My Mummy

Well, life isn’t all about sadness..As mother’s day approaches, I’ve decided to write a post about my mummy. My mummy is my best friend, my mentor, my counselor and well My Mum 🙂 I am the middle child in my family – or you can call it a child with the middle child syndrome? Well, what is the middle child syndrome? It when you have an older sibling and a younger one and you’re stuck in the middle all the time. You’re the only that does most of the work at home and you’re probably not the favourite one too! Well, it’s kinda 1/2 right for me. I do most of the work at home but I’m also my Mummy’s favourite too 🙂 How do I know cos she tells me all the time that I’m her favourite!

My mummy married my daddy when she was in her early 20s and shortly gave birth to my older sister, 2 years later she had me and 6 years later she had my younger sister (at that time, my Daddy really wanted a son and my grandmother convinced my mummy to have a 3rd child hoping it was a boy). But it ended up a girl – my younger sister which we called the black sheep of the family (I will explain more in my other post). So there were 3 daughters in our family. Ever since we’ve migrated to Perth, my daddy have always been working in overseas on a regular basis, so we learned to be quite independent on our own from young. My mummy is a great cook, I’ve started cooking in the kitchen when I was really young around 10. I love watching mummy cook cos she’s so quick and efficient. Give her 30 minutes and she would whip up 3 dishes and a soup on the table ready for us to have for dinner. I can never get sick of Mummy’s cooking, even after 27 years of eating her home cooked meals, I still miss it these days – she would ask me to come back home for dinner and I would always be looking forward to her meals. I even tried replicating some of her dishes, but it just doesn’t taste the same. Same ingredients, same techniques of cooking but somehow the taste and flavours are different??!! Mummy would always joke, it’s a ‘mother’s taste’

Mummy has always being a housewife, with Daddy’s business she didn’t have to work, he was the bread winner for our family- her life revolves around raising the 3 daughters and at that time a little son Babe – our doggy brother. Life seems to be good for our family in Perth – we had a nice big home and enough money to buy what ever we wanted, however things started to change, financial difficulty arose when Daddy’s business started to not do so well and plus having invested lots of money on stock markets and then it had that stock market crash has resulted us in some financial difficulties. We had to sell off our comfortable big home and in search of a rental property. Life was tough, to go from being quite well off to not so well off was a huge adjustment to our life. all the newer rental properties would not allow pets – there were times when my mummy would say it’s time we give away Babe and all three of us would protest!! We rather stay in an older house instead! In the midst of searching for a place to stay Mummy and I would visit many properties and one day out of exhaustion, Mummy fainted and I was so shocked I grabbed her up and asked her if she’s ok, she said she’s fine just feeling abit tired. From that moment onwards I said to myself I would always look after Mummy and never allow this to happen again. Even when she become old and frail with Alzheimer’s disease – I would never ever send her to a Nursing home.

So by God’s grace we found this 30 years+ old rental place where we could keep Babe and life was difficult. Being an old place, it has it’s problems such as toilets blocking, shower system failing, water system broke down, curtain rail broken. Honestly, there were days that I think to myself whether we’ve made the right choice to rent this place. Amongst all of this mummy and I have became very good handyman, we’ve learned to fix things on our own and bunnings were a regular place we visited to fix our old place. But we dared not complain, it was our only choice at that time to rent this place so we could keep our Babe. In my mind, My mummy is a brave woman all these time she was raising the three of us without daddy by her side. She became our mother and our father, and when Daddy passed away I became her companion and the head of the family. Life was difficult as my younger sister was in her rebellious teenage years when my daddy passed away. Her stubborn nature would always get her into trouble which caused alot of heart aches & head aches for our family. However, we persisted on with our prayers for our younger sister and God have slowly moved her heart.

The day I told mummy that I was marrying Pandabear she was so happy for me, but I could tell that she felt really sad at the same time that her favourite daughter was leaving her. Prior to our wedding she cried for 2 weeks at the thoughts of me moving out and losing that companionship. I had to constantly reassure her that I’m close by and would come home regularly to visit her. Thankfully, my younger sister decided it was time to move back home and that has helped my mummy overcome her loneliness. As days progresses, she became used to me not being at home. Every Saturday I would make an effort to meet her for lunch and have our weekly grocery shopping time. My mummy is like my best friend, I tell her everything and I can surely say that she’s the one where I would sacrifice my life for. I love her very much, she is strong, brave, a great cook, and a great saver. She is fit and healthy and have been a gym member for more than 10 years. I admire her strength & determination…

