I made it.  :)

Dusty, dusty

I reckon it is time to spring-clean this blog a little and that is what I did one fine Monday afternoon.

I am reluctant to change the blog's template though. I am so comfortable with the current one. I think it is really pleasing to the eye. I shall leave it as it is for the time being until a good one comes by. 

Life is presently moving at a snail's pace for me but I must say that 2012 has been the fastest paced year I have ever encountered! Maybe it is just me. Maybe this is what happens when one grows older. 

Back when I was in primary and secondary school, I felt it was so much easier to pass time. 12 months never felt too long nor too short for me. Everything seems ideal, almost perfect. No, I am not a free teenager last time. I had tuition classes, piano and art classes, band practices and a myriad of school activities to go to last time!

We never had Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and all the modern gadgets and apps back then. And yet, I found I rarely was bored with my life.

In fact, I was happy for most parts of my life then. 

I was content.

I felt that my life was fulfilling. 

And perhaps I could take on the world if I want to!

However, as adulthood settles in gradually and when tragedy struck in February last year, I was forced to grow up faster at just 23 years old. Not that my life was totally changed, but gone were those idyllic, carefree days. 

More worldly questions and challenges come my way; more bumps than smooth roads I face... 

The burden we shoulder and the challenges we face as we mature increases by the year. Further, now is the time to lift the burden off our parents' shoulders bit by bit; slowly but surely. I believe this applies to the majority of us in their mid-twenties.

More importantly, we now have to establish our own identity. Be our own person. That way, others can identify with us and we learn to be self-assured and confident on our own. 

Ultimately, what I am trying to say is as we mature, we gradually step out of our comfort zone, out of hiding behind our parents' back and take on the world with a fresh perspective. 

However, in doing so, we must not stray away from our personal beliefs and from doing what is right.

For a long time, I have been quietly reflecting upon my own life. Sometimes, it is nice to let things out. :)

On that note, I end this post. 

Oh, enjoy the rest of 2012, all!

24.

It is both funny and strange how at every birthday after my 21st, I discover new things about my face.

Not so great things.

Things that signify AGE.

Age is catching up on me.

*gulps*

Whatever happened to my teen years?

Ah well, the wise man once said,

"Age is mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter."

I think I should try to live by it.

Achieve what I can when I can when I am still able-bodied/minded to do it.

On another note, a Happy Birthday to myself.

I shall count my blessings now.

I am thankful for a family who cares deeply for me.

I am thankful for a shelter to live in.

I am thankful to that special someone who tolerates me in my good and bad.

I am thankful that I met good friends - old and new.

I am thankful that I am in this position right now at this moment.

And I thank him for watching over me in Heaven.

:)

Yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen.

Your Song, Elton John.

Your 100 days.

I need your grace

To remind me

To find my own.

Chasing Cars, Snow Patrol.

Blessed.

Its simply amazing how one's life can change so dramatically in 3 weeks.

And best of all, the turn of events were for the better.

It solidifies the future a little bit more.

It gives me greater hope.

It gives me many more reasons to count my blessings.

It has been an incredible 3 weeks for me.

Amidst all the stress and worry over the impending exams;

I can say that I am happy.

********

You must be watching me from Heaven right now.

I love you and am forever indebted to you.

I hope you can hear me.

Nana, nanana, nana

I miss you.

Slipped Away, Avril Lavigne.

Until you came.

I know I can make it.

I will break these chains that bind me, happiness will find me

Leave the past behind me, today my life begins

A whole new world is waiting it's mine for the taking

I know i can make it, today my life begins.

Today My Life Begins, Bruno Mars

By anonymous.

Relationships.

All do not give you automatic rights to something.

There is still a defined boundary.

Know it.

Do not cross it.

More importantly, do not test the waters.

Retreat, just retreat.

Do not over-estimate yourselves in the eyes of others.

Sometimes, at the expense of their feelings.

Your gut feeling may not always be right.

Your observations may yield the wrong results.

So are your judgments.

