The lady who commissioned the knitting of the awful colored cardigan walked in yesterday as I was knitting in the shop. I had thought her interesting when I heard about her a few weeks ago. Apparently she had paid quite an astronomical sum for them to knit her cardigan for her. She commissions her cardigans to wear to sleep because her husband sets the aircon too cold. Make them pay hmm?

Anyway, it was about the second or third time it seems that she is making alterations to her cardigan and she was there to check on its progress. I became more interested when I realised she was sharing Christ with the knitter. I looked up and took in her appearance. I thought she looked nicer than when I first saw her. She began sharing her testimony of how she had very bad leg pains which many doctors could not cure. One day while she was out walking at the Botanical Gardens, a stranger approached her and invited her to a church healing service. She returned home, quite unsure but she was desperate enough to try, so she went with her daughter. She was prayed for during the service and received complete healing by the next day. I kept quiet but I felt that she shared her testimony very well, sincerely and simple and in earnest. After a while she left and that was when my interesting observation began. So this is what non-Christians think of us after we leave after we share.

The woman sitting next to me, with whom before the other lady arrived, had started befriending me (only because her regular friends were not there yet) and she now spoke her mind. I felt like I was peeking from the outside in on a very interesting perspective because I had kept quiet the first round. The testimony which had I had thought touching had not touched her or the others it seemed because they were very unhappy about her unreasonable fastidiousness on her commissioned cardigan and had made them do all the unpicking work multiple times. I tried to defend her and explained that we cannot judge God on the behavior of Christians who are just human but I don't think it was very well absorbed by my listener. What we do and what we say impact others more than we think and endure in more ways than what we say, even though we can say what we say very well indeed.

But overall I was quite delighted that I made a new friend. There are usually lots of stories going around at the shop and this one was soo talkative!! So much so that I had terrible concentration on my new piece because my friend gets excited and talks loudly, so I kept the teacher busy reworking on my mistakes. Earlier on I had checked out the other shop which has so much better prices. My goodness, they have such great stuff, all kinds of books and cross stitch designs, little flowers and appliques, teddy bear eyes (!!!), woollen yarn, cotton yarn... I fell in love with the teacher who promised me she would teach me to read those Korean/Japanese knitting graphs and do seamless sweaters when I ditch my present teacher. Haha.

This is the orchid I bought on Valentine's Day, still blooming 45 days on!










And this is what greets Aun and I when we reach home. The hibiscus is just sooo beautiful. I wonder how come all the blooms are red when it was budgrafted as a multi-colored bush.

I finally completed Diane's cardigan today. I couldn't help looking at her multiple times in church tonight ..dunno which I was admiring more... my masterpiece or it's wearer :)

So I managed to get over the learning curve for knitting, I am now enjoying it so much. I think my tension for my stitches has improved by a lot this round... learned that while some stitches should be firm, others like casting on and off should be nicely loose. I had quite forgotten how I used to love all kinds of handwork and it is incredible how I spent those years waiting for Diane and Calvin to finish classes and never made use of the waiting to do some handwork. They were lean years though but to think of all the knitting I could have done.... Today, I discovered a shop that sells good yarn for two thirds of the price I'm paying and the best thing is they have someone in the shop to help you along. Diane found a pattern book for felt toys and pounced on it to buy. So we have been very happy tonight, me finishing my knitting hw and Diane, well.. she's been quite tearing her hair out because her teddy bear was threatening to look like a mouse.

I also found my crocheted dress which I did when I was about Diane's age and made her model it for me. Diane's response was "Eeeee it is sooo old fashionnnned!" Hmm, so much for heirlooms.

I spent the major part of today entering the data of a marriage survey of pastors. I have not begun the analysis part of it yet but going through the forms, one of the most common challenges faced in their marriages is Communication. Which is not very surprising to me, or maybe a part of me is saying in a small voice "I told you so". My pet peeve with people I work with is that they do not communicate enough. I have to admit that I am also guilty but I do work hard with people I like and even harder with people I love. So many times, I send out emails and people cannot even be bothered to reply. When they don't reply, and I have to follow up with multiple phone calls to obtain their response to my email, I want to say, "!@#$%^&** you read my email, why didn't you just reply yes or no, you *()%^&*???" Alas, in my dreams. But truly I get very frustrated because these are the people who deal with people and if you cannot make the time in the most basic of ways, then why be where you are and do what you do???!!!

What I mean is communication takes effort. Sometimes the tiniest bit of effort makes or breaks someone's day. But the lack of it, compound it by days, weeks and years will break your marriage or relationship or ministry. My utmost regret is when I lost someone I loved very much but then I did not even realise how much I loved him until I lost him and I wish so that I had talked and invested more and made it known to him I loved him back as much as he loved me. Aun's mom is of old school and when I was a young mother she advised, "..must be firm with children, we love in our heart enough otherwise they will climb on your head and shit" but I have always.... talked *a lot* ever since. I shall probably be worse with my grandchildren.

