It’s hard …

… to get them both to look at the camera at the same time. I’m not even talking about looking good. Just looking at.

Taken – impressively, I may add – by Danny. Yes, unfortunately, it’s the only whole family shot I have at this point. Taken at the MTR station, waiting for a train, no less. There must be a better way to do this. Note to self, get someone else to take the family shot.

I am too busy to blog, but I had to put this one up.

What have I done?

I’m due to start work again any day. Not real work, just my in-my-spare-time-work-from-home job. I got in touch with my old contact in Tokyo some time ago and was asked if I wanted to take on an upcoming job. It will only be three weeks long, but by the amount of prep emails I’ve received, I’m beginning to get quite fearful. It sounds like heavy duty stuff and now I fear I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. 

Danny hates this part time work I indulge in. I use the word “indulge” only because it pays me peanuts and I do it because it’s fun to do something not related to the kids. It isn’t FUN-fun, not creative in any way and certainly not all that exciting, but it’s something to do with my free time and it gives me a little satisfaction. Not to say that playing and teaching Sara doesn’t do it for me, but a little more than just family-related activities does keep the brain sane.

Anyway, Danny hates it because he thinks it’s a waste of time. Sigh – the truth is, perhaps it is. There’s not much to learn from it and the only thing that improves is my ability to correct English. And I steadily learn how numbingly painful it is to read Japanese-translated English. But it does make me feel justified in adding onto my resume that I’ve done editing work and hopefully that will open doors for me sometime in the future.

Back to the upcoming job. This is probably bigger than any other job I’ve done for them and that in itself is a little worrying. A big job for them means I really got to pull it together, for myself and for them. Be focused. Be disciplined. Work the number of hours I plan to and be efficient about it. A tough one since I really am quite lax when I work. But maybe I need this – to learn to use my time efficiently between everything else that goes on in this house. That’s one thing I’ve noticed about successful stay-at-home-moms who work from home. Be disciplined and be efficient. There’s a lot more time than I realize between all the things that need doing and it’s my job to find those pockets and use them.

So here I go. Once the files start pouring in, expect radio silence. For three weeks, at the very least. And if I’m blogging, tell me to get back to work.

Low tech

I thought I was low tech with my spiral notebook which I use for everything from planning to to-do lists to recording random phone numbers and addresses to scribbling blog ideas.

Here I present to you Danny’s personal phone book. Seven namecards collected over the past x number of years on which he has randomly scribbled numbers on, purely because they were sitting in his wallet during his time of need. The namecards themselves have no particular significance, other than one that’s actually his dating back to the start of his career nearly ten years ago. These namecards now have a treasured spot in his wallet and yes, he still adds to it. Since there’s still space to fill, it’s unlikely he’s going to up it to eight namecards any time soon.

The downside to this system – any number written too far in the corner of a card is subject to not being readable over time as the namecards do get dog-eared. He found this out as he was desparately searching for a number and upon finding it, realized he couldn’t read the last two digits. Cest la vie.

Learning to read

Not Sara. Me.

I confess, I’m no reader. I have an attention span of a gnat and can’t get beyond a couple of pages before my mind wanders. I have a nasty habit of flipping to the back of books just to find out how it ends, skipping all detail in between.

My mom can’t figure out what happened. She read religiously to all her children, but only my sister turned out to be a reader. My dad was anxious when I chose my field of study at university, concerned about the inordinate amount of reading it would require. But I surprised him – no, I didn’t do great at school, but I survived and passed. Just goes to show that I will read if I have to. I would read for school and I would read for work. Of course, this does mean that since my “retirement” from the workforce, I’ve read nothing. I surf the web and flip papers, yes, and occasionally I buy a girlie mag, but otherwise, I read nothing. Maybe road signs and menus, but that’s about it.

So comes to the point of this ramble. I like to write and I would like to do this professionally at some point. But there comes the big question – how can I write when I don’t read? How would I learn an art if I can’t appreciate it? So now, I have decided it is time to for me to learn to read. Force myself, if I have to. I’ve taken stock of all the books I’ve read in recent years and I think I could count them on my two hands. And keeping in mind that six of the said books belong to one series. Yes, JK Rowling has been credited for getting children to read. Children and me.

So now I’m working on Pride and Prejudice. I would count this as a re-read. I read it when I was in secondary school (not by choice), but maybe my age is helping me now. I actually find it quite enjoyable, despite the antiquated language. Maybe, just maybe, I’m finally ready to learn to read.

What’s wrong with you, woman?

I recently started frequenting blogs by mothers who homeschool. Not that I’m planning anything of that sort – I’m not convinced of its benefits yet. I do keep reading these blogs, though, partly because I am still curious as to why people choose this option, but more importantly, I’ve developed a morbid fascination for the women who write these blogs. Somehow women who homeschool tend to be Catholic and have many many many children. Like five and upwards.

So here I am, a Catholic. We do plan to have more children, but somehow these women are in a league of their own. Like seven and counting??!?!?! Good grief. And they all do it without help, not like us here in Asia. Plus they homeschool. And get all the chores done. And find time to blog and write. How do they do it? How come so many of them can do it? Is there something wrong with me – two children, with help, staying at home and struggling??

Some say the move from zero to one (child) is a big change. The move from one to two is even bigger. There’s still something felt when moving from two to three, but apparently after that, economies of scale kick in and one more child makes no difference. I certainly hope this is the case – not because we plan to have that many children, but that it means that I’m not totally hopeless and useless. I always thought I managed well, somewhat arrogantly so. But I go and read these blogs and suddenly I feel so inadequate.

One thing I have learnt is that organization and discipline is key. Fore-thought and planning always required. It appears I lack in many of these areas. Danny thinks I plan and anticipate well, but I realize I’m a mere novice when compared to these women. What’s probably a more disturbing thought is why this is all so important to me. Perhaps I am more competitive than I thought I was – dammit, if she can do it, so can I. I no longer have the corporate world in which to exercise the beast, so I exercise it in my current field of employment – stay-at-home motherhood. The only problem is, I can never beat them. No way we are having THAT many kids.

I need to get a grip and move on. Somebody, quick, hit me over the head.

Our song

I just spent some time pouring through my brother-in-law’s music collection on his laptop and found this. Our song. Cheesy, yes, but our song nevertheless. Place the song and you’ll figure out when we started dating. Funny how we have so much music around the house but we don’t actually own a copy of it.

Songs are like photographs to me. They bring me back to a time and place. For us, it was New York in summer. Not quite that romantic though – we were there on training. We had been in the same office for a whole year and hardly noticed each other, but what a few months in a foreign land can do! Heh. Of course, things got subsequently quite dramatic, but all’s well that ends well. This many years later, we’re married and have two children. We can now look back and laugh about it all.

So ‘fess up now. What’s your song?