The Things We Spend the Most Effort Doing

I hosted a Christmas party yesterday for some of my colleagues, as a way to thank them for working so hard this year and achieving so many deliverables. 

Never did I imagine there was so much work involved in 1) cleaning and organising the house to be in better shape to receive guests, whom I wanted to bring on a house tour, and 2) planning and ordering and buying/preparing the food of the party. It was insane and nail-biting to the last minute and I frankly did not know how the food would turn out until the food was on the table. There was a bit of a hiccup when I started heating up the ribs and turkey 20 to 30 minutes before we were supposed to eat dinner but when I opened the package, realised the ribs and turkey were quite huge and also cold and I didn't have enough rack space in the oven. Plus the quiche also needed to be heated up. One of my colleagues popped into the kitchen and asked if she could help and I said why not (I'm not one to refuse help usually and I can always put people to work).  Another wandered into the kitchen next asking if I needed help and he was very useful.

Well I eventually got all the food on the table and people started eating and chatting with one another, and all I was doing was running around back and forth getting food ready and topping up stuff that was getting low and heating up things. I only started eating when all the policy folks had eaten and the international relations folks arrived. By then the turkey was all out (it's actually kind of yummy and tastes like a tastier version of turkey I've had before) and the pork ribs were thin on the meat bit fatty and divine. My fingers were sticky sweet and fragrant with pork and BBQ juices when I was done. Yum.... 

My kids also surprisingly left us alone most of the time. I realised that when you spend a lot of effort on something, you derive a lot more satisfaction when it has gone well! A bit like Little Prince and what not. Which tells me something about spending money to buy something off the shelf Vs something you made yourself ...

The Gift and the Giver

My birthday just passed yesterday and my hubby mysteriously asked me to keep myself free from 4pm onwards. Turns out he had made reservations at this expensive but authentic Italian place called No Menu restaurant in Telok Ayer area and it was a menu decided by the chef and every dish meant to be a surprise. I loved the focaccia bread the most. Dipped in olive oil. The wine was also horribly expensive and not that awesome. But then again, I don't think any wine should cost above 40 as I'm not a wine connoisseur. 

I enjoyed the ambience a lot (a lot of furniture was brought from their restaurant and home in Italy) and I liked their burrata cheese as an appetizer too although after the first 2 to 3 bites, I couldn't taste the awesomeness anymore as it's a bit bland. But it's light and milky, with no aftertaste as most cheeses do. 

There was a very very thinly sliced Parma ham on top of what seemed like a potato salad that was pretty swell too. And I liked their tiramisu (as always) and the final cheese dessert that was so yummy I ate the whole thing. The roast beef was delicious too except I'm not a beef person. I realised the importance of having enough salt in all the food to make it yummy, from the focaccia bread (salty enough) to the beef (there were salt crystals on the rawer side of the cut beef). 

Even though I didn't feel the dinner was worth the amount that he spent, I think we have to appreciate the intentions of the giver when they do certain things. And appreciate their intentions, the effort of the giver and not the gift itself per se. 

Is Your Life an Endless To-Do List?

 Dear God,

Something God has been impressing upon me:

Be in the Moment

In this time of work-from-home, when work and life seem to blur altogether, there are 2 scenarios: work can be at a lull. That is when we can do things like go for a mid-day or late afternoon swim right after an intense meeting (what a luxurious feeling! To slip into that cool water!) to clear my head and wash off the grime of the whole day.  I can run errands like do some quick grocery shopping for something small I forgot to buy over the weekend, or even attend to my kids, either helping them with schoolwork or even bringing them down to play during working hours (and making up for it later).  

But when work is at its peak, especially when we are in a crisis mode, it is all too easy to work non-stop, to check handphones incessantly, to monitor messages streaming in even when they don't concern us, to check emails during weekends, late at nights, and we don't seem to leave work behind when we leave office like we used to.  Life can seem like this endless stream of work - eat - tend to kids - sleep - repeat (especially when we are too scared to go out too far), and there is no clear distinction or break (where is my Sabbath?).  Recently, I found myself feeling guilty when I don't work during the weekends! I almost feel like I should be working nonstop because my other colleagues are working too (there is always someone working).  I now know a little bit of survivor's guilt, where you feel bad taking a break when you know others are slogging out there.  

