In all things give thanks…..

The 19th of May was not a good day for us.  One of the crew who works together with my event supervisor got into an accident with our vehicle.  He was not really injured, probably more shaken than anything else, I can’t go into details as this involves many other people. Anyway, it was a terrible mess in that our losses run up to about RM20k.  Our vehicle is a total write off, not worth repairing.

So what do we have to give thanks for?  Well, I thought about it and I guess the one thing I am really thankful for is that no lives were lost, no one was badly injured.  We were really angry about the whole thing, but God showed us that we must practice patience and kindness although at the same time we must be wise in our dealings with people teach or rebuke where it is required, but only with the motive of wanting to uphold and help the other person improve, not merely to satisfy our anger or to find a place to vent our frustrations.

It actually looks better than it is in this photo, but all the windows were shattered, tyres flattened and the back of the van was also knocked in…..

Looking at this car that smashed into our vehicle gives you an idea about how bad the accident was.

 

President’s List

http://www.ozarks.edu/newsevents/news/news_story.asp?iNewsID=1790&strBack=%2Fnewsevents%2Fnews%2Fnews%5Farchive%2Easp

President’s/Dean’s List Announced

Clarksville, Ark. — The University of the Ozarks has announced its honor students for the Spring 2007 semester.

To be included on the University’s President’s List, a student must carry at least 12 hours and maintain a 4.00 grade point average. To be included on the Dean’s List, a student must carry at least 12 hours and maintain between a 3.5 and 3.9 GPA.

Students are listed below alphabetically.

PRESIDENT’S LIST

Melissa Allen, Alexander, AR
Emma Bottorff, Farmington, AR
Evelyn Chin, Malaysia
Huy Do, Vietnam
Maria Duarte Noguera, Nicaragua
Alissa Ferrari, Alma, AR
Dustin James, Wickes, AR
Misti Little, Morrilton, AR
Judith Lopez Garcia, Mexico
Aleyda Monzon Cuevas, Guatemala
Lindsey Nietert, Branch, AR
Ana Ochoa Suncin, El Salvador
Dustin Perry, Plano, TX
Jeanne Randall, Benton, AR
Pablo Rivera Reyes, El Salvador
Carlos Robledo Espinoza, Costa Rica
Jack Rossmaier, Clarksville, AR
Jamie Russell, Pearl, MS
Eduardo Salinas, Honduras
Fidel Samour Bahaia, El Salvador
Brian Sarber, Allen, TX
Susanna Smallwood, Glenwood, AR
Amy Smedley, Pearcy, AR
Natalie Suarez, El Salvador
Yee Zhin Yong, Malaysia

Well, we are so proud of Anna for making it to the President’s list….. rejoice with us! (Yeah, her chinese name is Yee Zhin)

Praise God for giving her good health, discipline and mental alertness.

re-organisation mood 2

here are more pictures of what my re-decorating mood took me and the whole household through…. but I’m happy ….

Anna’s room after the conversion.  I threw away her old bed and replaced it with this sofa bed since she is away 9 months of the year.  All her previous furniture had to be disposed off as they were bought when she was 13 & frankly, they are a bit too childish for her now.

Another angle of her corner cabinet unit.  I couldn’t blog about this earlier as we all wanted to surprise and welcome her home with this.

Angie and Andrea’s room cabinets

Both Angie and Andrea now have to share one study table since the new cabinet takes up the space were their study tables were previously. I guess it means they have one less table to mess up!

The first redecorating bug i caught before re-doing the cabinets were actually to reposition all my light switches from the left side of the living room wall …..

…. to the left right side.  This meant a whole lot of hacking, re-wiring, dust, re-painting and oh, by the way, the whole thing started because I needed to change some switches that were not working! Allan very wisely avoided the home during my “temporary insanity” he said that he just could not understand why I had to stress myself up like that….hee! hee!

Well, I have no regrets, I just didn’t like to see a whole roll of switches next to the door when I entered the house, it was a mistake I made 6 years ago! Now the switches are behind the door.

The last thing I may think about doing is to have this trusty good ole dining table changed.  This table is older than I am! We’ve been very reluctant to change it cos it was given by somebody who had it in her family for years plus it is just so hardy, they don’t make it like this anymore!

