H2O

May 27, 2007 at 11:21 pm | Posted in Rantings and ravings | Leave a comment

I met this TCM doc in my early teens who told me that many pple get chronic illnesses and cancer in the later part of their lives all because they don’t drink enough water when they were younger. This impressed upon me, cos it seemed ridiculous that pple shld go thru so much misery and spend so much money on medical fees when they get old when all they had to do was to drink more water which is so easy and so cheap. Since then, i became a water buffalo. I think in JC, i was like the girl who would walk in and out of lecture theatres to get water and also go for toilet breaks. And frankly, it gives me a sense of satisfaction whenever i see my pee being almost colourless. 😛

It became a chicken and egg deal. The more water I drank, the more water i needed to drink to feel hydrated. The most important thing i needed to have when leaving the house was my waterbottle. I can do without my handphone, and other accessories, but my 1 litre waterbottle was a must have. That’s also why i cannot carry itsy bitsy ladies bags but big bulky ones, so that i can contain my waterbottle, not to mention, a book and other stuff.

I wonder if little boy got this from me cos he loves to drink water too. Perhaps he’s a spiritual being so he naturally likes to drink water cos it keeps the vibration level high. Or maybe he sees his mummy drinking so much that he learnt to do the same! Either way, I hear that many babies and children don’t like to drink water, so i’m thankful that little boy is the opposite, and prob this is the one of the few things i don’t need to worry about him.

Since little boy and i both loves to drink water, we got diamond water about a year ago. 2 days ago, Mr Gua Gua broke one part of it while cleaning the filter so for 2 days, we had to drink boiled water and i realised how much i have come to enjoy the taste and convenience of diamond water. Diamond water tastes sweet and light, whereas normal boiled tap water has a heavy and slightly metallic/bitter taste in it. And since diamond water is already filtered and mineralised, boiling is not required (in fact it destroys the good properties of the water), so much time and power is saved.

The timing of the filter getting spoilt wasn’t good at all since the weather has been so unbearably hot these few days. Even though i’m hardly out in the sun, i am constantly thirsty and need to gulp water every half hour or so. Thank gdness Mr Gua Gua managed to get the diamond water contractor to come down to replace the filter today. So it’s back to my precious diamond water… hee… in a way, i’m a bit addicted to diamond water. Just like how some critics of organic food may say that if we get too used to eating foods of high standards, we may have lower resistance to illness or be not used to eating conventional foods.

I agree with the latter reason, though it’s the same as saying that a smoker will not be used to not smoking, or a couch potato not being used to an active lifestyle. But i definitely disagree with the first reason. Exposure to toxins and chemicals in conventional foods is not the same as exposure to viruses and germs in a non-sterile environment. It is true that the latter CAN build up your immunity, but the former definitely doesn’t. The only thing it does is to increases your chances of getting serious illnesses in the future. No offence to anyone, but i think some pple are just confused about the difference between these two.

Anyway, i still eat conventional food, mainly cos i don’t feel rich enough to afford organic food. I also let little boy eat a bit of conventional food, though i still try to let him have an organic diet as much as possible. It always has to be the best for our dear prince!

Well, back to water. Hee… having the diamond water filter broken for 2 days makes me appreciate it all over again. Now, having my water bottle with me, which is filled with diamond water that is even sweeter than before since the filter is brand new, and being able to sip from it whenever i want, i feel so blessed and happy! Cheers!

B is for books

May 27, 2007 at 10:31 pm | Posted in All in a day's work | Leave a comment

One of the common loves that Mr Gua Gua and i share is for books. Different kind of books, he likes fantasy, whereas i read mostly non-fiction, on parenting, spirituality, self-help and so on, but we are both bookworms. And aside from loving to read, we also love to buy books. So everytime there is a MPH book sale at Expo, off we will go to accumulate more books that we will end up not reading. It’s weird… i will diligently finish at least 3 out of the 4 library books i borrow before the due date but i just won’t touch those that i have bought. Of cos, one reason is the time factor – i hate to return books that i have not read, so that is one big motivating factor for me to read whenever i can like while travelling, and after little boy’s bedtime if i don’t feel like watching TV or using the internet.

The other reason is really just a matter of mood. A book that looked really appealing at first sight somehow appeal less to me once it’s back at home. I just lost the mood for those books, so they will just sit on the bookshelves getting neglected forever. But there are those once in a blue moon moments when i keep thinking of a certain title that i know i have, and cos the thought is so persistent, i finally get the book and start reading it. One was the Conversations with God which i finished within 3 days cos once started, i just couldn’t put it down. The book resonated so much within me that the world seemed brighter for me for the next few weeks. Since then, i felt reaffirmed that books are another form of communication that the universe has for us, and whichever book that we suddenly chanced upon and feel like reading will contain the very messages and lessons that we are supposed to understand and learn.

Hence, whenever i’m in the library or in a bookfair and don’t have a particular title in mind, i try to use my intuition in finding books that i actually need, whether i know it or not. Of cos, in a library it’s a lot easier to find the books since they are all catalogued and i will just go to the shelves with the books i usually like to read. In a bookfair, it’s a different thing. Especially with the MPH one, cos the books are all strewn together without any order at all. On one hand, it’s kinda frustrating cos you actually need to spend some time browsing before you may actually chance upon any interesting ones. On the other, it’s kinda exciting too, cos you never know what treasure you may find… some book which you have always heard of but didn’t really want to splurge on, or some book which might not have caught your eye in a bookstore, but jumps out at you at a bookfair (amidst the other books abt management, dieting and whatnot?) and turns out to be a fascinating read.

