our wedding anniversaries

may 16th 2007, husband was away in london for almost a month. so he wasn't around for our little girl's birthday (which was on the same day as our wedding anniversary) as well as for our 9th wedding anniversary. but i had a surprise coming my way that day. our neighbor friend arrived at my front door with a beautiful bouquet of one of my favorite flowers - pink lilies! turns out that my husband had arranged for a bouquet of flowers to be delivered to me on this day of our anniversary. the bouquet was gorgeous, and it was a beautiful gesture.

so today's may 20th, and we had just celebrated our 10th anniversary (!) and our daughter's 6th birthday just a few days ago. wow, 10 years. sounds like a long time, but felt like it had gone by so quickly. particularly when your years has just been busy, busy, busy.

well, soon we will not be so busy, i think, i hope.

so we got married on may 16th 1998. let me look back on how we had celebrated our past anniversaries. 1st anniversary - vacation/business trip in los angeles, u.s. it was a greta trip and a great time with wonderful memories. we had our anniversary dinner in a nice restaurant by the lake. it was very nice.

2nd anniversary, can't remember. i'm sure there were gifts.

3rd anniversary, can't remember. just gifts and dinner i guess.

4th anniversary was a big do - the birth of our baby daughter. huge coincidence? no. we picked the date for her delivery shopping style. consistently in character with me. because i have had high blood pressure for many years since i was a teenager, my ogbyn just decided that i don't even need to bother with natural childbirth. that it would be too risky. so he just flipped open his planner and pointed out that i would need to deliver within a certain week, and basically asked us to pick a date, any date within that week. and our anniversary date feel within that week. so we thought, hmm, why not. one less date to remember. and we thought it would be nice to have a double celebration. so for our 4th anniversary, i went through surgery and pain and lots of discomfort, but also we celebrated with the arrival of our lovely treasure, baby girl. it was very nice actually, the physical fruit of our love together now a part of us and our lives together as a family. and the love between the 2 of us very quickly grew and spilled over to our baby as well.

however, since then our anniversary celebrations has pretty much been about her birthday, haha. which is ok anyway.

5th anniversary, baby girl's 1st birthday, which was quite a big do. we had a party in mum's house and had lots of people over. and gifts and dinner for us, i'm sure. can't remember actually.

6th anniversary, wasn't much of a do, although it was full of memories as well. we celebrated baby girl's 2nd birthday at macdonald's, and i was pregnant with my baby boy, and we were going through a very bad patch in our church. so it was intense and very, very emotional for us and our entire family.

7th anniversary, a very nice trip to perth with our family of four, now with little baby boy, together with mum and sanjeev. we rented a wonderful, wonderful apartment overlooking the river and beyond that, the city. we had an absolutely beautiful view day and night. and we had lots of beautiful fresh food and bought food in to cook and enjoy together as a family. on our anniversary we had dinner at a nice restaurant. i had a very nice gnocchi pasta dish and we had a very nice mediterranean salad with roasted aubergine, peppers and couscous. it was lovely! and even ayesha had a little birthday celebration in the airplane on our flight back. the flight attendants gave her some gifts and brought a platter of cakes for her to cut and pass around to surrounding passengers. and we sang happy birthday in the plane! it was pretty extraordinary.

8th anniversary, we went for a wonderful musical, saturday night fever, together with david and cat solomon. it was loads of fun.

9th anniversary, hubby was in london, and i got a lovely bouquet of pink lilies. and a few days later i joined him in london for a week. very nice.

and now for our 10th anniversary, we took a trip to melbourne. we had already planned for a nice trip away for our 10th anniversary. our initial plans were to go back to l.a. but the thought of such a long flight had put us off. then it was london but we didn't have enough credit card points to redeem for a flight to london. so we had just enough points for a flight to melbourne, which was great as well. we had a wonderful trip and time to catch up with family and friends there. and it also turned out to be quite a scouting trip and we ended up deciding to move to melbourne for a season. migration is not the plan, but rather a few years of working holiday. we had our anniversary lunch at the debortoli winery. i had a beautiful risotto and we had shared a beautiful tiramisu. it was the best tiramisu we've ever had. it cost a whopping aus$12. and worth every cent. and i had a lovely pot of peppermint tea plucked straight from the garden. no kidding. it looked and smelled great!

