yoongz

June 11, 2012June 13, 2012

Fulfilling A Birthday Wish…

Today is all about fulfilling the birthday wish of a fellow prayer warrior over at Reece’s Rainbow. Her name is Lynn and her heart is for special needs orphans, in particular the ones from an orphanage we know only as Orphanage 42. So her wish is that on this day, her 42nd birthday, we would help her to highlight all the children who are up for adoption from Orphanage 42. And this is exactly what i will be doing here…

Meet Simeon. He’s a lovely little boy, almost 5 years old, with dark hair and big brown eyes. He is significantly delayed, and diagnosed with cerebral palsy. But a family who managed to visit him in 2011 said this, ““Simeon” is barely responsive to stimuli, but I believe that could change if he received regular, loving attention…” He is also said to be a calm child.

Here’s 4-year old Presley. Isn’t he just a cutie?! He is a very happy and affectionate child. He is mildly delayed cognitively, but he does have leukemia. He needs a loving family who can support him and help him thrive and take care of his medical needs.

This is sweet Haven. She is 6 years old and is said to be afraid of strangers. But i know the right family environment can lead her out of her shell and she will blossom. She has significant medical needs (celiac disease, CP, toxic Hepatitis, hypotrophy of III stage), so much more is her need for a caring family.

Meet Chase. He would be turning 5 in a month’s time and really needs a family to help him navigate this big wide world. Seeing his handsome face, i just know there is a wonderful boy waiting to come out. His medical needs are as follows: obvious mental delay, poor understanding, almost does not speak, nervous, not even-tempered.

Here’s Ivan. He’s only 4 and a half and will face going to an institution soon (likely an adult mental institution), where he will likely be bedridden for the rest of his life. He has the potential to be so much more, he just needs a family to support him and the right therapy. His medical records indicate: Cerebral Palsy, muscle spasticity, and significant psycho-motor delay. He is not able to walk at this time.

Lovely Darina is almost 5 years old and faces going to an institution soon and, like Ivan, will be bedridden for life if she is not adopted. But she could do so well in a loving family, despite her many medical conditions, which are as follows: congenital brain abnormality, atopic-astenic syndrome, delay of mental and motor development, microcephaly, hip dysplasia, congenital isotropy of both eyes, koch valga to the left (foot position).

All these lovely children will have a chance at a better life if they had a family who would care for them, love them and give them the positive encouraging environment which all of us need to raise to the challenge of living a full life. Are you their family?

Maybe you are not ready to adopt. But you can still do a little to help these children. You can donate to their adoption grant (a bigger grant means that their forever family can reach them faster). Just click on their pictures to go to their profile page which contains a donation button.

You can also pray for them. Pray for their daily needs to be met and most importantly for their family to find them asap. You can share their stories so that more will know and you never know who reads it and passes it along and then along the way, their forever mummy/daddy would spot them and come for them.

They have no voice to speak for themselves. We need to speak for them.

Do also remember my little Heath and my lovely Heather as you pray for, advocate for and donate to these orphans.

syc

June 10, 2012

Healthy leftovers? Good or bad idea?…

i am huge on leftovers! Growing up i watched my mum cook for a battalion – this is always what i tell people and it is absolutely true. My mother did cook large amounts each Sunday and my aunts, uncles and cousins would all come over and eat. Of course, we didn’t have a big house, just a modest HDB (Housing Development Board for my non-Singaporean friends) 4-room flat. So when that many came over, there was no room for all to sit at the same table, at the same time to eat. Whoever came first, ate first and then made room for the next persons. And many times we would just sit wherever we wanted to eat; the kids mostly sat in front of the TV 😉

i loved it! The house was crowded and loud but i loved it. i love being around people and being around family was even better. This is one of the reasons i like having dinner guests. It is also the main reason why it was hard for me to learn to cook just for myself (when i went to university) or just for two (during the first years of my marriage).

Then near the end of the day, when people were leaving, we packed up the leftovers and everyone took their share home and most of the time we still had enough to have leftovers for ourselves as well.

As much as we all liked gathering together, kids grew up, priorities changed, cousins moved to whole other countries to live and these big gatherings also stopped happening.

