what will it be?

the stinging silence
of questions unanswered
the sometimes careless conclusions
of unmet expectations
the confusion of hopes
vascillating between fear and truth
the reckless call for justification
that true love cannot entertain
the realisation of depths of need
that cannot be filled by man
the wandering and wondering
of a heart that has failed
to see beyond her own
the crying out of a silly child
to One who's listening
the drops of precious silver
caught in the deep Well
the healing that arises
from grace and truth revealed
the humble submission that
she fights so hard to give
the yielding that must come
for beauty and love to spring

what will it be?

how should i thank Thee...?

let me count the ways...

one.
the week started with a lovely green walk with justin, beginning at the foot of mount faber hill through to hort park, where we had a nice sandwich lunch. we walked many steps, saw a lot of plants and quite enjoyed our time together. i shall not forget how justin turned to me while we were climbing up the steps to mount faber, and said in all sincerity 'Dear, you really need to exercise.' :p it was, for me, the most ironic thing to hear from him. yet, those were true words he'd offered. i was visibly panting. the tide has turned. on me... but i'd prayed for a fit boyfriend, and now, i got myself one!

thanks justin for the walk (: i'm really glad we got the time together, and we spent it in a very healthy way! but, more than anything else, thank you for choosing to take the much less literal but much more challenging walk of growing with me through our relationship. may this stretch of the path--bumpy, slow and painful at times--lead us to a higher plain of maturity, wholeness in Christ and joy. i'm thankful for you.


two.
while taking the down-riding escalator to the mrt at cityhall station yesterday evening, i saw three FACES on the up-riding side. merv, leonard and caryn! so i did the most natural thing, i took the ride back up! turns out they were gonna have dinner and so i chupped in :p then along came frankie lee, and so it was a fivesome.

we had dinner at soupspoon (thank you all ;p i know frankie would've preferred rice, but good ol' guy settled for mushroom soup). i had lovely pumpkin soup, but was also covetting leonard's beef goulash. so i'll have that next time i go!

i'm really glad i bumped into you all. you turned what would have been a normal quiet evening into a fun, lighthearted one. and sorry i made you all answer SUCH difficult questions...as if BS isn't enough. :] but you were sporting, and we all had such good laughs. (:


three.
evangelin went home on time today. on the 5.45pm bus with me.
and here's a photo of her boarding the bus to commemorate this special event. for the past month or so (maybe two), my lovely neighbour at work had not seen a spark of daylight when she left the office every day. so this was a very special moment.


four.
i met papa & mommy at westmall for dinner.
we shopped for groceries.
i used my envirosax bag. (and i found out that a head of cabbage can be very very heavy.)
that's 3 very favourite things to do in one night! (:

it might be age, but i'm really enjoying such times spent with my parents. yes, it should be a given. i should, by right, enjoy family time anytime. but in all emily-ish exposure, it hasn't always been this way. there was a time when i'd have preferred hanging out with friends than with my parents. i'm finding that honouring God in this aspect is a lot less laborious and so much more enjoyable now.

i'm finding also that papa & mommy have been making more conscious effort in the past few years to safeguard family time. retirement takes one into a different season, and many things that used to be extremely important--putting rice on the table, carving out a stable financial position, making sure huiyi gets her homework done and watches less tv--begin to lose their sharp focus in the light of the golden years.

but if you ask me, it's when life really begins for our parents' generation of baby boomers (or before). and i see my parents starting to sit back & relax, to enjoy the intangibles such as the exuberant laughter and joy of their first granddaughter when she feeds the fish at the park or the cheery smile that megan gives when she's happy (which is most of the time!)

i'm thankful because i know not every parent has such a luxury. and i'm all the more thankful when i recognise the grace of God in our family's lives and how He has blessed my parents with so much. when they begin to recognise that too and see the reality and love of Jesus, the walks in the parks (our family's favourite past-time) shall never cease, but will take us into eternity.



there are more ways than four, Lord.
but i'll stop here.
for now.

day at the park

some snippets from my family day on saturday.

thank God for sunny, breezy days when we can all come out to play.

i like. (:

stumbled upon over-inflated fish at aquarium near breakfast place.

ready to explode anytime.

family 'ritual' each time we visit sembawang park.
somewhat...masochistic.

but my mom is living proof that it can be enjoyable. :]

daddy interacting with little megan.

so nice to see such considerate signs around!

amber & sister getting their feet wet.

and here, a series of photos i particularly like. (:

(: happy days.

eight.

for many, the most anticipated day of the year has come and gone.

