It's 2014!

Sorry for not updating since my last post. It had been quite a big roller coaster ride since my last update.

Well, things at home were still quite a big frustration for both Eric and I. It's like almost to a breaking point where it was affecting even our own relationship with each other. Going to the women bible study every Wednesday morning helps to allows me to be with other older women, who would listen and share experiences. And at times, it was amazing that the discussions would touch my heart, to the deepest point. 

One day, I received a book from my pastor's wife Carmi. She asked if I would like to join their book club, reading through this book together and discuss as a group every 2-3 weeks during lunch.

This event was a God sent. The book they were going through was not only helpful for a newly wed wife like me, it teaches us how to be a Godly wife to our husband and family. 

It talks about how to love and communicate with our husband. How we work with our husband, so that we are there for each other's needs. How to love and teach our children. How to prioritize our life's, with work and home, of want and need. How to not succumb onto temptations of sinful nature, such as greed, anger, bitterness. Oh how it touches my heart! 

It wasp quite hard, trying to seek the truth and admitting to the sinfulness of my own. But praise God for softening my heart. Thank God for the many older women who were there to share their struggles and their listening ears to mine. Everyone who were there, had struggles of their own, as a wife and mum to their family. It was a good opportunity for us to open God's words and read the guidance God has for us. It felt so supported, encouraged, and guided. No one teaches us how to be a wife, especially Godly wife. No one teaches us how to raise a child. Examples from our own families may not be the best model. Oh how much I learned. 

Eric and I also met up with the pastor for counseling one afternoon. It was a great opportunity for us to talk about things which had been bothering us for a while. Like the house renovations, moving out, living with in-laws, clinic work.....

So Jeff, our pastor sat there and asked abut our issues and listen to our situation. It helps a lot as there is now someone who can see it from a third person's point of view. So the conclusion at the end was that we should moved out from this place and Eric should get his decision ready and get things moving (for both the renovations and clinic work). 

And so we did! We moved out the following week after the session with Jeff. We moved our beds there, so we are sleeping there at night. However, the rest of the house is still in a mess. Or day time work is either at the in-law's place inspecting the construction work, or at the other home, doing the wall paper removing. And I'm still in charge of cooking at the in-law's place. So we will have dinner together before we head home. 

At the end of November, my clinic work finally started too! My first patient is our friend at bible study. And since then, I have another two regular patients. We promoted our clinic at Eric's uni friends gathering around Christmas, and we got a few interest clients. Haha. But so far, we are just thinking of going slowly and just treating people we know, because we are doing home visits. Eric is not comfortable with me visiting stranger's place. 

Relationship wise, has been much better between Eric's mum and me. His sister's absence for a month for her holiday in HK, helped a little. (Less people to worry) His mum had a sudden scare of sciatic pain shortly after the Boxing Day, which sees us sending her to the hospital's A&E, staying in there for 6 hrs and finally discharging with just a script of painkillers. They could not find what was wrong with her. So today, after 3 weeks in pain, she finally is going to see her GP for a referral for MRI scan. This had caused a bit of stress in Eric with his mum, as it was so difficult for us to coax his mum to take pain medication. It was like coaxing a small kid, and without the medication, she could not sit, stand, lie down, nor even go toilet! What's more, there's three levels of stairs for her to climb at home to get to her bed room! Sigh.....

To add on to the stress, there was the construction at the front of the house to fix the foundation of the house. It is now finally done! Took 3 weeks in total. 

For the Christmas, we invited Eric's aunt and uncle to our house for Christmas dinner. His aunt had recently became a Christian. So happy that at least we have another relative who is also a Christian. She is my in-laws sister. I made some food for that night. Also baked the Japanese cheese cake for dessert, but it did not turnout as pretty. Taste wise, it's awesome. Hehe. Need to brush up my skills. 

Then new year was a time where we were look after the 'kid' who refused to take pain medication, and also housing a visitor from Canberra. We brought him to see the famous new year fireworks on new year eve. O my, it was sooooo chaotic! 

