I was a chatterbox when I was a little girl. I am not a little girl anymore and I am now more of a listener than a speaker! I think I share my thoughts and feelings better in written than verbal.
Every time I returned from my janitor work, my shoulders ached. First number of months in the work - after a day's & a night's break, the shoulders felt better. After that, the shoulders remained achy, even after any breaks. Normal work days were Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.
The aches were not so unbearable that I would consult a doctor. A friend (who is also a janitor but works for a different company) said fortnightly visits to her chiropractor kept her going. With the work schedule that I was in, I felt that the aches would come back anyway. The doctor's prescription or the chiropractor's adjustments were only temporary relieves.
I believe that our bodies have the capability to heal themselves. So I waited until I left my job.
1st week and 2nd week out of employment only see pain and stiffness in my shoulders - I could not lift my right arm beyond/above the level of my eyes! It was as if that shoulder joint was locked! My left shoulder could stretch higher but with pain! My body was not healing itself!
I believe in traditional healing. Between chiropractor and acupuncturist, I went to a chiropractor! Visited 3 times and that was all I needed for experience. I didn't feel there were much improvement in my arms. I did feel better only immediately after the therapies ministered at the clinic, but next day the stiffness returned. Mike was right - chiropractor is not what I needed to heal my stiff shoulders.
A friend said she wanted to try acupuncture for her hands. Even though the acupuncturist was professional, whose father was also an acupuncturist, circumstances only allow us 2 times. I am thankful for that circumstances! 2 times was enough experience for me! I don't like the needles!
12 weeks plus, I finally consulted a doctor who diagnosed me as having "shoulder adhesive capsulitis".
After 3 visits to the doctor, x-rays of both shoulders, MR of my left shoulder and 8 physical therapy sessions, I can stretch my arms as in the picture posted here.
I have to continue doing the stretching exercises, that I learnt from the physical therapist, daily, to return to full flexibility. I am happy that I can hook my bras behind to-date, even though the arms are not as flexible yet. I am getting there!
Talk about carelessness. That was me this morning. I knew where I was going to and I know what I was going for BUT I forgot the ascending steps. Ouch, it hurts.
You could be cautious on your part, but someone else wasn't. Mike was on his way to get me when someone bumped him from behind at a traffic junction.
Saturday, 5 February 2011
This happened during the past 4 days, during the winter storm and blizzard, at our apartment parking lot. We didn't go out. Someone did and knocked our car and run. The same side as the accident on 12 October 2010! Since we can't afford to pay the $500 deductible, it would have to stay that way until don't know when! Irresponsible culprit! Hope this would be on his/her conscience forever.
I love this Howard Wong. He is only 3 years! And he is a Malaysian! I was so impressed by a dance video earlier on - dancing to the flight safety instructions, by the Philippines. And now Malaysian's talent. Wow!
He is so adorable. Played and played until the very end of the song. I can't help thinking that he should wear some kind ear protective equipment.
Tomorrow is Mooncake Festival. The Chinese called it the Mid-Autumn Festival. It is also known as the Lantern Festival.
It is the night when my Mum would offer offerings to the moon God. Moon worship dates back over thousand years in China's Shang Dynasty.
Mum would set a table outside the house, in the open, and there would be the jar of joss sticks burning, small cups of tea, peeled pamelos, peeled/cut sugarcane, boiled but unshelled groundnuts, taro (yam), mooncakes and I forgot what else.
That was so many years ago. After her passing, Moon God worshipping did not continue with any of her children. The little children enjoyed walking outside in the open, on the street or around their house, in the dark, with their lighted lanterns. Last time they used real small lighted candles but nowadays battery-operated light bulbs are used instead. The latter of course is safer.
How did the Mooncake come about?
I don't know which one is really true, but here are the 4 legends that I have taken from the About.com
Quote..
The Lady - Chang Er The time of this story is around 2170 B.C. The earth once had ten suns circling over it, each took its turn to illuminate to the earth. But one day all ten suns appeared together, scorching the earth with their heat. The heat was saved by a strong and tyrannical archer Hou Yi. He succeeded in shotting down nine of the suns. One day, Hou Yi stole the elixir of life from a goddess. However his beautiful wife Chang er drank the elixir of life in order to save the people from her husband's tyrannical rule. After drinking it, she found herself floating and flew to the moon. Hou Yi loved his divinely beautiful wife so much, he didn't shoot down the moon.
The Man - Wu Kang Wu Kang was a shiftless fellow who changed apprenticeships all the time. One day he decided that he wanted to be an immortal. Wu Kang then went to live in the mountains where he importuned an immortal to teach him. First the immortal taught him about the herbs used to cure sickness, but after three days his characteristic restlessness returned and he asked the immortal to teach him something else. So the immortal to teach him chess, but after a short while Wu Kang's enthusiasm again waned. Then Wu Kang was given the books of immortality to study. Of course, Wu Kang became bored within a few days, and asked if they could travel to some new and exciting place. Angered with Wu Kang's impatience, the master banished Wu Kang to the Moon Palace telling him that he must cut down a huge cassia tree before he could return to earth. Though Wu Kang chopped day and night, the magical tree restored itself with each blow, and thus he is up there chopping still.
