2 Decades Of Love

This is what appeared in my blog sidebar on 11th of July 2012. Yup, hubby and I have been married for 20 years, although it seems like only yesterday... 


I was 24 and hubby was 28 when we got married at the Glad Tidings church in PJ. I still remember that I could not sleep a wink the night before the wedding, running through all the plans in my mind and praying that everything would go well. 


I was supposed to have my make-up done at 8am but the make-up lady got lost and couldn't find my house even with the address and instructions given to her. That was the days when we did not have the convenience of mobile phones, so I was in quite a panic when she still didn't show up by 9am since hubby was due to arrive at 10am. Thankfully she came at slightly after 9am and was so skilled that I had my make-up and hair done in no time at all, and was all ready before the clock struck 10.


Hubby arrived on time and we had the customary cham cha which is offering a cup of tea to each of my parents, aunties and uncles before heading to church for the wedding ceremony.


The wedding ceremony in church was short and sweet, and we had a tea reception after that at the hall within the church premises.


We had 2 dinners, one on the wedding day hosted by hubby's parents and one on the next day hosted by my parents since both sets of parents had wanted to invited every single one of their friends and family, and Chinese restaurants in those days could not accommodate so many tables. It was a tiring affair - we shook so many hands of people offering their congratulations and we smiled so much for so many hours that our hands were stiff and our smiles were frozen on our faces long after the guests had gone home!


But we had fun.


And now, 20 years later with 2 kids...I must say that by the grace of God through good times and bad, we are still very much in love :)

Celebrated by having buffet lunch at Mosaic,
Mandarin Oriental Hotel KL

A Perfect Smile

My daughter. SweetTeen, has been wearing dental braces for the past 2 years since she was 12 years old. She was very self-conscious of her crooked teeth and refused to smile whenever she had her photo taken. 

After having 4 teeth extracted, enduring pain and discomfort in the mouth after her monthly dental visits, breaking countless mini toothbrushes used to clean the braces and in between her teeth, not being able to eat some of her favourite food and being teased unrelentlessly by her older sibling for having metal in her mouth...here are some shots of the progress through the 2 years:

The first day of wearing braces

Teeth beginning to straighten, spring added on the left
to create a gap for a growing new tooth

Teeth straightening out very nicely

Bottom braces added after a year and a half

 And now the final result after exactly 2 years and 2 months:

A beautiful smile!

The dentist even gave us the molds to keep for remembrance...

before

and after

It has been costly but well worth the money spent. Now SweetTeen can flash her smile without a care in the world. Anyway, we told her that she needs to pay back the RM5500 after she graduates from university and starts work, and she went "WHAT?!!"

On This Night

I'd like to think of my family as being the typical modern, average-income Malaysian household where everyone owns an electronic gadget (or two). 

After dinner we would either be watching TV together or each of us would be seated around the house using some form of communication device - a laptop, tablet or smart phone. Don't get us wrong, we still have conversations with each other...while using our devices. 


So on this particular night it was a welcome change when we did other things besides having our eyes glued to the LED monitor...well, except CoolTeen.



I baked an apple cinnamon cake, which turned out well after a previous disastrous attempt.




CoolTeen did some Maths homework then proceeded to de-stress by playing some online game...with his favourite chocolate chip cookies within reach, of course.



SweetTeen got daddy to help her with her school woodwork project. She said that the girls in her class had to fix this letter holder while the boys did needlework...strange but a good experience for them, I suppose!

The Final Solution

I certainly love my neighbourhood but many of my neighbours like to keep cats as pets. I don't really mind those furry creatures roaming around since they control the population of mice and rats in the area. However, these cats have this very annoying habit of using my garden as their personal litter box. I know I have blogged about it before - twice, in fact - which goes to show how annoyed I am at their toilet habits, but it's difficult to catch the cat in the act since it can somehow sense that I would strongly disapprove and would probably catch hold of it and wring its little neck if I could. 


A recent incident that made me blow my top was when a certain cat left something sticky and smelly... right.on.my.doorstep!! There was urine on my slippers and poo next to my doormat! 


This called for drastic measures to make sure kitty doesn't do what it did again...ever!

I bought pieces of sticky fly paper from Giant hypermart. Then I proceeded to cut them into little squares and placed them on my porch, sticky side up.

And whaddaya know...the next morning there was a piece of sticky paper with some white fur stuck to it. Needless to say, that particular kitty decided use someone else's porch for its toilet needs after that experience.


But that didn't stop other cats from dirtying my garden. So I left sticky pieces of fly paper all over the grass too. This seemed to work but I worried that the wind might blow those little pieces over to my next door neighbour's laundry or car...and my next door neighbours do not own a single cat, so it might be wise to be on good terms with them.


So as a last resort, and with a great big sigh, my front gate is now 'wired'...

Not a pretty sight...but it's either this or more poop-scooping. 

Amazing English

Most people, especially typists, would know that this sentence contains all the 26 letters of the alphabet:


THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG


But did you know that there are also numerous other sentences? I didn't, until I did some research on the internet:


Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs. 


Crazy Fredericka bought many very equisite opal jewels.

Amazingly few discotheques provide jukeboxes.



Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow!


Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz.


A quick movement of the enemy will jeopardize six gunboats.


Wafting zephyrs quickly vexed Jumbo.


Today, a cousin of mine posted this on Facebook and I found it so amazing that I just had to share it:


"I do not know where family doctors acquired illegibly perplexing handwriting; nevertheless, extraordinary pharmaceutical intellectuality counterbalancing indecipherability transcendentalizes intercommunication's incomprehensibleness." 
(found in MedicalHumour on Facebook)


This is a sentence where the first word is 1 letter long, the second word is 2 letters long....the eighth word is 8 letters long and so on... and the twentieth word is twenty letters long! The person who made this sentence must be a vocabulary genius!

Lately, I have been enjoying the funny "Oh My English!" advertisement clips aired on TV. Here's one mistake that my kids and I frequently (and intentionally) make when we speak to each other at home: