Actually, not resolutions but what I am going to do in 2012

1. Bitch more, speak my mind and don’t give a damn
2. Hang on to my Christian faith, never ignore that little inner voice
3. Make an effort to do what I had wanted to do in 2011 – Go for my retreat in Chiangmai
4. Accept that if I am still working in this job, I will not have time for church stuffs – Don’t do a half-hearted job ministering
5. Tell boring, annoying, irritating, useless, pain-in-the-arse people to go fly kite and stop being nice and sociable to them
6. Listen to my doctor to avoid dying young
7. Election or not, give the best for the state
8. Pamper self above all else
9. Accept that nothing is permanent, so enjoy it while it lasts
10.And screw you if you think I am selfish.

Posted on December 30th, 2011 by Lilian
Filed under: Life and rants | 3 Comments »

We are getting so many conflicting information sometimes. This is especially so when it comes to matters pertaining to our health. We just do not know who to believe sometimes because there are so many schools of thoughts over the same matter sometimes.

So, I am glad that we have better information nowadays via television, public education phamplets and even videos shown at clinics. These channels of information are very important considering that our nation is faced with huge health problems like diabetes, hypertension and the increasing number of obese people.

I have written about children being obese and suspecting that the foods they consume is one of the main cause, apart from not getting enough exercise. This is further confirmed when I watched a video at my doctors clinic the other day.

From what I gathered, many growing up milk powders in Malaysia have way too much added sugars and these kids have developed a sweet tooth. In reality, added sugars have no nutritional contents and they only give added calories.

Yet, many brands of milk are added with corn syrup solids, glucose syrup solids and sucrose. If you read the label carefully, you may be shocked with the amount of the added sugars content in the growing up milk.

The video I saw educated parents about the risks of feeding too much added sugars to our children because not only it makes them fat and if not monitored carefully, obese, it also gives a lot of health problems. Parents may not immediately realize that children too can get diabetes. And usually diabetes come hand in with hypertension. Hypertension is now the silent killer as many people may not be aware of it until it is too late.

Therefore, if you have a chance, to watch the video on why we do not need excessive added sugars to growing up milk. You can view the video featuring Professor Peter Davis on Youtube. One of them about Added Sugars in Growing Up Milk can be found here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZG6WX9YBPo

At the same time, we also need to be mindful of what we are giving to our growing up children because we certainly do not want them to end up with health problems. By then, it will be too late for us to blame anyone but ourselves.

Posted on December 27th, 2011 by Lilian
Filed under: Rev | Comments Off

As far as I am concerned, Christmas celebration is over for me. I don’t intend to remain in Penang next weekend. My son’s boss has been awfully nice and gave him annual leave though it is a very busy season where he works.

So, we are planning to be far-far away from the maddening crowd, traffic jam, hordes of tourists and packed eating places. We don’t know where we are going yet.

It is going to be a long weekend, three days to be exact. Rare to get such holidays so I am going to make the best of it. Which means, I must quickly get all my deadlines stuff ready before I take a break.

Had been working almost the whole day today, writing, researching, referring, sieving until my eyes have gotten blurry.

Christmas mood doesn’t bite me. I was at the mall today for a few hours. It is wonderful to get away from home, bring my Mac and work from some coffee joints. It is expensive though. But it’s worth it because I tend to have better concentration than in the office or at home.

The calendar on my wall looks awfully lonely now because there is only one page left. We have only a few days left of 2011. Time to reflect back and see if I have lived a good and meaningful 2011.

With Facebook Timeline, I can actually scroll back at all the thoughts, silly ideas, angry moments, bitchy words, wise opinions and mundane stuffs that have gone through my mind for the whole year, month by month.

I can actually summed up each month and make a short summary of them. Unfortunately, I don’t have that luxury of time because I have to sum up something else more important.

Well, what can I say but 2011 is nothing special. I haven’t gone to jail (yet) though I do get visit from the police. I haven’t been extremely religious but that is enough to get me to get into trouble with the police. So, yeah, that part is probably the most happening thing in the whole of 2011.

