Joy is enduring and happiness is fleeting but I do cherish and enjoy my moments of Happy. Today it was in the form of a simple scrabble game and the banter that came with it. That set is truly priceless. It has served our family for over ten years and probably good for at least a decade more. Oh how many jokes and mock insults we have made over its four corners and familiar tiles. It has seen my children grow from pre-teens to adults. A summer break will not be complete if the Teng family does not wage war over it, a war I win even though I may lose. But I predict this one won't be the last one yet. :)

Reading the blog post of a high achiever young woman I like to follow who wrote about how difficult her freshman year has been, I feel guilty about my high expectations of my own children from the start of college. I confess that these feelings arise only when we hear it from a third party, especially a third party we merit very clever but when my children tell me about how hard or difficult it is, I take it with a pinch of salt? Oh dear. But I know you work very hard and you make us proud. Take care and love you.

We didn't have the combined CG for Mother's Day this year. We have been doing it for may four or five years running and I guess the men ran out of steam. Our CG had our own pot bless dinner instead. I fried chicken! Aun helped me to season the meat before we left for work in the morning and I went home early to fry them. They were saying "Cindy fried the chicken" a tad too often that I wondered why, but trust me, the chicken was good.

After the dinner (which was really a feast because everyone brought so much food and we all had to sample each other's food for fear the cook might ask, "So did you like my ..... dish?" and we cannot answer satisfactorily) we adjourned for singing and games. The men were more enthusiastic than the children, as usual. They wanted to pray for us but I noticed the children or rather youths had disappeared by then, to their own gathering outside. You can always tell that our men love their wives in our CG by how more enthusiastic they are. Looking at them I wish someone would tell them gently, it's Mother's Day, not Wife's day, and the most meaningful gifts, prayers, cards or words come from our children, not you dearest husbands.

The newspapers carried stories of how some mothers have carried their love outside the walls of their own homes by running homes for disabled and abandoned children and raised their own families alongside their extended family. I truly feel selfish and nondescript when all my efforts and love have only been channeled towards my own tiny family, period. I need to do more.

We went to Tronoh to have a meal with Diane. Uncle David and Auntie Nancy bought my dream house at Meru Valley. Large. An enormous back garden. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the space. The free space was probably the size of my entire house. I was incredulous. How I wish. There is even a stream that runs behind the house, bubbling water over rocks and pebbles... fishes swimming in the water and an expanse of a golf course on the other side. Only one million ringgit. Which is really a steal compared to Penang prices. Sigh.

Diane on the private footpath behind their house. The stream runs beside the path.










Oh, I finally did my hair... my Mother's Day present for Aun. I look a million years younger methinks.

There is housework and there is housework that makes your heart sing. <3

I have 2 bedrooms to tidy up, increase space in a storeroom to miraculously accommodate Diane's accumulation of 5 years away, upholstery to clean, curtains to wash, weeds to pull, never ending laundry, a blouse to knit, bills to pay, etc, etc. How many hours can one stretch an off day? Then it's not even an off day. :(