Do not be judgmental.

You are no better than others.

Consult the mirror.

It never lies.

See the true you -

You.

Inside;

Outside.

And change.

Breathe.

It's much better to face these kinds of things with a sense of poise and rationality.

I Write Sins not Tragedies, Panic! at the Disco

I know you are somewhere out there.

At night when the stars

light up my room

I sit by myself

Talking to the Moon

Try to get to You

In hopes you're on

the other side

Talking to me too.

Talking to the Moon, Bruno Mars

Says...

Un-yay to the seven seminars and two assignments in the month of March.

My facial expression for the month:

-_-

Will be romancing with my work for the next 3 weeks.

Oh April, please come fast.

A Light Exists in Spring

A Light exists in Spring

Not present on the Year

At any other period -

When March is scarcely here.

A Colour stands abroad

On Solitary Fields

That Science cannot overtake

But Human Nature feels.

It waits upon the Lawn,

It shows the furthest Tree

Upon the furthest Slope you know

It almost speaks to you.

Then as Horizons step

Or Noons report away

Without the Formula of sound

It passes and we stay --

A quality of loss

Affecting our Content

As Trade had suddenly encroached

Upon a Sacrament.

Emily Dickinson

Tranquil as a forest

But on fire within

Once you find your center

you are sure to win.

All the best to all who are having exams!

The London Pictorial II

The London Pictorial I

The synonyms:

The Paddington tube station.

Big Ben.

The Eye of London.

Red telephone booths.

Red double decker buses.

My Christmas in York

Pictures in no particular order:

Boating in York.

Boats on the river, but they are not operating as it was Xmas.

The monument to commemorate soldiers who died in the war. If you look closely, you could see artificial poppy flowers wreathes at the foot of the monument.

Here's my gracious hostess in Leeds, Wai Yi, who invited me over to spend Xmas in York with her friend, Han Jin and his family.

Sadly, I didn't manage to take many photos in Leeds because of the lack of quality time spent with the camera. LOL. Nah, I was busy carrying either my luggages or my shopping loots. *smiles sheepishly*

Diagon Alley?

Yorkminster Abbey.

The National Musuem.

This is Clifford's Tower. Picture of the tower below.

Little Shambles - Britain's most picturesque street! This is according to the visityork website. Oh, this is not Diagon Alley by the way. :)

Clifford's Tower.

The partially frozen river.

Again.

Yorkminster, full view.

My gracious host who cooked up a storm for us; carving the roast beef.

Vegetable pasta bake.

Roast turkey!

Jack Daniel's chicken wings.

A group photo. Thanks for the wonderful (and elaborate) meal!

Am now back in Aber, to my homely room with Adeline who came to visit from Bristol.

Next stop for me: London!

Something heart-warming on a cold winter's day.

The two creamy coloured puppies were snuggled up together in a ball, nose to tail, and fast asleep. At nearly seven weeks old, they were still very small. And in a few moments I was going to get to take one of these precious bundles home.

I took a deep breath and reached down to pick up the tiny warm puppy, never realising how my life would change and the joy and heartbreak Emma ­— as we would name her —would bring.

Three months earlier I had never even ­considered owning a dog. But then my life was changing so quickly these days, I wasn’t sure of anything anymore. Until two years ago I had been resolutely single and independent. Then I had met Ian in May, we’d got engaged in August and were married the following March. To say it was whirlwind was an understatement.

By then I was 43, so having children seemed unlikely. Still, I couldn’t help thinking what a great dad Ian would make. He is so ­loving, kind and patient that any child would be lucky to have him for a father. Finally, we decided to let nature take its course. If I got pregnant, great. And if I didn’t — well, that’d be fine too. Though in my heart I yearned for a baby.

So I threw myself into it. I took my ­temperature every morning and charted my cycle. Poor Ian was expected to ­perform as and when required, not cycle too much and eat all the right foods. Months passed and when I still hadn’t got pregnant, we went to see a consultant.

