With the increase in work pressure, topped with household responsibilities such as taking care of kids, and handling of endless household chores, patience have been running thin. In the recent few months, they found themselves picking at each other more and more. Differences in opions somewhow quickly turn into loud, ugly quarreling sessions often than not. As a result, both were not sleeping well with the increased strain on their marriage relationship. My friend found herself loosing control and shouting at her kids frequently, especially after a long tiring day at work. The situation has worsen to a stage that they have decided to start seeing a marriage counselor…

Relationship, especially that of a marriage takes lots of effort and love to maintain. Maintaining a good marriage is similar to the process of planting a seed and hoping to see the plant flower. There will not be any harvesting if you did not plant a seed to begin with. The process of getting the seedling to grow and flower takes lots of patience, love and tolerance.

Learning to accept each other’s faults, and to appreciate one another’s good points is definitely one of the key pointer to remember if one hopes to have a good marriage. Loving your spouse is not something that is done by pure words, but to be shown with actions. Putting yourself in his or her shoes, and try to see things from her perspective will improve the quality of your marriage.

The term “eczema” came to mind. Pacthes of skin on her arms and especially her legs were badly scratched, and so very dry. The poor girl must be having a hard time dealing with itchiness every single day of her life from the look of her… A young lady her age should be in the prime of her life, looking confident, and having laughters being part of her life as youth is with her. Instead, she presented an image of inferiority, with fatigue and resignation to life written clearly in her eyes…

Eczema is one of the many allergies for which there is no total cure, such as rhinitis, food allergy and sinus, etc. From one of my close doctor, I found out that all these allergies are caused by allergens. There are many many different types of allergens, such as dust mites, animal dander, airboune chemicals, certain milk proteins, etc. Simply put, upon coming into contact with certain allergens, and if your body system mistakenly decided that these substances are harmful to your body, “histamines” are produced, resulting in allergic symptoms.

Allergic symptoms can include runny nose, itchy skin, eyes, breathing difficulties, stomach upset, cramps and swellings, etc. In serious cases, if not given the necessary treatment in time, it could lead to a life-threatening situation! Currently, there are many different medical treatments available, though these are mainly for prevention and relief, not total cure.

Later, I found out that it is the pet of a small boy. Parents are usually soft-hearted when it comes to their children. Upon pleas from their young ones, they would be persuaded to buy a pet for them. Lots of time, parents forget that their precious young ones are much too little to take up the responsibility of caring properly for the pet. If the parent is too busy with work to educate their children of the responsibility that comes along with the purchase of a pet, animal abuse or abandonment becomes a frequently seen end result of their hasty purchase decision.

Every animal has a life of its own. Keeping an animal as a pet is equivalent to taking away its freedom to roam about in the wild. Thus, it is totally dependent on you as the owner for food and shelter, as well as love and concern for its wellbeing. If you are not confident of giving your pet a good living environment, think twice before taking it home with you!

To me, laughter which comes straight from the bottom of one’s heart represents happiness and satisfaction. Sad to say, in the process of growing up, trying to meet expectations from peers, from boss, from family, etc., many of us have slowly forgotten the pure pleasure of a simple laugh!

When was the last time that you actually have a good laugh with someone you love? Sometimes it would do you lots of good to take a step back, relax and have a laugh. Life is not always just about climbing the social ladder, gaining fame and making more money! Moments of laughter shared, especially with someone you care about, will turn into beautiful memories for life!

Be nice to yourself and learn to treasure your loved ones! Laugh and be healthy!

Having a monthly passive income automatically being pumped into your bank account is sure something to look forward to! Of course, we rented an apartment elsewhere whereby we ensure that after deducting the rental to be paid, we would still have extra cash on hand!

After about half a year of renting out our own place & renting a place from others, I finally understood the depth of the push & pull relationship between owners & tenants. Being both an owner, as well as a tenant myself gave me a very good opportunity to feel & see things from both perspectives.

Just recently a “lighting” incident occurred. One of the two living room lights in our condo burned out, and the tenants couldn’t find a fitting light tube to replace. In actual fact, those two lights were left over from the previous owners whom sold the place to us. We search around in vain for the light tubes, and finally found out that those were imported from another country, and thus light tube of that size is not sold locally! Thus we decided to purchase two new ones, so that future replacements would be more convenient for the tenants.

Calls were made & appointments were fixed with the tenants for the light technician to come by for the replacement. After all confirmations, the tenants suddenly called to say that that they would like to see the design of the lights and if not satisfied, they insisted for the old ones to remain, though knowing that there were no light tubes to replace!

