GONG XI FA CAI!!!!

My first chai choy in many many many years.

Happy Chinese New Year family. I know our God has plans to prosper us! Miss you all...

p.s. Happy Belated Birthday koko!

Trip to Ottawa

Went to Ottawa on the 4th of Jan.
We went to the French Baker for brunch. Pretty good! Mmmm..yummy brunch.
mmm...look at that! hm..french toast, with apples and cheese, topped with maple sugar.

Ratatouille omelette
*Inspired, I made ratatouille a week ago. poor man's version. Apparently you are suppose to roast the veg, but having no oven..i dumped the veg in the wok and ..erm..cooked it under low heat. should have left it uncovered, but instead i covered my wok so it turned into some sort of steamer.
Vanessa's fancy earl grey. I had coffee.
I think this face says "no more pictures".
"eh?"


I was trying for half a smile, but it looks very smirky.

Back!

(Bing, Vanessa's dog)

HEY!
Winter term has started and boy...it's going full speed ahead.
No doubt I wouldn't be here without my faithful God. :)
You know the saying, absence makes the heart fonder?
Sometimes I have bouts of loneliness...
But sometimes I think that I can feel this way, like..I am able to feel lonely because I'm not alone.
It's like secure attachment - you can explore because you are safe.
I know that I'm not alone because He is always with me. And I can feel lonely but yet..not empty?

Psalm 119:137
Righteous are You, O Lord, and upright are Your judgments.
Your testimonies, which You have commanded,
Are righteous and very faithful.
My zeal has consumed me, Because my enemies have forgotten Your words.
Your word is very pure; Therefore Your servant loves it.
I am small and despised, Yet I do not forget Your precepts.
Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness,
And Your law is truth.
Trouble and anguish have overtaken me,
Yet Your commandments are my delights.
The righteousness of Your testimonies is everlasting;
Give me understanding and I shall live.

Christmas the down under way

On Christmas day itself, we woke up for tea and then to get ready for church which was literally just across the road. The girls got the time wrong ( half an hour earlier than service) so we went back for another cup of tea :)

The plan for the day was to prepare a picnic and then spend the day at the beach. I was really so tired that I came back after church and had a lonnnnnggg nap until it was time to go. Emma, Nicole and Claire kindly spent that time preparing our picnic. Once they were done, they came to wake me up and then we were OFF! Destination Palm Beach.....

....only that we never really made it there. We were so hungry that we stopped at a random beach before Palm Beach. Well, not random, just not very famous so it was a nice quiet place to hang out at.

There were sausages, burger patties, turkish bread and the BIGGEST salad ever for lunch! The photo doesn't do it justice but the salad filled up and then some the biggest baking tray the supermarket carried.

Before eating, we opened more stocking fillers....

This was my 'in anticipation' look for the camera

and tadah!!! A candle of the Sydney Opera House. It was so funny because over here it's such a cheesy Australian gift. The girls said that they were so unsure when they bought it but figured if I didn't like it, I could burn it and it'll be ok anyway..hahaha...

Emma in her reindeer horns:

Claire muscling open an orange:

It was such a nice day. I got a little hot and burnt though and ended up in 7-11 for icecream and then a slurpee. :)

On the way home we drove by Manly which is a very pretty beach with a sidewalk and all that...

What a Christmas. I've never done anything like this before. I really thank God for friends that are willing to be family and go shopping and make me feel welcome with stocking fillers. That let me sleep after 8 hours of sleep and only being awake for 2. So, thank you E & C. It was a lovely Christmas.

Belated Christmas from me too!

Merry Belated Christmas from me too! I guess since Christ lives in us, when we wish each other then we'll be wishing him happy birthday too :) (That's my take on part of SN's musings)

Anyway, to set the Christmas scene, I had worked 3 weeks non-stop including having to stay back some evenings at work too. Just the way things worked out with people on leave and this being our busy busy period. Anyway, I was really tired and grumpy. Oh, and did I mention that I moved the weekend before too...

