I've been looking forward for the past weekend. After months of waiting, my family was able to celebrate the 70th birthday of my mother. I secretly invited my auntie and cousins, who live away from the city, to surprise my mother. Everything was perfectly executed with the help of my cousins. I always love the role of spearheading surprises and creating some tears of joy after. 

I hope we'll have more celebrations with my family. More birthdays, milestones and the happiest memories. I rarely see all the members of my family, especially on the maternal side. I'm quite lucky to meet them once or twice a year. Times like this are always, a much welcomed breather from my everyday life.


Of books and postcards - The Art of War for Women, you will see more of this book in my succeeding posts. This book is so promising, it made me regain my interest in reading. As mentioned in my previous post, it felt like the book was speaking my sentiments.

I'm starting to receive postcards again. I hope the services of our local postal services will continue to deliver. Thank you to Terra and Marieken for the cards and the heart warming messages.

And on my thoughts lately ...

My life's current theme, farewells. It's my second time to send-off someone. The first happened six years ago. It took me sometime to cope with someone's absence. The second time happened a week ago. I will never get used to this kind of cycle.

I always have a different view on farewells. We may have promised to keep in touch and commit that nothing will ever change. It's the same person or friend I can count on. In some cases, this holds true.  But most of the time, their absence changed everything. The promise to keep in touch will fade away. I can count the number of friends, who really kept such promise. 

I've learned to lessen my expectations. I convinced myself that farewells is destiny's way of forcing me to grow up and make way for new people, with another cycle awaiting.