The Hare-Jade Rabbit In this legend, three fairy sages transformed themselves into pitiful old men and begged for something to eat from a fox, a monkey and a rabbit. The fox and the monkey both had food to give to the old men, but the rabbit, empty-handed, offered his own flesh instead, jumping into a blazing fire to cook himself. The sages were so touched by the rabbit's sacrifice that they let him live in the Moon Palace where he became the "Jade Rabbit."
The Cake - Moon Cake During the Yuan dynasty (A.D.1280-1368) China was ruled by the Mongolian people. Leaders from the preceding Sung dynasty (A.D.960-1280) were unhappy at submitting to foreign rule, and set how to coordinate the rebellion without it being discovered. The leaders of the rebellion, knowing that the Moon Festival was drawing near, ordered the making of special cakes. Backed into each moon cake was a message with the outline of the attack. On the night of the Moon Festival, the rebels successfully attacked and overthrew the government. What followed was the establishment of the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1368-1644). Today, moon cakes are eaten to commemorate this legend.
.... Unquote
For many years, the fillings of traditional mooncakes were: (1) sweet bean paste - made from red bean, mung bean or black bean. (2) lotus seed paste - made from lotus seed or white kidney bean. This particular mooncake comes with either 1 or 2 salted duck egg yolks as well. (3) five kernel - made up of chopped walnuts, pumpkin, watermelon, peanuts, sesame or almonds.
I don't really care about eating mooncakes because they are full of sugar. However (3) above is my favourite. I like to bite little by little and slowly enjoy the mixture of nuts.
Last time you can only find traditional baked mooncakes with the above traditional fillings, but since then there are non-baked mooncakes (made with cooked rice flour skin) and fillings of whatever one can think of, even durian!
As for the packaging, last time they would come in a red coloured square box of 4 pieces. But now, they are packaged in all sort of packaging. And of course they would cost more. It is not the younger generation are more creative. It is because the older generation, probably are not courageous to present their ideas!
Thanks Lian, for the mooncakes.....
Cantonese - Blackberry Blackcurrant Cheese Mooncake. Ingredients (as listed in the package) : Lotus seed, sugar, refined vetable oil, mung bean, blueberry filling, cheese dried blackcurrant, maltose, wheat flour, melon kernel seed, egg, alkaline water, permitted blueberry flavour and salt.
Interesting for change of route that we have flown - across the Atlantic Ocean, over the Greenland.
Grateful two of the pictures, taken from the plane, turned out good enough to be shared with you.
I wondered why Greenland is so called such so I googled and got this answer:
Quote
The name Greenland comes from Scandinavian settlers. In the Norse sagas, it is said that Erik the Red was exiled from Iceland for murder. He, along with his extended family and thralls (slaves), set out in ships to find the land that was rumored to be to the northwest. After settling there, he named the land Grønland ("Greenland"), possibly in order to attract more people to settle there. Greenland was also called Gruntland ("Ground-land") on early maps. Whether Green is an erroneous transcription of Grunt ("Ground"), which refers to shallow bays, or vice versa, is not known. It should also be noted, however, that the southern portion of Greenland (not covered by glacier) is indeed very green, at least in summer.
Compressed glutinous rice boiled in these weaved baskets. One of the traditional must-haves for the celebration of Hari Raya Aidilfitri. Nowadays you don't have make the baskets yourself, you can buy them at the market. This picture was taken at a Miri market.
Cooked ketupat (picture from wikipedia.org)
Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri to all my Muslim friends.
They said acupunture is good for stiff shoulders so I tried. Went twice and only thinking about doing it scares me.
Needles sticking in different areas - ear, face, leg, lower back - oh my goodness! When nothing else works, and you are desperate for a relief to stiffed or painful bodies, and there are reports that it works, you will face that fear!
My friend and I were fortunate that this was a period of charity drive and it only cost us 5MRinggit per visit. According to the acupunturist, you need to be treated at least 10 times before you can see result, especially with cases that is months old. This is in Kota Kinabalu.
This is new to me. Queen card image instead of the usual ladies image for the restroom. And King card image (picture came out blur) for the men restroom. Saw this in Kota Kinabalu.
It was on sale at a supermarket at 10MRinggit for 5 packets. It saved us the trouble of opening up the thorny husk and the possibility that not all the flesh inside are good.
It was fun watching Mike eating the king of the fruit for the first time! He started with a pinch of the soft custard-like flesh
Talking about "needs" and "wants". My swimsuit is still usable, so I am fine. The colors attracted me. The swimsuits were in good shape. The garage sale price was irresistible - 50cts each.
Well, I have spare swimsuits if friends come to visit!
