Blogging

I enjoy reading other people's blogs.

When I started blogging myself, it was more as an anti stress exercise as well as a method of recording my day/week/time.

Some blogs I have bookmarked cos they are such interesting reading as we get to 'follow' the developments of other people's lives. O yeah those are MY kind of blogs. I do (now and again) also read the politically inclined blogs but they are basically only relevant for 'the moment of issue'. I prefer reading about the lives of others.

There are so many interesting lives going on out there. Let me recall a few.



There was this blog written by a divorcee who was raising 4 kids. She talks about her daily life, about falling in love again (but the mother of the new guy did not approve), of breaking up, etc. I 'followed' her thru moving house, unpleasant meets with her ex, and her kids going to boarding school, her eldest son getting married, etc. Sadly now she doesnt write much. After leaving her job I guess she has less access to free computer time? Who knows?



There was another popular blog by a lady who used to live in Japan. She too has stopped writing much after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (sp???). Just reading about her everyday life proved to be interesting. She had a son and a husband and lots of friends.



Some people in show business like to write too. Currently I read one by an artiste manager. Its fun to read cos he talks about people u seen onscreen in very human terms. Another blog is by the hubby of a film star. I think he takes a big risk by writing under his own name. What if things sour between them? What if he accidently writes something picked up by gossip writers who prey the blogs? So far he has played safe and written mostly about his stuff like motorcycles.



There is this yuppie lady who writes fun articles. She does alot of marathon, jungle walking. She must be a very busy person cos she too doesnt write often.



One of the most important traits in blogging is that it needs updating often. Whenever your blog is visited, people will only return often if there's new stuff to read about. Being a blogger myself, I know most often everyday life takes over and you cannot write for long periods of time.



I also visit blogs written by leaders, great men. I love to read great minds! Of course the best ones will be written by retired great men who actually have the time to do so. It is my belief that men currently holding top posts leave the writing in blogs to their agents. I dont read those.

I also check out blogs of those who have responded to mine. There's one by a lady who calls herself by the name of a flower. I dont quite understand who she is. it isnt clear if she is married or living with someone but sometimes she writes sadly about a lost love.

The newer respondants too. Noel has an interesting blog...but he too prolly has a sad side when he writes about his kids. Richard has a blog thats not too personal. I remember looking at some very pretty pics there. Keledec has a totally Chinese blog that I will prolly never be able to read.

There are many blogs written by stay at home moms. U get an overdose of pictures of their kids. Yeaaah they are ALL very cute. Yawnnnn.

At the back of my mind, I think the internet is a dangerous place to be if u are not too careful. Write from your heart but make true identity a mystery. Make friends in cyberspace but police who u let into your real world. I have personally only TWO persons from the cyberworld and thank God they are the nicest people on earth. There are many frightening stories of friends from cyberworld turning to be werewolves in disguise....so do be careful.

OK enough writing for today....my turn to go read now!

JAR's Germany visit

JAR emailed me some pics from his visit.

He must have had a good breakfast. Mmmmm. Me? I actually prefer a savoury start to my day. I like having a fruit or yogurt to end the breakfast but I definitely need something more than just those two for the entire first meal of the day.

As usual, JAR brought Bunny along in his travels. The lucky bunny wunny has been all over the world and its a cheap travel companion...no cost in terms of flight ticket, hotel room, cleaning services, food, etc. Now I understand why bunny gets to follow JAR so much! Look at him sitting by the hotel window!

People tended to walk or go on bicycles in the town where he visited. It looks so peaceful there.

There were nice buildings too.

JAR says he has 150 more pics. I bet he has even more memories.

Someday I shall do alot more travelling around the world. It would be great to travel with a friend.

A former boss told me that when u travel, God challenges u even more. Overcome those challenges and the rewards are fantastic. I love travelling with JAR. Sometimes he walks a little too fast for me (remember that we are quite different in size. One JAR step is equal to my 1 1/2 steps (we actually measured this!). What we do is we each move at our owm pace. Somehow, after some distance, we are bound to be at the same place again..... as proven many a time!

Lame but ok weekend

I had a good but rather lame weekend.

Got my car serviced on Saturday. It was a long wait. Even tho the waiting room was most comfortable, I did regret having to spend too much of my weekend there.

Brother's family still has maid problems so I spent quite a bit of the weekend playing with the nieces. Went shopping for the usual toiletries stuff. Rested a bit. Thats mostly it.

Friday tho I did go shopping with SIL and the little girls. I saw a handbag that was a limited edition piece. Part of me wanted it but I did not buy it cos I had to get the car done the very next day and instinct told me that a big portion of my monthly budget was already going that-away! Anyways SIL got a Braun Buffel bag. She says that she works hard and deserves a treat. Yeah, I work hard too. So....should I get THAT limited edition bag that costs the earth?