A tribute to My Daddy

Seasons of Sadness

Well, I’m so glad I got home tonight safely without getting too wet and seriously my pants need some hemming they are practically dragging on the floor. I went and saw my physio after work and she said to me ‘Dear me, your neck and shoulders are so tight do you get headaches?’ ‘I’m like yeah, sometimes I get it bad’ She convinced me that next Friday I need to see her again…it must be bad. I really need to take regular breaks instead of gluing myself to the computer. 🙂

Well, the month of April is a month that I rather forget especially the year of 2003. On the 10th of April 2003, we received an overseas phone call that not only shocked our whole entire family but have changed our lives forever. My auntie had rang us from Taiwan to advise us that my daddy had passed away. After struggling with liver cancer for about a year he had passed away, and what made it worst was I didn’t even get to see him the last time before he passed away. This regret have plagued me for many years and people often ask me ‘does it get better each day?’. My answer would be NO, it doesn’t get better each day, but as time passes God gives me the strength to cope better each day.

My daddy was a business man, he was tall, he wasn’t dark he was white, intelligent, friendly and handsome – kinda like an all rounder. He is extremely generous to everyone and was a very patient person. He was a good father who looked after our family, I always feel protected when I’m with him. When I was young, when we were crossing a busy street he would hold my hands with his big warm hands – that would make me feel very safe. He was gentle when it comes to disciplining us. To my recollection he has never lost a temper with us kids, he always disciplines us with his gentle words – he never laid a hand on us. My daddy was smart, he was always the top of his class – and I guess I have inherited his brainy characteristics. His dream of becoming a doctor was shattered when he started hanging out with the wrong crowds and ended up becoming a Vet. To me he suited the vet job he loves animals and have lots of patience when it comes to dealing with animals. He always used to say to me ‘one day I hope you can become a doctor to fulfill a dream that I have never fulfilled..’ His dream have became my burden up until this day when God showed me that I was not suited being a doctor with my fish memory and forgetfulness.

My daddy was diagnosed with a tumor in his liver while he was working in Taiwan. He had to fly back to Perth for treatments with chemo as the tumor was too large to be removed by surgery and it was growing at a part where it was difficult to remove – kinda like the worst case scenario. This happened during my final years of University where I was overloaded with crazy exams, working on my thesis project and working part-time at a restaurant at night. I remember one day I took him to the GP for a check up and I asked the doctor ‘what sort of food he should avoid to improve his conditions’ our doctor replied ‘I think at this stage you should just let him enjoy his life and let him eat anything he wants’ now I don’t like to cry especially infront of other people cos it makes me feel weak. But at that moment I burst out in tears sobbing – it’s as if the doctor have announced there’s nothing they could do about his condition just let him enjoy the remainder of his life. I told myself to hold it together and promised not to ever cry infront of my dad.

After some chemo treatment, he decided he would like to go back to Taiwan to sort out his business matters – he owns a Chinese herbal medicine company and given that the doctor said his treatment was going well they allowed him to travel back to Taiwan. My daddy was a strong person, he never showed his emotions or weakness – kinda like another character trait I have inherited. During his stay in Taiwan his conditions became worse and he never told our family that he was suffering or struggling. We only heard of this when a friend of his rang us saying he really needs our help he’s now checked into the hospital. We made a decision for the whole family to fly back to Taiwan to look after him in the hospital. When we arrived at the hospital he has lost so much weight, his eyes were yellow, he was weak and he didn’t have any appetite at all – I nearly couldn’t recognise him. It was heart breaking to see a strong and healthy person turning to skins and bones skeleton figure. I was heart broken but I had to control my emotions and be strong and not cry.

We spent about a month taking turns staying with daddy at night in the hospital looking after him incase there were some complications. The doctor told us that he’s probably got a few months left and the treatment he had done in Perth was probably not ideal. That news really shocked me, and I blamed myself for convincing him to undertake the chemo treatment in Perth – even though that was the only option of treatment left available. Life in the hospital was difficult, he would wake up in the middle of the night in pain and I would wake up and run to grab the nurses to give him some needles of pain relief. I would say to him let’s pray together and ask God to remove your pain and sing hymn songs to him. I have prayed intensely down on my knees every day asking God to heal him, and I was certain God had the power to heal him if he wanted to. My daddy was a non-christian, he never believed in God. When ever we tried to share the good news of salvation to him he would refuse to listen. However, miraculously, one day he told me he had read the bible that I have left on the table and have received Christ as his personal saviour alone. He was later baptised in the hospital and after that he had much joy and peace in his heart.

