I had the privilege of being in a room full of people eagerly waiting to be sworn into the family of Canada where I noticed a disturbing behaviour.

These grown men and women have either very poor listening skills or do not understand English.

Raise your right hand, they stare right back or raise their left hand.

Remain standing, they sit.

Last row, please stand. The row in front stands.

Seriously? No wonder those annoying children in the room were whining! Adults don’t listen to instructions very well, how do we expect children to behave? O Canada, a future so bright I’m afraid to look.

Instead of banning cell phones in the room, they should really ban children. At least people react to silencing the phone much faster than they reach to silent their annoying child. Why wouldn’t they swiftly pick up that noisy annoying being and take it out of the room? Would you not remove a splint from beneath your skin immediately?

Both adults and children in Canada are getting on my nerves.

Apparently, further back than my memory can go, I did not like a joint birthday celebration with my sister. But my parents had it that way and threw us big joint birthday parties because our birthdays are only a week apart. They do, however, make sure that I get my own big birthday cake.

So I surprised myself last night while looking for a nice place to dine on Friday, when I considered having a joint celebration. Firstly for Friday’s ceremony and secondly for our anniversary.

Who is this woman and what has she done to my selfish self?

I considered it seriously enough to suggest it to Eli who promptly said each event deserved its own thing. Not that I wasn’t expecting his response.

Then he topped it by declaring a four-day anniversary celebration. That’s double the length of our usual celebration!

No matter what, I’m grateful I get to spend every day with this wonderful man.

Yesterday was a glorious day. A day made glorious by the absence of the computer.

Undeniably, computers and the internet have made a lot of things possible in my life. But without it, I can also do a lot of things.

I managed to have a leisurely lunch with my sister, bought art supplies and made a layered/textured card.

Except for over-eating at lunch causing my digestive system to go out of whack, I feel so much better with what I’ve done all day than if I had my computer.

The computer and internet fuels my procrastination. I watch too many short clips, read too many unupdated blogs and aimlessly browse Facebook.

I have yet to backup my files and there are a lot of legit things I can do with my time on the computer that I have been putting off.

Being without the computer yesterday allowed me to work my brains a little bit more and got me excited about crafting all over again. I like that.

Maybe I don’t need “I promise you high speed internet and an updated computer at all times for the rest of my life” to be written into our wedding vows after all.

Is it weird that I’m not bothered at all that I’ve been carrying around a packet of blood stained tissue paper in my bag for the past month? Or that Eli is still wearing blood stained shoes? Or that we only wiped up the car last week?

We don’t talk about it anymore and I’m not optimistic about an arrest. The car is not a common car and should be easy to spot yet we have not had further news, but that’s okay.

Our life is moving forward and we have so much to look forward to in the very near future.

I just can’t help but wonder if it is okay that I’m carrying a packet of tissue paper with dried blood all over the plastic. Is it?

Weekends go by at such an incredible speed that I feel myself trying to backpedal every Sunday night, as anxious as a child who forgot to do her homework. I hate the anxiety Sunday nights bring. Although I don’t have to physically go into an office on Monday mornings, I’m unable to shake the feeling of back to school.

Before the weekend is up, I look forward to the next weekend. I think of the exciting events that will take place in between. I smile to myself and mentally plan my wardrobe for those events.

This coming week is an exciting one. Doctor appointments aside, we’ve got an important ceremony to attend where I get to wear crazy heels, and it’s our anniversary this long weekend!

I haven’t got anything up my sleeves for this weekend yet, so I know my days will be occupied with some craft projects and a little bit of planning.

I wish shopping would be a fun activity to throw in. Unfortunately, I’ve found no joy in shopping. Absolutely zero.

We went to the mall this weekend hoping to stir the economy. Instead we came home with the realization that even with all the cash in the bank, there is nothing for us to buy.

I want to make a purchase, I really do! Unfortunately there was absolutely nothing appealing to purchase. This is a very sad state of affairs and a reflection of how boring this place is.

In Singapore, I am unable to make a fruitless shopping trip. I absolutely have to buy something and I always get home happy with the thing I bought. It can be something as small and useful as a bottle of nail polish. Yet this weekend, I did not find a colour that appealed to me.

Am I becoming boring? Sticking only to French white tips and nude shades of lacquer? Is it something wrong with me or are the stores just not putting out enough? Why am I unable to find anything to spend money on? Not even a pair of shoes?

Definitely looking forward to stepping on Asian soil again where I know fashion isn’t outdated. Dated fashion that is overpriced sounds ridiculous but is a reality here in Vancouver where I’ve actually experienced fruitless shopping once too many!

Eli has a client who has a house out in the middle of nowhere, where they grow their own crops and use no electricity. Their children live there and are as happy as can be.

Eli tells me he likes the idea and I reel in fear.

I am a city girl who loves city lights, need air condition, is allergic to the phone, thus need emails to communicate and can’t keep a cactus plant alive.

I told him I wouldn’t mind living in the middle of nowhere with the love of my life, who happens to be a country boy, but we need high speed internet.

I told him we need to have this written into our marriage vows: I promise you high speed internet and an updated computer at all times for the rest of my life.