We went together with three other friends from our bible study. 

Unfortunately, the location where we were at was not ideal for the fireworks. Our conclusion for the night was: sitting at home watching tv for countdown, would be much more comfy than being at the site where we were. Think my brother who saw it live on tv in Perth,have a better view than us. Lol.

We were into fishing lately. So this is Eric's catch of the day on last Sunday. It was really the catch of the day! The fish got hooked within 1 second! Really. ONE SECOND! And for the rest of two hours, we caught nothing. Haha. 

Tonight, we are inviting his aunt and family over again for dinner. His cousins will be joining too. We are making vietnamese rice paper roll for dinner. Nice and easy. Hehe. Lazy me.

I hope u all have a good start to your new year too!

Kcan

Frustrated!

Often, I always wondered why this family I married into had no brain/common sense at all.

There was this broccoli stems incidents just last week. 

MIL got freebies from her cheepo friend who is working in restaurant business. Broccoli stems.

Well, they only uses the heads in the cooking, not the stems. So what did she do? She leave them in those shopping bags and distribute to her friends when she had accumulated 'enough'. So this MIL of mine got a bag of these stems from her one day and happily 'hid' it from me by placing it in this sealed bag and placing it on the door of the fridge. She did not let me know about it till I found out one day while clearing the fridge for old veges. (I'm the one cooking now a days) 

And guess what, they had all gone BLACK! And the bag had gone wet from the moisture of the veges that some of them had wet rotten edges. 

So taking and showing her (and intend to throw it away immediately after that), 'what is this, it's bad, not good for eating. I'm going to throw it away. Next time u bring anything back, let me know.'

MIL: What, it's still ok to eat. Don't throw away. Just peel back the skin and it is still ok to eat.

Kcan: O_O but it is bad, it's gone black n rotten!

MIL: if you don't want to eat, I'll give to YiYi (aunty, her sister) 

Kcan: (wtf...)

In Chinese, there's this saying: 己所不欲，勿施于人. If you yourself does not want/desire it, do not give to others. I feel like slapping it onto her face that she should not have such evil heart to do that to others. Somewhat her little sister! (And remember the incident earlier in the year about the broken toaster?) 

In order not to get into trouble with her (trying to please her), I had to cook half of them n threw away the rest IN SECRET! 

Then yesterday, monthly called came and I was in lots of discomfort. Headache and backache. Yet I still have to cook for them while they snooze/laze away in the afternoon. I made dumplings, hoping that I can have left overs to last for a few weeks as emergency food. The SIL came to help wrap the dumplings while I made the skin from the dough. We sat there for hours, with my headache getting worst by the minute. After making each plate full of dumplings, I made sure they were pop into the fridge to freeze so I can keep them individually in bags for future use. But last night, I entrusted the task and told the steps to SIL as I am really unwell to move. (Plus my hands were all covered in dried dough) 

And after that, I was so exhausted to even clean up or check on the progress...

Behold... When I was ransacking through the freezer just then, I found this Big WHITE SOLID BLOCK.

OMG! It's the dumplings I made yesterday! That WOMAN had stuffed the unfrozen dumplings into a bag and squeezes it to a corner of the fridge. And there's two big solid bags of it! 

MAN AM I MAD!!!!!

Not only did my effort in making dumplings for the future had gone down the drain, now what the hell am I going to do with these bricks of dumplings. 

Then I had to suck it up and not show any of my anger and frustration to these people cause...'what's done already done, it is just going to make people less willing to help blah blah blah......' Eric always uses this to shut me up when trying to defend his family. WHY DO THEY NOT HAVE ANY BRAINS!!

Argh!

Then there's also the raw sea cucumber fragments that is STILL in the fridge. It had been 5 weeks since it had appeared in the fridge. For the first 3 weeks, it was left uncovered in a small bowl. Then I reminded MIL that it should be thrown away as it was uncovered n been left in the fridge for too long. 