As a working mom, there is also this never-ending list of things in your head to do, be it making meals for family/baby and all it entails, to settling kids' homework and performing administrative tasks, even good-to-do hobbies, doing my QT etc, which take away the joy of resting over the weekend (rest?  What rest?).  I guess I also bring this upon myself partially because when I want to get away from work, I like to cook.  Cooking is therapeutic to me to some extent, as it uses a whole other part of my brain and muscles that I don't use when I work.  Plus I generally don't think about work when I cook (too complicated, the process of turning raw ingredients into a decent meal on a table) and I get to eat something yummy and healthy too!  I also have a lot of hare-brained projects and ideas to do, like going to the library to return overdue books and get more books, get new stuff my kids want (if from Carousell, there is a lot more search time, coordination and travelling costs), get stuff for the hamster, make my own body washes, get and make gifts for ex-colleagues etc.  It's all very fun and good, but it's still a list of things to do, which the task-oriented me, will never be satisfied until I have crossed every item off the list.  So, this interferes with my enjoyment of my weekends, to the extent that to use today's catch-phrase, this affects my mental health. 

To be mentally healthy, I shouldn't treat life like an endless to-do list  I mean, what's the point of completing each task on my list but only to rush on to the next task, and the next task, and the next task.  And you know the tasks keep on piling up.  So you never have a moment's rest, and you never enjoy the moment of completion either.  I realised we should celebrate completion of certain bigger tasks, and have a proper rest at times.   And when we set if as a time to rest, we have to rest fully, nevermind the amount of work waiting for us tomorrow or even later.  This is very difficult as it requires us to tune our mind out of our work mode and also 'trust' that we can rest, and we can still complete the work tomorrow.  I suppose part of it is also knowing ourselves, that we do have limitations and we cannot keep working like that.  It will affect our efficiency.  Part of it is also, training of the mind, to concentrate fully on the task at hand.  If it is typing out this coherent and very lucid entry like what I am doing here, I should do it fully.  And not keep thinking about all the other tasks I haven't done.   If it is talking to our kid, we should be fully present.  When we are exercising, likewise.  Cooking, fully in the moment.  When we are spending time with God, to be fully immersed in it.  And when we know there are still a lot of stuff to do, to commit it to paper, and entrust it to God, if we decide now is not the time, and then forget about it until it is time to do it.  Easier said than done.  

I also need to prioritise, what is really important.  My husband is really good at that.  I think the lazy people know their limitations and hence deprioritise and simply do not do a lot of things.  The hardworking folks, on the other hand, are busy and industrious simply because they are capable and can do it.  I need to free up my schedule somewhat so I can slow down and listen to God sometimes, regularly.

Funny things my kids say

 My youngest daughter, who is 1 year and 9 months, is now able to say all sorts of things - at least to tell us what she wants us to do or what she wants to do.  Latest examples:

Her oldest brother was sitting on the sofa eating a packet of Mamee, which is a really tasty and salty noodle snack. She has been clambering all over him to get at the packet or get him to pass her a titbit but he refused (under my strict instruction as it's full of MSG). First she kept crying out 'Give me!'. Then when it wasn't working, she resorted to saying in a beseeching voice 'Try. Try!'. We were all astounded. 

She can also say "Stand up!" when she wants us to carry her up but we were sitting down, "Sit down!" when she was on the floor and we were standing up, "Lie down!" when she wants us to lie down together on the floor, "Go swimming" which always goes together with "swimming costume", "I'm done" when she is dressed and I am still changing, "Go supermarket", "Go library", "make bubble, BIG bubble" and she likes to draw on her hands and sing "mommy finger, mommy finger, where are you etc etc".  She also sings "B-I-N-G-O" and can count 1 to 10 and above in English, Chinese and Mizo.  When she is hungry, she will start muttering "Lok-tok (which means noodles)", "cheese tofu", "tomato" and "corn" which are all her favourite things to eat.  Lately she has started loving prata for breakfast.  She loves stacking blocks in the morning, and playing her cooking toys and pretend to drink (making loud slurping noises from her toy cups).  All told to me by my helper with amusement.

For her older sister, who is 6, recently she went out running with my husband, in her claims to want "a race".  My hubby gave her a 100m headstart and she excitedly ran as fast as she could... Eventually he caught up but it was a close one.  As we were heading home, they were talking about whether her brothers could run faster than her, and my husband said they probably could as they were older.  Then she said "But I can run faster than you, daddy", and instead of humouring her, my husband, the ever-competitive one (you wonder where she gets that from), declared "Well, that's because I purposely let you win".  And her retort was "In a real race, you shouldn't do that". I burst out laughing and my husband said "Yes, you are right.  I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that".  We both marvelled at how she really believed she won him.  

