it’s already march and i still haven’t put up the blog for my project 52. giving up is getting very very attractive. and very very possible. the only eason why i’m not throwing in the towel is that i see it as an opportunity to start a new blog. an honest-to-goodness personal blog. no ads. no sponsors. no seo optimization software. it’ll probably have no visitors, too, haha!
it’s been almost two years since mia was born and yet i haven’t lost my jelly belly. oh, i’ve lost weight, even without any of those diets for quick weight loss. all i need was portion control. i’m not sure, but i think i’m back to my pre-pregnancy weight, but sadly, i can’t say that i’m back in shape.
my jelly belly, which has never been firm anyways, now needs a lot of work. i’ve been procrastinating for so long, but i really need to do something about it now. although i was off to a good start with the power yoga classes i took last year, the venue was just too far from my place and the commute was getting onerous. if i’m to stick to a fitness regimen, it has to be convenient. otherwise, i’ll just come up with all sorts of excuses, haha!
um, valentine’s day? what valentine’s day? sorry, but in this part of the world, cupid had to step aside and make way for the silver tiger.
oh and yeah, ‘wan shi ru yi’ loosely translates to ‘may everything work out as you wish’. i know that you must be getting inundated with the other more popular greeting ‘gong xi fa cai’ which doesn’t mean ‘happy new year’, by the way, but something more in the likes of ‘may your prosperity grow’ (enlarge your wealth doesn’t sound too smooth, eh?). in practical terms, may you have a greater cash flow, hehe, like water from a non-stop Kohler faucet.
anyways… take your pick of greeting, and welcome the first lunar year of the decade with a big roar! most of the forecasts i’ve been reading advise prudence and caution, suggesting volatile, unpredictable, even adverse times during the year of the white tiger. matters not. remember, YOU are the master of your own destiny (kinda talking to myself here)!
i started the year planning to blog once a day, the so-called project 365. on the second day, i finally admitted that was a bit too ambitious, and resolved to blog at least once a week and do a more realistic project 52 instead. surely, i can do that, can’t i? after all, i blog, on the average, perhaps two to three times a week. so don’t ask me what happened. all of a sudden i lost my blogging mojo. life has become much too complicated to put into words. there’s something about january that makes you want to give your all to set the year onto a good start, so eventually what you end up having is a stressful start, haha!
jan started second grade in school. we started seriously looking for kindergarten/preschool/nursery or whatever they’re called on your slice of the sky. i started considering getting a job after the nth year of beign a sahm. we started looking for good accident and life insurance rates. we started making plans for our december 2010 holidays concrete (yes, i know, that’s 11 months from now. we’re half germans, after all). we started making new financial plans.
it’s only been the first month of the first year of the decade. start is the keyword.
it’s been two weeks into the year and i haven’t written much! as my backlog mounts, the more i feel like i’m losing my blogging groove, with most of my contemporaries having already moved on the microblogging on facebook. oh well…
the past weeks going back to dec 09 has been a whirl of events. it’s just been recently that things have slowed down, with jan back in school and hubby back at work. back to the daily grind. but the turmoil? it hasn’t died down; my mind is spinning with all the excitement, angst, plans, and promises of 2010. may the year of the silver tiger be a good one for all of us!
stole this from an FB friend. food for thought especially with the new year having just begun:
There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days.
All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else.
Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.
It will not matter what you owned or what your were owed.
Your grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will finally disappear.
So too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to do lists will expire.
The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.
It won’t matter where you came from or what side of the tracks on you lived on at the end.
It won’t matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.
Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.
So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?
What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built; not what you got, but what you gave.
What will matter is not your success, but your significance.
What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught.
What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice
that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.
What will matter is not competence, but your character.
What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you’re gone.
What will matter are not your memories, but the memories that live in those who loved you.
What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.
Living a life that matters doesn’t happen by accident.
It’s not a matter of circumstance but of choice.
Choose to live a life that matters.
i really don’t know where november went. in between getting sick and reviewing jan for his final assessment tests, there was hardly time for anything else. yup, jan has finished first grade, and i must say he did quite well. his report card is something any parent can be proud of (yes, even his marks in chinese, considering the circumstances), but more importantly, he has remained enthusiastic about school, curious and eager to learn.
i remember how anxious we all were this time last year. will he fit in? will he sit still? will his personality change? will he find friends? will he like his teacher? will the teacher like him? will he be able to buy his own food? will he find his way to the washroom? will he cope with the academic demands of a school system renowned for being stringent and competitive?
a year has passed. and the answers: yes, yes, and more yes. and now, he is looking forward to stepping up to the next level.
it’s a pity though that there wasn’t any moving up ceremony in their school for the lower classes. impractical, maybe, but i don’t know… makes me feel like there was no closure. until now, i haven’t sorted out his school stuff to separate those items which should be kept for posterity and those that need to be chucked or donated. i know there are places where one can sell textbooks, but really, nobody would want to buy jan’s; they’re almost falling apart, it’s embarrassing to even donate it! but i ought to. sort it out soon, i mean, before the pack rat in me rears its ugly head again. heaven knows we have enough clutter in this flat!
maybe nature thinks i’m still too heavy, so she gave me another dose of one of the best diet supplements there is: getting sick. it’s been ages since the last time i’ve had sick episodes, but now i’ve fallen sick twice in a span of less than two weeks!
is it a wonder my immune system is not holding up? this is one tired, sleep-deprived momma.
we just returned from a halloween party for toddlers. it’s one day late (the little ones don’t care) and it was at 4 in the afternoon (after naptime!). told ya, toddlers’ scene, hehe.
see that construction site and various industrial equipment at the background? that’s the marina bay sands integrated resort on the rise, slated to open next year. i don’t know why they call it a resort, when it’s really mainly a casino.
i probably should have dressed mia as a croupier instead of getting her the scratchy tulle fairy costume she absolutely wanted nothing to do with. ah kids!
will upload pics in flickr (hopefully before christmas, haha!)…
been meaning to make brioche since last week, but hubby went away for four days and of course i didn’t have the time (and energy!) to do any baking until i’d relinquished my double-parent duty yesterday. for a first try, i think these came out quite well.
the recipe was very easy to follow and unlike some other baking endeavors, i didn’t have to add additional flour to account for the humidity here in singapore. am thinking of making another loaf with a bit more sugar and some candied citrus peel… kinda like a fruit loaf. we’ll see. i need to go easy on the sweet baked goodies, or i’ll really need double time on some fitness equipment!
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