Recipes That Work

Cajun chicken pasta with carrot and broccoli, or with peppers

Haidilao soup packet with straw mushrooms, pork ribs, carrots, cabbage or celery, onions

Honeydew chicken soup

Shanghai pork ribs noodles

Roast chicken with root vegetables, which you can also shred and make into chicken mayo sandwiches

Bittergourd with egg (the very yummy salty umami/oyster sauce version I ate in Sabah Malaysia)

Stir fried leafy vegetables (any kind, do it well?)

Ma po tofu?

Baked sweet potato

Stir fried sweet potato with cauliflower and carrot?

Cold seafood pasta (how my mum-in-law makes it)

Truffle oil kombu angelhair pasta (cold)

I would like to bake all kinds of bread

Evangelism One-Liners

I shall start keeping a record of all the amazing one-liners that come to me always after the conversation is over:

SK: I took time off to spend with my mum, because she is getting old, and I want to travel with her.

Me: Oh is she well?

SK: Yes but she has this genetic disease where she is slowly going blind.

Me: Oh that's great that you are taking time off to spend with her.  It's good.

What I should have said: Oh, you are a very filial son.  I can see that.  It's great that you are taking time off to spend with her while she is still alive. But what is even more important, is, where she is going after she dies.  Do you know much about Christianity?  

At SCIC dialogue, talking to a sweet old man who is a researcher in a Centre of Excellence.  We were both big fans of nature, biomimicry, and raving about the immune system and his research thesis was on enzymes vs catalysts.  I wanted to tell him, it's so marvellous, isn't it evidence of a Creator? How can any of this come from chance?  But before I could do that, he said "But nature had millions of years!  And we humans have only had a few thousands of years." I was tongue-tied and realised he was an evolutionist. What I should have said was, "Ah, but do you know the 2nd law of thermodynamics? How can this be true, that random motion produces greater and greater order - it would violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics!" I should also point him towards pregnancy, and delivery and even abortion.

The Power of a Prayer Altar

 I was chatting with 2 cell members over lunch after a training session on deliverance, at a coffee shop opposite church, when our conversation suddenly turned to how my 11-year old boy became so spiritually hungry.  This is a source of great interest from many Christian parents I have encountered.

I have been wondering the same thing myself, and keep asking him "When did you suddenly become so interested in God?".  He can't really remember himself.  But I think this is what I remember:

It was around Feb/Mar 2023 period, when he suddenly slowed down a lot in his daily things.  He took longer and longer to do his homework, to shower, to eat, to even brush his teeth, such that I remember sitting with him from 3pm until 10+pm to finish his homework!  And he would do his work so slowly he left lots of questions blank (like the whole li2 jie3, half the speed math paper) when he took practice test papers.  That was also a time when he would sit stoning, staring into space, looking mopey and sad.  And he would act tortured when his siblings commented on him.  I remember bringing him to watch Ant Man and Quantumania and instead of enjoying it he just put his head in his hands the whole time and curled up, like he was being tortured.  And when I took him to Botanic Gardens, he would walk far behind us and have a long face the whole time, like he wasn't having any fun.  When I looked at his work, I saw how many times he cancelled out what he wrote, and wrote the same thing after that.  It was like some mental issue.  He also wasn't eating.  And after many night talks with him, I realised:

- He said often he didn't know if he was sinning (maybe it was him listening to my teaching on holiness on 4 Mar) 

- He didn't know what to do next, like whether it was God's will, but on further asking, it was little things like should he do this piece of homework now and that piece of homework.  It was analysis by paralysis.

- I remember at one point, he was scared that he would encounter the end times, cos of some lady who came to buy Sylvanian family figurines from me, and she said her pastor said it was very soon now.

At some point, Commandant Catherine told me (when I told her about my boy's problem), that as a parent, an authoritative figure, I had to take control and pray for my child.  So me and Ben went into a room and took authority and prayed for him.  He became better after that!  

Slowly, he even smiled and laughed at things, and eventually, he became his usual jokey self, laughing really hard at jokes. I recall when he was at his low point, his brother showed a video of him filming himself and being a real goofy show-and-tell person, and he was such a far cry from it.  He is now more relaxed, and enjoys talking to people, but hasn't quite regained his old comedic self.