His health continue to deteriorate, everyday I would give him is truck load of medications – till one day he said to me ‘Can I not take these pills? I feel so sick eating these medications every day?’ I just replied ‘No you have to take them, you will get better if you continue to take them then I would feel bad of being harsh and later on say to him maybe just take 1/2 of them at least’ There are days I think back I should have been less harsh on him and let him do what ever he wants, who am I kidding those medications were only relieving his symptoms, they are not curing him. Even though he was so sick in his bed, he was still trying to set me up with this intern who was looking after him. He would say ‘well, if you can’t be a doctor you could always marry one – and he seemed like a nice guy he would look after you’ It made me really sad to think here he is struggling to live and he’s still worried who would look after me.

Our financial situation was taking a toll, we had to make the decision of flying back to Perth. My older sister was taking an extended leave from work, my younger sister was in high school, and me well I just graduated from Uni and needed to get a job desperately. We made the decision to return back to Perth temporarily to settle some financial matters, it was a very difficult decision for us to leave him behind and I asked the doctor whether we could transfer dad back to Perth. They said he was not fit for flying, so I had to break this news to him. One day dad suddenly asked me whether I could bring him back home to Perth and take him to Freo again, his favourite place where we would sit by the beach and have fish and chips – I hold back my tears and said ‘I’m sorry dad not now maybe later on, I was heart broken. The day we left Taiwan, he did not show any emotions but I could tell he was sad. I reassured him we would return very quickly as soon as all matters are sorted in Perth.

A few days after we have arrived back in Perth we were told he had passed away in the hospital. Things happened very quickly, his health had deteriorated so quickly, they couldn’t revive him. He had a funeral in Taiwan – only my mummy and my younger sister was able to attend due to financial reasons. He was cremated and we brought his ashes back home to be buried in Freo his favourite place. Life was never the same, I became the head of the family, mum have always being a house wife her whole entire life – I had no time to cry, I had to carry on as if nothing have ever happened to hold the family together. I asked God why? Why did you not heal him!! I cried to God but then I realised God have actually saved him not physically but spiritually he no longer have to go through the suffering and pain, he’s now in heaven a great paradise, a better place to be. That really comforted me and helped me grieve. Each year goes by, the worst thing was every night when I think about him I would cry the whole night. I wonder where all this sadness was coming from? I guess I never had the chance of grieving his death. It has now hit me twice as hard as anything. I’m sad that he has never walked me down the aisle instead I had my mummy walking me down the aisle when I got married and he would never had the opportunity to see his grandchildren and most of all to see that I have married a doctor who is now looking after me and to see that we are living a happy life as a family.

Every father’s day I would feel sad, cos when people are celebrating father’s day with their dads. I will be bringing flowers to the cemetery instead. When I’m sad I would go to Freo and sit by the cemetery and it will make me feel better. But I’m comforted knowing that he’s at a better place in heaven and I hope one day I will see him in heaven and give him a big hug and say sorry I have left him behind and that I was harsh on him. Even though I don’t have an Earthly father I still have my heavenly father. We thank God each day for seeing us through this difficult period of our lives, he has never forsaken us during this difficult time. Even though life was tough emotionally, physically and financially, we never had to beg for help from others we always had enough to go through each day. It has taken me 7 years to talk about him, and I think it’s a good sign that I’m healing emotionally. It doesn’t feel like 7 years ago it felt just like yesterday when we were still in the hospital spending our last moments together. May all glory and honor goes to our almighty heavenly father and I will forever treasure the memories of my daddy in my heart.

Wedding Anniversary

Seasons of happiness

Hello my bloggy friends, I’m so so sorry I haven’t had a chance to update my blog. But I promise once I get my act together, I will share with you guys an amazing journey/trip that I’ve had in US & Canada few weeks ago. 🙂 Well, my life predominantly fills with lots of food, but it’s not just all about food – I have my lovely family and my hubby. Just recently we celebrated our 2 years wedding anniversary together and I thank God for seeing us through these two beautiful years.

I’m the sort of person who likes to reflect on the past – not sure whether this is a good thing or not but by reflecting on the past – I draw memories and strength and count all the blessings that God has given me in my life. So I’m going to share how I met my hubby aka Pandabear. This seemed liked the most common question people ask when they get to know me 🙂

Pandabear and I are very different people – now I agree with the statement opposite attracts. Me – I’m forgetful aka fish memory, easy going, friendly, animal lover, food lover, elderly people lover, can be stubborn, organised and efficient. I have no time to slow down and I hate being lazy!!! That’s right that’s why I hate being sick cos when you’re sick you just lie in bed and DO NOTHING! Ok that’s enough about me, Pandabear – well he’s got great memory, a little bit serious and conservative, reserved, extremely stubborn, can be friendly if he wants to, definitely not an animal lover, definitely not a food lover, definitely not an elderly people lover, he is extremely organised to the point I think he has obsessive compulsive nature in him.