080808 will, for a long time, leave a mark in our minds of olympic glory, a magnificent and artistic portrayal of Chinese creativity and national will, and the day where many in Singapore were hoping to win $8mill.

i've decided to commerate this special never-again day by sharing 8 random and candid facts about myself:

1. my favourite number is not 8. it is 7, i think.
2. i love stationery-shopping.
3. grocery-shopping is also my thing.
4. i am very, very proud of my foldable & reusable Envirosax shopping bag, which i always whip out in great pride before i say "Auntie, i don't need plastic bag" when i am at the head of the check-out line at NTUC or Cold Storage.
5. i am quite obsessed with making sure that anything made of plastic gets recycled.
6. i would like to own a rainbow-coloured umbrella one day.
7. i have a wild fantasy of opening an umbrella shop one day.
8. the umbrella shop in discussion will also consist an ice-cream parlour.


what are 8 random facts about you? (:
blog it and then tag me! i'll come read.

this one.

okay, so this is my 3rd post in a night. amazing right, considering that it usually takes 9 months to get 3 entries outta me.

ignore the last 2 posts. those are shallow. this is the meaty one.
i think i've warmed up.

i was just blog-surfing for the last 15 minutes. and believe me, this is the first time in A VERY LONG TIME i'm doing it. one blog led to another, and i realised, after changing a couple of hyperlinks that i've missed out on so much in others' lives. for that, i'm really regretful. :(

i can't fully explain it, but i used to find it kinda depressing to read others' blogs. don't ask me why, it just felt that way. and no, its not cos you guys post depressing stuff (on the contrary in fact). i guess i just felt ashamed that i couldn't keep up with everyone else, and i wanted to escape the feeling that i felt like i had to keep up. you know, as the saying goes: out of sight, out of mind.

also, i find it hard to express myself properly/lucidly on a blog. i find i have a somewhat (unhealthy) instinctive need to make all my entries word-phrase-expression-perfect. too lucid perhaps. bleah. you might think this is attributable to my work, some kinda job hazard. i think its just the way i am--that's why my work is instinctive to me. but i've made up my mind. off with the perfectionism. i'm just gonna say it as it comes.

i need to work at this. not cos it's the be-all and end-all of virtual reality (heck, there're tonnes more important things to do than blogging) but cos it reflects something much deeper within me that i know i need to work at -- people, relationships, vulnerability, candor.

and so i end this post with a big sigh.
yes, literally. i just sighed.

off colour.

the colours on my tagboard seem slightly... off.

anyone wanna suggest colours to me? :p
if yes, give me the colour codes too.


(:

clean sheets.

i declare it is by far a lot easier to change my bedsheets than it is to give my blog a new look.
which is what i'm going to do after this entry. putting on new sheets, i mean.

and so, i'm back for my quarterly post. and i'm early! *pats own shoulder assuringly*

i decided to refresh the look of my blog, as you've probably realised, in the vain hope that that might entice me to blog more, seeing how good it looks. but, thing is, i couldn't get it to look the way i would've wanted it to be, which at this moment i can't tell you looks like what cos i haven't quite figured that out yet. i mean, what's the point of figuring out how pretty i want it all to look when i can't even, by my own admission, make it the way i want it to look? which, brings me to my next point. i'm officially depressed that i can't design my blog. a blog. any blog. i mean, all that technological jargon scares me. i began on my 're-design' journey only to realise i should stop. but i shall shamelessly defend myself by saying that i've never learnt to do html or whatever it is, and secondly, i really hate reading online or F1 help tutorials on how to do so-and-so by using so-and-so program. ironic, considering my job.

after considerable lamenting to a colleague about how i had to resort to using something that was from the blog templates provided because i had no idea how to design my own blog, both of us came to the conclusion that perhaps that would work best. since everyone's doing cool stuff to their blogs now, perhaps no one would be using plain ol' looking templates any longer? comforting reasoning... :]

but, it's pretty soothing, rite? the circles? i like. i was hoping for a dark and polka-dottish background and i guess this is as close as i could ever get. that is, until i learn to do web-design, which, after all this ranting, i'm declare i'm not about to learn to do. unless anyone wants to teach me. i learn better with verbal and visual instruction. Ü


i shall go put on my bedsheets now.
i promise to be back soon.