These text exchanges between a Dad and his kid got me bursting into tears! So much so that I just have to share them for this week to honour all the dads out there in light of the upcoming Father’s Day:
Dying of laughter yet? Good! Because they are probably one of the coolest dads in the world!
Here’s wishing every Dad out there an early and the merriest Father’s Day. I’ll also leave you with an advertiser that wishes you the same. (mean, I know, but it’s a great ad message, don’t you think?)
The cook in me craved for a home-cooked meal especially since I’ve had a cooking hiatus more than 2(!) weeks before we settled into our new home. Unless on vacation, it has never been that long.
Armed with a small stash of regularly used spices in one of our suitcases while waiting for the rest of our shipment and even more stash of treasured spices to arrive, I decided that I’d have enough to make a little meal out of them. We may have only moved in to a barely furnished home, but a bare home does not mean a bare kitchen, no?
Plus, we inherited a pretty decent kitchen too from the previous owner and my mother-in-law has readied several pots and pans.We even have those pots and pans kept in a rotating cabinet. Super cool. How can I ever not cook? I cannot NOT cook. That’s just preposterous!
Feeling already slightly better from my eye infection, I made sure that we stock the kitchen up with other basics from the local supermarket. The beauty of the Dutch supermarket is that most fresh ingredients have been cleaned and cut, ready to be cooked. Lots of precious prep time saved. Brilliant!
The essential spices I had brought along in our luggage weren’t too many; there were those that were left in our fridge untouched by the movers. They consisted of curry powder from Singapore, turmeric (fresh and powdered), tamarind (fresh and dried) and dried anchovies. Not nearly enough, but I suppose that one could get creative.
With those, I whipped up 2 types of dishes for our very first home-made meal:
It wasn’t like they were the best meals of the century or meals to remember because they tasted out of this world. In fact, I almost didn’t want to take any pictures because I thought it wasn’t that special. But Silver Bullet had had egged me on with this being a meal to remember because they were the very first home-made food I had made in our new home, using only a few essentials and still turned out pretty darn decent.
For that, he thought that they deserved a recognition, even if only for nostalgic reasons.
Here we go with my virgin creation of Curry Marinated Chicken in Mustard-Paprika Sauce drenched in Coconut Milk.
The top looked slightly burnt and my chicken looked a little dry there as I was still getting used to my new oven. It was the first time I hung out with it and did not pay much attention while baking it. Duh! I guess it’ll take a bit more tries before she and me sync up.
Otherwise, this dish has been a small delight and this has given me a few more recipe inspiration using a variety of other easy-to-find ingredients as well. Hope you’ll enjoy it as much as we did. I’ll be posting the vegetable dish for another time.
Watch this space for more Fabulous Friday Flavours!
The last 2 weeks prior to our departure was the busiest and toughest yet. There were numerous things to sort out while still working full-time; from the never-ending farewells and get-togethers (the fun part!) to the not-so-fun and stressful bits like:
Those were the major ones I could remember; enough to provide us with the adrenaline rush for this major move. Not something we have done before!
It was most stressful when the movers came in to pack our things. Once they got into our home, they were all over our place and packed so fast that we did not even have the luxury to finish sorting out the stuff we needed to separate out from what were required to be shipped.
It didn’t help that:
It was chaotic. I had not even taken my lunch or had anything to drink yet! These movers worked at lightning speed and I got all stressed out from it. After some time, I lost track of what they packed, left it at that, sat at the foot of the stairs, watched them do their job and decided to snap some pictures.
They were done packing things in bubble wraps and boxes complete with labeling in 3 hours flat!
Then it felt real.
Our home of 6 years was bare of our personal effects. All that were left were furniture belonging to the apartment, items that we wanted to give away and our luggage that had yet to be packed.
We had lived in the apartment building for 9.5 years. From a 2-bedroom on the 4th floor, we shifted to a massive 260+ square meters apartment on the 8th floor in the same building before Squirt was born.
While it was temporary, old and not the prettiest, it served us well.
It was our home for many good years, each year filled with new memories. For the kids, they have had a deeper attachment to the place as it was the only home-home they ever knew since they were born. It was a home we all loved and had filled it with love. It was a home where real friendship were harnessed and bonds with other expat parents in Bangkok were strengthened. It was a home built on adoration, trust, honesty and communication.
Every corner had a story to tell and every single walls had bear witness to the tears of joy, laughter, frustrations and nightmares that had happened within them. Within those walls, we were meant to be insulated from harm and bubble-wrapped from the negative influences and harsh realities of the outside world. It was our safe haven.
With hands akimbo, both Silver Bullet and I stood next to each other in the hallway near the stairs after our final checks in every single room in silence before heading out to the lobby where our van to the airport was waiting.
For a few seconds, we both were lost in our own thoughts as we looked around the house. As our eyes met, we both felt overwhelmed with the unexplained emotions that surged within us.
The apartment was an empty shell.
“This is it,” he said.
“This is it,” I echoed softly
There were no other words as he pulled me closer by the waist. I didn’t think I would cry, but as I buried my head in his chest, we both broke down into tears. We had purged out all the emotions within with a good cry to step over that invisible line of releasing the past to embrace a new future. We had no words between us.
With tears still brimming in our eyes, we walked towards the door with the last of our luggage and closed the very door that has welcomed us home every single day and kept us safe as a family for so many years. As much as we loved the home and had grown very attached to it, it wasn’t ours. It was time to close this chapter of our life.
We stood in front of the door that still bore both of our names, to take in the moment (actually, we were waiting for the elevator), and with a heart filled with many a mixed emotion of being sad to leave and glad to be going, we know that it was a sight we probably would never see again in person.
There was no turning back. It was our last goodbye.
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