I turned 40 this week. I’ve got lots to be thankful. Most of it goes to my beautiful family.
This song Hallelujah was written by Leonard Cohen, and I first heard it performed by the Choir of Hard Knocks! I mostly like male vocal renditions, but this particular video showing Alexandra Burke singing the song is breathtaking. The power of her voice really honours the song.
Pick up Woman’s Day or Vogue magazine, and wish you hadn’t? If those magazines aren’t dressing up food, they’re dressing down skinny emaciated girls. On my recent weekend flight back to celebrate my birthday with my folks, I noticed a fellow passenger with one of those glossies in her hand touting a firmer body for the Australian summer. Can I say something? I don’t think she’d ever get there. Fortunately for her, not all men are convinced that beauty is about being stick thin. Here’s my guide to beauty for all women.
Beauty of Personality: I remember having to approach a young nanny in my playgroup and give her an orientation regarding use of Montessori jobs and materials. She looked at me like I was a leper or lech or paedophile, or WORSE, a Montessori Nazi. Now does she think I’m going to ask her out or something? What a turn off. I’d rather prefer a gorgeous smile, engaging warmth, and confidence. Much better to shake your doubts and extend your energy girl! Confident guys like confident girls!!!
Beauty of Scent: Lingering subtle perfume. Your perfume has to remind me of you when you leave the room and establish gravitas when you enter. While you should stay away from the cheap stuff, don’t just assume just because it’s expensive and it’s French that it’ll automatically suit you.
Beauty of Informality: I’ve seen some plus size mums at school in the tightest see-through exercise outfits – it’s not a good look. You know, I wouldn’t bat an eye in the gym, but if you were doing the school runs – I’d go for neat and presentable casual clothes. Suits are great and attractive, but really, everyday wear is about pragmatic clothes which are stylish and comfortable for you. If you want to know, I like Kelly @ Be a Fun Mum’s ideas about fashion. From what I know she goes from attractive classic wear to vibrant wearable colours – and look at how she flicks her hair back! Wow. And you shouldn’t need to feel like you have to show cleavage or dress like a school girl.
Beauty of Nature: I love beautiful hair. I like cropped hair. I like short hair. I like long hair. I really like shiny glossy light flickable hair. I love sensuous curls. I like hair nicely styled. WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?
Beauty of Natural Colours: Understated makeup is best. Having stage make-up for this day and age is not on. Reapply and smooth it out at night – cracking or caking is not going to look very nice.
Beauty in the Details: You either have a perfect coat on your nails or not at all. I absolutely love beautifully done nails. But I also absolutely detest cheap chipped chewed nail polish.
Beauty and Pride: Men are really into well-polished shoes. Beat up old leather is not a turn on. Go polish your shoes. Guys are really into that! Not the act of polishing – the end product.
Inner Beauty: You don’t have to be a saint. Everyone has an inner light which is beautiful to people who tend to look for it. Doesn’t matter even if you use terms like ‘WTF’ all the time. I can see this kind of beauty. It’s all about heartware, folks. Start cultivating some now and let it shine.
As part of my 40th birthday present, my lovely wife got me to return to Singapore for the weekend and celebrate with my parents. While I would have liked to have my wife and children with me, and not have missed my darling daughter’s birthday party, it’s been a very good trip so far. Loved meeting all my close friends and having dinner with the relos. Another 10 more hours and I’ll be on a plane back to Perth. Time is ticking, and here I am thumbing this post on my mobile phone’s miniature keypad. I am of course sad to leave, but across the ocean, my kids are missing me and have separately cried for me. I return to them, as I should, quickly.
Saving water is part of what we do as a family. In our small way we try to use shorter showers, get pool blankets back quickly on the pool, reduce the flushing cycle and to have water wise plants in our garden. I even used to take 4 minute long showers even in the dead of winter – without letting the water have time to heat up. It came as a surprise to me when I visited a friend’s house to find out that she let’s her kids take showers and stay there as long as there’s hot water in the tank. While they’re frolicking, she’s off doing her things around the house. Now, what can a family like us do if others are out there undoing the efforts we’re taking in saving water? See In Criticism of Earth Hour, and the sub-header ‘The Real Problem: Capitalist Consumption.’ This is not a single perspective, I believe we can do our bid for saving water – but more people need to self-regulate their water use. Surely a 10 minute shower is more than enough?