God brought Pandabear into my life at the saddest and lowest point of my life. And at times when we argue and get angry with each other I would always reflect at that time he gave me the courage and the encouragement to keep me going. This has allowed our relationship to grow stronger each year. I believe relationship is about compromising, Pandabear and I used to argue over petty things – how the dishes should be washed, me destroying his squeaky clean kitchen, me staining his clothes, how I’m so forgetful and how he never admits he’s wrong and he always never think before he says things which may hurt other peoples’ feelings. But after all marriage life is not all about these petty things you’ve got to turn a blind eye with these petty things.

Ok, so how we met – at our church youth group. Now Pandabear attends a different church and when he was in Melbourne he bumped into one of my friend Mr M and Mr M asked him whether he would like to attend our youth group cos at his church there weren’t a youth group. Pandabear kinda said he would think about it but never came to our church. So few months plodded along and Lord and behold Pandabear bumped into MR M in Perth now this time Mr M asked him to come to our youth group. Out of courtesy Pandabear decided he would visit our church one youth group night. Now it was hate at first sight for me and according to Pandabear he thought I was a feisty girl and very interesting – that must be a good impression I suppose. We had a games night that night and he was the judge and I was in one of the group and I thought he was being unfair, so I walked up to him not knowing who he was and screamed ‘Can’t you see our group answered correctly first, you’re suppose to give the points to our team!!!’

Anyways, that was our first encounter – me thinking this nerdy looking guy who is arrogant and stubborn, him leaving our church thinking this girl is feisty and interesting. So he started attending more of our youth group nights, camps and was there for me when I was at the dumps – so the rest is history. We dated for 4 years until we decided it was time to get married and me leaving my home to move in to his little den. I always thought I was one of those people who would probably stay single for a long long time or for the rest of my life why? Cos I don’t like to be told what to do and also I don’t like to listen to people – I only like to do my own thing and make my own decisions!! At least I admit it, so it makes it hard when I know wives should be submitting to husbands! It’s a lesson that I need to learn everyday and Pandabear would always complain that I don’t listen to him. Which is not true, I do listen to him but just not ALL THE TIME.

Marrying Pandabear is one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life… Why? Cos I have a life time companion now who is able to help me during the tough times to be there for me when I needed a shoulder to cry on, to share my happy moments with joy, to travel around the world and enjoy great food, and most importantly I do not have to make any hard decisions by myself…when I watched the movie ‘UP’ it made me cry – I don’t usually cry cos I think crying is for the weak but the movie did made me cry when the old man was going through the photo album that his late wife made for him. I hope and pray that Pandabear and I will grow old together and we’ll be holding our hands lovingly taking a stroll around the park still looking after each other. And God forbid if one of us gets sick and pass away the other one would continue to live a happy life – or even better both pass away around the same time that way neither of us would feel lonely or sad- I’m sounding quite morbid now. 🙂 Cos I have a fish memory I would joke with Pandabear if one day I have Alzheimer’s disease and can’t remember you anymore what would you do? He would say I would smack you out of your Alzheimer’s disease until you recognize me or at times he would shrug his shoulders and say “I hope that day doesn’t come”…

Before I end why do I say we have gone through 2 beautiful years as hubby and wife, because we’ve learnt to compromise with each other and talk with each other to sort out our differences. Now it’s taken me a while to learn this lesson because I don’t talk I usually bottle it up and Pandabear well like a typical guy he doesn’t talk about emotional needs. This not only allows our marriage relationship to stay stronger, but we love each other more and more each day. Prayer plays an important part in maintaining our marriage relationship – there are certainly challenging times when I feel what have I gotten myself into and why I have to put up with Pandabear, but these moments disappear when God reassures me that it’s the challenging times which will make our relationship grow even stronger, after a storm there will always be a sunshine. 🙂

Yanchep Family Outing

Evening bloggy friends, hope this post finds you all well. It’s been hard going back to work after a long weekend. Monday was a Labour Day for WA so that means no work for me. So I asked my family whether they would like to have a picnic or not – I’ve also invited my mate Skister who I used to work with and now we’re best mates. So in the end my sister decided why not head to Yanchep National Park – it’s only a 45 minutes drive and it will be great for the kids to see all the wild life animals. So I thought that’s not a bad idea and prepared some simple picnic food – Massaman Curry Chicken, some fresh baked rolls, brie cheese, fried noodles, feta olive oil salad and some sausages. Noodles & Sausages were done by my sister.

