Marriage Proposal

   It is not everyday that you get a marriage proposal or make a marriage proposal. It is the norm that a man is the one to make the move to propose although woman could too which is still rather rare. Each and every marriage proposal is unique. Time, effort, great care, preparation and attention over the way to propose on the part of the person who is going to propose is no laughing matter. Need a lot of courage and be prepared mentally. You may get a nod, left hanging wondering without a definite answer or worse, being rejected head on.

   Oh yes, your heart must be prepared. So don't ever propose if you are not confidant about the outcome unless you are real hardy. Nowadays, the trend is to engage a wedding planner to draft out a special way to propose is on the rise. But for me, I feel that I would still prefer my special one to propose using his own innovation. Only special that way and from his very heart.

  Before you propose to your intended one, there are a few things that need some deep thinking and pondering (for both) :


1.   Are you really in love or blindly in love ? Do you know what is love ?
2.   What do you love about her/him ? What are you willing to do for the sake of love ?
3.   Answer truthfully, could you go through thick and thin together no matter what or how?
4.   Marriage is no laughing matter and not always a bed of roses. There will be up and down. Are you ready? A gamble with your life and children if any with no definite knowledge on how the ending would be.
5.   You love her/his outlook beauty more or inner beauty or both? Answer truthfully please.
6.   You'll be seeing her/him everyday or most of the time.Waking up to see a face with no pretense, no make up, hair in tousle. Are you ready to tolerate her/his shortcomings which would not be shown out when both are dating e.g. snoring when sleeping, temper, moodiness, always farting, kicking when sleeping, don't screw up the toothpaste after using, don't like to do the dishes, couldn't cook a decent meal , don't flush the latrine after use etc.
7    You want to change her/him to your standard or are you going to go through your marriage by respecting each other and agree to meet each other's standard halfway? Be a teacher or a partner to each other?
8.   Imagine that she/he in 10, 20, 30 , 40 years on, will have wrinkles all over, all her/his hair drop off, not as beautiful, may grow fat and ugly. Not that sexy or attractive anymore. Tummy bulging. Would you feel embarrass or your love dwindling or your eyes going other ways? Be truthful. You know your own kind.
9.   Are you the responsible type ?
10. Are you the type to forget your marriage vow easily ?
11. Are you the type to put yourself first or family first ?
12.  Parents, relatives,in-laws could be troublesome to a marriage. How tolerant are you? Who to listen ?
13. Why do you want to get married in the first place ? For the sake of marriage, to own her/him, for self-esteem or whatever?
14.  Money rank what place to both of you ?
15.  What are children to you ?
15.  Are both of you committed and rational ?
16.  List down all the pros and cons. Which weigh more?


If you still intend to get married, then think positive and work hard to respect, communicate and find things to love each other more. Don't look too much on each other's shortcomings but each other's strong points. Be a good heart to heart buddy with each other and for each other. GOOD LUCK ! MAY YOU LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER !


Prescription : I Do Till The Day I Die. Lean on each other's strength;  forgive each other's weaknesses.

(11.06.11-Saturday)


Two souls with a single thought, two hearts that beat as one.
- by John Keats

A Child

To some...
The ultimate gift of true love,
The focus of one's life,
Willing to sacrifice,
To do just anything to ensure their little one survive.


But for some...
A breathing living curse,
The burden of one's life,
A disgrace,
Will do anything to see the little one vanishes from life.


Prescription : A child is always special

(10.06.11-Friday)

Food Is Good

   Been some time since I cooked herbal blue rice with accompanying dishes such as dry curry chicken, pineapple prawns with baby squids, fried prawn crackers and julienned cucumber.  Mum, dad and my aunt dropped by for dinner yesterday. So I just cooked those since I was more free during school holidays. We enjoyed our dinner and finished everything up. After that we had cool slices of watermelon and chilled shandy.

   The feeling was real good to be able to eat dinner happily together with the whole family. Made all your effort  worthwhile. When was the last time you ate with your family ? As we grow older, the chance of eating together become lesser. Treasure the time together.

Prescription : Value the little things in life

(8.06.11-Wednesday)

Kids Just Wanna Have Fun

   Well, all my relatives and their kids had gone home last night. Everything is back to normal. With their kids running around the house and making a lot of noise made me wonder how in the world did I manage my own children when they were young. Kids are super active especially all of them are boys. During the last few days, the kids were enjoying themselves playing with all the toys which my children used to play when they were small and messing the whole place up. Being children, they bound to leave bits of crumbs everywhere when they were eating. They kept on climbing up and down the staircase in our house which made me rather nervous in case they fall. Their mums seemed to be immune to their ways.

   Frankly, I am feeling a bit tired today after doing all the cookings and cleaning up. Finally I could take a quiet rest. Anyway, their visit did put some noise to our otherwise rather quiet and peaceful home. Something different for a change and we did some catching up with our share of stories.


Prescription : Enjoy each day as it is

(06.06.11-Monday)

 

May You Have A Beautiful Day !

It's school holidays over here. There are many visitors at my place and they are still here. So I  am basically busy playing host to them. With all the children running around the house, it's better for me to just wish all of you a nice and beautiful day! Will get back here when I am free...

Don't Let Go

Having achieve success is not final because you never know if you may fall along the way. Going through failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue and hang on where others have let go that matters. In life, when you are still breathing, you will not know what lies at the end of the road for you. Don't ever give up till your last breath.