I did go for several holidays. Bali, Hong Kong, several parts of Thailand and forget where else. So, that part of life is good too.

I didn’t get any richer but neither am I in want. So, must remember to thank God for His blessings.

All in the family has been safe and healthy. That’s the most important in life. Never ever overlook how important this is. In fact, this is all one should pray for.

I suppose not being ambitious makes me a rather happy person. Blog wise, I didn’t earn enough to get taxed this year. Which is not a bad thing but neither it is a good thing.

So far, I haven’t got tired of doing this 8.30am – 5.30am routine yet. Yeah, many times I did ask myself why the hell am I putting myself through all these rituals of punching clocks and making sure we are not even one minute late when I could sleep all I want at home and won’t get any poorer. But there is always something to remind me that I will get restless after a while.

A wise friend told me it is good for us humans to get restless all the time because only through the restlessness feelings, can we move forward. He said the same thing for feeling restlessness religion wise.

So, here I am, scratching the sole of my foot and wonder what’s the big deal of having another year gone by. Then, another comes in. So what? Except that it is going to be a dragon year. My year. My fourth cycle of dragon years. Maybe it is a big deal then.

Posted on December 18th, 2011 by Lilian
Filed under: Life and rants | 2 Comments »

Sigh, I had spent a nice holiday today. Although I was so busy rushing for work till about 3 pm on Thursday, it was still worth it taking a day’s leave. I am going to be on leave Friday as well.

I treasure all the simple things in life. I have always been an easy person to please. Don’t know why but the simplest things are, the more I savour it.

Last week, I attended the funeral of my eldest son’s classmate who was also his confirmation class mate in church. Words cannot describe the pain I felt for the mother, especially.

That kind of reminder sort of shaken up my perspective on life. I had wanted to skip the funeral but since my sons insisted I go along, I took half a day emergency leave and bravely face the stark reality of young people dying.

The young man was only 21 years old, a promising lawyer-to-be and from the number of university mates who came in four busloads from KL, he must have touched many people’s lives.

The amount of grief all of them displayed were just so overwhelming. I have never encountered such display of grief at the crematorium and felt so weak and helpless, wondering how the mother is going to face the days ahead. When you have a few hundreds of people wailing at the same time, you can only stand by and ask the Lord to give them strength.

That episode left a lot of changed outlook in me. My own son had been involved in many accidents. A couple of times, those were really, really bad accidents when he smashed up the car, the bike and so on. Well, I am not one who will say ‘we are lucky’ or anything like that. I can only feel grateful, a sense of thanksgiving and a resolve to make the best of my life, each day. Treasuring it, giving thanks and appreciate all the people around me.

These few days, my older boys and I had been going around town, buying stuffs to cook for our Christmas party. I am now playing a secondary role. I leave the heavy tasks of planning, costing and organising to them. For that, I am so lucky. I am so happy. I feel so proud.

I just baked a cake. But that too, because my sons insisted it is going to be ‘my cake’. They each have their own masterpieces to do.

So, yeah, I am an awfully grateful, happy, thankful person these days. Because I have learnt not to hope for what I can’t get. I am thankful for all the wonderful blessings. Every day spent with the kids are meaningful enough.

Next year, who knows, the two older ones may go overseas to work and to continue studies. So, I am not sparing any costs or work to celebrate this Christmas the best I can. We are celebrating on Saturday 17 Dec. because next week, the eldest son will be working.

An 8 kg of turkey from the US, 10 kg of pork ribs from Spain, 5 kgs of lamb from Australia and 4 kgs of salmon from Norway have filled up one of our two fridges. We have lots of other stuffs to prepare. But it will be worth it.

Posted on December 16th, 2011 by Lilian
Filed under: Life and rants | 1 Comment »

I have not been a good girl this year.

I skipped church.

I get pissed and am not afraid to show it.

I didn’t spend that much time playing masak-masak at home.

I lost weight, put it back and lazy to lose it again.

I dropped out of teaching catechism class.

I dropped out of church choir.

I dropped out of lectoring.