Now the forecast for the day was a scorching hot 37 degrees…yikes it’s so hot that by the time it was around 3pm the sun was still bright and burning outside. I’m starting to think that picnic at Yanchep was a bad idea. So I sms my sister and told her I’ll be heading to her house a little later cos it’s still so hot outside. So we arrived at Yanchep National Park around 5.30pm by that time the weather has become cooler. Found ourselves a table to put all our food and straight away when we settle in, there were lots of ducks and weird looking red beak looking bird which flew in and surrounded us. They must have smell our delicious food and wanted some. So we scoffed down our picnic food and there were heaps of left over freshly baked rolls and I’ve decided to grab my nieces to feed the ducks and weird looking birds.

ducks crowding around us

It was really fun feeding the ducks and weird looking birds, I always look out for skinner ducks and birds cos they always misses out on feeding cos they are weak. Then you see some aggressive ones who attacks other ducks & birds even though they are probably over weight already. When I see a duck attacking another duck I would tell that duck off by scaring them off. It’s fascinating to watch how I would tear off little crumbs from the bread rolls and just chuck them in one hit scattering them everywhere and all the ducks & birds would rush to peck at them and scoff them down. Rather amusing really..

So after the duck & birds feeding session, we decided to head down and see the kangaroos there were so many kangaroos. I really wanted to go and pat them but as soon as I get closer to them, they just skip away really quickly. I even saw little Joey which stood by the mother, so cute – but I didn’t see any little ones inside the mother kangaroo’s pouch. 😦 I’m just so amazed on how the kangaroos can stand up straight and skip so fast, so bouncy and carefree siting on the lawn eating grass. I tried to feed them with some of my left over bread rolls but they didn’t seem to eat them. Then, I heard my sister telling me that kangaroos have bad eye sights they can’t see your tiny bread crumbs. So I ripped a huge piece of the bread rolls and chuck them right in front of the kangaroos and guess what they ate it hooray!! 🙂

kangaroos

We were all kangaroo out and decided to search for other animals such as koala bears, but couldn’t seem to locate any. It was starting to get a little dark, time to go home before the mozzies come out. We had fun time at Yanchep National Park. Would definitely recommend people to go there for a family picnic…

Chinese New Year – Photos

Hello Bloggy Friends – yes this is your new nickname now, apart from naming all my soft toys I also give people nicknames as well. 🙂 so now I will show you the list of dishes my mother in law cooked for Chinese New Year.

Enjoy…

Deep fried Nien Gao

Roast Duck

My Stewed Beef with potatoes & carrots

Mushroom Chicken with Broccoli

Tomato based Mussels & Squids stew

Panfried Fish

Vegetarian mushrooms, fungus & vermicilli

Deep Fried Quails

Okies, I think I’ve finally finished uploading the photos – it was like watching paint dry. There were so much food that night I felt like I’ve gained another 2 kgs…but hey, it’s Chinese New Year – you’ve gotta enjoy some great food. 🙂

Chinese New Year

Hello Everyone, blessed Chinese New Year & Happy Valentines day… this year is the year of Tiger, really in Perth you can’t feel the atmosphere of Chinese New Year unless you are in Northbridge which is kind of like Perth’s China Town. There will be lion dance and fire crackers going, but apart from that nothing special happens in Perth it’s just another day. At this time in Taiwan, there will be lots of red packets, family dinner, lion dance and people celebrating Chinese New Year on the streets and shops crowded with people buying things. Last night Pandabear and I went to my in laws for a family dinner to celebrate Chinese New Year. Now my mother in law is a great Malaysian cook, she often whip up meals like within 30 minutes. Yesterday, when we arrive at 5pm she was close to finishing everything off. She always stir fries her vegies last as it doesn’t taste too good when they go cold. I brought along stewed gravy beef with potatoes and carrots and my sister in law made some home made mango pudding and baked a chocolate mud cake. We also had some close family friends over as well and they brought some roast duck/bbq pork/roast pork along with home made “An Gu Guey” – Red and turtle looking starchy glutonese rice flour with yellow bean filling (very tasty!!)

My mother in law is a typical housewife her life revolves around looking after her family and making sure they get fed and the house is functional – clean & nice. I have since then learn’t a few dishes from her. My Chinese cooking is different from my mother in law’s cooking as most of my Chinese dishes I’ve learnt from my mum and hence my mum’s cooking is more Taiwanese where is my mother in law’s cooking is more Malaysian so I have the best of both worlds 🙂 I really enjoyed the scrumptious meal my mother in law whipped up, I think we had more dishes than it’s needed to feed everyone – but it’s always good to have more than not enough. So my mother in law ended up packing some take away containers for me 🙂 I love meeting up with my father in law, he’s into planting organic vegetable garden. Mine is nothing compared to his. He’s planted these fantastic long string beans that are so sweet you can just eat them raw. All his vegetable plants and fruits are growing so well that when it came to harvest time they bare so much fruits and vegies that sometimes they don’t know what to do with them. He has fig tree, persimmons, bitter melon, string beans, oranges, sweet potato leaves, Chinese Gang Kong, lettuce, spring onion and the list goes on… Cos I love those sweet string beans, I’ve asked my father in law to give me some seeds and he kindly offered me some seeds that he has harvested & dried and also some long string beans to take home 🙂 Yay!!