we had been making a big deal of our 10th anniversary because we wanted to celebrate the fact that we have lived in our love for each other and for our family together for 10 years. but also the fact that in this day and age, unfortunately to just pass the 10 year mark seems to be a feat and a miracle in itself. in fact about 4 of those years had been quite stormy for us as we had been on a roller coaster of fighting. and on top of that having to cope with having babies. but looking back it was a healthy process of learning to communicate healthily with each other on a plane of mutual undertanding. and we have come a long way and now we are on that plane of mutual understanding and we can communicate a whole lot better. but it took a decision from both of us individually to want to work it out for the sake of keeping our marriage intact and safe.

so our prayer is that may God bless us with many more years together with a healthy and growing marriage relationship.

baby girl's 5th - may '07

yes, yes, i know my girl's almost 6 years old come may, and i'm still writing abt may '07! haha.

well i'm collecting memories, so there!

and every year we go thru the same cycle. a few months before we'll start thinking, hmm, how shall we celebrate our kids birthdays this year? better not spoil them with something elaborate (not that we can afford it anyway...). what would be biggish enough to include all the people she loves but affordable? and we'll usually end up with a little poolside party at our condo. quite ingenious, really. there's the pool for the kids to splash abt, while the parents can hang out and do their thang at the poolside cafe. simple, clean and fuss-free. i just couldn't be bothered with more otherwise.

except this year, daddy's away overseas during little princess' birthday, so mummy's not abt to fuss over a party with guests, no matter how small. we just decided on bringing a cake to school in the morning, and a little family dinner with cake in the evening. little did we know that dear old aunty lei wah had also organised a little surprise party for baby girl after school at her former kindy specially for her friends from church. that was a very nice and thoughtful additional birthday party, complete with cake, finger food, fun games and prizes, and of course, birthday presents. i learned how to set up a very simple game that can get a little messy but one that the kids really love - the sticky, squishy, gooey game. just place cheap corn flour in several plastic containers, mix with water till u get a slimy goo, and drop different food coloring into each container. so u end up with yellow, pink, blue, green and purple slime which the kids can sink their entire hands into and just have a good time. just don't let them do it with their best clothes on. they absolutely love it. ingenious.

and i also learned how to make a very simple kiddy decorative cake. thanks to the ever resourceful aunty lei wah. buy a regular round butter or pound or chocolate cake, spread warmed jam on top, and decorate away with multi colored smarties or m & m's. simple and again, the kids absolutely love how it looks and what's on top. simple and fuss-free is right up my alley. the other 2 nicely decorated cakes were provided by my kids "birthday cake fairy godmother". they looked great and tasted great - a rich chocolate cake for her schoolmates, and an orange poppy seed cake for the family feast, which included mum's wonderful oven-grilled lemongrass and turmeric chicken wings!

so while we thought we'll just have to settle with a very simple birthday do, turns out that baby girl ended up with quite an extravaganze - 3 birthday cakes, 3 parties, and lots of presents from her favorite friends. so, simple's not a bad thing, eh?

bad shot, good cake

more of my cooking. i love to cook. have not always loved to cook. never used to cook anything fancy before i got married, apart from the common stuff that just needs some common sense to stir up. i remember telling my then fiance not to expect me to whip up dinner every night after we got married. he'll just have to get it from his mum, who btw is a great cook who can whip up a mini buffet on a nightly basis. and there was no expectation from him. but it just seemed natural that once i got married i quite liked the idea of having nutritous home cooked meals at my own home. so i got some recipe books and the rest is history. nope, am still not a great cook and cooking for anything more than 8 people stresses me out. but after 10 years of doing it, i find that i love it - the cooking, i mean.

