Phoebe from Phoebe Gone Wild shared this award with me and I'm HONOURED to get it. THANK YOU, Phoebe!
So here are the rules: The rules are easy - you put that picture up on your blog and you post about one thing you're happy about right now and one thing that you are hoping for in the future. And then you pass the award along.
I've gotta be honest that it's gonna be TOO difficult for me to write just ONE thing that makes me happy 'coz they are the simple pleasures in life, but anyway I'll write 10 of them:
1. How I've found wonderful human beings through the internet and the blogosphere to share my ups and downs, to support and encourage and understand me. Not just the IF community, but my other regular blogging friends. I would never have made it without all of you people.
2. When I've been whiny and annoying (in my own ears/mind), yet hubby still tells me, "I love you anyway, honey." That is one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard in my life.
3. Watching autumn colours, especially the red colour (my fave autumn colour) surrounding me...and noticing a squirrel running about cautiously in our yard.
4. Being able to sleep as long as I needed during my sick leave until now I'm fully well again.
5. Imagining raking up the dead leaves into one huge pile and taking pics of that pile of dead leaves sometime on my free days during the upcoming weeks - it'll be the FIRST time ever that I've ever done such a thing in my entire life. I'm SO excited!!!
6. Hubby let me eat the last cup of chocolate pudding. (FYI: I bought 4 cups and ate 2 cups, but when the last cup was still in the fridge, I asked hubby if he wanted it or not and he said, "Nah, you can have it 'coz you like it so much.")
7. Cooking lasagna together with hubby 'coz I can't make the cheese sauce as well as he does and then eating it together while it's still hot.
8. Holding hands with hubby every time we watch TV or a movie together.
9. Being able to save money during the time I've been having this part-time job (and hopefully it continues).
10. Riding my bicycle. 'Coz I can't drive a car, it's very handy for me to be able to ride my bike to work and supermarkets.
OK, I think that's long enough. I'm going to pass on this award to: jrs.
One of my close friends is going to TTC next year and these days when she plans future trips, she often adds, "Well, that's if I haven't gotten pregnant by then" or "BUT if I get pregnant before then, it means I have to change my plans."
After reading similar sentences a few times, I felt a tug in my heart. I was made uneasy by that tug 'coz I wasn't sure if it was jealousy/envy or something like that, so I did some soul-searching and realized that it was actually something else.
That type of sentence took me back to my pre-IF days, when we were just starting TTC, when we were still a tad afraid of "losing our freedom" if we had gotten pregnant so easily. I was reminded of a time when I felt that I would be pregnant that very month, when I still often thought about how our child might look like with a hopeful heart and a smile on my face (not with a heart filled with 10% hope, 30% dread that I might get disappointed that month and that would trigger the all-familiar roller-coaster IF storm, 60% doubt that it'll ever happen). I was taken back to the innocent pre-IF days and it made me feel sentimental.
glitter-graphics.com
It reminds me of how much IF has changed me and that I can't go back to my innocent pre-IF days. During my pre-IF days, hope seemed like a flower blossoming so beautifully in summer, enticing me to smell it and bask in its scent and beauty. After facing IF, hope still looks like a blossoming flower, but 'coz I've been pricked over and over by its thorns until I bled so much, I'm afraid of coming too close to it, so I'm just admiring it from afar. It's still there, it's not dead, yet I'm getting too scared of it. During my pre-IF days, I didn't even realize that the flower had thorns. Strange but true...
Anyway, that was the essence of the tug in my heart that I felt when I read my friend's sentence. As usual, it feels great to finally understand what went on when I read her emails. For all its worth, through IF I've met so many other people that I wouldn't have known before. I've also learnt so many things along the way that I wouldn't have learnt before, for example: I know more now than ever that I've picked the right guy to be my husband. So, IF, THANK YOU for having let me understand a world that I never would have understood otherwise.