Dinner was delicious, my mother in law made some deep fried Nien Gao – deep fried sweet potatoes with glutenous cake – it’s a traditional dish for Chinese New Year. They are so addictive once you have one you would want another one and another one until you feel pretty full. She also made some spring rolls (they are not deep fried) wrapped inside are some cabbages, home grown string beans, vermicelli, carrots and sweet chilli sauce – they were really tasty. She even made some without the chilli sauce for Pandabear cos he doesn’t eat any spicy food (how thoughtful). We also had some mushroom chicken served with broccoli – the key to this dish is not to over cook the chicken breast otherwise it will be dry and flaky. But the chicken breast was done perfectly, it’s juicy and tender 🙂 I think my mother in law also attempt to make something western, a tomato based chilli mussels with some squid rings. There were also some pan fried fish with soya sauce, a vegetarian dish that consists of stir fried black fungus, mushrooms and vermicelli – I love that dish. We also had some deep fried Quail. So there were lots of food to go around. I was so full!!

When it came to dessert time, we had my sister in law’s mango pudding & chocolate mud cake they were delicious and also some fruits with “An Gu Guey” – by that time my tummy was to the point of exploding and had to take a break to go and watch the episode of Iron Chef – more about food. Tonight, I will be celebrating Chinese New Year with my own family at Mum’s place we are having steamed boat and I’m looking forward to it 🙂 I’ve been having problems uploading some photos…so sorry no photos on this post till next time!

Valentine’s Surprise

Evening People, I’m in a great mood tonight cos Pandabear took me to shopping after work for early valentine’s pressie 🙂 Yay!! Why I’m stoked cos Pandabear doesn’t believe in valentines day, he thinks it’s a day to con peoples money and it’s really commercialised. “You don’t need to set a date to tell someone that you love them, you should love them everyday” – He would always say. But I think it’s nice occasionally to get flowers, chocolates and soft toys – I think all girls would like that. So I think for valentines day, I usually don’t get anything. But this year, not sure what happened to Pandabear – he suggested after work today he’ll come and pick me up and we shall go off to the city for some valentine’s pressie shopping. I was really surprised and even though I wasn’t feeling the best today – my sore throat had come back again and I feel very tired 😦 No I’m not pregnant, these days people keep telling me I’m pregnant just because I’ve gained a lot of weight!! Grrr..

Anyways, so off we go to Myers and Pandabear got this voucher to spend – perhaps that’s why he’s taking me out to Valentine pressie shopping but it didn’t matter it’s the thought that counts. So I looked around for some jeweleries now honestly another secret about me I have to share I not only have fish memory but I lose my stuff all the time, even the nice pair of espirit earrings Pandabear bought for me – I can’t find it!! So usually I wouldnt buy really expensive jeweleries cos chances are I would lose them 😦 so I looked around and Pandabear found a nice pair of love heart earrings made me feel bad cos I lost his espirit ones but it’s a nice replacement. There’s something about love heart, Pandabear found another set of nice necklace that have a love heart. I was like aint you all love heart out so many love hearts. He was like ‘but it’s nice!!!” Anyways, I had a look at the necklace – it said nickel free (what ever that means) so I went and ask for some help to clarify what the nickel free means? and I thought I come across a lady then it kinda look like a guy with blond hair his back was to me and Pandabear was like ‘it’s a lady!!” and I was like it looks like a dude. Guess what it was a dude! I was right and he sounded like quite girly Anyways, the explanation was some people are allergic to nickel in some jeweleries so this particular necklace is nickel free. Oh! I’ve learnt something new today.