But instead, as he came out of his funk, it was replaced by this deep desire to read the Bible and love of Bible study.  He would harrass me to do Bible Study with them, and he loved hearing me read the Bible in a dramatic voice, and after that he would always ask me, "so what's the lesson?" or "so what's the key takeaway", or "what does this mean?".  And I would have to explain it, and if I succeeded, he woudl smile and say it was a good Bible study and go to sleep happy.  

He loved to attend cell group, and after church camp, where he hated for it to end and even got a "Best Camper" award, and wanted to start his own cell group, and become a pastor, his love for cell group and all things church became a full-blown mania or love affair. To the point now, he loves Sundays, especially when my husband would be doing Bible study with his cousin (my boy would be the first person sitting there listening attentively with his Bible), or to come to any training sessions on Christian things with me.  

Many Christians have asked me, how did I raise up such a godly boy, and I wish I could say it was from his observations of his role model (who is his mummy), and it is from him seeing me do my quiet time daily, kneeling at my bed, or praying aloud earnestly whenever I encountered difficulties, but it is not.  My quiet times are sketchy and irregular, and far from my ideal state (which from the book I read, is to spend at least 1.5 hours daily in worship, Word, listening, prayer and journalling, in a secret closet), and at times I break into sporadic 40-day prayers for people (more on that later), when I am burdened or convicted to do so, although I sometimes lose steam, especially when I am doing it alone. Sometimes I come back from a high (e.g. my Cambodia mission trip) and do my extended quiet times (e.g. 1 hour a day) quite regularly for a while, only to lose steam again and go back to guerrilla-style QTs. I do not talk about God much in my daily life outside of church, and I hardly spout verses, and the only spiritual example I set them is in my regular, non-negotiable attendance of church and conducting of cell groups.  Also, the spiritual instruction I have been giving them is sporadic Bible studies, which me or my husband conducts, and we try to go through a gospel, although now we are skipping around some epistles as well, and what is useful is I read a short passage and then we discuss how to interpret it and the right applications for our lives.  I find this a useful girding of biblical perspectives and understanding of what God expects out of us, in living out the Christian faith.  I also get the sense my kids don't take salvation for granted, judging by the number of times they ask me "how do I know I am saved?" and moaning that they don't think they are, and my eldest even often wishing he was a dog, "cos all dogs go to heaven".  I had to explain the salvation thing to them over and over again.

The interesting thing which is a major Thanksgiving is that my oldest boy is somehow quite gifted in evangelism, or it comes easily/naturally to him, through his chatty friendships (he is a chatty boy), and he claims he has converted or led to Christ 2 of his friends!  This is so amazing to me.  My second boy who is the "holy" one who wants to be a pastor, instead keeps asking me to pray for him to be able to evangelise, but he is the one who tries but scares his friends away, by talking about hell and stuff (the strange thing is my oldest boy did share about how someone died and saw these evil spirits and his friends instead were so scared they believed).   So while my oldest boy is not as spiritually keen and crazy like my second, in that he still likes reading his children's books like Roald Dahl, Harry Potter, Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, and has other hobbies like playing computer games and soccer, he is also now quite willing to go to Sunday School, he raises his hands when he worships with me (no kidding), and doesn't try to escape at the last minute from Sunday School so I have to chase him all around the church or play hide and seek with him to catch him and force him into his Sunday school class (the things my kids make me do...).  My second boy has no interest other than watching Christian movies, reading Christian books, attending Christian events and Bible study.  Ahem... Yes.  How did I get a boy like that?  To the point when one of the ladies in the training session turned around and spoke to him after the first class and said when she laid eyes on him, the word "Special" came into her mind, and she just wanted to tell him he is very special in God's eyes and God is very pleased with him.  If only he would develop some other hobbies and eat more.  At this young age, he is also learning not to judge other people so easily, which kids are prone to do when they get it into their heads that something is right and wrong.