Of course I still need to get the rest of the painting done. You may have noticed that the wall with the window in Angie’s room is partially blue and the painting is not completed, well that’s because we just painted enough to move the cabinets in.

 

 

Creation must be really hard work

At the beginning of this month, I took on a massive project of re-organising the wardrobes in our rooms.  I finally decided on getting the Ikea cabinets for their flexibility and cost.  Like it or not, although Ikea may not be the most hardy kind of furniture available, they do cost less.  Of course the cabinet manufacturers always advertise a cheap price for their cabinets, but then you realise the price is so low because they mainly give you 2 big empty shells with a clothes rail and another cabinet with some shelves and drawers. Te cost will go up a lot more if you want more drawers or other stuff.  It also means that you must stick with that design for the rest of the cabinet’s life.  The Ikea ones allow flexibility in that I can always change a shelf for a drawer anytime without having to contact the carpenter or the contractor again.

Anyway, back to my story, this was MASSIVE because it involved 5 rooms! I had to move cupboards around, do some painting and then put together 9 cabinets.  I must now give credit to the following great people who helped me a great deal, Kah Choon, Quinton, Slamet on the first day; Jeff helped to paint a shelf and also did some work with the cabinets and John came later and was roped in to help.  The next session 2 days later involved Allan, David Yee, Kevin Yap and Slamet. 

Kah Choon was really excited at first – we all were, it was fun putting up the cabinets, reading the instructions and so on.  He said, “This is quite fun, hah?” ….. but by the end of the day, Kah Choon had this to say, “Thanks Aunty Veron”, I went “”….”" Hah?!! He went on to say, “Thanks for helping me to decide that I will NEVER buy DIY cabinets!” And then he roared his famous laugh!

As I think back of the mess, the frustrations, the tiredness, I can only imagine a fragment of how much work creating the entire universe must be! I wouldn’t even want to decide what colour each animal, insect, tree, shrub, shell, …. is to have. 

I did what I did to give something new to my children, to re-organise their stuff and to a certain extent, to please myself, but I’d think, mostly because I love them.  It gave me a lot of pleasure to see the look on their faces when all was done, and it gave me a lot of pleasure to surprise Anna with her new cabinets when she arrived home. God created the universe out of His pleasure and also because He loves us…….Really, come to think of it, He has the whole of Heaven, why would He need earth for? Well, I’d say the wonderful things on earth were created for our pleasure. Just like I don’t need so many cabinets, I could have stopped with the ones in my room, but it wouldn’t have given me the degree of pleasure I derived from giving to my children.

I had 2 of these done – 6 cabinets all in….

… and one corner unit, another 3 cabinets for Anna’s room…

Now Allan’s shirts and trousers are not cramped into one tiny space!

and 2 cupboard-loads of stuff could be moved into this one cabinet!

 

Blindspots

Our church is currently going through the “40 days of community” workbook by Rick Warren. 

Day 25 teaches us to care enough about each other to the extend of warning each other about weaknesses.  We have to tell the truth in love and the intention is to build up, not tear down. The warnings are not to be merely rebukes.

Rick Warren talked about all of us having blind spots  – just like we do when we are driving.  Sometimes we need help from someone in the passenger seat.  We need friends in the car with us to help us see approaching danger.

Last week, Allan was about to leave the home to pick Angie and Andrea from their class and I told him to wait as I just felt I wanted to go along.  As we turned into a road on our right, he almost hit an approaching car, but I saw the car and was able to warn him on time.  I was surprised he didn’t see the car, but he said it was a blind spot from his angle. His vision was blocked by the car frame as in the picture above. I’m thankful that something made me decide to go with him, and I’m even more thankful that I obeyed that still small voice.  We thank God for preserving our lives.

That incident taught us more than one lesson.  When I shouted at Allan to avoid the car, the only thing in my mind was to get us away from the path of danger – never at any point of time was I tearing his driving skills down.  However, if Allan took it personally, and felt that I was criticising his driving skills, he could have chosen to ignore my warning, leading to disaster.

Many times, we are not been humble enough to accept critism as something to swerve us away from the path of danger. We imagine that others are intend on tearing us down.  Lets all learn to humble ourselves to willingly receive warnings that we may be kept on the right path.

Oh………… and Happy Mother’s Day!