I moved house a couple of months ago and left some archery equipment in my mother-in-law’s house. When I retrieved it recently, she insisted that I don’t store ’sharp things’ or ‘weapons’ under the bed. She even went so far to say she didn’t want me to take my equipment back until I confirmed where exactly I was going to put my gear.
For more information about Feng Shui and what my mother in law is on about, check out Feng Shui Guidelines for Storage Spaces, its point 5 reads:
Avoid under-bed storage if you can. If you must use this space, use it for extra bedding and for soft, seasonal clothing such as sweaters. Never store any kind of sharp objects, information (books, videos or DVDs, paperwork), or exercise equipment under the bed; …
Apparently any storage of weapons or sharp objects under the bed prevents me from having a good night’s sleep, may lead to exhaustion and worse of all – and this is according to my mother-in-law, may cause arguments between my wife and I.
My wife and I hardly argue – we are not the bickering type. Already in our 11th year of being married, we have done quite well to myth-bust and disprove point 5 – having always stored some form of Feng Shui labelled contraband under our bed. A sharp object isn’t going to start an argument. If anything is going to start an argument it’s going to probably be my pig-headedness, rather than a sharp object.
I’m not saying that the Feng Shui guidelines are impractical. Look through them, they actually mention sensible things like not to overload shelves and not to clutter up the room. Those are practical ideas that anyone should follow.
However, to blame marital problems on symbolic objects under your bed is utter CRAP. If you’ve got personality problems, call it that. If you’ve got financial issues, child rearing disagreements, character differences, or whatever, sure – argue away. But to blame your disagreement on Feng Shui or to argue without seeking to resolve your problem – that’s criminal.
I had a first kiss with an old gf at the end of Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood with this song playing in the background. It was young love. It was beautiful.
Would you like to listen to the song and capture the moment?
Wouldn’t it be cool to have a remote control for your child? You can finally leave your child and they’ll probably be safe, and will probably behave more or less within the bounds of what’s acceptable. This remote control will have some simple functionality – your child won’t get into a situation where they won’t get too hurt, or too much into trouble. They’ll probably be fed automatically come the right time, and of course toileting with occur without too much of a hitch.
Don’t laugh but the child remote does exist! It’s not an electronic remote control unit. It’s available in most Asian countries and is called a domestic maid. Many asians hire these domestic helpers from poorer developing nations to help in the home. The typical day for a maid is quite long – they wake up at about 6am to clean the house and prepare meals, and stay up until all the dishes are washed *manually*. Through the day their role could involve anything from cleaning the car to carrying the shopping bags. And of course, in line with this post, they will literally spoon feed your children and ensure they are accompanied while you finish your meal. There is no such thing as work choices for maids.
I happened to see a family with not one but what seemed to be two domestic maids at the Singapore airport earlier this year. Whipping out my trusty phone camera, I videoed two short clips of children running around whilst the child remote control maids go into standby mode. This standby mode basically allows the kids to play so long as they don’t trigger any of the previous parameters we discussed above.
This is not parenting, mate. You can’t let children be brought up by someone who has no clue of your culture, hardly speaks the language, nor has received very much of an education. Most likely coming from a village setting, these maids are struggling with the appliances at home, the amount of work they’ve got to do, and the expectations from their boss. They are also mostly very young girls with little or no parenting skills.
It is already commonplace to hear stories of child abuse when children are left alone with the maid, or children who grow up with Indonesian or Filipino accents. What is more telling are stories of maids doing whatever is needed to pacify the child – from holding the child in arms and rocking to sleep, to constant feeding, to giving in whenever the child so much as squeaks. What kind of tyrant is such a child potentially growing up to be?
Having such maid is illegal in Australia. There are of course ways in which you can get temporary and very inexpensive help into the country; and this was offered to us about 10 years ago. Back then, we were living in a small town house. Trying to visualise another occupant in the house, and their role to keep a small patch of floor clean was enough to indicate that we didn’t need our privacy invaded. I don’t want any maid or domestic help living in my family home. I want to parent my children. And I’m willing to make sacrifices in order that I’ve got a hand in it. Of course that’s a luxury that not all people have.
If you had a choice, would you hire someone to live with you so you could reduce the amount of work you have to put into cleaning and cooking?