What did she do?

She took it out from the fridge,

gave it a rinse, 

put it back in the same bowl, 

PLACE A TAKEAWAY CONTAINER ROUND LID ON TOP OF THE BOWL, 

and place it back at the same spot in the fridge. 

It's 5 weeks and ticking! I am so going to throw that away one day ...

I seriously hate living in this place.

Kcan

Downs...

Sorry for not updating for the last few weeks.

Had been having really down times. Surprisingly, it coincides with the arrival of my in-laws. hur hur...

Anyway... I think I need some serious help. I just cannot help myself from crying and crying and crying. It is really frustrating living here. Seeing people sneaking here n there like a rat, hiding and stuffing silly things like news paper or plastic bags in every small holes/gaps you can find in the shelves.

I don't know why I had to endure at this place for so long. I hate it when they criticized me for changing their way to suit my way, when I am the one asked to help them clean up their filthy home.
And they had not even lift up their little finger to help! 9 Bloody MONTHS!!

I so longed for home with my parents.

Late last week, I attended work seminar in the city. Ollie from uni days came with senior Jenny to attend too. It was a nice catch up with Ollie and Jenny. The only regret was not able to try out what I had learned with patients... Because I had none~! I seriously don't know why this 9 months had past yet the clinic had not started. Crap just kept pilling and pilling, and things that are not our business became out business, and then 9 months down the road, our goal was still no where in sight.

What crap and business you may ask? Well, these are some of the crap and business:
Crap includes the other house, where it had plumbing, trees, walls paper, and many headache things to consider. We thought we can move out to live there 2 months later, but there are many things which their greedy minds wanted to do. Like, rebuilt the place or extend the place, so it can fetch a higher selling price in the future. We drove all the way to displays homes and such during one fine day, and realised that it will take 18months to build one from scratch.
So now the place is left idle.

'Business' includes the kitchen, wall cracks and plumbing issue at THIS place. So that kitchen frame took a while for the pest control dude to declare good to replace. 3 Monthes! Then it took her another 2 months to get some carpenter or builder to come and fix it. But no! No Carpenter or builder came. She went to find the wood work guy to make her the window frame. He recommend his friend who is a licenced handy man to come and fix up the frame and kitchen, but no... No one came. By then, she went overseas, and Eric and I had to take it into our 'business', learning how to replace the plasterboard, fixing the frame and then later paint the whole dame kitchen, because the kitchen was a ugly PINK, where we could not find it's original colour.
Another 'business' was the cracking in the wall. The crack was always  there, but of course, people who stayed in the house don't give a blink, till people like us start questioning if it was actually safe? Because, the  tiles started lifting off the floor, showing a big gap of almost 8mm where by you can see down the concrete underneath, and the windows of the affected side cannot be close when you tried opening it. There's also the sinking walkway at the side of the house where it looks like a whole concrete pathway had detached itself off the top and side and is sinking down the ground underneath.
So that involves us having to call the engineers to come and access the damages and also to find out the root cause of the damage.
The first engineer came, gave some crappy solution which I do not buy. He wanted us to dig a hole at the side of the house to dig out 'stones/sand' that could have pushed the wall out from the rest of the house, that was causing the damage. It took me almost another few weeks to convince Eric to get another opinion. And the 2nd engineer came and found a gaping tunnel underground that showed signs of soil erosion which signifies a  burst pipe!
With that, we isolated the whole house to only 2 usable toilet and sinks. The top and bottom most level. That also meant that we cannot use the kitchen sinks, and laundry, for all the waters from that level goes through the leaking pipe.
We lived like that for almost 3 weeks and it was finally fixed this Monday.
With the plumbers, they also found a storm water pipe breakage and blockage. Storm water pipe channels all the water from the roof down the pipe onto the street. A major pipe that gets all the water from the roof from the pack of the house, and the back yard, was BROKEN!!! It took the plumbers a while to locate it's location as it was under a concrete pathway, but thankfully, we found that there was a way to get to it. It was always right infront of our eyes, but was blocked because his mum love to put the bins and empty pots n rubbish at it's entrance. So ALL the water from the rain pipe and backyard and the washings that she had illegally poured down the outdoor drain had all accumulated at the bottom of the house. GREAT.
The plumbers fixed the pipe back (yay!), but a water drainage test showed that the other end of the pipe was blocked! So they had to clear the pipe and found tree roots, mud, tennis ball!, ceremic pavers.......