Its wierd that the five siblings in my family are generally careful with our money. Eldest daughter and youngest son are spendrifts to a degree that God, in being fair married them both off to spouses that enjoy spending! Second daughter is generous and spends money on us all and to balance that God gives her alot! Fourth son strives hard to make money but is as yet not too well blessed with it. Third daughter earns a good sum, saves as much as possible, sometimes goes overboard but normally remains quite sane about her money.

I hope the week ahead gets more exciting for me. Maybe next weekend willbe fireworks! I have not got anything planned but I can hope, cant I?

JAR is back home and he too had a good but nothing too shout about weekend. But he did get to spend it in a foreign land!

We are both getting each of our new homes ready for living soon.

distance

JAR has taken the flight to Germany. It is as usual a business trip.

I got up at 5 am in order to call him before he got to the airport.

Its a common trait. We both get a little nervous everytime we take a filght. He has a 10 hour flight ahead of him. I hope he gets to sleep well on the plane. This is not his first trip there so basically I guess he knows his way and what to expect.

JAR normally gets a little mushier than normal in his email before a trip. I enjoy getting them but they do get me a bit nervous too.

This prolly is the better part of a long distance relationship. U are more used to being apart than other couples. I still feel the missing. He is another 10 hours further away than he normally is but on the other hand since the earth is a globe, he is also 10 hours nearer to me!

On a more sane level, we are prolly almost at the end of our journey together. There is still alot of caring. Communication is almost at it best. But where else can we go towards from here?

Discount vs cheapo

Most of my stuff have been moved to the new condo.

I did get quite a few new stuff more than a year ago ....the kitchen, the living room, the master bedroom, the spare bedrooms, the study all have brand new (as in a year old) furniture and equipment. However I also have my stuff from my mom's house that I had to transfer.

Actually I just bought a new cabinet and I made a deal with the transporter of the furniture. I told him that he was going the same way anyways, so he might as well help send my stuff for about 60% of the price he would have otherwise charged. He agreed and we both had a win/win situation.

I am almost always game for a special or discounted price. JAR learnt to ask for a discount after he got to know me. After all if u dont ask u will never get it. My brother on the other hand (in my opinion) has taken the discount concept to a new cheap level. He wants the contractor to get the bathroom done cheap. I say u pay peanuts u get monkey's job. Now that his bathroom is almost ready he is finding that the cheap materials used is displaying itself both functionally and esthetically. (BTW the pic is NOT bro. Hehehe)

Poor brother! Both he and SIL have their hands full at the moment. Their trusty old maid has just completed her contract and left for home. The new maid who has been in training for three weeks upped and ran away the very next day after the old maid left. Well, not everyone can handle a job looking after two little girls all day.

My view is maybe she left cos all of us had been praying hard for the two little ones. We were worried that they might miss old maid too much. Maybe God answered by removing the new one who obviously cannot handle the job.

Forgotten languages.

I also must thank Keledec for his response. I tried to read his webpage but its totally in Chinese. I did try to learn Mandarin when I was in college but it was only spoken Mandarin not written characters.

I have mostly forgotten that Chinese official dialec. Two years ago when my plane was in transit in Taiwan, a Chinese lady stopped to ask me directions. All I could say was "Sorry I do not know the way (which I truly did not). Whilst in college I used to even dream in that language. It was also the 'secret' language that my cousin and I used to talk about guys and stuff. Now, like alot of things from my youth its almost forgotten.

Many years ago I was selected to represent my country in an exchange programme to Japan. That was my first experience of travelling abroad. The group comprised of about 20 people and we were given a two week intensive course in the Japanese languiage.....enough for each of us to be able to give a short speech and for basic communication.

I spent over a month in Japan. Attended alot of courses, met many new friends and lived for a time with a nice Japanese family. Now, I have also almost forgotten the language due to not practicing it.

Whenever I visit JAR, I do meet many people who are impressed that I am bilingual. Actually I should be ashamed. I should be able to communicate in many more languages but for the fact that I do not practice doing so.

my favourite boys

My sister and bro in law were away in London cos he had a meeting to attend. I had volunteered to drive my nephews (my favourite boys) to their school, tuition, etc. I spent the weekend at my condo since it is only two roads away from second sister's house.

Phew. Driving nephews equals fun.....but lets see what happened.

I did not know the way to their new school. No problem. The kids are big enough to direct me. That was the easy part. They had a cross country run on Saturday. After sending them at 7am I drove back to the condo after agreeing to pick them up at 11.30am. At 10.15am youngest nephew gives me a call requesting that I pick them up at 10.45am since they were almost done.

