upon the things that I want to have or do, it felt so good. I actually felt how good life is. Then when opened my eyes and looked straight up, and saw this box on top of the cupboard. On the box I saw these words written on it: “Life’s good”. Hah! I saw the box hundreds of times I think, but I just never noticed it.  Coincidence or a message from the universe/God??

I’m not too sure about the message thing, but I’m happy that being appreciative open your eyes to things that makes you happy and appreciative of life. It is like when one is open to being appreciative and open to any answers to help one feel good, they can notice the answers to happiness everywhere. Even on a box of arturo fuente cigars perhaps, despite not being a smoker.

The weather was just so wonderful this morning that I hope that it would stay that way for the weekend. Even now as I look at my window, I can see the sun shinging so brightly and the sky so clear. Perhaps we should go and spend sometime at the weekend house.

Some weeks ago we’ve managed to finally clean up, and set up furnitures and appliances in the weekend house. The house is rather old – slightly more than a 100 years old I was told  – and there were many things to do to make it comfortable. Though we’ve re-organized the storage room but still couldn’t do anything yet with some of the old furnitures that need to be repaired. Too broken to be used, too nice to be thrown away. Some hardware restoration need to be done too before they can be put together. So still work to do on that.

Fortunately, that is the only thing that hasn’t been done yet. Now we can relax more and work less if we spend the weekend there. Time to reap the effort of our hard work of making the place a lot more comfortable than it was before.

It sure is difficult to put down a good book when you start reading one. I was up rather late, reading ‘Pride & Prejudice” for the humpteenth time. Only to be able to put it down at about 2 am, more or less. I made myself put it down because I need to wake up at 6 am. 4 hours of sleep. Less than that actually since it took me sometime to drift myself to sleep. Not counting the number of times I woke up.

6 am, I dragged myself out of bed, went to the bathroom, stared at the bathroom sink for a few minutes, (my brain was still half asleep) washed my face, brushed my teeth and went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. When everyone is out of the house leaving me alone, I went straight back to bed. Woke up at 12 pm.

I once wrote about there being no such thing as a morning person or night person. Well, due to my husband’s somewhat logical argument. But I found out that this isn’t true and that research has been conducted saying that some people can be genetically a night owl. I’ve always been a night person since I was a teen. Despite myself trying to get to bed early, I would be tossing and turning in bed till it’s late. Or even when I’m tired due to working in the day, I’d still wouldn’t be able to sleep early and wake up early.

Tough I tell ya, being a night person living in a world where you are expected to be a morning person.

People say that it is easy to fall in love, but hard to maintain it. It’s not easy to maintain a happy marriage. I know, I’ve been in one for 6 years now. Plenty of ups and downs that were led together. That is why, for every anniversary milestone a couple celebrates together they should be proud of themselves for having reached that far.

Although I love getting presents for loved ones, choosing gifts isn’t really something I am good at. I’ve always had a hard time choosing an anniversary gift. Hence, any help I could get is always appreciated. A list of anniversary gifts by year in particular may be something that people find rather useful in helping them choose an anniversary gift.

If a couple celebrates their second wedding anniversary for example, the gifts that they should get for each other should be made of cotton or has cotton in it.

# 1st: Paper
# 2nd: Cotton
# 3rd: Leather
# 4th: Fruit
# 5th: Wood
# 6th: Candy
# 7th: Wool
# 8th: Bronze
# 9th: Pottery
# 10th: Aluminum
# 11th: Steel
# 12th: Silk
# 13th: Lace
# 14th: Ivory
# 15th: Crystal
# 16th: Wax
# 17th: Shell
# 18th: Feather
# 19th: Chili Pepper
# 20th: China/Porecelain
# 25 Year Anniversary Gifts: Silver
# 50 Year Anniversary Gifts: Gold

An anniversary gift doesn’t have to be something expensive since the good thing about being happily married, there is a gift of love every single day of married life.