MY NEPHEW AND NIECE

My mum and dad come from big families, in fact, my mum comes from a huge family! She has 8 other siblings.  Allan has 6 siblings from his family and another 5 (I think) from his step mother.  I only have 2 sisters and so far, I have topped the record with 4 children (and it will stay that way!).  Both my sisters have a child each and they are both so huggable and loveable!

Nicholas and I taken in 2003 in my house.

Sasha is just over a year old and is full of mischievous smiles and actions! Ahhhhh…. I need to hug her!

See what I mean???!!!!

Anna’s coming home……..!!!! wheeeeeee……..

Time really flies! It seems not too long ago that I hugged Anna goodbye in a Clarksville motel room, sobbing my eyes out and now its 10 months already!

Well, she will be back next wednesday and the whole family is excited… of course Andy is also excited about what she will bring home!  We have a surprise for her and I’d write about that after she is back. Back to Anna, well, she is having her finals now and will finish by this week, she then has 2 days to pack all her belongings and store them away. Her flight leaves Little Rock on Monday.  Please pray for her.  She hates travelling, especially alone.  Pray also that her sinuses will be clear when she is flying.

An item of thanksgiving is that she has retained her scholarships. We thank God for giving her the ability, strength and discipline to work hard through the year. 

 

Family dinner a week or two (can’t remember) before Anna left for the States. 

Our celebrations and holidays….

This year I am 43 and Allan is 48, we’ve been married 21 years but we still have fun….. all marriages require commitment and work………………..when we got married, we didn’t have much money at all, but we managed to have a 10 day honeymoon.  We drove towards the east coast in our faithful van with no destination in mind, just stopping wherever we wanted to.

Last year Allan bought a hotel membership as a birthday gift for me.  The benefits of the membership are numerous free meals, 1 night’s free stay at one of their chain of hotels, a bottle of wine and 2 birthday cakes.  Of  course the normal other privileges are discounts when eating and staying at their hotels.

We finally used the vouchers last month on the 2nd.  Allan and I checked into the Westin Kuala Lumpur and also used one of the meal vouchers for their restaurant there.  It was a good holiday…in Kuala Lumpur! Ever had that kind of holiday? Well, we walked Jalan Bukit Bintang and the malls there, then walked to Jalan Alor and beyond for the different hawker food stalls!! The next day, we spent an hour or so at their fitness centre.

Veron at Westin hotel restaurant .. aging means we sometimes cannot remember the names of the places we’ve been to!

Allan …. by the way, all these pics were taken with a mobile phone camera

 APRIL 28th 2007

My birthday …

am – Allan attended leaders’ prayer and discussion meeting

3.30pm – Made our way to children’s church, then rushed home to prepare salad dish for dinner at Andrew and Yvonne’s place to celebrate my birthday.

Intermission – Pop by at Dr Lian’s house to bandage badly sliced finger! In the rush, I accidentally sliced off some flesh about 0.5 cm width from my last finger!

8pm – Finally made it for a great dinner and then watch Superman returns in their AV room.  If you have not watch this, you should, its a good movie….. and that’s coming from someone who hardly watches movies or even TV.

April 29th 2007

Choong and Senny asked some of us to join them for a BBQ at their place, an informal gathering for us to meet some of their friends…… it turned out to be partly a surprise birthday do for me! I want to thank God for great friends and great colleagues. David, Ah Hui, Ignitius, Winson, Calvin Ngai, the Pangs, my care group ppl, Wai Kit, Eu Gin, Joseph and so many others who put in a lot of effort …. there was a “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” styrofoam wording in the pool! Will upload that when I get around to do it!

May 1st 2007

Joined the senior citizens’ day care group for their gathering and had lunch with them. In the evening Allan and I used another 3 vouchers for our anniversary celebration, a free dinner at Villa Danielli, Italian restaurant at Sheraton Imperial; a free celebration cake and a free bottle of wine.

Villa Danielli, Sheraton Imperial

Using our trusty mobile phone camera again!

Minestrone soup

Could not finish the bottle of wine between the 2 of us….

Lamb for me and beef cheek for Allan

So how much would our meal have cost us?…….RM285 just for the dinner excluding the wine and cake……. except it was FREEEEEE………………

Cheers!