So, I wonder, how did all this happen? Well, I have no clear answers, but I like to think that my feeble attempts to set up a personal spiritual altar some years ago after reading the John Mulinde book, in my home helped kick-start things (I recall a few nights or early mornings, I woke up and did my prayer session at the second balcony, playing worship songs on my hp), and we had one or two attempts to do a family worship/Bible study/prayer session on a Sun night, and we have been doing nightly prayers regularly (which are quite extended, we use them to pray for other people too), and occasional Bible studies, spurred by my second boy's insatiable appetite for spiritual feeding and prayer.  He wanders into my walk-in wardrobe when I'm doing my quiet time and asks me what am I doing, and when I tell him, he promptly sits down next to me, plonks down his own Bible and notebook and wants to imitate me and learn how I do it. My kids like a formulaic prayer, whereby we always start with confession, and then prayer requests.    But it is like this verse shared at the Daniel Fellowship event from Leviticus 6:12 "The fire on the altar must be kept burning; it must not go out". And I feel that as long as we were keeping the home altar going, with my individual prayer times, my husband's, us praying as a small group of 2 or 3 nightly (me and my 2 boys, sometimes with my girl as well), the prayer altar was kept burning, and this slowly changed the spiritual atmosphere in my home. 

Anyway, I have a lot to thank God for.  Spiritual change in kids is not to be taken for granted and is hard to come by, judging from what a colleague told me from his observations of his cell members who are parents, and from my husband's friends' sharing, who are pastors' wives.  And I really should have more faith in this PSLE at the end of the year.  God will deliver me (I mean my boy) and show Himself strong and faithful. He always does.  And I may then ask myself "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?", like what my mentor texted me one night.  And even if the results are not what the world thinks of as a happy ending, I know that all things work for the good of those who love Him, and who have been called according to His purpose.  Amen. 

Bird Paradise vs Jurong Bird Park

So after intense studying at home for about a week during the June holidays, we all developed hay fever and my husband and I decided to bring the kids to the newly opened Bird Paradise at Mandai, next to the zoo and River Safari (not that anyone can visit all three or even two attractions in one day, but I suppose this makes for some economies of scale in things like waste treatment or something). My whole family looked forward to this visit primarily my eldest boy is bird-crazy and hence we have been taking care of two sun conure parrots for the past year. They have brought us us endless joy, and also ringing eardrum, scratched up arms and nibbled and half destroyed electronic equipment (their favourite is the red navigation button in the middle of the keyboard and chewing on the top of the laptop). So when I read about the cockatoos tearing up signages and biting girl’s ear, I just chuckle and know it’s natural bird behaviour. 

So we woke up bright and early (even my youngest who cheerfully told the helper to keep her uniform because she wasn’t going to school today) and to my surprise, my husband also got quite involved in getting the kids showered and making them breakfast (as he is usually very edgy about us being on time whenever we meet his parents).

Then we drove to Mandai, while listening to Evanescence (wake me up) cos my husband felt like he needed that and then the Wonder Woman 1984 soundtrack, which is epic and Olympic-sounding and also sounded strangely like the atmospheric music of a theme park when he turned into the carpark. The theme song ended just as he parked, which made us all laugh.  

We had a good time walking up to the entrance where they put some features along the way like a gigantic bird nest with eggs, and some orchid display.  Then we reached and I was reading this big display showcasing the history of Jurong Bird Park turning into Bird Paradise when I was shooed to enter the attraction cos my in laws and sister in law were already inside. This was a sign of the things to come during the entire day. They would walk through the exhibits quite fast and then wait for me. And I was always straggling at the back cos I would read all the panels explaining birds to be found in that aviary and also interesting things about plants and trees. For example, did you know that fires in Australia are nature’s way of dispersing certain seeds? And that they also hollow out some trees for birds to nest in. And that the the albatross has a way of soaring called dynamic soaring where they do not flap their wings for long distances, and which scientists are still studying. So interesting! 

The first exhibit we went into was the penguin cove, and it was so fun to watch the penguins waddle with their flippers outstretched, they look like they are trying to walk without getting their feet wet. And they squeeze out bubbles from their feathers when they are underwater to triple their speed, and they are shaped like torpedos, and they can shoot out of water 3m to land on land! We had great fun there.