Another funny thing my oldest one (10 years old) said.  I Whatsapped my husband on a Sunday when I was out, to tell the boys to do some Chinese homework so that when I got back, we could all head out.  His reply was that the oldest boy said "it is a Sabbath".  I sent back an eyeroll and a facepalm.  

Our kids do make us laugh quite a lot.

An Exercise Life Hack and A Surprisingly Easy but Delicious Meal

Last Sunday was my second time attempting to do a Sabbath.  I had 2 wins, and 2 losses.  First the wins:

 

• I managed to wake up really early and took baby Josephine cycling at Bishan Park.  I realised if you wake up early enough and set out around 7 plus, the sun is not yet out in full force and you can enjoy a good 45 min or hour of cycling without getting scorched.  The weather is cooling, balmy and quite pleasant overall for cycling.  We saw these 2 old men who were leading a large group of elderly women and men in Tai Ji, looking very stately.  One of them really had the “seh”.  The radio was also playing these old-school Chinese instrument music with graceful sounding 4-word idioms like “feng huang zhan chi” and some other idiom where they moved their hands in counter-clockwise or clockwise circles like they are touching the surface of some water in a basin.  Very calming and peaceful.  There is a lot of stretching too, like putting your hands together and stretching up towards the sun.  What I realised is that after an hour or so of hard cycling, especially that uphill slope going back home, my thighs really do feel sore and continue to have this achey burning sensation throughout the day. So lesson learnt is – not all exercise time is created equal.  Exerting yourself strenuously in the morning is way better than in the rest of the day.
• The second one was how I was inspired by a surprisingly delightfully appetiser at Blossom  restaurant, where we celebrated my mother-in-law’s birthday. We had this Chinese soup that looked like the usual fish maw soup, but was actually a savoury, light yet sweet soup.  I asked what was this pumpkin-like thing in my soup and was told this was honeydew!  It also had white fungus and a big piece of chicken. In short, it was so yummy I was inspired to try my hand at cooking it that Sunday.  So I bought a kampong chicken from Toa Payoh wet market, a big orange honeydew (the crunchy kind which is less expensive), and I found some red date, honey dates and wolfberries in the freezer.  I also bought a cabbage to add to the soup.  And that was it.  I put the washed chicken pieces, together with the dates and wolfberries in a pot of water and started boiling for about 45 minutes. And then I added the honeydew and cabbage, and boiled for another 15 minutes. As it was cooking, it smelled heavenly, like Korean ginseng soup. It looked really pro too, like those Cantonese nourishing soups your mom makes (see lovely picture below). 

• I complemented this with Blue Moon organic brown rice, and a self-concocted minced meat mushroom onion stir fry.  The beauty of it was that I didn’t rely on a recipe for the meat stir fry this time, but went purely by gut feel.  I fried up the onions, then added the pork, fried it a bit until no more pink, and then added the cut mushrooms.  Then I added dark soy sauce, a splash of Shaoxing wine, and fried some more.  Then I scattered some five spice powder, and added some Thai fish sauce for measure.  The end result was a salty and dark mixture which was tasty enough.  Also, a key difference was that I was somehow in a very relaxed mood as I was cooking. None of that Gan-Jeongness which typically characterises my Sunday cooking mood. That helps in making the inspiration flow on how to treat the food I think - I instinctively knew what to put.  Now I know how easy it was to make the fruit-meat soup, and will be trying out the papaya one, and also the apple one next!  Plus the organic brown rice turned out really soft and the grains were all expanded, showing they soaked up the water (just soak for 3 hours) and was really easy to eat.  My kids didn’t even realise they were eating many types of brown rice (and getting all that fibre and nutrients!).  This is a meal I can make for guests in future.  The insight or moment of Eureka was – the skill of a cook in creating delicious dishes out of our ingredients is a key factor in reducing food waste!  All the food was demolished.  Unlike my other cooking ventures… eg the barramundi we cooked until it disintegrated...  how I always have leftovers when I cook the usual Sunday meals.  this also harks back to my reading this Anime book on this lady who unfortunately destroys all the food she tries to cook… and how she learnt to do it properly.