I heard her went into a room and I heard her moving things inside. Next thing Aunt Loraine came out and gave me a plastic with these shoes in. Aunt Loraine can't wear any of her shoes anymore because of some ankle problem and she only wear one kind now. Thanks, Aunt Loraine.
Friday, 2 July 2010
Have you ever been given 10 pairs of shoes at one time? That happened to me today. Aunt Loraine took me to her room and got me to try them. We didn't count how many pairs I tried until I was back in my own home and had them in the 20-Pocket Over-the-Door Shoe Organizer, which Aunt Loraine gave as well.
Aunt Loraine had given me 10 pairs and they fitted into the shoe organizer! There would be an 11th pair if it wasn't too small for me. Due to some problem with Aunt Loraine's feet, she couldn't wear them anymore and none of her her daughters' and granddaughters' feet could fit them either. And Aunt Loraine didn't want to sell them.
Aunt Loraine was happy that I could wear them. I am thankful for this blessing.
Thanks, Iain, for this video. I love it. I love it so much that I have to keep that in my blog. And the remark that came with your forward:
Quote .... watch something absolutely stunning, technically and muscially. The musicians don't know each other, as they are from different places around the world. So, the sound and image technicians (volunteers) did an amazing job capturing the sound of each of the "singers", individually and globally (they are outdoor performances and it is extremely difficult to do without "external noise"). They managed reaching a remarkable level of musical purity. We come to this wonderful musical achieved through high technology, that joins people around the world for an instant, making them feel and talk the same universal language: music. Moments like this, with great dedication and generosity, make us still have some hope in the "human race". Unquote
I am so thankful for God's creation and the beauty that He has blessed us with. I am thankful for good wholesome music that brings good feelings to me.
I am so thankful for being able to listen freely to the music and songs that I like, on the internet. And as I listen to them this morning, my thought went particularly to this picture that I took in Penang.
Heavenly Father loves us and only wants our happiness.
Except for the brown spots on their peels, they are not over-ripe. I prefer these than the complete yellow peels. These are softer and sweeter. We got all of these for $1.
Someone passed me a folded note and said it was for me. That was last Sunday.
I have a secret grandson! I was too stupid not to think that the bottom S.G. means Secret Grandson until I have searched in vain the names of the children of our branch members and told Mike about it. I asked the sister who passed me the note if she had receive a similar note. She is a mother too. She did not receive any folded note. She couldn't be lying! I didn't ask other Sisters, even though I wondered.
Mike said it would be more fun that I don't know who S.G. was. It could have been one of the Primary's activity. So I didn't ask anymore about what was going on. It was supposed to be secret.
During the following week, I came to the decision of putting a MRinggit note into an ang-pow (red packet) as an appreciation, and I would give to whoever who acted as the liaison, middle-person, whatever you call, to pass to my Secret Grandson. I forgot about the ang-pow packet until we were on the road to church this morning. And we didn't drive back for that either. Furthermore I didn't have that red packet ready either.
After their presentation of the song (that I have embedded from YouTube)
the children passed out the following things to all the mothers:
(1) a kitkat
and (2) a plague
This is a special day because a family member gave me a rose! Thanks, Roger!
I miss my own children. Even though we got to communicate, I still think of them and their well-beings often. And in my heart I pray that they are always well and happy.
This day, I think of my mother. She has been gone 2-1/2 years. It was only when I became a mother myself and experienced her situations, that I could really comprehend and appreciate what she was going through, felt and what she did.
I think she wouldn't like the pictures that I posted of her here. She would say she is old and not good looking. These pictures were taken in her last 2 years of her life on the earth. When we were growing up, my mother took very good care of all of us. There were 5 of us. We hardly got sick and the nurse told my mother that our medical records are 'clean' because we hardly go to the clinic, apart from the necessary vaccinations.
October 2005: Mum, Yours truly and Mum's eldest grandchild. There is a special bondage between Grandmother and her eldest Granddaughter
Grandmother and her youngest Grandson.
She was Great Grandma to Jenna (the youngest of her 2 great grandchildren).
Elder M. Russell Ballard on mothering: "There is no one perfect way to be a good mother. Each situation is unique. Each mother has different challenges, different skills and abilities, and certainly different children. The choice is different and unique for each mother and each family. Many are able to be “full-time moms,” at least during the most formative years of their children’s lives, and many others would like to be. Some may have to work part-or full-time; some may work at home; some may divide their lives into periods of home and family and work. What matters is that a mother loves her children deeply and, in keeping with the devotion she has for God and her husband, prioritizes them above all else." “Daughters of God,” Ensign, May 2008, 108–10
Pearl S. Buck: "Some mothers are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same, and most mothers kiss and scold together."
To all the mothers who are reading this post: Happy Mother's Day! God bless.
The aches were not so unbearable that I would consult a doctor. A friend (who is also a janitor but works for a different company) said fortnightly visits to her chiropractor kept her going. With the work schedule that I was in, I felt that the aches would come back anyway. The doctor's prescription or the chiropractor's adjustments were only temporary relieves.
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