I didn’t contribute much help in church camps.

So, dear Santa. If you are that marvellous, generous, fabulous, bulbous chap they say you are, can you please give me more time? Hey, I am not asking for diamonds or gold, ok? Those cost money. I am asking for only time.

If you can give me some extra time, I promise I will not skip church because I will have spare one hour to go to church every Sunday.

If you give me more time, I won’t be so pissed so the world is peaceful. But then again, morons will not learn a lesson if I don’t scold them. So…never mind, next….

If you give me more time, I will have time to cook for my boys. Abuden, it is not in any social contract that I must die-die cook meals for the boys every day. So, it’s ok, forget it. I am happy as it is because my older boys can cook now. Why would you want to give me more time to be a kitchen slave, no?

I know if you give me more time, I will still not exercise, so yeah, it’s ok too. I have perfect excuse not to exercise because I don’t have time.

As for the rest, Santa, I think you need to ask your friend up there, Jesus to give me more time. I really love spending time, doing stuffs for the church. But, I really, really have no time because I have duties and responsibilities. Jesus said, anyone doing something for the least of the brethens have done for the Lord. So, you see, Santa, there are lots of people who can teach, read the Bible and do stuffs in church. But there aren’t many people who can multi-tasking like me working in a job which doesn’t pay much, plenty of workload and requires the cunning mind of mine to produce things. So, yeah, Santa, please tell Jesus I may not have spend time in the holy house but I have spent lots of time on the grounds. I was out fishing in the open deep blue seas like He said I should.

Whether it is to see Ghani’s shits or to stand in awe amongst King and Queen, those are my job and responsibility.

Dear Santa, now that I have listed out all my naughty and nice, will you still reward me? Please overlook the fact that I did many things that I probably shouldn’t do but hey, I only live once so can you also look the other way?

One more thing, Santa. Since my 8 yrs old no longer believe you exist, you can retire now. Have loads of candies and please remember to zip up your pants after you pee pee. Am reminding you cos your belly is so big, you may not be able to see your birdie sticking out.

Posted on December 15th, 2011 by Lilian
Filed under: Life and rants | 2 Comments »

Just imagine, Lady Gaga suddenly broke out in a song ‘Just Dance’ in the midst of Psalm. Thank God the cantor was loud and Lady Gaga didn’t stop everyone in their track of getting in touch with Jesus. If that had happened when the whole church was silent for the Gospel, I will die of embarrassment.

I looked around and was on the verge of getting annoyed that someone’s phone is ringing and no one is doing anything to it. Idiots! Whose phone is ringing? Then, I turned around and Albert a former choir member looked at me. OMG, could it be mine?

And true enough, it is! How did my Nokia phone goes off like that? It is the alarm and it is set at 10:15. And my phone was in Silent Mode! Plus I never use the phone as an alarm anymore.

So, I bravely act like nothing peculiar happened. And cooly tried to shut the darn thing off. I took it as Jesus’s wake up call for me.

Aptly, today’s homily delivered by Father B is about waking up, living and moving on. Rarely do I get such beautiful messages from an hour’s in church. Father B talked about living life. And I sat back, smirking that at least I have done that part quiet well.

I had swung from desolation, hitting rock bottom, down there in the heaps of helpless people, grasping for air. I had thoughts of the ‘how nice if this ends soon’ when my son was on the verge of dying and I was on the verge of escaping the agonies by dying along with him.

But God has built me tougher, just like a Ford. I kicked off all those fears, pains, hurts, disappointments and I lived. I live a much better life. I found the God that was sorely lacking previously.

Father B also reminded us about King David when his son died. He had a son from the woman he bedded after he sent the husband to war and die. Actually, the Bible is full of such scandalous, cheating chaps. When I was teaching catechism class, it is hard to explain to 13 years old how God can allow such people into the Bible, which they think is the holiest of books. Anyway, Father B said there is a time to grief, and we must move on after a period of time. He talked about King David tearing off his mourning garments and put on his kingly suit (or something like that lah).