BUT… my mother still cooked large amounts on Sundays (not battalion-sized though). This time it was more for convenience. My mum worked full-time – she always has and still does. Yet she maintained a lovely home and provided wonderful meals for us. And having the meals already cooked in advanced was a great help to her.

So as you can see leftovers played a big part in my childhood, teen years and even young adult days. i still like having leftovers, some foods just taste better after a night in the fridge 😉 And that’s why the article below stuck a chord with me and why i am sharing it. It has a really tasty recipe at the end of it too.

Healthy leftovers? Good or bad idea? | Newsletters | Beyond Diet.

Do you serve leftovers? If yes, what is your favourite dish to freeze/keep as leftover? If no, why not?

syc

June 5, 2012

Book Review: Angry Housewives Eating BonBons…

First of all, i LOVE the title of this book! And i loved it even more when i found out that that is the name of the book club which is the centre of action in the book; the AHEB (Angry Housewives Eating BonBons).

Second, i apologise as i will be skimming over the details of this book. i read this for my own book club meeting at the beginning of May and my memory isn’t what it used to be. But i liked the book and remember enough to want to talk about it some more.

Ok onto the book review proper…

The first few lines of the book (Prologue) immediately grabbed my attention and the writing style and story-lines held it all the way through the book.

“I knew all about having my life saved. When I was three years old, I broke free of my MawMaw’s callused grasp to chase a paper cup skittering across the street at the same time a jalopy full of new army recruits careened around the corner. A sailor coming out of Knapp’s Drugs and Sundries, with reflexes I hope served him well in his tour of duty, threw his bottle of Hires root beer to the sidewalk and raced out into the street, scooping me up in his arms. I can still hear the cacophony of squealing brakes, honking horns, and my grandmother’s scream, feel the sailor’s rough cotton uniform on my cheek and smell the soda pop on his breath…”

See what i mean. The writing is not complex but it is full of details which draw you right into the action, right into what the character sees and feels.

Faith, the ‘I’ in the above excerpt, is the main character who is also the one with the biggest, oldest secret in the story. (No spoiler here – i won’t tell you what’s the secret.) However, all the other housewives are so well-fleshed out that you live and feel for each of them as they take turns to tell their part in this story. i like Audrey for her dare-to-live attitude and Slip for her fight-to-the-end viewpoint. Their personal stories both take an unexpected twist. Merit, whom my heart goes out to, is amazing as she tries to keep it all together under an abusive husband and then when it falls apart, raises her girls on her own; not an easy thing to do in the Sixties. Kari, the ‘mother-hen’ of the group, who has her own sad story with a wonderful end, is equally interesting to read about.

i enjoy so much the camaraderie which the women share in those 40 over years they spent together; how they were there for each other at every turn. It is something i do not have – not to say that my life is lacking but such close friendships with people who live on the same street i have not experienced. i have wonderful friends but we are, unfortunately, at this point in our lives, not living in the same country even, let alone the same street. i have always wondered about living with neighbours who became close friends and i got to see that through the eyes of these characters.

The topics touched upon in the book are also varied and of great interest to me. Everything from the war (Vietnam specifically) and the peace marches to marriage (normal, abusive, divorce etc…) and sex; it also covers parenting, adoption, lost of loved ones, relationships and expectations between parent and child, religion, the gay movement/issue, and most importantly, holding onto secrets and its effects. There is no lack of tragedies with regards to all those issues but there are also lots of triumphs as well.

Of course, in those many years, these friends have had their disagreements and fights with each other and the process of healing the broken relationships was never easy. But they stayed true to each other, loving each other, even when they were ‘hating’ the other.

i love it that two of their children would carry on the book club in their own way, just as their mothers did. We leave the Angry Housewives in the midst of another battle in life:

“The Angry Housewives tame a Hell’s Angel, I wrote. Next stop: world domination. I laughed, even though I was a breath away from bursting into tears. I looked at Slip, but my valiant, true friend did not stir, and I stared at the photograph for a moment more before adding, We’re still working on that one.”

i would read this book again some time in the future. (when my to-read list is finally no more… God only knows when that will be – hehehee;) ).

Have you read this book? If so, did you like it? Hate it? Do share.

syc