Then we went into crimson wetlands where the flamingoes were there, but the real highlight for us was the parrots - scarlet macaws and sun conures. It was breathtaking to see the macaws flying round the high-domed aviary, to perch on some limestone walls, to the sound of rushing water at a waterfall, and sometimes they fly around a few times.  I almost feel they should play movie-like music in the background. They have very majestic flying pattern and it brought a lump to my throat, that this is what they were created to do. A far cry from those solo creatures I see at HDB decks, chained to a stand, bored out of their minds, many times slightly hostile, usually owned by some pot-bellied uncle who claims to be a ‘bird lover’. 

Then we spotted one sun conure in a tree who took off in flight, and he was joined by a flock of sun conures flying to another tree! We screamed in delight as I saw they had that same slight zigzag pattern in flying as my parrots, except mine zigzag even more wildly around the room when we set them free.  Then we spotted 4 or more sitting on a branch, while 2 were in front. They really live in a flock. And it was a joy to hear their trademark screeches in the wild, though not as ear-piercing. 

Then we went to watch a very enjoyable Predators on Wings show, where we learnt of the important role vultures play, as the ‘clean-up crew’ of the safari in Africa.  Without them, we would have a big problem of carrion on our hands.  We also learnt that loss of habitat and poaching/killing has reduced a lot of these predators in the wild. So sad…again, I emphasise that there is something so freeing and liberating to see a parrot free fly across an expanse.

Then we went for lunch and then went to see some other exhibits but it got way too hot, and I think all the birds went to hide.  There were a lot fewer of them flying around and we kept escaping into the aircon sections to read more panels, exhibits and watch videos. What I realised is in an aviary, it is a lot harder to spot the birds, compared to when they are in cages, but it’s a lot more gratifying to spot them perching in trees and coming to feed.  Later we were discussing in the car that the new Bird Paradise is more humane and better for birds but worse for visitors because we see less birds overall (unless you are a really good bird watcher).  There also seem to be less birds in the Lory Loft compared to the Jurong Bird Park. I wonder what happened to a lot of them.

I think they should plant more shady trees so the walkways mimick those treetop walks (which don't feel so hot due to the shade)  or have some shaded trellises along the walkways so that it is not so hot to walk within it.  The birds also need the shade. Or at the least, give some umbrella hats that the visitors can take from some stand and put o themselves while they ogle the birds, then return at the end of the walkway when they exit. That would not cost too much at all in terms of capital costs and would help visitors have a better experience. 

The other thing which was rather unpleasant was the railings seemed to be sending electric shocks when you touched it at certain enclosures. It got to us becoming very paranoid about wandering too close to the railings or touching one another. 

I liked reading about the conservation efforts and of birds (especially parrots, songbirds) being caught in large numbers in the wild such that they became endangered. It made me angry, that the seemingly 'harmless' actions of man in cities like getting a pet could cause so much harm to nature and the ecosystem. We need more education and awareness and more humane ways to keep pets. 

I also felt that the entrance ticket cost so much more than Jurong Bird Park, and it could be partially due to the air-conditioned spaces within, which are interspersed liberally within Bird Paradise and actually provide much needed respite from the scorching heat. But somehow the JBP didn't have them and we didn't feel the need for it as much as well. Perhaps it had more shade and shady trees. Maybe it's to recoup the cost of building this whole thing. 

I just feel that they need utilise cleverer designs to make the enclosures a good experience for humans and birds alike, and while keeping costs low. That would necessitate using nature or learning from nature, probably. More plants and trees and water bodies, and/or biomimicry.  

I am always amazed at the many functions plants and trees provide for us. I think we owe it to the plant kingdom to make the earth liveable and pleasant to a great extent.

I was also feeling quite sad at all the habitat loss around the world. I think the least I can do is to live simply, with just a few key belongings, and to eat less meat/fish. And eat more local stuff. Which all helps produce less greenhouse gas emissions, and potentially helping to keep global warming in check, which is causing penguins to need to hunt further and further away from their ice floes due to climate change and overfishing. God help us. 

