Little Luxuries of Life

Luxury:

1) Something inessential but conducive to pleasure and comfort.
2) Something expensive or hard to obtain.
3) Sumptuous living or surroundings: lives in luxury.
Extracted from American Heritage dictionary

My personal definition of a luxury is No 1 and 3. To me, a luxury doesn't have to be expensive. But it requires a heart of gratitude that is able to appreciate and enjoy the little things in life.

Some of my little luxuries of 2007

Luxury No.1: Capturing cute moments of our beloved dogs

Ah boy looking out of the window

He's so tall!!!

Ah Ger Holding on to the Toilet Roll Toy I gave Her

She always has that expression when she's naughty.


Ah boy play-fighting with His Ger
He's not fierce at all! It's just part of their play.


Ah Ger with her 'Are you angry with me?' look

Ah Boy Eating his Favourite CornP/S This time he didn't swallow the corn cob. He almost did though in his enthusiasm to get the whole thing.

Luxury No. 2: Enjoying my Favourite Cup of Tea /Coffee with Hubby

Kopi-O with a Biscotti

We were actually at Olio Dome. Looks like the cups from my house hor.

My Favouritest Teh-Gor
This was a gift from QuanMiin. Our deepest thanks to them. We drank countless cups of Earl Grey and even served guests of 4 with this pretty little device. The filter is actually made of a small glass cup with slits to enable water to pass thru. With this, we can enjoy earl grey brewed from tea leaves rather than tea bags.


Chinese Tea with Mooncakes
We started eating our mooncakes a month before mooncake festival.

Luxury No. 3 : Taking photos of unusual things

Nanas Galore

This was taken at R.K. House coffee Shop near Chomp Chomp. Yea R.K. house is the place where the pork (no pork) incident supposedly took place.

Luxury No.4 : Enjoying the outdoors while lao gong fishes and listening to his exciting fishing stories

Yea I've (finally) come round to the fishing issue. It was only recently, when lao gong went for an offshore fishing trip that I realised I no longer felt unhappy when he went fishing. (I can hear Limin cheering for me =P) Think after being married for slightly more than a year, we've come to a deeper understanding of each other. All credit to God who's the One who has sustained our marriage and the love between us as husband and wife.

Luxury No.5 : Collecting & Reading Christian books

This collection was given to me by my 'Angel' last year when our previous cell played the 'Angel Mortal' Game. The angel later on became our mei mei =)

Here comes my two Greatest Luxuries...

Greatest Luxury No. 1

Fellowship and Quiet Time with God and His Word

Sometimes I don't appreciate the time where I really sit down at His feet and listen to Him and learn from Him. But I realise that my happiest moments are when I can feel Him by my side, holding my hand, guiding me, talking to me. God is indeed amazing. Sometimes I find it so incomprehensible why someone as awesome as Him can love us ordinary human beings so much. Thank you God for your love and your awesome blessings upon our lives =D

Great Luxury No. 2

Being married to my lao gong =D

Though we have our storms and crises, this has been one of the best years of my life. The time spent with you, laughing, doing simple things together, doing complicated things with you, being pampered by you, being lectured by you, your sometimes almost unbearable nagging, working together with you, learning how to respect you, just being close to you...

Having so many beloved people celebrating our union together with us...I can't imagine life without you now...Your wisdom, Your strength, Your gentleness, and Your love...Thank God for giving me such a wonderful man...

Lao gong the Muscle Chef

Last night lao gong asked me what I wanted for dinner and I answered "Steamed Fish!" so we went NTUC to buy the ingredients. Lao gong used to be the sole distributor for Moderne which sells pure white cutlery to restaurants and hotels. Through that job, he came into contact with many top chefs and he became inspired to put even more effort into preparing his meals for me.

Even the food preparation looks so pretty

But there's one thing I think lao gong is definitely different from the top chefs. Maybe due to him being the muscle man.

He uses the "kan neu de cai dao lai cie cai" which means using the knife for chopping beef to cut vegetables. I found it so amusing I begged him to let me take a shot of it haha.

Nails Update- Christmas Edition II

Purple nails with Glitter and Gold Tips

Doesn't the colours remind you of ornaments hanging on a Christmas tree? Actually it wasn't intentional. One day while shopping in Ang Mo Kio, I spotted this O2skin booth. Apparently it's the cosmetic line under Bioskin. Saw this deep purple that I liked and with blessings from Lao Gong i bought this nail polish. We just thought gold would go well with this purple =)

Thank you lao gong =D

Nails Update- Christmas Edition

To go along with the Christmas theme, lao gong chose a green shade for my nails. He did some colour experimentation and mixed a silverish blue with light green to get the final glittery turquoise green.