We left devastated. Blood tests to check my hormone levels indicated I would struggle to get pregnant at all. I listened in a daze — being told you may not be able to have a baby is a shock of cataclysmic proportions. I started on a fertility drug called Clomid. I thought about eggs, cycles, scans and pills constantly, which left me ­listless and unable to concentrate.

So when Ian’s work offered him a two-week trip to Japan, I leaped at the chance to go with him. And that’s where I fell in love. With a dog.

Walking along the street one day, we noticed people queuing outside a pet shop. And from the window, a long-haired, short-legged, big-eyed pooch stared out at me. I fell in love with him on the spot and I knew then that someday we’d have a dog of our own.

Back home, the Canine Partners charity, which trains dogs for the disabled, were opening a new centre near us. Helper dogs are remarkable. They can pull off socks and shoes, get washing out of a machine, fetch the phone when it rings, cover their owners with a blanket if they’re cold, turn lights on and off and even ­collect items in the supermarket and put them in the shopping basket. And the centre was looking for ­volunteers to be puppy foster ­parents for six months, before the dogs could complete their training.

Ian and I signed up immediately and before we knew it, Emma the golden retriever/labrador cross was coming home with us. That first night we put her little crate — containing a piece of blanket with the scent of her mum — at the foot of our bed and we slept with our heads at the end to be as near her as possible.

It was Christmas and our home town of Bedford was covered in a blanket of snow, but I walked Emma around the garden so she would get used to it. As she hadn’t yet had all her vaccinations we took her out in a carry-bag so that she would get used to traffic sounds and supermarket trips — all part of a helper dog’s future role.

I taught her to take things out of the washing machine. First I’d use a favourite toy, placing it right on the edge of the machine, and showering her with love when she brought it back to me. Gradually I’d put it ­further inside, until she was happy to put her head completely inside the drum to retrieve it. It is one of the many skills helper dogs have to learn and Emma passed with ­flying colours.

Before long she could take items of clean laundry out of the machine and put them in the basket, ready to be hung out on the line. She learned to find lost house keys, fetch the phone, remove shoes and socks.

Those first few weeks with Emma were blissfully happy. But things on the baby front were miserable. Out of the blue, we received £10,000 from the sale of my late grandmother’s flat, which we decided to spend on trying IVF treatments. It was a stressful time, but at least we had Emma to ­comfort us. Then, at a Canine Partner’s ­meeting one day, the head trainer read out a list of dogs who were nearly ready to leave their foster parents. Emma’s name was at the top. Thanks to her, this had been the happiest three months of my life –and it was over.

About 40 per cent of the dogs who start out training don’t actually make it to be helper dogs — some are too assertive or boisterous, some become too attached to their puppy parents. But Emma was doing so well she would be one of the first to go. You can have another puppy to foster straightaway, they promised.

But I didn’t want to think about another puppy. I only wanted Emma. I sobbed to Ian.

‘I feel like my heart is being ripped out. She’ll think she’s done something wrong and that we don’t want her any more.’

He was suffering too. Emma had become a part of our family. We’d made so many puppy-owner friends and every weekend we took her new places, exploring.

‘We could try to buy her,’ said Ian. ‘We could give them enough money to buy another two puppies or even three or four. Charities always need money.’

‘They couldn’t refuse £10,000 could they?’ I asked.

‘£10,000?’ asked Ian.

‘Yes, the money from my grandmother’s flat we were going to use for IVF – we’ll use that.’

Each puppy was about £500 so that would be 20. Twenty puppies in exchange for one: Emma. That seemed like a good deal to me. Emma was worth so much more than that to me — but surely she couldn’t be worth 20 puppies to the charity and the people they would go on to help?

We wrote to them that night. The days while they made their decision were agonising.

Their decision came back: no. Emma had shown too much potential as a helper dog for them to give up on her now. We were heartbroken.

The day of Emma’s departure came all too soon. All her things were piled up in the hall, ready for her to go. There was so much physical evidence of the giant space she’d occupied in our hearts and lives. I didn’t want to think about how our little house would seem when she was gone.