 

What I did not manage to do, unfortunately, was to

• Journal (which is why I am making up for lost time here)
• Spend time with God, reading His Word and receiving from Him (so sad)
• 
  
• Need to do better next time/Sabbath!
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• Another life hack, as I was trying to brush up my boys’ Chinese composition skills in a last-ditch attempt before their exams, was that the easiest way to improve their Chinese language skills as a busy working mom with not that much time to spare sitting next to them supervising their assessment books is to speak Chinese to them only.

Insights from Slowing Down (Slightly)

 Hello!

Yesterday, I went to church for my second mentoring session and the topic was: 1) experiencing and being sensitive to God's prompting and leading every moment of our lives, and 2) the value of keeping the Sabbath.  I must say I still have not fully internalised the first topic (what a big and immense topic it is!) but the second topic really gripped my imagination and I felt challenged and intrigued enough to try my hand at keeping the Sabbath today.  

So what does Sabbath mean, really, to a working mom in a very modern hectic city like Singapore?  Well, based on the book we were reading, Sabbbath is about stopping work (easy!), enjoying rest (not so easy with 4 kids and husband who likes his me time too, and also with my maid going off to enjoy her Sabbath as well), practicing delight (hmm how do we do that exactly) and contemplating God (of course!).  It was especially challenging as the book said Sabbath was when we rest from paid and unpaid work, and the latter includes paying bills, doing housework, running errands.  I mean, if we don't do it on Sunday, then we have to make sure we get these done on the other 6 days.  I guess that is where intentional planning comes in.

So this morning, I decided since going for nature walks and spending time with my family bring me delight, we should go to a breakfast place near to a park, and after breakfast, go for a walk in nature.  Since my maid was taking off too, we packed up all 4 kids and went to some HK cafe at Sin Ming (So Good Cafe), ate dimsum and then went off to Windsor Park.  It was quite sunny by then so I donned my cap, tried unsuccessfully to press caps on my 3 other kids, and trudged along carrying baby and we saw monkeys, salamanders, red dragonflies, and many large ants.  We got home sweaty and quite tired (trudging in the hot tropical jungle does sap your strength!).

Later in the day, after the kids went down to my parents' place to watch TV, husband went out to play soccer, I decided to sit at my balcony with my handphone and journal to do my Quiet Time.  My passage was Proverbs 28:11 "The rich are wise in their own eyes; one who is poor and discerning sees how deluded they are." And I was puzzling over how the rich are "deluded".... Dark stormclouds were gathering and streaks of lightning kept flashing. I got quite distracted, and also started wondering how lightning is formed.  Since I had my handphone in hand, I Googled it, and to my surprise, it was due to the formation of positive charges on the top of a stormcloud and negative charges at the bottom (why is it like that?) and then it somehow causes the ground to have positive charge, and then zaaap! Electricity crosses the atmosphere either from the bottom of a stormcloud to the highest point on the ground, or from cloud to cloud (I especially like the cloud to cloud bit).  And nobody really knows why the electricity happens in a zig-zag fashion.  And even more amazing, is how thunder is formed.  It is because the electricity creates a hole in the air, and when air rushes back in to fill the void, it creates the sound of thunder.  I mean, consider how loud thunder really is!  And it is just air rushing back to fill a thin void in the sky, how can be that loud?  Sometimes it's almost like a thunderclap that makes everyone jump out of their clothes for a while!  So I started marvelling how loud and powerful this phenomenon which looks like a thin streak in the air, is, and how we humans, if we didn't have our concrete houses, are at the mercy of nature.  And how powerful weather is, and how little we still understand it, and how small we are.  

And this led me to contemplate that any day, something bad could happen to our small miniscule lives -- we could be struck by lightning, someone could be struck by disease, and that is probably how the rich are deluded.  They don't realise every little thing comes from God, from their health, to their ability to keep their wealth, and make even the next dollar, and so on and so forth.  And we really should not take anything for granted, and give thanks for all the blessings.  And not just give thanks, but bless others richly.  I mean, God didn't bless us just so we keep thanking Him, and the Sparklight (Sunday school) lesson today was also on how Aquila and Priscilla were generous in sowing into God's kingdom.  They were literal tentmakers (they sewed and sold tents!) and back then, believers shared everything, so they shared their money and their home with Paul and others who wanted to hear the gospel.  May we be like Aquila and Priscilla.