So I’ve got the nice pair of love heart earrings, a nickel free necklace that I’m holding and I found a nice little belt bangle that’s so cute and it fitted me perfectly – I have very small wrist most of the bangles were too big for me, and there was only one left. So Pandabear was feeling very generous today and said you can buy all 3 if you want, but I didn’t want to be greedy so I chose to have the earrings and the bangle. 🙂 I was very happy. But then I realised all this time I’ve been eying for this toy dog in this cute gift shop – which I walk pass everyday after work and it’s so cute and so cheap!! I want that toy dog so I suggested if it’s ok we go to the shop to check out the toy dog – if it’s still there…cos there was only one that I saw at the window. Pandabear was like “you’ve got so many soft toys already, they just sit there collecting dust!!” and I would generally reply “no they’re not, I go and pat them and hug them from time to time” – you may think I’m crazy but I actually name ALL of my soft toys and usually with the person’s name who gave me that soft toy so I can remember who gave me that soft toy. It’s really childish I know but it’s me – soft toys are my other weakness, you can never be too old for soft toys. Pandabear must have felt pretty bad so he walked me to that shop that I was talking about and guess what?? We found the shop and there was the dog sitting there – however it looked a little squashed, must be lots of people looking at valentine’s pressie anyways, I happily took it to the counter and the girl was like ‘theres a few more of those in the corner with different designs” – she must have overheard me saying the doggie looked so squashed, it turned out there’s 3 different designs, a dog carrying a rose or a love heart and a huge love heart – all for the same prize – I picked the one with a huge love heart and I’m going to call it ‘Dave’ with a cute green scarf and if you look closer it has a pink belly button. I was over the moon, really thank God for a blessed valentine pressie day and to top it off I convinced Pandabear to buy some sushi while we’re there!! Yay!! Happy ending to a valentine’s day. 🙂

Tribute to Babe

A season of sadness

Hello everyone, I’ve just woken up from my long afternoon naps which means tonight I probably wouldn’t get to sleep until 2-3am in the morning. Last night, I have been thinking about my dog ‘Babe’ sometimes suddenly it would just bring back some sad memories. I thought I’ll write this post as a tribute to my dog ‘Babe’, I’m not a person who easily share sadness with other people but I’ve found that by sharing to people about you sad things helps you to heal and deal with grief. So here it is…

I had a pet dog named ‘Babe’ – why do we call him Babe, cos we loved the ‘Babe in the City’ – the pig who’s intelligent, loving, innocent and adorable. We really wanted to have a dog, so we started looking around for a suitable dog. On the newspaper someone was advertising a shitshu x maltease they came with black and white color. We were really excited and decided to visit this home in search of our dog. When we got there, there was only 1 black dog left. Mum really wanted a white one and she wasn’t keen on getting a black dog. It was love at first sight, ‘Babe’ was so small he’s not fully black, rather a greyish colour like a curly grey ball. He was active and energetic and keeps following us around and licking us. We loved him and was convinced he was the one. The owner gave us his immunisation card and said he was born on 14th Feb – valentines day that made him real special and perhaps a romantic fella.

You could say that Babe was my ‘dogmate’ rather than soulmate cos he didn’t have a soul – I have 2 other sister and he was my younger brother. His favourite hobby would be sleeping, eating and going for walks at the park. He lived a simple life. His weakness is overeating and stubborn – I remember when he was still a puppy, my friend fed him some sponge cake and he just kept on eating until he finished the whole large piece of cake, later on he threw up the whole cake cos he was too full. Stubborn – cos everytime when it comes to bath time, he would run around for us to chase him and it would take us ages to trick him into getting a bath. Usually a tackle followed by a little smack for being naughty. Occasionally we would have to bribe him with some smachos – that’s his favourite snack.

He lived a happy but unfortunate life. Why? As Babe grew older he started having lots of problems. Chronic ear problems, chronic skin problems, asthma etc. He’s gone through 3 eye surgeries to remove his cherry eyes and eventually he became half blind. It was hard to see him going through all this, but he’s a fighter and was very brave to endure all these hardship. I can’t recall how many times I would have to send him to the vet because there was something wrong with him. My vet even told me ‘he’s one of the worst case they’ve ever seen’. However, life plotted along and when I think back there’s alot of fond memories. Winter time, when I’m doing my assignments/or studying at my desk he would follow me into the bedroom and hide under my desk however his warm furry coat would cover my feet and act as a soft warm slipper. He likes to jump onto the end of my bed when he feels cold, every time I would grab him and take him back to his own bed, he would sneakily jumped back to my bed when I fall asleep. Eventually when I woke up the next day I would find myself with some dog hair in my mouth and his face next to my pillow.

