Dong Dong Dong Qiang

And just like that...CNY Days 1 & 2 are over. 

Angpows distributed, angpows collected. Nails painted and now smudged and chipping. Most hee-hee-ha-has are done and some forced smiles and conversations are over. 

Had my fair share of lapis (not enough!) and bak kwa (not enough!) haha...

Had enough of love letters and packet drinks already though...too much sugar in the system liao lol...

Just pining for some quiet time in my corner. 

Too much socialising drains me. Though I am glad I caught up with some relatives...like my not-so-little cuzzie. 

Happy to see that the girls are a little bit more aware of who's who this year. N is doing ok on this aspect and has a clearer picture of the family tree, including extended family and non-blood relatives. A is still struggling a little on this lol. She'll get there slowly over the next few years haha. 

Fighting!!!!!!!!!!!

继续走 

我不愿意被绊倒 

Recent weeks have been challenging. Due to some self-entitled folks. There've been complaints, at least one case a week for the last 4 weeks. 

Today's case brought alot of stress. Really alot of stress cos my stomach was just scrunched up the whole day. The guy complained to the Ministry, to the PS. And now alot of senior management of both ministry and agency are in the loop. Sigh.

I cried twice today. 

Pek chek. 

But.........

继续走 继续走

我不愿意被绊倒 

Feb 2026

And...we're into Feb already. 

2 more weeks to CNY.

CCA starts for Nadya.

And then it'll be sibei hot weather. 

2 camps in March for Alyssa. 

And then....time will probably just fly by again............

Buah Keluak Day

1 Feb was buah keluak day...

The annual family affair since...I don't know when lol. Decades ago...

This year's eventual haul was pretty good I think. 

Parents bought 107 nuts in total. We threw away 22 due to them smelling very rancid or just plain odd. And there were those which had mould in them as well. We managed to get the flesh of 85 nuts, mixed it with fish paste and then managed to fill up 83 nut-shells. 

It was a good result compared to some years (like 2025) where we started out with 100 and only ended up with 70+ filled nuts. 

The guys would typically be the ones to break the nuts. Dad's getting old and can't do it for a long duration. He's get cramped up sitting on the floor and graduated to using a short stool in recent years and now that's a challenge for him too. He only did it for an hour yesterday and then gave up. 

Glad that the next generation is being roped in as well. Cos Marc has now been roped in to break open the nuts. Dad withdrew early from the production line yesterday and Marc continued with it with Adrian. :)