So Eric started digging last week while I was at the seminar, to find the section of the pipe where it was blocked. Probably had to cut down some trees too. It was crazy.

BUT despite all of this, we STILL don't know what caused the cracks on the walls. *rolled eyes*

So yup....

kcan

Down time

I just blew it yesterday. All the frustration and anger. All mixed in one.

Lets see what had happened prior....

It had been two weeks since I had gave this place a vacuum. And as usual, I had to do this all on my own. A good three story climb with the vacuum cleaner. Changing and discarding the clogged dust bin at least four times. And at the end of it, I'm battered and my back is wracked. And now, I'm still contemplating when I should pick up the vacuum cleaner again as my back is still hurting.

For the past many months since we had this stupid extended renovation in the kitchen, the kitchen had been and still in a mess. And for some unknown reason, these bastards had also became deaf while they were in their rooms. No matter how loud I shouted to call them down for dinner, or help set up for dinner, no one came. Super pissed, cause no one ever had the willingness to lend a hand or what. Just sit there n wait for food to drop from the sky. N I had learned from all these months that their slowness, means it will take another 20 mins before we can actually eat something, which by then food will be cold. All the while they just could not see how rushed I had to be so I can put food on the table on time. Do they want the slow cooking their mum does, whereby food will only be served at 9pm? Argh!

Then there's the washing up dishes. His sis kindly took up the role. Which is really helpful. But that was till she realised she can get away with washing up by eating her share quickly and dart upstairs n hibernate. Which means I had to clear up all the washings from dinner and cooking. Isn't this something a child will do? Why am I seeing it on a thirty something? Eric had a good talk with her, so tat had stopped for now. Then there is also the lack of willingness whereby if u don't have it in the sink, she will not wash them. So there is often the jobs where I had to clean up after she had clean up... (Like if i was watching tv or out at bible study, I will be greeted with jobs undone) Do you get what I mean? Sigh....

Then there is the toilet. Everyone uses it. But no one cleans it apart from me, or eric when i howled at him. I still remembered the line his sis told me on the first day we moved back. "Yay! Now there is someone to help me clean the bathroom!"

At that time, I replied "yeah, I can help clean it with you." But, see what I said, With You, not me only. Clearly her sentence means Me only, as she had since then, Never, I repeat,  NEVER cleans the bathroom. And it really pissed me off.

I had been living out of home since I'm 18. And I had lived in shared house since. Independence is like second nature to me. I learned to cook and clean and take care of myself. Plus I had to study full time n even work part time jobs. I even had time to do my St. John volunteering. Compare to here, this family is just Hopeless! What a lazy bum! 

Just as I had predicted, when I stop or refuse to cook, what do they eat? Takeaway pizza. Lazy to the point they do not even want to lift a finger and cook. 

Looking at the wall of wall papers yet to be removed. It is really daunting. I had not even manage to take off the papers from one room! Let alone the whole house. I had pleaded to eric for help. But none came. My back is now so sore tat I cannot stand up for too long. Even standing for cooking hurts. 

I'm glad tat mum n dad came to visit few months back. They had seen the place I am living. They understand the pain I am going through. I told them about the wall papers and things that needed to be done over at the other place. And you know what they say? 

"Do you need two extra hand to come and help? We can fly here for a week to help you." 

My help! 

