home & it gets busier

I got home last Saturday night and then I got sick . This immune system of mine can hardly fight anything so I got a bug and I am woozy with the Cipro but still working. Small renovation going on at the studio. Going smaller so that we can get bigger and hours meeting with the designers. I love doing that! I had the best time at the MWL Sizzix retailers event. The people were all warm and super COOL and the food was divine. Plus I got to work with some of my heroes. jasmine, Aida & Mei Mei. We were there for 12 hours that day and only realized I was tired while waiting for dinner at Thai Express with I-Mei at 9.30. Yet the day wasn't over. It was a long drive out to visit Mum. I cannot describe how I felt when I saw her. She was frail and thin. Claressa says the doctors are leaning more heavily to the fact that the cancer is back. I'm asking God why a person who gives her life for others would end up with this as her lot.
So the wonderful day ends on a sad note. In the whole huge happy place that is my life, where I look around and there is nothing I am not grateful for, not even my 'health' there is this desolate place and I'm praying that God will breathe life into it.
So then I 'm back in my room. Home for 2 days. Sometimes I feel when I come to Singapore it's home, I'm coming home. But there's no one there. Oh, but I-Mei was there. Hanging out with me almost 24/7. (smile) We ate a lot of noodles and saw/ bought/ coveted a lot of scrap stuff. I managed to get everything into my bags. Free stuff from the event. Scrap stuff. Goodies for the baby, who is 17, including stationery (of course), a gift for passing her driving test and a fun, very French 'tres chic' satchel (to show off at school) , books, catalogs, more gifts... one would think I was away for a month! So everything fit and on Saturday morning I went out while it was quiet for some, err, quiet time. And by 12 I was ready to go home.
As I passed my old school I took a picture of this old building. What used to be MPH bookstore where I hung out a lot, on the way to the bus stop, at the old National Library. Stopping to eat mee siam at the old hut of a sarabat stall. And then taking a bus home with my best friend Shirin. A lifetime ago, and now Sarah is at 2 years older then I was then, looking a tad like me with all the exuberance and enthusiasm I had then and still have I think, maybe, just a notch down.

Life is always changing. There's a song I love by Anita Baker, from long ago. It goes, 'life is always changing, constant rearranging, nothing changes with you. I go to a million places, see a million faces, but none as fine as you...'
Nice. If you have someone in your life that makes you want to sing that song to(or play the song, heee..) give thanks. If there is someone or some people as fine, who will hold the net beneath you while you take flight and soar to the most dreamed of places, who will watch the kids, go to the market and make tea when you're weary and happy and your heart is bursting with joy...don't forget to say Hallelujah. To say Thank you Lord and to tell them that life is always changing and that you're so very glad they're not!

It sure is nice to be home.