A pause in this season

So tired.
So exhausting.
My head is spinning with all the things still not done for Christmas Eve.

Yet I'm really really bizarrely happy.

I'm so thankful for all the folks that haven't said, 'You are being too hard on yourself'.
I'm so thankful that revealing this bitch side of mine, along with the shittyness that comes from having to deal with that side of me, have not been disastrous.
I'm so thankful that I can be myself and it's okay to be me, without offending or hurting anyone in the process.
It's taken me a very long time to show this side of me again.

Someone asked why I bother? Why do I care?
Especially as they have never seen me caring for anything like this.

And I don't really know.
I'm too tired to actually feel something myself about this.
Besides just absorbing or empathizing how the others around me are feeling about this.

Maybe the truth isn't all that complicated.
He is the reason for the season.
And He provides more than enough to wade through all these busyness.
So long as He knows what's really in my heart, no one else has to know.



~
Even as this year been a year of letting more people in (which I am very thankful for),
I also miss Slavedriver and Big Bro something terribly.
I miss how Christmas means over the top decorations at Slavedriver's home.
I miss how easy it is to just be in the company of Big Bro and his family.
Yet things have changed and I can't just go back to how things once was.

Some changes been certainly surprising.
Who would have thought that I'd enjoy making jellies and Christmas shopping for prizes?
Or crying elephant tears over a painted wet fake door yet getting back at it the next day.
Or it becoming a norm to drive all the way from the South on a weekly basis just for a drum date in town?
Or me being the crazy maniac who stays up all night to play board games when no one else has the stamina to?

Happiness is...

Having a drum date and purposeful coloring time.

Hair has reorganized the room.
(It's getting to be a dilemma to maintain that nickname when he has chopped off his hair T.T)
Now the room is so much more spacious.

I get amused at yet another discovery.
Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive.
If it was placed side by side with the Coming Messiah Overdrive, I would have taken a picture. Hee.

The lady with a smile.

There's a smile that cannot be replicate.
The smile that met me that first day of recess in my new school.
Concerned I wasn't familiar with the school system.

The same smile greeted me each time.
Those days waiting for me after school, or teaching me to knit.

The smile over the years, would change into laughter occasionally and crinkle the creases around those bright eyes.

R.I.P 5ee.

I haven't been giving the 'rightful' respect she deserves.
If you consider rightful as in being there every single night of the wake and following the procession on the last day.
I just didn't want to struggle with following the rituals this year.

There was the combo birthday party that very night she passed away.
Followed by the next night of serving in church.

When I finally went on Thursday night, the corpse I saw was nothing at all like I remember her.

So I spent my Friday night board gaming.
Away and late enough that I had an excuse not to go to the funeral procession the next morning.
And finally it was over. Just like that.

Maybe I will regret this one day.
But for now, I like that the image of her, that I still have in my head is smiling at me.

At the cross...

Serving an altar call that finished late was difficult. I was anxious from realising that the speaker shared different things from the first service, taking a longer time to finish.

"I know You love me"

These words took a whole new meaning tonight.
Arrived at the cinema just in time for Dr. Strange to start, no advertisement or trailer left!

The birthday holiday

So many things to be thankful for.

First off, a birthday treat from Mi.

Kuishinbo, a Japanese buffet restaurant that I've heard raves about.

The next day was a treat of eating the local stuff there that I've never seen back home.

Like the mutton koay teow soup and chi peng.
And buying the ginormous fishball for breakfast the next morning!

Lazed around, ate a whole bag of Kettle chips as it was rainy, 

and went to Orchard road later on in the evening for some clothes and browsing.

I've actually forgotten that I should hunt a PlayMe piano down,

until I was there in Singapore.
In the afternoon I went to the MBS casino.

I strolled around looking at people betting off hundreds of $$ dollars at one shot.

And it was such a temptations not to play!

The bets on the slot machines starts off at like 2 cents.

It was so easy to have just load $2 and play.

I certainly gave a big breath of relief when I came out of there.

After all that, I went and spent some time on the Esplanade;

a practice I've been keeping on every visit to Singapore.
There was the fountain and laser show going on as usual,
across the water at MBS.

On the last day of my holiday,

there was a MARVEL exhibition on at the Singapore Science Center.

This was another wonderful treat by Aunt Mae, though I went on my own.

It was a cool geek/superhero event, 

where we download an app onto our phones,

that made us become 'agents',

logon and answered questions on the app based on the stuff on exhibition,

and only getting the various stages on the app activated as you step in through the various areas of the exhibition.

Some of the questions were tough; serious scrutiny was needed.
On top of that, there was this stimulation section that let us become IronMan and shoot the enemies off the screen by moving our hands like the beams were coming out.
And another section where we used our phones become our shooting tool.

To end it all off,

I came back to Machi Koro as a birthday present!
When there I was on Orchard Road,
seeing this in PI I was just thinking how cute it looked.
And suddenly! I am owning it.