The 1st shade of Silvery Blue

The second shade of Green

For those interested to know, the darker colour has to go on 1st to act as the base for the lighter shade. With a darker shade as the base, the green looks more "solid" and the silver adds on the glitter. The lighter shade cannot be painted first because when the darker shade goes over it, you wouldn't be able to see the lighter colour at all as the darker shade completely covers over the light base.

Final Artwork

To complete the Christmas theme, lao gong added on bits of glitter in varying sizes in french manicure style.

As I write this blog post and reflect on how lao gong painstakingly takes the effort to do my nails as often as he can, I feel very blessed to be given a hubby who's so sweet to me. The extra effort of taking out pieces of glitter from the nail polish took a long time to do and even I became sleepy watching him do it.

Thank you lao gong. Sometimes I throw tantrums and forget how much you actually love me and even say hurtful things when we quarrel. Thank you for always forgiving me and loving me. I thank God for that very 1st phonecall five Christmases ago that started everything. That was my best Christmas present ever. Love you lao gong =)

The Different Stages of Being Blow-Dried

Hi I'm ah boy as many of you fondly call me. Today I'm presenting to you the different phases of myself being blow-dried.

My 1st ShotAin't I photogenic?

I'm getting tired only after a few minutes of being made to sit and stay. I wanted so badly to go after my ah ger who suddenly looks super appealing to me after having her heat. Dad jokingly tells mum that I almost got electrocuted sitting in front of the socket.

Yucks I hate it when Dad shakes me so hard. Feels like my whole skin is gonna drop off!

Slouching in a corner as Daddy blows me unrelentlessly

Finally it's over

18-Year Old Hui Ling

Recently I 've been getting paranoid about looking older. Especially after I permed my hair.
About 2 years ago, when I was 24, a pastor at our former church WEFC asked me, "Are you taking your 'O' Levels this year?"

A few months back, before I permed my hair, we met an auntie in church and she saw us playing so she smiled and asked in Hokkien,"You all good friends hah?"

We told her we were husband and wife and she went,
"Huh?!?! I thought you were 18 years old!"

It makes sense that I should look 18 this year since I look 16 two years ago.

After I permed my hair, no one told me such nice things anymore =(

About a week ago, Audrey sent me a picture we took during last year's Christmas. Upon looking at the photo, I mentally compared myself to how I look then and now and felt once again that

Yup, I've grown older.

Christmas 2006

Today I went to the gym with lao gong and assisted him in training a small group of senior aunties. About 50+ in age. An extract of the conversation

Auntie no. 1: "Your wife ar?"

Auntie No. 2: "You just married is it?"

Auntie No.3: "She looks like a Secondary School student."

Hehe I'm so happy. Thank God perming hair didn't make me look much older.

Psalm 103:1,5

Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name...

who satisfies your desires with good things

so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

Potato Update

Remember me and lao gong like potatoes? Last week we were down with throat virus and for me I had throat + stomach virus so we felt very sick. Whole day no appetite but will be hungry at night.

So on Friday me and lao gong decided we were sick of resting at home so we went out and did some preparations for our supper that night.

Our Homecooked Supper

Seafood mushroom soup with Focaccia Bread and Garlic Mashed Potato

We fought over which mushroom soup to buy. I wanted seafood mushroom and he wanted garlic mushroom. Being the “Love your wife as yourself” husband that he is called to be, he let me have my seafood mushroom. During supper, I was enthusiastically trying to convince him that seafood mushroom is much tastier.As I was about to say

“Lao gong. This soup is really good eh. They give so many mushrooms!”

Lao gong said, “Did you get a lot of mushrooms? When I was scooping the soup I purposely gave you more mushrooms.”

That burst my bubble. But gave me another bubble. Lao gong’s so good to me. Give me more mushrooms…. =D

The garlic mashed potato is already very delicious by itself so it doesn’t need any gravy. However, the mashed potato that day was a little dry because lao gong didn't add enough milk so we couldn’t finish it. We got bored of it after a while and started playing with it.

It a snowman!

(Well potato-man actually)

It was one of my most satisfying supper, and we had a lot of fun laughing together and playing with our potato ;P

With God in the picture, married people can have loads of fun!