Pleasantly surprised

I was pleasantly surprised by a SMS from my daughter today. She told me that she got back her prelims results and apparently she scored 14 points, 1 point better than what she had promised and we would have to get her that white iPhone 4 that she has been eyeing on. I really don't mind getting her the iPhone. She has surpasssed my expectations when she passed the interview for Direct Poly Admission and tentatively secured a place with Ngee Ann Polytechnic for a Diploma course on Mass Communications. I just hope that she will get at least a B3 for her English O levels exams which is the criteria for a confirmed admission. And then I hope that she will continue to surprise me by getting admitted to NUS later on after she graduates from Ngee Ann Poly. I will be a very proud mum. :)

Baby J playing with balls

I bought some DVDs for baby J to watch during the day when hubby and I are both at work. They are educational DVDs that suppose to help train babes' right and left brains. I have yet to view those DVDs myself but I believe that babies can be trained from a very young age and the right kind of brain stimulations will do wonders for their developments. I am kind of regretting that I have not spent much time and efforts on N and D when they were younger. Thank God they both turned out fine. Not that I will be joining the "kiasu" mama club but I think we should spend a little more efforts on baby J, especially when he's already quite a smart baby to start with. We are amazed by his physical developments everyday! 

Working on my body

Spa & Wellness Package at The Sentosa

I have just booked a spa package at The Sentosa this weekend with hubby. It's his 31st birthday and we are long overdue for a romantic getaway. The plan we had was for me to have baby J in March, use 12 weeks of my maternity leave for breast-feeding, bonding and taking care of baby, then use the rest of the 4 weeks for going on a trip and doing some reconstructive works on my body or something. In the end, I enjoyed breast-feeding baby J so much that I persisted on for 6 months even though I had to go back to work and even go on business trips. I cried when I finally stopped...it was almost impossible to keep the milk flowing with my work schedule and I was also loosing too much hair.

The hair fall is more or less controlled now that I have stopped breast-feeding for about a month but I am still overweight and having this huge post-pregnancy pooch. I need to do some reconstructive works on my body, especially on my tummy. Working out at Contour Express has not helped much mainly because I am not dieting and the fats on my tummy are too stubborn. But I have found this Cool Sculpting technology that may help me loose the fats fast! There are about 18 centers in Singapore that are providing this service and I am comtemplating which one to go to...Actually, other than my tummy, I would also like to get rid of my eyebags and maybe also enhance my breasts...I know, the list will never end...*sigh*
  

Exciting October!

October is going to be an exciting month for us. Hubby will be 31 and is embarking on his new job. I will finally be graduating with a MBA and fulfilling my longtime ambition. Mum will be 69 end of the month and N will be having her O levels examinations end month too! D is having his final term exams and baby J is learning to crawl with tummy off the ground and getting back into sitting position on his own. He's growing so fast! I miss him as a little baby!

Things are finally falling into places since relocating back to Singapore. My career is not really moving towards the direction that have been communicated to me though and I am getting impatient. I have been thinking if I should look for another job, one that will allow me to utilize the knowledge and skills acquired from my MBA course...One that will allow me to work with people of higher calibre instead some opinionated idiots whose only strong point is having been with the company since its incorporation.

There is another event that I am looking forward to this October and that is a fun bowl event organized by the Taiwan warehouse that I will be visiting next week. I am looking forward to bowling with all the staff there and building up better rapport with them. It will be my 1st time bowling without my personal coach! LOL

Counting my Blessings

Hubby has found a job at last and he is starting work from today. I am really relieved. I wasn't worried so much about the money but more for his emotional health as he was getting really depressed not receiving any replies from the many applications that he sent out. For several weeks, he was not even contacted for any interviews and then one fine day, he received 2 calls from 2 separate headhunters and he went for 2 job interviews in a week. Then both the jobs came back positive. Hubby chose the job that will presumably require less working hours and less time away from family. But of course the pay package is lower, we don't know exactly how much lower though. The other company is a Japanese company and will probably require him to put in much longer hours and also travel. Until last night we were still discussing if he had made the right choice....

How do we mortals know if we have made the right choice at each juncture of our lives anyway? Most of the time, we can only depend on that much information we have on hand and then just  go with our guts. I am excited for hubby. The CIO whom he will be reporting to seems to like him a lot and I hope that he will have better prospects here than with the other company which is Japanese and knowing Japanese, they will never entrust senior management posts to non-Japanese. And not to mention the number of working hours that the Japanese expect you to put in!! Anyway, we don't know for sure if this job that he has chosen is the right choice, we are just assuming and hoping that we are right. And we will never know, we will probably just look back a couple of years later of things don't move as we have hoped and then wonder to ourselves "what if...?" I have learnt not to look back but just move forward. What done cannot be undone, no point whining in self-pity. I have made many mistakes in my life and with my life, and I have had my share of miseries and hardships. But whatever I have been through is not even a fraction of what worse situations that many other people are facing. As you grow older and see more happenings around, you will learn to appreciate whatever you have and count your blessings.

I am counting my blessings and I am grateful for everything that I have and for everyday that I am alive. Nevertheless, I will continue to work hard and strive for a better life for myself and my family. It would be wonderful if all of us can move into a bigger house with enough rooms for everyone and also ample running space for the dogs. It would be wonderful if we can have the extra cash for one family trip and one romantic trip for hubby and I every year. That's the lifestyle I am working towards. Gambette!