Emma knew something was up, she wouldn’t take her eyes off me. I was determined not to cry, I wanted her to remember me as happy and smiling. When we arrived at the charity centre I handed over all her favourite toys, stroked her head then walked away to the car. In the rear-view mirror I saw her watching me as I started the engine.

When I got home I sobbed in Ian’s arms. But there wasn’t time to be upset. I had a new puppy to collect – a puppy to learn to love while the shock of losing Emma was still raw.

Freddy was a bright, almost white, wriggling little furry fluff-ball. He looked more like a miniature polar bear than a puppy and was as different from Emma as it was possible to be. He nibbled my long hair and licked my face. But that night, as we bedded him down in his crate in our bedroom he whined, barked and cried so much that I took him downstairs with me and, against all the charity’s rules, slept on the sofa while he slept on the floor next to me.

It would be the first of many sleepless nights as we adjusted to looking after a brand new puppy — and, of course, we fell totally head-over-heels in love with him. He was a model pupil at training classes and because he was so cute was asked to perform at local fetes to ­encourage other puppy parents to volunteer. We had decided to use the £10,000 for IVF after all but before we could go to a clinic, my latest blood tests dashed our hopes.

It was all too painful. So we devoted ourselves to Freddy. We allowed ourselves to love him and think of him as ours. So when the trainer again pronounced that he’d be recommending him for advanced training at six months old, I knew I couldn’t keep having my heart broken by loving and losing.

‘It’s time we had one of our own,’ Ian said firmly. ‘We need a forever puppy.’ Puppy parenting hadn’t been without its rewards, though. We met Emma’s new owner Mike, a PE teacher in his early 30s who’d broken his neck in a motorcycle accident. Emma had transformed his life. With her help he’d been able to go back into teaching.

He told us, ‘I can’t imagine what it would be like not to have her in my life. She picks up my stick and my keys and takes off my hat, socks and gloves, which is really useful in winter when I have three or four classes outside every day.’

And we knew that Freddy too would go on to change the life of a disabled person or child too.

But this didn’t prepare us for the wrench of handing him over.

We drove him to the home where he would spend the next six months and he ran four laps of the garden. I called him over and said my goodbyes, whispering in his ear how much I loved him and how even a forever puppy could never take his place. As we drove away, I watched Freddy playing in the rear view mirror. He didn’t even see us leave.

By now we had found a respectable breeder who would have a litter just before Christmas. When the new puppies arrived we dashed to see them. They clambered all over each other, making tiny mewling sounds. Blind, eyelids closed, with tiny, pink-veined ears and the softest of coats.

I picked one up and as I held the warm body close the puppy nestled into me. A gentle smile of pleasure lit up Ian’s face. ‘We’re going to be calling our puppy Traffy,’ he told the surprised breeder. ‘It’s short for Old Trafford,’ I explained. Not everyone was such a Manchester United fan as my husband.

We collected Traffy just before Christmas and, although we had a puppy crate, I slept downstairs on the sofa with her. With a few whimpers for her mum and siblings, she slept. But I didn’t. I was aware of every twitch and movement.

The next day, I was dizzy with lack of sleep, but ecstatic. For the first time I could fall totally in love with my own puppy. Wherever I went she came too. When I was working on the computer she’d fall asleep on my lap, when I was cooking she’d be just feet away.

It was Christmas again and I often thought of the first time we brought Emma home in the snow. But as I looked around at our tree, the decorations, at Ian watching Christmas telly with Traffy, I thought there was nothing else I could want in the world.

‘You know what?’ I said to Ian. ‘I don’t want to keep trying for a baby, I don’t want to have IVF.’ ‘You’re right,’ said Ian, drawing me close to him. ‘We have all the family we need now.’

Extracted from The Puppy That Came For Christmas And Stayed Forever by Megan Rix, published by Penguin price £6.99. © 2010, Megan Rix.