Why can they so easily offer their help, while those lazy bums around me can't. Only once his sister had so call offered help with the other place. But when the time comes, she gave the excuse of " need to study", when obviously she was just plain lazy. Can you see how sick I am of this place? 

I really appreciate the help offered by my parents. But how can I ask two elderly to work for free on a place tat is not even theirs?! Some more now, my mum had finger joints problems and shoulder problem, plus dad had a poor back too. 

And I also donoe why I am putting myself into this bloody place, working till my back aches and head spin. It is not even mine! Can I claim my medical bills from his parents for hurting my back on their bloody houses? 

This is ridiculous.

Kcan

Vacuuming

Just a little rant here after doing the vacuum of the whole house.

OMG, I found some unknown poos at the corner of the shelf at the foyer. *YUCKS!* The poos are quite big, oh my...I wonder how big the 'thing' is. >_<

The depressive feeling sinks in again as I had to go through the 3 levels, dragging my vacuum cleaner all along the floor surfaces, taking off and plugging in to a new socket as I went, going around piles of junks still sitting on the floor, emptied the dust from the vacuum cleaner twice. I wonder when will these all goes away.

It often amazed me how much these place will collect dust and dirt. It had not been cleaned for two weeks. The previous cleaning was done by Eric's sis, after days of 'asking' her to help out in housework.

I called Eric to settle my depressive and frustration. He always give me encouraging words, but sometimes, I felt that these were just so superficial. You thank me for doing the cleaning, however, I AM the only one doing the cleaning of the house. If you really want me to do the cleaning, give me the authority and I will CLEAN up all the junk in the house, all the moulds and all the dirty yellow papers that is stuck away in all corners n holes. But no, I had to cover my eyes over the many filth and it is FRUSTRATING !

I really want to go move out. I don't care about this place. Yet I had to slave away here. Not even paid!
While people who belong to this place, the rightful owners, left it in such a filthy condition and expect me to tolerate it. I really wonder why this family behaves like this.

SIANZ...

kcan

Temperature

Eric and I had started going out for afternoon walks recently in bid to help me with the depressive feelings being stayed at home and also to help walk off the tummy he had gain since our marriage. (hahaha)

It's a surprisingly nice walk around the neighbourhood. Many houses of various designs and streets where it looks like a complete rain-forest like. It was interesting to note that despite our wandering around without maps/GPS, we will always be able to get to the main street eventually. haha.

Think I caught a cold while exposed to the cold wind yesterday on the walk. Had a headache and temperature when preparing dinner. Thought I'll sleep it off, and it did! But when I was up preparing Eric for uni, the temperature seems to be rising again.

So, tell me, am I considered having a temperature when the readings from my left year is different to that of the right?
*shrugs*

Guess I shall get ready to head off for bible study when am I still feeling good.
Need to get some grocery too!

Better not be late.

kcan

Re-location

Relocation was an annual ritual for the last 3 years. During my 3 years in Canberra, I had to moved every year. Only this last time, was to move out from Canberra to Sydney.

That move was tiring. It took us 3 whole days plus weeks leading up to that doing the packing and cleaning.
We hired a 3 tonne truck on the Saturday. Filled it up to the brim with the help of 3 of our friends and we only left Canberra at 10pm. Slowly drove up to Sydney, took plenty of power naps and finally reaching at 4am. Unload the next day (Sunday) with the help of his good mate. It just took 4 hrs to unload. So not fair.
We set off real early on Monday again from Sydney to Canberra to return the truck and also to give the house a good clean up before handling the key back in the afternoon. Got the carpets vacuum, drawers, toilets cleaned, kitchen wiped down and pack the rest of bits n pieces which are still lying around. We filled up our two cars to the brim. Really, Literally. The only mirror that was usable during the long drive to Sydney was the right mirror. (not that it was any useful at night)  Everything was finally done at 10pm AGAIN. We had a nice dinner at the famous Maccas just across the road from our place. Our final n last meal. haha.