The Change in My Kids

I just wanted to note down some milestones in my life before I forget them or they drift away like wisps of vapour.  Sometimes, I feel like my journalling is like Dumbledore putting a wand to his head and withdrawing a memory, this thin, wispy trail of thread from your mind, and gently dropping it into the pensieve.  So let's see, it started with that day when I bumped into Commander Katherine in the walkway of my church basement where Sunday school classes are conducted.  She smiled at me and accosted me by saying that she has seen the change in my boys.  They are aged 11 and 12 at the moment.  She said she has seen them growing up in church (and I blushed because I remember how they used to hate Sunday School from ages 4 to 10, and how my oldest boy would escape the moment we reached basement and we had to chase after him and he would play "hide and seek" with us throughout the church grounds, until sometimes my husband gave up cos we were so late for church that he would just join me and my boy would come skulking back after a long time) and seen the change in them.  She also commented that she noticed I had 4 kids, all of them in Sunday school, and that we were a faithful family.  She said we must be bringing them up well in the Lord.

I do realise that my 11-year-old boy has suddenly become very religious in a good way.  He has started to initially worry a lot if he was saved, and then if he was doing things according to God's will, and now he just has this insatiable thirst for the Bible.  It started with us doing a Bible study and family prayer every Sunday night, starting with the Gospel of Matthew.  Then it progressed to him coming to me with the Bible on weekday nights saying "Bible study?" in that hopeful voice, and I would often groan because I would already be really tired running after all my kids to shower, make milk for them and chase them to brush teeth (including brushing for my youngest and inspecting the teeth of my second youngest).  He now wants to do Bible study every night if possible and doing Bible study is his reward for studying.  And because of him, all my kids join in the Bible study and are learning lots because after reading a passage, he always asks in an anguished voice "But what is the lesson here?" and I will be forced to translate the passage into some relatable principles which they can implement in their life straight away.  Either some way of thinking, or some new understanding about God or how He works.  Then his face will light up and he will smile like the noonday sun, and go to bed happy.  Oh, and then they all ask me to go and pray with them and snuggle with them a bit.

So now they look forward to Sundays (cos it's the Sabbath and they don't have to do homework) and to Sunday School, always bringing their bibles now and earnestly going in.  I honestly don't know what has come over them.  Even my oldest is more serious about God now, or at least, he has a keen conscience and a keen sense of sin in his life.  His prayers at night are quite sincere and cute, always asking God for forgiveness for all the sins he has done in his life.  And he tells me he is so worried that initially he would not be saved, and then later, that he would fall away in his life and get distracted by other things that take up his attention.  I pray that it would not happen, and told him that's why we go to church, and surround ourselves with like-minded people, and anyway God will draw us back when we stray, like a good shepherd.  

This is one of the good good things in my life!  And I thank God for His grace and mercy!  

How to Get Your Kids to Eat Their Vegetables

I have a family of 4 kids.  Adding my hubby, helper and my parents who live downstairs, there are 9 people to cook for.  My mum can't eat too much beans cos of her rheumatoid arthritis, and my kids generally do not eat enough vegetables or whole grains. Here are some recip GGes which I have found, are healthy, tasty, cheap and easy to cook, and - my test of success - my kids all willingly eat the vegetables that are sneakily hidden in them :)

Lunch/Dinner

Salmon miso soup with tofu, cabbage and enoki mushrooms, eaten with fluffy white rice

Japanese curry pork cubes with potatoes, carrots and lots of onions, eaten with fluffy white rice

Haidilao hotpot soup packet cooked with shabu shabu pork, cabbage, enoki mushrooms and tofu

Fried rice with assortment of meat and vegetables

Stir fried aglio olio spaghetti with chicken and vegetables and herbs

Stir fried tahini noodles with vegetables and mushrooms or tofu (I can try with peanut butter next time)

Chicken honeydew soup with rice

Chicken noodle soup or chicken macaroni soup (really wholesome tasting, with celery, carrots and onions)

Blue moon organic brown rice (a yummy complement to anything)

Shanghai pork rib noodles

Spaghetti bolognese with vegetables

Beef/pork chilli with lots of kidney beans, tofu and vegetables

Baked cauliflower and carrots (can add in sweet potatoes and beetroots too!)