Happily I drove towards the school going the very way we went. Oh Oh....what have we here? Road work signs suddenly appear. The road works people had closed the road and had begun work. I knew of no other way to get to the school. I made a big turn driving and looking out for possible roads. None. I drove into the next road and turned back to the only road I knew. I actually drove thru the tarred hot half done road. Luckily the work men were not at where I was driving. I got to the school and got my nephews.

Later that evening I was to send eldest 16 year old nephew to tuition. Then I took the younger two boys for swimming at the condo.

We all decided to have pizza for dinner after picking up eldest nephew. The only problem was I did not know which pizza parlour to go to. No sweat. The boys had their favourite one which of course had to be across town. Luckily upon picking up the eldest boy I turned a corner and lo and behold we saw a franchise of that pizza parlour right before our eyes. We had fun eating, chatting and laughing over lasagne, pizza and sandwiches.

Isnt it great that I am able to communicate with the younger generation?

Thanks! Plus some pics.

Wow! Thank you Richard Goodman and Noel Lewis for taking time to respond. I have a big smile on my face. When strangers say something sweet, they normally have no reason to do so other than just mean it.

Thank you and I shall be visiting your webpages soon...actually I had sneaked at one of Noel's pages and guess what... I immediately pegged it cos its interesting reading. Right now I am kinda filled with work so I shall keep the full reading to my leisure time (read that as lunch hour).

Actually I hadplanned to put up some pics today. They are mostly from the recent vacation. So here goes.

This is Crater Lake. See the mirror image on the Lake? Its really really beautiful. When JAR asked the lady at the reception counter in a hotel we stayed in at a town about an hour's drive away for directions to Crater Lake, she apologetically replied that she has never been there. After seeing this, JAR remarked that he felt like driving back to that town just to tell the lady to GO SEE THE LAKE!!!

Sometimes we miss out on the most beautiful things very near to us just cos it so near that we do not bother to take the time to see it.

This a a pretty house I got to see. JAR and I had followed his vet brother to see a mare that had given birth. The horse was beautiful, the owner graceful and she had this pretty house. Hopefully the broken down house JAR just bought will someday reach new magnificence.

We passed a river whose name I have forgotten (I am bad at names, obviously). Its so rich, powerful and gorgeous. We practically followed it , going thru neighbourhoods and places not many people go. Thats one of the fun things about a vacation with JAR. I used to be so scared of untried places (sometimes I still am) but nowadays I look forwards to the new experiences that comes with being adventurous.

Right now this is where I am. This is my office view. After going to the many places, I have returned to appreciate the beauty that is in front of me everyday.

Some days, of course I see but do not appreciate but travelling has helped me open my eyes beyond just looking but not seeing.

relevant or irrelevant

Just some pics. Some may be relevant. Other just for show.

Will delete later.

Who reads this?

Sometimes I wonder if anyone reads my blog.

Maybe no one ever reads this so its almost like writing in my diary.

Maybe one or two persons have pegged this page as a favorite and quietly updates themselves on my life's happenings.

I do that. I have pegged a few pages and I read them whenever I am online and have a few minutes to spare. I dont write on their comment pages except for a very few.

One, cos the writer discovered that she has multiple sclerosis. After reading about her happenings over a while, I felt compelled just to send in a message of hope. She doesnt know me nor I, her , personally.

Another time I responded was when I wrote to the blog of a daughter of a former head of a country. She writes political happenings but one day she wrote about her father's hospitalization. I have admiration for both father and daughter so I wrote to her then.

Do I wish that my blog has readers?

Yes and no.

Yes, cos its nice to think that I am not writing to thin air. It would be great if I had readers.

No cos what if someone I wrote about got upset over the writings.

I wish JAR sometimes reads this. He knows of its existence and has visited the page.

Sometimes I write here first before I express it to JAR.

Latest developments.

Maybe JAR is a bit upset about what I had last related to him. Its about the possibility of me being introduced by a friend to someone who is looking for a life companion.

Anyways its about a whole other story which I might write about later.

Have to go now. Lunch hour is almost over.

Getting older and getting there

Time passes quickly when u are busy.

Work has overtaken almost all in my life this week. I go in early and I am there till late in the evenings. I am quite happy with the way things are going. I am not too hassled (as yet). I get stuff done on time. But the pace needs to change soon, otherwise I will be drained out.

We had a good weekend. We celebrated mom's birthday at my eldest sister's house. Mom got her many presents (spell that in terms of cash, jewellery, a flat screen TV, household goods, etc) and she (mom being mom) also gave out lots of goodies for us.

My dad had expired by the time he reached mom's age. The siblings are now very protective of mom since she is all we have left. Dad would be pleased to see that we are taking care of mom well.

I am looking forwards with some apprehension about moving to my own place.

I am excited by the newness and the independence it promises me. I am also worrried about being alone and lonely.