Knitting is very addictive. We had laughed our heads off when Calvin told us about a girl in one of his classes who knits during lectures. "She can ask the professor relevant questions too!" he defended at the look of our incredulous faces.

The dynamics at the knitting shop I go to is very interesting. There's usually a group of ladies knitting there when I arrive. Our ages are very varied, from teens to grandmothers, all drawn together because of our love of making something beautiful with our own hands. Today we laughed that we are also very covetous because we are always drooling at each other's pieces and wanting to do them too. There is an occasional male who comes I am told but I have yet to meet them. The ladies seem to have a lot to talk about, from children to bosses from hell but a lot of the talk is about Chinese serials which they are really into and they seem to know the characters so well it is as though they are talking about real people whose lives they are very informed about and involved in. I told Aun that it is almost like mahjong only that it is knitting instead because going from what I remember about my parents' mahjong sessions, a lot of banter goes on at the table too and that perhaps is the major attraction of the game. I hope to make more firm friends there so that I can invite them to my cell events in future but it is quite difficult to get out of my goal oriented ways and learning to talk more. At least today, I managed to laugh along with them even though I was mentally pushing myself, faster, faster, in my head.

Psalm 131:

My heart is not proud, O LORD
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
But I have stilled and quieted my soul;
like a weaned child with its mother,
like a weaned child is my soul within me.

O Israel, put your hope in the LORD
both now and forever more

I felt so connected to God this afternoon in that psalm which greeted my eyes as I flipped open my bible to my favorite book of Psalms. It is true nothing I do is going to affect the world too much or that I am so clever and full of achievements that I can concern myself with great and wonderful things. I am just a mother who is doing what millions and millions of mothers before me have ever done, loving and caring for their families. I sat there alone reading and re-reading softly aloud, and feeling the sound of my own words touch my heart and connect with God. I am still pondering on why its author used the illustration of a weaned child and its mother though. I try to remember how it was when they were weaned but I still cannot understand why, a weaned child and its mother.

I had been thinking about what I could do for Ruby after Rachel in bold American fashion sent the staff an email saying that Ruby her friend from Vietnam would be learning from us for about two weeks and requesting for us to welcome and extend our hospitality to her. So on an impulse I offered to take them to Batu Ferringhi to take some pictures at which Ruby was really, really delighted. Unfortunately Rachel could not join us today because of a meeting fixed for the evening, so Chai Bee, Ruby and I set off for the beaches immediately at 5 pm. The dark gloomy skies failed to deter us. Anyway, she did not have any more free days since Wilson had booked her for tomorrow (just the two of them we later found out!!), Friday is cell group night and then the weekend services... which brings her fortnight with us to an end. So fast.

I drove them into the Rasa Sayang Hotel. Chai Bee was a little in awe, "Can we go in?" in hushed tone. I was fine since I firmly believe in the power of the potential customer and I coolly led them in, greeted back nonchalantly at the staff who held the doors open for us and ushered us into the gardens at my request. Heh. So here are our pictures.

Ruby is really sweet, just twenty years old and she wants to serve God full time. Her name is actually Rubilie Tran and she has a very nice singsong accent very different from Malaysian. I didn't know Vietnamese speak English so nicely. She kept saying how beautiful Penang is, how she enjoys being able to open her windows and breathe in the clean air. Sometimes it is refreshing to see the beauty of our own surroundings from someone else' eyes. We wrapped up the evening by going for oyster noodles at Fettes Park, recommended by Chai Bee. I winced a little at the fat squishy oysters as I bit and swallowed them and tried not to think too much about how smooth they felt and tasted like. Chai Bee and I also busied ourselves separating the fried pork lard pieces from our noodles until Ruby surprised us by exclaiming that we were discarding the best part of the noodles and claimed our shares for herself! hahaha

I have been more or less moping the whole day. There's about a hundred and one other things I could and should have been doing but instead I have scouring the internet for causes of migraine. I'm feeling all kinds of grumpy today - found out that one of my balls of wool is a different shade from the rest. Two balls actually but one has already been knitted in. The perfectionist in me is screaming to tear it out. Seven inches of stitches. I battled with myself the whole night and finally persuaded me to stay with it. Then could I have purposely made a mistake that I cannot undo (??) so now I'm stuck with loops of undone knits that I shall consult the guru tomorrow and if she has extra wool, then I really shall take that offending ball out nevermind if it costs me three days of work.

I was so immensely happy this morning when the moment Calvin appeared on screen and he said, "Hmm mummy, I received your package already." After waiting to hear such news for the past two weeks since I mailed it, it was quite ironic how by the time I really should be expecting for it to arrive, I momentarily forgot about it. So here he is wearing my vest, every stitch handknitted by me! Hahaha I am just over the moon that it fits and a little bit in awe (ok hit me) that it flew over the oceans and reached my son in America from the time I grappled with packaging it together with the curry condiments I sent together with it, sealing it with a prayer that the lethal combinations in the package would not mix with each other and it would arrive safely. I kept making him stand up, turn around, take a picture for me! all of which he willingly indulged me.

Thank you God for not despising the trivial requests of a mother. :D