When ever I’m sad he would just stood there infront of me looking rather miserable, perhaps it’s my own imagination but I would find him taking every little step closer to me as if he’s comforting me and give me his right little paw. I would usually just tell him why I’m sad and give him a big hug. I know it sounds a little strange but Yes I would share sad things with Babe. He’s a great listener. I often wish he could talk, but all he ever does is bark back at me. That’s his way of communicating with me. As years passed by, the year he turned 7 he moved in with Pandabear and myself. Babe is such a fussy eater, I would usually prepare human equivalent food for him as he doesn’t like to eat dog food. Sometimes Pandabear would whinge and say to me Babe eats better than us. Well, I can’t argue with that – when the vet suggested something that would improve his skin condition such as buying kangaroo, rabbits, beef meets and cook them and feed them to Babe I would do that. His favourite is still the beef steak. Sometimes I would mix his food with some doggie biscuit and he would scoff down all the beef steak, leaving the doggie biscuits behind (how cheeky!!) .The year he turned 7 was one of saddest years in my life. He was on long term steroid medication to treat his chronic ear & skin problem and eventually it started giving him the side effects of internal bleeding. I started to realise something was really wrong, he didn’t have much appetite and he didn’t feel like going for a walk. So I booked an appointment to see the vet and I was told it was time to ‘put him down’ . I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, he was still so young only 7 and I couldn’t bare losing him. But each day it got worst, one day when I bathed him, his ears stared to bleed with blood. He must be in pain and it was selfish of me to prolong his suffering 😦

It was time that we put him out of his misery – A season of sadness. Now, the vet recommended either sending him to the clinic and have him put down and they will also organise the cremation of his body or we could organise a mobile vet over our house and to have it put down at our place. We made the decision of having him put down at our home, because I didnt want him to think we don’t love him and let him endure a needle into his body to end his life. It was definitely a difficult decision and something that I wouldn’t want to wish upon anyone to go through. I cried for weeks as the time draws closer to him getting put down. The night before him getting put down, he looked rather sad as if he could sense something was wrong, or perhaps he was just in pain. I decided to spend his last night eating chocolate icecream together and sleeping with him. In total he woke me up 10-15 times that night to go out to the backyard, he must be feeling in pain. It was also a confirmation to me that I was doing the right thing. The day when he was schedule to be put down, our family met up together. Everyone was so sad, I had to pull up a brave face and signed all the paper work. The vet explained that he would have to inject this poison into his paws and occasionally the poison might not have reached the dog’s heart so sometimes they would feel the pain. But most of the time, it would be very quick and they will just die peacefully. I prayed to God and ask God to just let him die peacefully as I wouldn’t know what to do if he was suffering more. The vet shaved his hair of the paws and started injecting the poison into Babe, ‘Babe was a clever dog’ – he could sense there was something wrong so he wriggled around refusing to let the vet inject him. I hugged him tight and whisper to him ‘Babe – there will be no more suffering any more’ he seems to understand and became still. The injection was done, I thank God he rested peacefully in my arms. That was the end of his life.

Few weeks later I received a bag ‘named Babe’ he’s now been cremated and was just a bag of dust. It made me realised I would never see him again. The thought of not even able to see him in Heaven really hurts me, how I wished I could meet him again in heaven. Life without Babe was extremely difficult, we had to remove anything in our house that reminded me of Babe. As it would made me cry uncontrollably. Every time I go for my grocery shopping and come across the pets isle I would cry. As I would usually purchase his favourite treat – smachos and dental bones. Occasionally during nights, I would hear him barking and I would ran down the stairs to let him out to the backyard to find that I’m staring at an empty bed. My neighbour asked me one day how come I haven’t been taking Babe out for a walk, I answered I had to put him down – he was no longer with us. If anyone asked me would I ever have a dog again, I would say NO – most people said that in order to get over the grief of your dog passing away, the best medicine is to get another dog to replace that void. No other dogs could replace Babe – he was one of the kind, he was a brave fighter, my brother and my friend. I would never want to go through this sadness the second time.

Some days Pandabear and I would go out for our daily walks and we would bump into lots of dogs and I would get really excited and pat them. This will give me a great sense of joy rather than sadness, only time will heal. It’s been about a year since Babe is not with us and I still missed him terribly. But his bag of ashes is still with me and I will treasure this forever 🙂

”I love you ‘A Babe’ “- from ‘A jie’ (sister)

Maryann’s Organic Vegie Garden

Hello Everyone, some of my friends would know that I have a very very very very little patch of vegie garden. Nothing compared with Jamie Oliver’s huge backyard vegie garden. I’ve planted a few vegies and they have unfortunately died on me cos I don’t plant them in the right seasons. Yes, you may have noticed apart from not reading cook books I also don’t like reading instructions – I prefer the trial and error way. So it’s unfortunate that my basil, sugar peas, broad beans, tomatoes have not survived due to the harsh hot weather in summer. So whats left? My proud killer chillies growing strong and sweet potato leaves, parsley…I’m hoping before I go to Melbourne I would be able to harvest some sweet potatoes 🙂

Here’s some pictures of them…

Chillies

broad beans who didn't survive

Sweet Potato Leaves