Cauliflower soup 

Pumpkin soup

Tomato bisque soup 

Chicken cashew vegetable stir fry

To try - 

Sushi rice with cut up shrimp, avocado and/or cucumbers

Dahl dish 

Butter chicken (so yummy)

Kimchi tofu soup (my friend said she cooks it and she loves it)

Salmon pineapple fried rice (can add cheese too for added lusciousness)

A friend told me to try to add tomato sauce with cheese for any fried rice, is a hit with kids and tastes like baked rice 

As breakfast or snack

Boiled sweet potatoes, cut up, on wholemeal or any bread, with mayonnaise or dressing on top

Cooked oatmeal with dates and brown sugar

Bread or croissant with cheese and cut onions and tomatoes

Cornflakes with milk and fruit (if short of time, which is often)

Date, banana, nut milk smoothie

Blueberry muffins

To try - 

Refried beans or medames beans with spices, with a fried sunny side up egg, chopped onions and tomatoes, served with wholemeal bread 

How to Save Money and Live Well

You know the adage, “the best things in life are free…” Well, while they may not be entirely free, I’m starting to realise many things in life that are good for you, need not be expensive.

If you have been eating out, you must have realised inflation nowadays is really steep. Food court prices have risen to almost $10 a meal, and breakfasts outside are often more than $5 now.  How to keep up with these prices if our salaries are not rising astronomically as well?

However, thanks to stumbling over a really good book in the library called
The Healthiest Diet on the Planet", plus some ruminating and time spent making stuff, I recently discovered these amazing insights and truths:

• Eating meats is actually poisoning your bodies as animals nowadays are pumped full of hormones, antibodies, chemicals, and tend to consume foods they are not meant to eat (think mad cow disease but less extreme). They are also grown in cramped, inhumane conditions and I don’t think they have happy lives, which makes one wonder if their meat is also full of stress and "misery" hormones and chemicals as well. I remember reading a book called ‘The Secret Life of Plants’, which showed a wide-eyed me as a teenager that actually sending happy thoughts to a plant makes it grow better (what every person with green thumbs inherently knows) and can even keep it alive when the leaf is cut and left on a dresser! And that if you freeze water in cups labeled nasty words, the ice crystals are all chaotic and disorderly. On the contrary, when you freeze water in cups labelled with lovely words, the ice structure viewed under the microscope was crystalline and symmetrical.  So, for animals bred under miserable conditions, you can infer for yourselves what types of chemicals and disorderly structures may be in the meat. It is due to our bodies’ amazing continual powers of self-healing that causes us to stay healthy despite what we put in our bodies. 
• This also goes for milk, cheese and eggs. Maybe unless you go for free range.  So that seems to eliminate most of the costly things we tend to buy from the market and also many fancy food products are eliminated.
• What is left to eat? Grains (wheat, rice, oats, barley), beans, vegetables, fruits and nuts. Even oils are not really necessary for us unless we are doing lots of manual labour or lacking carbs and really need the calories. As I tend to spend a fair bit on olive oil, and thinking it is healthy, use it quite liberally when cooking (e.g. for aglio olio pasta), this caused me to do a double take.  I guess if I cut down on use of oils to the bare necessity to prevent foods from sticking to the wok or pan, it could save me money too!
• Then I realised, if I don’t buy so much meat, fish, eggs and cheeses (and we all know the prices of these items are going up), then I can spend my money buying the costlier brown rice or even multi-grain rice (which looks so nice when cooked), more kinds of seeds (e.g. sesame seeds) to flavour our dishes, nuts to munch on (nut mixes are also not that cheap), pricier vegetables and fruits of more varieties.  And also, let’s face it, beans are cheap. I realised this is a great way to save money and become healthier as well!
• I became quite excited as instead of buying expensive bakery buns every morning, I could make my own wholemeal sandwiches with boiled sweet potatoes, homemade hummus, and even boiled frozen corn, mayonnaise and cheese (ok I think cheese will be hard to kick off in my diet). I could also try my hand at making cooked oatmeal with dates which my mum made for me every day of my confinement which helped me go quite regularly despite a strict diet of mostly brown rice, ginger and liver or kidney the first 3 weeks. 
• Another good way to help your pocket and your health is by fasting. I realised fasting does wonders for your digestive health, and constantly eating actually stresses it out. What an interesting fact! Maybe I should fast tomorrow lunch (since I seem to have a tight schedule anyway) and see where it leads me.  I would like to meditate a bit more on Christ too on this long Good Friday/Easter weekend. I mean, what better way to save on meals right!
• Another thing we often spend money on, aside from food, is entertainment.  This is when I had another insight from making something I could not find in a shop. One day, while looking through the soul-numbing, seemingly endless announcements and instructions from Parents Gateway, and writing down more and more dates for my 3 kids who are all in Primary school, I decided I needed a desktop calendar, to keep track of all the weighted and non-weighted assessment dates, camp dates, e-learning and meet-the-parent dates, just to name a few.  Writing them down in my bullet journal which I flipped open every few weeks was not going to cut it - I needed the kind that is big and flat and that you can put up on a wall or lay flat on your desk so you can see the whole month at a glance. But when I went to Popular I found out to my dismay that they stop stocking them from March. So I had no choice but to make one myself using drawing block, which I thankfully had lying around. It took me almost 2 hours to draw up the calendar just for the month of April, including measuring out and drawing the tables, lettering in April and designing little flowers to go with it, and then finally writing in all the dates and milestones. I kept thinking to myself I could have done it so much faster had I bought a calendar, but strangely, when I looked at the end result, it is like a maker looking at a doll he created, the experience is oddly intimate and satisfying, partly because I had spent just so much time doing it up, it was like part of me was in this product! I just feel a thrill of joy looking at it, not unlike how amidst a busy day, I find myself irresistibly sometimes clicking my sent mail just to reread emails I had earlier sent out, for the sheer pleasure of reading my writing, haha!
• Another deep insight I had was, I recalled when watching or reading survival stories like Hatchet, similar books by Gary Paulsen, or The Mountain Between Us, one marvels at how little a person can have or needs in terms of possessions, it's really the other extreme.  And when you have nothing but what you can find in nature, you will not waste one little man-made material (e.g. packaging from a crate), but keep it for future use. Yet we are surrounded by such a vast abundance of things. We throw and buy and buy and throw. It’s a vicious cycle and a bit insane. We do it without thinking, and our homes are so overflowing with things sometimes it clutters our eye and our soul, and we struggle to put things away every day.  I suppose if we were very poor, we might live a bit like the boy in Hatchet, making the most of things he had and being resourceful and innovative.  In fact, at the end of the book, he often escaped to the wilderness, with just a few things.
• I sometimes think a life with fewer choices, a straightforward simple life, may actually be nicer. Not having an abundance of choices of things to eat, things to wear, things to do, may free up our minds to focus on the things that really matter, like what we are called to do, and relationships. I shall not forget that one night when I spent it having a farewell dinner for my CEO (quite a marvellous man) and in the company of 20+ senior management people having a nice Chinese dinner… I went home feeling light and happy and energised (could be all that good and strong Chinese tea too) and I could power up my computer and do a lot of work after that. I felt it was very different from how I feel after a movie night, when I don’t feel like doing more work, and my mind is also more tired and dulled. I realised spending time with good company really does wonders for your mood and your body and your soul. That is why I think occasionally, we should arrange to spend time in the company of good friends, over a good meal or something. And if we lack good friends, to make the effort to arrange for these socials and gatherings, even if they seem awkward at first. The song is true, "the more we get together, together together...." Even Bill Gates said, the best advice he ever got was to have good relationships and friendships in life.
• I also realised the things which make me really happy are: 1) writing well and clearly (stumbling on that book Clearly Write by Lim Soo Ping made me so happy in Popular!  I was reading it and chuckling gleefully to myself reading those examples of bad writing that are so rampant in civil service), 2) making things (like the Bullet Journal, cards, calendars, and like Hatchet, you could probably make many things you need in life since we have such an abundance of "stuff"), 3) cooking (ah that mysterious elixir, alchemy of creating something delicious and heart-warming out of simple raw ingredients) and 4) being with others, especially good company where we talk and trade jokes and life experiences and have a laugh (like that lunch with CK and ME, somehow we all like to joke and/or laugh - like that funny moment where I commented that it was very unlike my my organisation for people to fight one another to take up something, and when I mimicked people saying "no, let me do it" we really cracked up cos it was so ludicrous). And like my mum, I really like being in greenery (and Singapore does have plentiful parks and park connectors to wander around and get lost in) and puttering around doing my amateurish gardening too (next up, maybe it's time to grow some lady's finger plants again since the last batch died). Actually none of these cost a lot of money, except maybe to hang out with people you need to eat somewhere and possibly at nicer places. So there.  My simple life.