My philosophy

Things are getting more or less back to normalcy at work. The mess created by "unplanningly" evacuating all the stocks from our Thailand warehouse to Singapore warehouse has been cleared and finally we can have more free time to start our cycle count from tomorrow. I am also going home at the normal hour of 5~6pm from this week and I am planning to start my exercise regime...maybe next week. I am still struggling to lose weight which is exceptionally difficult this time round due to my age, I guess. And having a hubby who is skinny by nature and loves to go for buffet dinner once every week is definitely not helping at all...Can't blame him actually...I love food too...*sigh*

I thought it's quite a pity that Demi Moore is splitting up with Ashton Kutcher...I sort of used her marriage (older woman with younger man) as a role model for my own when I remarried again to someone almost 10 years younger a year after her. She is like the ultimate example for all the cougars out there! And she is so damn good looking! But he still cheated on her with a much younger woman...so who said age doesn't matter?

To be honest, I had my reservations and I had my doubts initially. But after being happily married for 5 years and knowing that my hubby at this very moment still loves me and treasures me is good enough for me. Not that it won't hurt or it won't matter to me if later on my hubby cheat on me or something. I mean men are men, it's proven that they will be more easily succumbed to infidelity than women. So, if they will cheat, they will cheat, it doesn't matter if your hubby is younger than you or much older than you. My philosophy is: I would rather marry a younger man and have him cheat on me than to marry an old man and have him cheat on me too. Get it? It will hurt anyway, so why not do without the additional unjustified feeling of having the much older husband cheat on you, right? At least this is how I see it.

Another thing, I can take it much better if my hubby cheat on me with someone entirely new than to cheat on me with his ex-girlfriend or someone he knows as a friend all along. Explanation: If my husband cheats on me with someone entirely new, at least I know that the time before he met this someone new, he was loving me truly and solely. I will treasure those memories and may or may not leave him, depending if the cheat was just a fling or not and if he is repentful and wants me back or something...But if he cheats on me with someone he knows all along or his ex-girlfriend, then how  can I trust that the time when he was with me, he wasn't thinking of her and loving her? So, those times when he was with me will not be worth remembering at all! And I will not forgive him...totally out of the question.

That is why, I am so fed up with N who likes this boy knowing that he is still not over his ex. This is plain stupid. But I guess every young, naive girl will have to go through this at least once in her life, get hurt, cry it out and then learn from it. But she doesn't know that as a mother, I get hurt as well when my daughter gets hurt...*sigh*

Success Redefined

I am preparing for the Japanese Language Proficiency N1 Level Exams by doing some mock exams questions daily with whatever little time I can squeeze out at work. Some of my staff were asking me why do I need to take this exam since I am already fluent in Japanese. I know I don't have to, but it will be good to have a the highest certification there is for a foreigner to attain. Technically, I already passed the JLPT 1 exams some 17 years ago but I didn't collect the cert. I was too busy running my own business and I didn't think that I will need the paper. Not that I need it now but I am just curious to find out how well will I do for the exams. It's not easy.

Traditionally, a successful woman is defined by the man she marries and the family she helps to raise. Now, there are 2 routes to success for women; the traditional one of marrying a successful man and becoming a tai-tai and the modern route of becoming a successful career/business woman on her own. I am the modern woman. My success is defined by the pay package I bring home at the end of the month and the title printed on my business card. However, I start to have a different view about my suceess lately. After giving birth to baby J and now that my 2 older children are 16 and 13, I am beginning to feel really proud of myself as a mother. D is in a good school and a good uniform group that brings him for volunteer work in Singapore as well as overseas. N has been admitted to Mass Communications in Ngee Ann Polytechnic and baby J is developing skills ahead of his age. Every little achievements that my children make are my achievements as well and I will be so proud.

Work-Life Balance

As I have mentioned in my previous post, we are constantly amazed by the outstanding physical developments of baby J. At 7 months, he's already starting to walk with a push walker, climbing up on sofas and also crawling very well on all surfaces. He's such a delight to watch and definitely brings a lot of joy to our family.

We have just celebrated mum's 69th birthday with a karaoke session at K Box in Kallang Leisurepark. She looked like she had enjoyed herself with all of us and her closest brother and niece around. Everybody sang along to some very retro songs and had lots of laughs when someone couldn't hit the high notes very well. It's a pity D doesn't sing but he enjoyed the buffet dinner, feasting on salmon sashimi until he got sick.

On work, I have been made really busy with the floods in Thailand destroying the company's factory and logistics hub in Navanakorn Industrial District. Just 2 weeks ago when I went there to help evacuate the warehouse, everything looked fine but we are in filthy waters of up to 2 metres since 19th Oct and the waters have not receded at all. All of the Thailand's warehouse stocks have been moved to Singapore and technically, we are operating 2 warehouses within our premise in Singapore. Space and manpower are 2 of the main constrains that we are having and not to mention the "ingenious" support we are getting from HQ...I am still struggling to get things organized 2 weeks in and I hope that by next week, everything can become smooth.

Hubby is is frustrated with his work just 1 month into his new job. Not so much the work actually but the people that are playing some political tricks that are making him really sick. He is on the verge of quitting...and getting really depressed. I am worried for his mental and physical health...he needs to be able to vent out his frustrations somewhere...maybe bowling will help? Or feasting? It will be N's sweet 16 birthday next week and we have another good reason to go feasting again!

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!