Category: Blogs

I witnessed an interesting prey and hunter battle as in the cellphone photo above. Although not so clear since I could not get close enough, the hawk had in its keen sight on a praying mantis.

What struck me was that the mantis did not lay there and be eaten. It put up a fight and the hawk had to hop around it before throwing the last blow. In the end, the praying mantis lost, and the rest is history.

While simple and almost easy to just ignore the whole scene, it got me thinking. Life is an uphill battle. At times, the thought of throwing in the towel crosses my mind. That would be the equivalent of the prey just lying on the ground to be eaten, yet despite the formidable enemy, the praying mantis held its ground until it could no longer do so.

I have a renewed perspective of the many challenges I face in life. Keep fighting, a solution maybe just a stone throw away; won’t you?

 

My spouse decided to give up her one tablespoon of sugar for her morning cup of tea during the Lenten Period. She went a step further by actually putting that sugar in a separate container.

40 days later, I was shocked to see just how much sugar we (her or I) consume. I mean, our tea mugs are about 16-18 oz. So adding a tablespoon of sugar makes the tea just have enough sugar to taste. In 40 days, the sugar is a whooping 1lb 3 oz. (0.54 kg). At this rate, it means she or I consume approximately 10lb (4.9 kg) per person per year in just that morning cup of tea.

On top of that, there is sugar already added in bread, or breakfast cereals, also in the juice for lunch snack etc. To put it in perspective, there is just so much sugar consumed per person in any given day…

Check your sugar consumption…you maybe shocked just like us. Thanks to my spouse, I am certainly taking steps to cut back on the SUGAR I consume per day…Have a sweet day.

 

 

I once worked at Tutoring Club. My custom was to get there before the client arrived and sharpen the pencils ready for use. Any time I had to use a blunt pencil, I felt my mood decline. Interestingly, the owner of the Tutoring Shop took over the tradition and would sharpen the pencils before my arrival.

Long and behold, a few years later, our 9 year old son has the same habit. He will sharpen his pencil a couple times while completing his homework. I know I did not teach him that. He picked up the habit by himself. I have started to encourage him to use mechanical pencils to minimize the trips to the sharpener.

I guess the apple does not fall far from the tree! Can you think of a similar instance?

 

I am very handy. Growing up, I saw and helped my dad fix a lot of things…from small electronics to cars. It is no surprise then, that some of his apprentice rubbed well on me. LOL. My kids have seen me fix laptops, toys, phones (you name it) that belong to us or even our friends. Thus said, every time things get broken in our house, they run to me to fix them.

Our youngest daughter realized that her daddy can make money fixing things. She sat me down and lectured me that when I fix things, I need to charge a fee and get rich. Given she is 5 years old, I did not make much of her dialogue but certainly agreed with her. After all, she had a valid point.

 The other day, she broke her Minnie pendant. It is among her treasured toys. She walk over to me and handled me the broken pendant and 25 cents as payment to fix it. Yes! She preaches and does what she preaches. With a smile, I took the pendant and placed it on the table and promised to fix it. She wanted it fixed there and then. I told her in that case, it would cost her more money for instant service. To my total amazement, she went back to her “bank” and brought me more money (I guess all the coins that were left there).

I got busy fixing the broken pendant. In the process, she renegotiated her payment pleading that now she had no money left. Touched, I gave her back a few coins knowing that, at least, she meant it when she asked me to charge for my services. I would have fixed her pendant for free, but no, she paid without being asked too.

What would you do..?