But then, it was Christmas...the season of good cheer. And besides, I had already paid for my ticket to Sydney so to Sydney I went determined to be of...well..good cheer :)

I left work early (present from line manager & colleagues) and got a ride to the airport (present from JJ). And I arrived to a SMS from Claire saying that they were already there. Those lovely girls had rented a car for my long weekend so I got to travel in Style (otherwise known as a Toyota Corolla).

We picked up Nicole (Emma's ex-housemate from Montreal) and went for a late night drive to see the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House as evidenced below. The pictures aren't very good I'm afraid. It was dark & my little point & shoot IXUS doesn't do very well in the dark.

Sydney Opera House


Sydney Harbour Bridge

And then it was home for the 1 'stocking filler' present we could open which turned out to be a Body Shop Bath Lily ( http://www.thebodyshop.com.au/Product.aspx?Id=10 ) . Very fun..turns out that it'll be the 1st of many stocking fillers to be opened. Emma was the most popular and had the most...I'm quite sure it'll have hit the 50 mark!

The bath lily was the end of the night for me though. And Christmas morning will come in the next post :)

Christmas part 2

I am very grateful to all who made my Christmas day so full of love!

This Christmas tree was chosen by Tom. :)
The lovely L who invited me over for dinner on Christmas eve.
christmas presents!

Christmas!

Hey hey!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I know that its a little late, but better late than never.
I'm taking a prolonged break from writing. I've hit a short wall.
Anyway, its a little funny that we say Merry Christmas to each other. After all, we don't go around saying "Happy Birthday Sook Ning" to everyone else when it's my birthday. You say it to the person whose birthday you are celebrating.
So why do we say Merry Christmas to each other? I guess its..a way of to commemorate the birthday of a VVIP. But we don't say "Happy Birthday Her Majesty" to everyone either.
I think there's something more than that. I mean, it's a tradition..that may not mean anything, but allow me to hypothesize. :)

I think it's because when Christ was born on earth, it's basically a celebration for everyone. This was the start of what sealed the new covenant - that brings life to everyone. Christ said "I am the bread of life". As you read that passage, it sounds kinda weird. Bread of life..eat and you will have eternal life. It says that it was a hard teaching.
But in Isaiah, there's a passage that the NIV labels "invitation to the thirsty".
It's an invitation to all to come and have eternal life (basically..I'm giving away the story. :) )
But think about it - we all need food to eat. It is a necessity. But we eat, and then we get hungry. Then we eat again, and we get hungry again.
And for some reason, I keep noticing/realizing how much people want to be loved. Its like this insatiable drive. So we meet new people, we are loved. and then sometimes, people move away, and we want to be loved again, so we meet more people. OR even if that one person in your life stays, we still want to be loved by others. It's an insatiable crazy hunger to be loved and accepted.
So then I think, God is the only one that can satisfy that hunger. Because His is the only perfect unconditional love. It's everlasting, neverending, faithful love.
And isn't it amazing then..that the need, the drive we have to be loved can be fulfilled by Him? We can be satisfied. We won't need to look around for other people to love us. We won't need to keep searching for that one person.
Note that I said "we can be satisfied". Sometimes, we know Him, but we are still not satisfied. This is a great mystery. It's not because He can't satisfy, but its that we still crave human acceptance.
So imagine eating this loaf of bread, that makes you super duper full. And you are satiated. You see a roti canai, and you want that roti canai too!
I'm not sure this analogy is going the right way. haha.
But basically, when we believe that Jesus is the Son of God, who came down on earth, redeemed us from sin by dying on the cross and resurrected on the 3rd day and we now have life in Him, we will never hunger again.
We will never be alone again. You may feel lonely, but you are not alone.
You may feel like you want that roti canai, but you are not hungry.
You may feel like you want the whole world to love you, but you have the love of God - that is wider, deeper, longer, higher, stronger, faithfuller, purer than anything else in the world.
If only we realize that the kingdom of Heaven is that priceless pearl, we would sell everything we have to have that pearl. Perhaps if we realized that all the riches of God, all the grace of God is ours..we will finally allow ourselves to be satisfied.

So Merry Christmas - Christ was born about 2000 years ago. Life is ours.