According to contract, owners have a right to all changes regarding fixtures of the place. However, we wanted to be on a good note with the tenants as well. Therefore we made an effort for the technician to try and change the original lights so as to fit in the usual size of light tubes, but since we have already made the purchase of the new lights, those were brought along during the day of repair, cause the technician did mention that there might be chances of technical difficulties in making changes to the lights.

On the day of the lighting repair, the technician said that there will indeed be some technical difficulties if the original lights were to be used. Thus we explained the whole situation to the tenants. However, they were not interested to listen & accept the situation, on top of which they were not satisfied with the design of the new lights! As a result, a simple matter turned into an ugly situation. After taking down the original lights for analysis, the technician mentioned that there would be risk of the lights tumbling down if put back up due to technical issues. But, the tenants insisted on putting the lights back up. We as owners were definitely not taking the risk of putting the tenants’ safety on the line!

The situation got quite out of hand when the tenants stated that they would rather leave the wires dangling on the ceiling and not have any ceiling lights! We were quite appalled & angered by the whole situation. In the end, we decided to put an end to the whole bizarre situation by being firm and insisted on just going by the black and white in the contract.

Looking back on the incident, I feel that the whole matter could have turned out better, only if the tenants were willing to look at things from a different angle, and try to accept the fact that life is never a smooth sailing, with the wind always blowing in your desired direction, and that we do have to change our decisions to adapt to challenging situations whether we like it or not!

Coming back to my personal experience of renting a place from others…

This is my first experience of renting a place from others, and it has indeed created memories like no others! First of all, if you have made the decision to rent a place instead of owning one, please be prepared to lower your standards with regards to interior design, types of lighting, brand of electrical appliances, quality of furnitures, etc… In addition to the above, one do have to be real cautious of the age of electrical appliances, working conditions of water pipings, etc.. as certain portion of the repair fees will be out of your own pocket whether you like it or not!

I have finally come to understand what it feels like to use things that belong to others and worrying about damaging them. It’s definitely a feeling of helplessness & frustration when only after less than a month of staying in, you have to start facing breakdowns in electrical appliances such as oven, micro-wave, refrigerator, sensor failure in air-con, etc… When even the water pipes starts leaking, you realize you have not made too wise a decision and there are indeed liars in this world!

However, it is only through all the ups & downs of life does one learn the skills of standing strong and tough in the face of challenges! May all our problems of tomorrows be solved & all our wishes fufilled! :>

To me, communication is present in many different forms. The language we use – the type of vocabs, tone of voice…, the clothes and accessories we put on to match how we want to appear to others – casual, official…, our body languages – the way we stand, walk, place our hands, etc… All these are part and parcel of communication, our silent communication to the rest of the world on who we are and whom we want to be.

Do our words truly represent our inner thoughts & feelings all the time? How many times in the past few days have we said something to someone and not meant it? Are we as expressive as we would like to be? How much courage does it take for someone to truly and sincerely tell his/her loved ones the sentence : ” I love you” and “I’m sorry”?

Sometimes the easiest seems the most difficult to say. Does it take a lot to admit to your loved one that you’re in the wrong? Have you ever felt after a conversation or communication with someone, that you could have said or done it better, and wished for time to backtrack?

Sometimes it’s the little actions that count. The little acts of love and consideration such as a hot cup of tea or coffee, a pat on the shoulder, a simple hug, a look of love…sometimes it’s really just the little acts of love that will say more than a thousand words!

P.S. Try showing your loved ones YOU CARE, starting from now!

How many of us actually stopped to think about the role they play and the significance of their presence in this fast-paced world of ours? Just thinking about the lack of their presences gives me the chills!

Who was there to fuss over you when you took a fall or fell sick? Who was there to give you the necessary push in the right direction during your growing-up stage, be it via the stick on the palm, the scoldings, or the naggings? Who was there preparing the meals, taking care of the dirty laundry, making up the bed? Who was the constant in your life whom was sheltering you through all the ups & downs of your younger life? Who was there playing the role of a super-caretaker of the whole family, a silent link among all members of the family, ensuring that the home is a home, a place of belonging, and not just any other house?

As we grew up & entered the complicated, mind-boggling working society, we are guilty of taking for granted all that was provided with love from someone so close to our heart. With all the endless meetings and paperwork, with the accumulating stress & tiredness in trying to balance work and family, have we neglected and thrown our important “one” to an icy corner?

Have we ever stopped to think about the emotional cycle of a mum whom goes through the process of pregnancy, childbirth, child education, watching their babies gradually growing into adulthood, entering the working world, getting married, & feeling that the importance of their role as a mum is gradually diminishing, feeling that their opinions no longer seem as important to her loved ones?

How many times in the past one week have we ever done or say something to show this very important person how much she is appreciated & loved??

P.S. Don’t wait to express the love you have for someone close to your heart, else it be too late for regrets!