Organic-Ally

This morning at breakfast, husband still off sick, asked son due for a History exam this morning: "What is the middle name of Alexander the Great?" Son: Uh, uhm, "the"! So delightful he is now. Yet there was a time before he was out of nappies when he would keep pushing the boundaries. Well, he still does, actually. For reasons I cannot remember he was told he was not to cross the line between the hall and the living room. Maybe it's the staircase that we thought could pose some danger. What did our young man do? He walked up to the line/boundary and threw his toy into the forbidden area. Would Mum let me go out there to retrieve my toy? He looked at us and waited for a reaction from us. Can't remember what we did, probably ignored him. And he learned when mum and dad set boundaries, those remain as boundaries. Once while he was still toddling he took to biting, purely out of mischief. He was told off sternly, "Do not bite!" And every time he appro...

Oooh ah! Harrow boy Michael Portillo has something interesting to say here in: Idle young should be entitled to nothing "In Britain — maybe throughout western Europe — belief in work, vocation, community, family and God have declined together. " He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need. (Ephesians 4:28) Back to Organic-Ally . Become our fan on Facebook .

Son's piano teacher tells us that he has "lazy fingers" and should consider playing the organ. Is he joking or what? Dunno. But some time back he brought to my notice my son's tendency to "swap fingers" and I blogged about it here . Then he organized for us to go to his church where he is organist for son to try out the organ ( here ). The conclusion was son is a 'natural' on the organ. Okay. What do we do? It's good news, but let us not be rash about anything. My feeling then was: thankfully we still have six inches of time. Son was too short to reach the pedals and we will just carry on with his piano and clarinet. He's had a growth spurt. First he was tall enough for us to despatch with the car booster seat. (We highly recommend Freecycle.) Then last week even other parents started telling us that he had "shot up". His mate who has been much the same height as him suddenly looked small. I measured him a couple of days ago and he ...

The words 'big' and 'mega' have been in the news all around the world. The big banks and other massive financial institutions have fallen, or are falling. I could not understand how Fannie May and Freddie Mac could become so big that they are not allowed to fall. (They were 'born big', being instruments created by the American government.) And the likes of Morgan Stanley and Lehman Brothers.... Big does not mean invincible. In Singapore recently the spotlight has also fallen on the 'mega-churches', non-denominational churches led by very charismatic personalities that now boast of thousands of 'attendees' (apparently not all are 'members') in sparkling new buildings with massive carparks, state-of-the-art audio-visual equipment, huge auditoriums, etc. with millions of dollars in the pot. This scrutiny is partly due to the fallout from a few major charities where the accounting has been found to be somewhat less than transparent. (My ex-bo...

Having posted three times about mothers (even though I sometimes meant 'mothers and fathers') I guess it is only right to post this. But I found it too difficult to write about this. It challenges all that I held about fatherhood. The news is still about the Austrian father who imprisoned and abused his daughter. It has also affected my faith in thinking that "God does not make mistakes". Did God make a mistake in allowing the birth of this very evil man? Did God make a mistake in allowing the birth of these children/grandchildren? Having learned that I nearly did not get born because of the impoverished state of my already large family (Mum was advised to abort me) I thank God that I was given an opportunity to life. I love my life. I feel that I have been able to do so much about my life. Then we think of those children, many such children especially in areas of civil and political conflict, born of rape and we wonder "Why does God allow these children to be bo...

One of my most indelible memories of my Sociology Honours Class was a statement made by SH Heng. We talked about hairstyles and were possibly looking at magazines. Then she said, "When we asked the hairdresser to 'perm that hair-style', we really mean to 'perm that face'." Let me explain. Us Chinese girls in Singapore normally have straight, straight hair. We spend hideous amounts of money to have our hair 'permed' into all sorts of curly styles. Or we have a 'body perm' after which the hairdresser teases our hair into a shape similar to the picture we'd shown him/her. However, our hair never looks like the way we walked out of the hairdressing salon again. No amount of gooey hair product and hair-dryer would get it back to the shape at the hairdresser. SH hit the nail on the head though with her shrewd observation that we really want to have not just the hairstyle, but the face (and figure) of the model we were staring at. Fast forward to ...

Ash Wednesday today, which marks the beginning of Lent. I was very chuffed last week to receive a string bag order from a school where the PTA is encouraging parents to give up plastic bags for Lent. What a great idea! Here is my household, things are a bit awkward. Yesterday I had the privilege of 'inducting' some new mums into running the Pancake Race -- which is now a new-ish tradition -- at school. We probably raised more money than the last two or three pancake races put together. Brill. My son brought his Palm cross from last year back to school to be burned for Ash Wednesday. But Ash Wednesday this year is also the eve of Chinese New Year where typically we would have a reunion dinner with lots of good food. I remember often waiting up till late (especially when my sister was a nurse working shifts, or my father would wait for hours at the barber's to have his hair cut) till every one was home to have this dinner. The pictures we see of the millions of Chinese trying...

As the writer of Ecclesiates says, "There is nothing new under the sun." Years ago as a full-time Christian worker with university students I had to read up on "New Age". I could not, for a long time, understand why it was called "New Age". What is so new about this "New Age", I kept asking myself. So much of it sounds like old hat to me. Then it tweaked. I'd been living the New Age for as long as I could remember: New Age was "Old Age" as far as the oriental person is concerned. "New Age" is new only to the person who has to learn a new non-western philosophy as the basis of his worldview. Having grown up Chinese, there was nothing very new in it for me. Sorted. Second week back at school and I still find myself sewing name labels. It has not been easy trying to procure organic cotton trousers for my son. Finally they arrived this morning at seven-thirty on a Saturday morning. Typical. Because son suffers from eczema, I d...

Yesterday was Mother's Day in Singapore (and America and the rest of the world). UK's 'Mothering Sunday' follows the (Anglican) Church calendar and comes a few weeks before Easter. Tomorrow would be eight years since my mother died. I'd been married eight months. I had just completed a first draft of my PhD thesis, writing a chapter in two weeks, about nine hours every day, Monday to Friday. I planned to visit her in Singapore in June, but when news came that she was unwell and had been in Intensive Care again, we decided that I'd fly back a month earlier. While I was in Singapore she got well enough to leave the hospital, but only for a couple of days, if that. I soon had to order a private ambulance to rush her back to the university hospital where all her records were. Dialing emergency service would mean her being taken to the nearest hospital on the wrong side of the island and that was no good to her. I spent most days by her side, reading my drafts of con...

When you've spent most of your adolescent life (and your twenties, thirties and forties!) finding 'stuff' to rid your face of the grease that gives you zits, pimples or 'youth spots' ( qing chun dou as we call it in Mandarin), would you not, like me, be taken aback when you are then told that your skin is 'very dry'? So it was that when I used mum-in-law's birthday gift money to treat myself to a salon massage and facial, I was told, 'Your skin is very dry.' But I don't like the idea of slapping cream and stuff on my face. I was therefore chuffed to discover this helpful page from Lyrae's Natural. Lyrae's and Hankettes formed The Good Life Collective some years ago to market their natural and organic products. The advice here is to use oil, like jojoba oil which I happened to have, and work it into the skin with the help of water. Simple. So simple. I don't know if my skin has got less dry as a result, but it is much more shiny a...