Today we decided to take little boy along instead of leaving him at the deposit counter i.e. Mr Gua Gua’s parents’ place (Mr Gua Gua’s joke, not mine!) cos we had the naive idea of little boy pushing the stroller along with our selected books inside so both of us cld have our hands free. Ah well… turns out little boy was a real handful on the way there, being super restless on the MRT. Luckily my energy level was pretty gd today so i managed to handle him while Mr Gua Gua took a little snooze. By the time we reached, it was already almost 5. Thankfully little boy allowed us to put him in the stroller and Mr Gua Gua and i rushed to the bookfair as fast as we could before little boy started fussing and wanting to be carried again. There was also a food fair AND a branded goods fair so can you imagine how crowded it was? Thank gdness, we managed to reach the bookfair without little boy complaining… hehe…. since it was already almost 3 hours since his lunch, i prepared his milk+brown rice cereal, and little boy actually finished it all, which was surprising! Guess he was hungry, plus there were many other children around him reading so he was well distracted by them.

Mr Gua Gua did his browsing first since i had to feed little boy. After his feed, he wanted to come out of the stroller so i let him walk around. Again, he was touching people’s stuff and trying to make friends, and luckily nobody minded him too much. Finally he came upon a lady with her daughter sitting in her lap. He decided to make friends with them, and in the end her daughter gave up her seat to little boy and the lady turned herself into a jiggling motion machine for little boy, with her daughter helping little boy to “toink” the coin into her mummy’s hand. Little boy sure knows how to make friends everywhere he goes.

Finally Mr Gua Gua came back with a big pile of books, so it was my turn. I didn’t see any books that looked interesting, and i realised i didn’t really know what to look for either. Then i decided to manifest for books that would help me in my counselling, and used my left hand to run through the books (according to HS, our left hand is more connected to our intuition). Interestingly, within the next 10 min, i found 3 books which was indeed related to helping pple. The first was about inner peace by Thich Nahn Hahn (when i flipped thru the pages, i saw some pages containing the word “social worker”). The 2nd was on empowering underachievers from 8 to 18 which is excellent for my work. The 3rd is about emotional incest which intially sounded kinda negative and extreme so i didn’t pick it up. But i kept seeing this book in the racks i browsed, and finally i saw the book face up, and below the title, it said “what to do when a parent’s love rules your life”. Now that caught my attention immediately, cos i see a lot of parents in my counselling whose way of loving their kids can indirectly lead to their kids’ misbehaviour, and of cos, i also thought of myself and Mr Gua Gua, whether we might unknowingly let our love become a hindrance to little boy in some ways. Well, this book will definitely be useful in both my professional and personal life.

Our budget for today was $100, which is quite ok considering our past experiences of spending over $100 combined together at such book fairs. I got those 3 books, and after filtering the books that Mr Gua Gua chose for me and totalling all of our books up, we actually fell short of our budget of $5. Cool! 🙂

As i was browsing, i noticed that Mr Gua Gua had the great idea of taking little boy to the other side of the hall where there was lots of space and little boy was happily running around while Mr Gua Gua followed behind. Whew… at least that took the pressure off me so i could relax and find my books. Later when i came back to them, they were still happily playing, and i could see that little boy was really enjoying himself having so much space to run abt. I took over while Mr Gua Gua went to queue up to pay. Little boy was upset abt being put in the stroller so i let him have a bit more fun since the queue was so super long. And off he went… looking really cute as he tottered along like a happy little penguin (must let him watch Happy Feet one day), and again, finding pple to play with.

He found a lady with a sleepy boy in her arms, and he went right up to pat the boy, look at his face, put his face really close to the boy’s face and even “koking” his head onto the boy’s head and i had to tell him not to kok so hard or korkor’s head “pain pain”. The mummy was really tickled by little boy’s antics and kept laughing at him. I was half-laughing, half-embarassed, and also a bit worried that little boy will annoy the other boy with his koking. Finally cos it seemed like the boy was really tired, i dragged little boy away and got him to say bye, which he did and then happily went off to have more fun.

We ended up playing catch! Little boy knew he wasn’t supposed to run past the barricade. And did he stop? Of cos not, since the forbidden fruit is always the most tempting. So he purposely headed towards the barricade with a grin on his face, and always at the last moment, i grabbed him up and swung him in the air, with him chuckling with glee. Once i put him down, he starts going for the barricade once more. Luckily little boy’s legs are still so short…. no problem for Mummy to keep up with him. Think Mummy better work on her stamina before little boy really starts running and then, it would be a real challenge to keep up. 😛

Well, it turned out to be a real fulfilling trip to the bookfair today. Books for Mr Gua Gua and me which we kept under budget, and lots of fun for little boy. Guess more of such trips can be made in the future… and hopefully by then, little boy wld be more interested in reading than in befriending everyone he meets…less energy needed from Mr Gua Gua and me!


Entries and comments feeds.