We had since unpacked 50% of the things we brought here. It was a painfully slow process. Not that there were not enough space, but... well, how about say that we met some restrictions.

Asking if I had settled down here...
Surface-ly, I'd say yes.
Deep down, Hell NO.

Since moving and settling down since January 2013, I had developed depression.
That was also one reason why I now choose to let out my feelings here, instead of keeping it all in myself. Because there was no place for me here.
Everymonth, there would be days where I'll just break down into uncontrolled sadness and tears, feeling lonely, angry and frustrated.

Lonely, because I had no one whom I can call a real friend whom I can talk to at hand n be here to be with. This place where I am staying, is like a prison. I am not able to venture out, for I'll get lost in the unfamiliar streets. The only place I am able to drive with confident to, is the suburb where I get groceries and attend church. Sydney is just too big for me to handle. The new members of the so called 'family' whom I am living with now, had issues which I find so difficult to handle. It could be peaceful like a calm river, or a battle of survival like at a war zone. And often, I feel so alienated in these chaos, that I wonder why I was here at the first place.

Caring for the aging MIL was a chore. It was a chore because she is developing signs of psychological issues, such as hoarding and mental loss. And with these, came anger and frustration as we tried cleaning up the filth of the house where we now together lived in. The state of the house was appalling when we moved in. The house was decent sized I mind you. Triple story with plenty of rooms and living space and even a outdoor pool. Maybe a little too much space you'd say, for a person who had a hoarding issue.

The whole house was filled with junk.
Junks from boxes of old text books belonging to my husband and his siblings back in their Primary school days, boxes of clothes from they were babies, magazines subscriptions of way back when and some were still in their original untouched wrapper. The collection could even be better than the archives in the museums.   Heaps of used envelopes collections in boxes, bags of big pile of shopping plastic bags (some annoyingly stored in biodegradable plastic bags), piles of take away containers, news papers and other paper junks.
Dirty old rags which lined the floor with bags of other clean rags still storing in the cupboard....
Worse of all, the place was so unkempt  that the floors of the house was layered by a thick layered of dust n grit, that one cannot bear to walk barefooted. A clean pathway lines the area where people most walked (which is the middle of the path). Every 5 steps on the stairs, I had to empty my vacuum cleaner. The carpets had not been cleaned for the past 10 yrs.
Couches, coffee tables, cupboard doors, pictures frame, doors and frames and even the wall, were covered in mould. How can one live in such filth?
I am angry and frustrated at the laziness of the occupants and the attitude I had to dealt with. Everything, from the free news papers, the rags on the floor, plastic shopping bags with holes in them to the wilted flower that hangs on the vase had a sentimental value. And it had to 'stay' in the house.

To date, we had chuck out 180 kg of paper materials to the recycling during our first dump trip Plus 3/4 of that same thing on the 2nd trip PLUS 80kg AGAIN on the last trip. GOOD BYE old mouldy yellow BOOKS N MAGAZINES N NEWSPAPERS AND BOXES!
Behold, this was only the tip of the ice-berg. And it was only successful after many arguments plus some form of threatening.

However, I am slowly loosing the battle.
The 4 months of mental and physical stress had a bad impact on my physical and mental health.
I can no longer tolerate and stay calm, looking at the pile of junk n useless stuff. Now it just... stays...

I don't have a say. The hoarding tendency is too strong among the family. Even if it's something useless, like the big plate of molded dried petals. They are not able to just...let go. I think I had to learn too, to just... let go.

I could not wait to move out from this place. I have little corners in the house, where I have my little spaces to clear my head and keep up the lives here.

So, please do pray for me. Pray that I will be able to stay sane in this insane place. Pray that I will keep my patience and kindness to the people I had to dealt with daily in such close proximity. Pray that with the strength of Jesus, I will continue to keep in faith and never loose hope of the Hope that is to come.

And also, please do pray for Eric as he struggles with me and uni work. Pray that he will be loving and understanding.

kcan.