I’ve got my hands on the new camera and so I am sorting out my memory cards… And I came across the photographs Eli and I took the fateful night we were viciously attacked by a complete stranger.

It is difficult to imagine that the last photograph we took at the restaurant where we had a wonderful romantic dinner was less than 30 minutes before the next photograph I took of Eli’s blood covered face. The assailant had long fled the scene and we were waiting, for what felt like eternity, for the cops to arrive.

I will not be posting photographs from that horrific evening, but if you need an image, imagine the face of Jesus Christ in The Passion of Christ after He was scourged. No exaggeration.

Thy face was beautiful before, but in this journey it has lost all its beauty, and wounds and blood have disfigured it.

I am grateful for Eli’s recovery thus far. The bruises and swelling have gone down, stitches removed and ligaments healing. The physical scars remain and so do the fractured bones. The emotional and psychological wounds are healing. We have forgiven the attacker. Praise be Jesus.

I have no idea what I will do with the photos. Perhaps one day I will have the courage to look at them. But for now, they will be taken off the memory card so that we don’t accidentally chance upon them while reviewing photographs of another glorious day of our life. The cowardly assailant robbed us of that evening and for the weeks that followed, but he will not take any bit more from us.

As domesticated as I try to be, I am just unable to use a traditional grater without grating myself. Last night, in a bid to lower the noise level of chopping a carrot, I decided to use our four-faced grater. Up until then, we had only used the grater for cheese, but tonight I wanted to use the slicer-face. It was indeed much quieter to slice up carrots that way. But it was also more painful.

I didn’t get past ten slices before I sliced off a bit of skin and flesh on my little finger. I saw the flap of skin and the white stuff below it. Then before the blood had time to fill and ooze, I wrapped an adhesive bandage firmly around it.

Then I went back to being a domestic goddess. Chopping up carrots without the grip of your little finger is very challenging. In the process, I made enough of a din in the kitchen to wake up a resting Eli who came into the kitchen and took over the duties because silly me got a scrape to my finger. He had to do the dishes too! I’m blessed.

So, I don’t see anyone else around me having the same grater problem. My mother grates everything right down to nary a bite left. My sister, known to have incredibly buttery fingers and a tendency to slip and fall, grates just like my mother. As a matter of fact, my brother grates like a pro too. So after all these years of occasional grating, I don’t understand why I still end up grating myself.

Is it because my arms are too weak and so I have a lack of control over the object I am grating? Or is it my fear of blades that causes this misery?

I peel potatoes and carrots outwards because I am terrified of what the peeler could do to the hand that is holding the vegetable. Meaning I push the peeler away from me, pushing the peeled skin straight into the bin. Other people I know pull the peeler towards themselves, and brush the peeled skin down.

Except the butter knife, I never touch a knife blade.

I’ve actually worn a rubber glove to protect my hands from the grater before, and of course I grated the glove. Will practice make perfect? I can’t really risk my skin getting cut up though. A paper cut alone makes it a b*tch to eat any citrus fruit.

Today Eli had a lot of errands to run and chores to do, so I stayed home and kept myself occupied. I had a few things on my to-do list and despite having the list, still found myself very disorganized and forgetful. It made me realize that my respect for Eli is limitless because today I felt a new level of respect for the way Eli handles his responsibilities. Hailing rocks and needles, blasting horns and ridicule do nothing to sidetrack my man from the things he has to do. Today I have a better comprehension of what Eli means when he says his mind is working. Today I also feel ashamed for demanding so much of Eli, wanting him to keep me entertained, asking him to stop thinking and stop working, pestering him to bring me out… It made me want to buckle down and be a silent, supportive and useful partner.

So I managed a day without seeing Eli, without my mind playing mind games with me. No insecurity, no frustration, no kicking my feet whatsoever. Although I was secretly hoping Eli would surprise me at the door, my hope dwindled and diminished completely as the day grew later. I was ready to call it a night when I received a text: Can you come down please?

Bearing food and unconditional love, my knight in shining armour had tamed his 260-horses and pulled them up so silently beneath my window (I can usually hear his car from a couple of houses down). He is my dream come true.

With much fascination, I watched a mother pacify her tired cranky toddler with her iPhone. The moment mamma whips out the phone, the babe goes silent. Every single time. Amazing.

No wonder younger and younger children are getting cell phones. And no wonder children get addicted to game consoles.

It is a great way to distract a child though. And evidently a very helpful gadget when you don’t have toys at your disposal.

It also reminds me of a conversation I had with my brother just last month. We were talking about the importance of having a driver’s license, and how I should convert mine.

For me, it is important to have a valid driver’s license because when my husband is at work, who is going to ferry the babies? How inconvenient it would be to raise a family without a car! We’ve always had a car in the family and I grew up never understanding how families go about without a car. This consumes my mind especially on Chinese New Year, when we visit relatives all over the place within a span 12 hours. How do you bring all your children around the island solely on public transit?

I told my brother, “I’m NOT going to take public transport with the kids… Very annoying to other passengers one leh.”

“Who cares right?” he replies. “It’s experience for the kids.”

“Hahaha! Cause they annoy us today, so next time we (take) revenge is it?”

“Yep, carry on the tradition. Gives others incentive to have kids too so that they can annoy others.”

I like knowing that I have the license to drive if I have to.