i love baking. seeing the strange batter coming together to form an absolutely yummy smelling delicious cake is really a delight. there's nothing quite like the smell of fresh baking cooking in the oven. ahh, absolutely divine. my best cake yet is my kahlua cake that i make once a year for my husband's birthday. he loves it, and it's once a year cos the cost alone is a whopping rm40! love baking cakes, muffins, breads and spoon cookies. don't like making pastries and cut out cookies. quite obviously because i hate the fuss of handling pastries. been there, done that, don't like it. i can eat the pastries some other folks make.

this is my effort at one of nigella lawson's cakes. some choc fudge cake or the other. that's the batter coming together. and altho that's a bad shot (bad light, bad focus) of the finished cake, it tasted oh so yummy! at least my guests agreed so.

i like general cooking too. i love the rainbow colors of raw vegetables and fruit. i love them raw but i also love how fresh food gets cooked and it comes together to be smelling and tasting so good. warm food on steaming white rice...ahh...nothing much better than that. i hate overcooked food that's all mushy and have lost all of its color. what is the point? i'm not too big on meats, especially deep fried ones, but well cooked meats tastes ok i guess. well cooked chicken looks really good in presentation. my favorite meat is till fish as it's a lot lighter.

this is a shot of a sweet and sour fish i did, and watercress soup with spare ribs and sweet red dates. i'm not big on soups but my little chinaman son loves soups, so i got to have some soup whip ups up my sleeve.

well the last shot is one of my favorites - veggie. and also one of my favorite veggies - broccoli. this is just a simple fry with garlic, but just look at the deep bright green color of the florets. isn't it gorgeous? and so inviting.

speaking of inviting, all this talk and photos of food is making me very hungry. so i shall stop and have breakfast now.

beauty on my balcony

since my journey of restoration, i'm surprised how once my burdens were lifted, or laid down, how the daily things around me suddenly seem more beautiful than when i normally wouldn't even notice that they are there. i guess that's what they mean when they say, stop and smell the roses. and that i did. and i loved it. and i still do it when i remember to.

one morning sometime last year as i was spending time alone at home, i went to the balcony to breathe in some fresh air and watch the greenery and try to look out for birds and hear then chirp. i suddenly realized that even just on my balcony i had some beautiful little things. there was life growing, there were colors, and even something playful. so i trotted back to the bedroom and got my trusty camera to catch the moment. and here's a sampling of what i have on my balcony

this is my little piggy windchime which my mum-in-law got me.

i love little piggy things, btw. and this delightful little flower is a little flower plant, one of three that hubby brought back for me from his trip to fraser's hill. and of course my cactuses. i started with one little one which i thought wouldn't need much attention. i basically left it alone but it just kept growing and growing babies although i didn't do anything for it. now i have too many of them.

and this pretty one is the young tender shoot from a mint plant that i have. they are incredibly easy to grow. you just cut a little branch off without any roots and stick it into some soil and it grows and grows. i use the leaves and boil it in some water with ginger root and some rock sugar and it's a good remedy for phlegmy cough. and this is a part of a huge tree with some berry-like buds that's snapped through my balcony grill.

so do stop and smell the roses. they are usually all around you!

OH, HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

the artist's way

(gosh, i can't believe i have not entered anything since october last! no wonder i'm itching...)

this is a book by julia cameron - an author, screenwriter, ex-wife of martin scorcese. i was recommended this book to read by ann clifford, who has since become a dear friend, who took the time to sit with me and pray with me and help discern with me what path i should take as i go on my sabbatical. that was more than a year ago and my sabbatical year has officially ended december last. and boy was it an amazing year! this book is called "an artist's way. a spiritual pathway to your creativity". it's a book on discovering or rediscovering your creative self and creative path, a self help book for one to start journeying creatively or for a blocked creative soul to unblock.

i loved the book. i was allowed to explore what my inner natural passions are, and i rediscovered quite a lot of loves that i had laid down or neglected for years. mainly the creative arts - dance, music and singing, painting, photography, cooking and baking, keeping fish, basically anything that's full of colors and movement and stimulating. i would say since then i have successfully unblocked, and am truly enjoying myself in my dance class, classical class, and dabbling in photography and painting. even cooking and baking has become more colorful. and the fish, while they come and go (poor things) is relaxing. i've also really enjoyed the opportunities to perform both in dance and classical singing. God has restored play in my life, amongst other healing emotionally.