Prescription : Keep your fighting
spirit high


(3.06.11-Friday)

Parents, Be Fair

   Being fair is impossible but to be as fair as possible is  possible. Being fair to children is not an easy task because it is quite subjective given certain situation. If it's quantitative, it'll be easier e.g. giving the same amount of sweets to each of them. On the other hand, subjective fairness is quite tricky to handle. Example, you wouldn't buy the same birthday gift for all your children for that year due to their differences. So you try buying what they like which might be difficult because of the price, you feel it's not right or you can't find one. So for one child you got something he/she like and the other something which 'you think' is to his/her liking. Maybe to a child they see it as unfairness. 

   Therefore parents must try to be 'a good radar' at detecting what their children are thinking. This can only be achieved through good communication and spending more time with your children in order to learn reading their mood as well as body language. Some children are easier to care, understand and teach than other children. Do remember that each child is unique in his/her own way and love all of them the same. Love here doesn't mean spoiling them or giving whatever they want to compensate your guilt for not spending enough time with them or caring for them. Also remember that children are not for show to your friends about how successful you are. They are for love. So parents must learn and try their best in parenting. Different child means different approach. Parents must be creative and innovative in parenting. You must learn to know your children well and know what approach will work better for them. After trying your very best, if they are still not what you expected then have no regrets because you have tried your best.

Prescription : Be an example of fairness

(2.06.11-Thursday)


Example of unfairness


1.  This child give a house to the parents to stay, be the one to rush him to the hospital during emergency, be in the hospital the the whole day when parent got admitted, brought him home to care but the parents are still unhappy. Those more well to do siblings who just came to visit  then went home, not needing to care for them personally but with gifts and money for them worth more. Why the child feel unappreciated and not fair? One bad episode as example was once when the parents invited friends and the other siblings to a party which the parents held, the parents actually forgot to invite the child who provide the very house they are staying until asked by friends about the whereabouts of that child. They then only phoned the child  by telling her that her sister came and whether she would like to come over. When she reached their house with her family, friends and sisters asked why she and her family were late. She was taken by surprise and felt very disappointed that her parents actually forgot about her. The food are leftover food since all of them had stopped eating. She kept quiet and left after sitting for 15 minutes. Should she still believe that she has the responsibility to care for her elderly parents? She doesn't know what to feel anymore but believe they are still her parents anyhow.


2.  An elderly couple has two children. One of them is an adopted child. The parents are in their late 70s. The parents gave all their assets to their own child who is well to do and left nothing to the adopted child who is although poor is very filial and always care for them. After the transferring of assets, their own child asked this adopted sister to care for the parents who were sick. The adopted child usually will agree but that time she refused because of the parents' unfairness. She said she's only an adopted child and always treated as a maid no matter what she did. She had enough and she needs to work to put enough food on the table.


3.  The parents gave a big chunk of their assets to the eldest child and the youngest child before their deaths because they always complained to the parents that they didn't earn enough money. The fourth child was given a lorry workshop. The house went to the second wife. Insurance money of RM 30 000 was divided between 3rd and 4th child. Whatever other leftover assets (after deducting legal fees) which is minimal(>< RM30 000) are divided between the six brothers. Exorbitant medical fees in private hospitals were mostly paid by the 2nd and 5th brothers who didn't tell their parents about their difficulties by taking out their savings and by credit cards. The eldest refused to pay any saying he didn't have enough (but could afford to buy 2 new cars so far?). Fair ?

Parents Should Be Fair

   Some parents and children become estranged from each other. The relationship became sour for reasons apparent to them. Actually what went wrong ? Blood is supposed to be thicker than water. Things shouldn't turn so bad that they couldn't face each other and settle their differences amicably.

    I feel that parents-children should try to enhance their bond by communicating well and inculcate a culture of respect and appreciation for each other. Parents should be creative in trying to bond with their children and introduce important values into the family from the very first day of family life. Parents should ask themselves as to the kind of family they would like to have. A warm , cozy, loving atmosphere with laughters ringing every now and then in a family needs effort. Nothing comes easily.  Effort must be taken by parents especially from the very moment their children came into their lives. Then as children grow older, understanding of each other and communicating well with each other become very important. Try being good buddies with each other. It's like making a building. The foundation of a building is very important, each brick being laid is very important, if not the whole building will collapse. Same with building a family. First, the father-mother relationship should be strong. Then only they could concentrate to build a close knit family.

   Parents must try to practise fairness all the time with their children. Children are very particular and sensitive to fairness. This is their way of measuring their parents' love for them. This is actually how siblings rivalry come to be. Parents must always be fair and must explain their actions well to their children verbally at all time. Don't let children be in a guessing game and form their own ideas on whatever things you do if possible. They might misconstrue your actions, form some funny, weird ideas in their mind since young which are vital to the development of future relationship as adults. One common mistake made by parents was asking the elder sibling to give way/in to the younger sibling in terms of toys, food, place to sit, etc (even when the younger one is in the wrong) whenever children are fighting  by saying , " You are older, you must give way to your brother/sister because she is still small/younger..." Some children will start to feel the unfairness after some time. They begin to be jealous, angry, resent and so on until one day become out of hand. So much being kept to themselves without showing because they hide their feelings well, unknown to many parents until they explode one day. Parents will be in for surprise that their loving children change all of a sudden......to be continued.........


Prescription : Be Fair


(1.06.11-Wednesday)