And Father B is being realistic when he said we can swing from desolation to consolation if we are reminded of Jesus’s presence. And yeah, there are days when I am utterly fed-up when my earnest prayers do not bear fruits.

Today is one of those wonderful days when things may not seem very rosy but at least I am reminded of Jesus’s saving help. I met someone. He previously had a very bad bike accident. He recovered. He recently had a stroke. He is a pub singer, long ponytail and all that. But today, he is sitting there frail.

I went over to catch up with him. I found out many things about him. Things that I wouldn’t have bothered asking if he is not looking so alone and vulnerable.

I told him to stay strong and that his will and faith have been an inspiration to me. And I am pretty sure many are also inspired. That he could hobble back to church despite of his situation now. He can no longer ride in his big bike (actually the bike was a total loss previously). He had to be helped to get to church. But he came, he sat there, so determined is his faith. Both of us can’t join the Christmas choir this year. He because of his health, me because I do not want to kill myself with stresses of duties at work and church.

I just heard that one of my son’s school mate have passed away in an accident. A quick look at the Facebook tells me he is studying law in a university in KL. I can’t bear to think of the parent’s grief. I can only pray for strength. A big reminder how precious our lives are and how important it is to live. To live now. At this very moment.

Because Father B just reminded us this morning. Live. Live it to the fullest. To live is to love. To love is to care. Though it may hurt sometimes, it is better to have live than to wait.

Posted on December 4th, 2011 by Lilian
Filed under: Faith | 1 Comment »

A while ago, I got sick. I don’t often get sick so when I do, I am really sick. I drove to the hospital with a severe headache and bodyache. What I thought was a simple flu bug, turns into a trip to the emergency room.

They found my blood pressure exceptionally high. They tested my blood glucose and found it high too. They slapped on the ECG machine and thank goodness, I don’t have any funny heart beats.

Initially, I was stubborn. I told my doctor if he gives me something to take away fever and pains, then, I will be ok.

However, my physician kept me in the hospital for three days to see what’s wrong with me. He summoned a dietician and a diabetes educationist to talk to me.

And I get a very long lecture about sugars, insulin, carbohydrate, wholegrains foods, added sugars and more. Suddenly, I feel like a kid again, listening to them teaching me about corn syrup solids, glucose syrup solids, sucrose and all those fancy names they put on food labels.

They ask me to read food labels carefully from now on. I was reminded to limit white rice, white bread and processed foods as these contain a lot of sugars. I was shown graphs and charts how the carbohydrate we consume will turn into sugars. And if our pancreas has become less efficient and not producing enough insulin, then, we get diabetes.

The two nurses told me I am lucky I found out that I am bordering on getting diabetes. Many people do not know until it is too late.

So, moms, please do educate and become aware of the added sugars in our children’s diet. Learn how to check milk label for added sugars and make sure in choosing the right milk for your child, you remember this factor.

Although kids need carbohydrate, be sure that these are healthy ones. Balance energy for child by giving them the right growing up milk. Learn how to decode all those energy and other terms.

Under the Malaysian Labelling Guidelines for growing up milk powder, all sugars are declared as carbohydrate. That means anything higher than 11g-12g for ‘carbohydrate per serve’ is added sugars. Look how high this number is in some brands – so high!

Now, my little boy and I are more aware and we are checking out food labels. Both of us know that excess added sugars in the diet can lead to overweight and obesity in children. This can increase the risk of adverse health outcomes in later life. So, now my boy has even stopped craving for candies, chocolates and fizzy drinks because he can count the number of grams of sugars in them.

Although carbohydrates are needed in children’s diets, these should come from natural food sources high in complex carbohydrates such as grains, fruits, vegetables and milk – not from added sugars. International recommendations limit the intake of all forms of added or free sugars to less than 10% of energy, or around 38 grams per day (7 teaspoons) for pre-school children.

So, I can say the hospital stay a while ago is a blessings in disguise as it has made me so much more aware and cautious about the foods I take and the foods I provide for my boy.

Posted on December 1st, 2011 by Lilian
Filed under: Rev | 2 Comments »