i must say i can't paint well, perhaps not yet, but who cares, i enjoy it. so it doesn't matter what people may think of my painting, thank goodness art can be very abstract, haha. anyway, this was my very first painting. well, it's actually not much of a painting. it was actually one of the assignments from the artist's way book. to paint a statement that you would hold for yourself and to start living by - "treating myself as a precious person will make me stronger". it is not a self indulgent statement, esp for folks who we tend serve and attend to everyone else's needs but their own, or who may deny themselves pleasures in life in the name of putting christian ministry above all else. (we're called to put God above all else, not the church nor ministry). and God is a good God, who does hold us as precious beings to his heart, and do not deprive us of his pleasures in life that does our souls good, like play. the passions that he's put in us since our conception will never leave us, no matter how much we neglect it, over time it tries to get our attention to treat our thirsty souls and inner beings well. therefore now i treat myself well and as a precious being, and i do experience growing strength from Him, and his love, and his goodness.

my 1st bettas

i've been keeping fish for some time now. i wanted to keep fish because for me, who's not much of a pet person, fish are perfect pets. they are pretty, peaceful to look at, and are not noisy. of course their tanks need cleaning. which pet does not need cleaning?

it all started with ayesha coming back from a carnival with a bag in hand with 3 goldfish inside. i thought, oh, i finally have a good reason to start keeping fish. so i went and got the necessary. my fish keeping has since then evolved quite a bit. started with plastic bowls to plastic tanks to now earthen pots and a proper glass aquarium. the fish too, have come and gone. i thought the goldfish wouldn't last over a week since i had heard that it wasn't easy to keep goldfish. you got to have a proper filtration system and be ready to clean their constant pooping all the time. but they lasted for quite a few months, till we did some travelling and they eventually died. since then i've had guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies and bettas.

bettas are probably the easiest fish to keep, because you do not need an air pump to keep their water oxygenated since they go up to the surface for air. the only pain is that you can't keep more than 1 male together in the same vessel. unfortunately the females are not as pretty so one would tend to prefer to keep the male types.

this was my first betta. was, because it has passed on some time ago. ayesha picked this one out with grandma for me. it's purple with tinges of maroon, but does not have much finnage. it was ferocious. the other blue one was my favorite. again, was, because he too has passed on since. this one had a fuller finnage, which i love, and was a bright blue with shades of dark blue and turquoise. he was very beautiful. unfortunately, one day i decided to place the two together briefly to see them in action. the ferocious purple one in an instant took at nip at the blue one and it lost a few plumes of its finnage. i guess it was injured and since then began dying a slow death. i was quite sad really.

afc

so we have a new channel on astro. my current favorite is 703/asian food channel. it's wonderful! (for someone who loves to cook). it's not all just asian food. there's a lot of ang moh stuff too. and it's not just cooking. there are restaurant features, restaurant makeovers, docos on eating disorders. i'm hooked on it at the moment (while i've aimed at watching less tv, i guess this is not harmful compared to other programs that have too much elements of sex, violence and other silly media push on chasing glamor and success/prosperity and a certain lifestyle.

i feel very inspired when i watch the food channel - all the colors of different fresh foods, the color of desserts, the art of food styling, the photography, the sense of your mind and tastebuds imagining how yummy it tastes like. and of course the ideas i get on what to cook, how to cook better, how to serve it in a nicer way. ohh, i wish i could cook and bake everything in sight! well, some of you benefit from this fancy of mine from time to time. but i'm sorry, while i enjoy the food channel, i really dislike the programs from singapore.

btw, i baked a wonderful lemon poppy seed cake with lemon syrup. it was very tangy. raj loved it.

well, the photo is a dish i tried some time ago. fish with leeks, ginger and coriander. not very exciting colors, i know, but it worked. it tasted good. the sweetness from the leeks, and the tang from the coriander complimented the dory fish nicely. light and yummy.