Grubbs n Critters

April 10, 2015

Juggling Kids and Family on a Work Trip

A big thank you to Tiny Expats for hosting me as a Guest Blogger on her blog yesterday!

If you’d have asked me if I would bring my kids along on my work trip 4 years ago, you’ll get a resounding NO. It would be a NO, NO, NO and NO all the way. But, I guess I had a change of heart. I discussed it with Silver Bullet and to my surprised, he was gamed to tag along to mind the kids.

It was the only push I needed to do something I would not normally do or even considered, and go into uncharted waters. And so it was decided – my maiden work trip with the entire family in tow.

With that, I thought I’d share a little of my “acquired wisdom” on juggling kids and family on a work-trip:

(note to self) Always, always, always remember to check the passport’s expiry date and make sure that each passport has a validity period of 6 months. Sounds duh! I know, but trust me, things like that DO slip your mind. Thank god for a second passport, or one of my kids would not have been able to travel. (Read about the mayhem here)

The kids have noooo ideeeea how lucky they are to be able to travel so much at such a young age. It’s good for their worldliness, although I feel that I need to remind them that this is not a norm.

Research for activities to do with the kids in advance rather than have a “just-wing-it” attitude. Have you ever tried planning AND searching for a place to go there and then, wondering where you should head for the day as the time is ticking away while your little monkeys run amok in a 35 sqm hotel room and tearing down the hallway? Unless you have little angels, I rest my case.

Hop on over to her blog here to read my entire musing on the “acquired wisdom” which I have written for Tiny Expats! Don’t forget to check out her other postings on expats kids and travel with kids as well as events which she hosts.

And if you really do like them, please, share the love!

P.S: If you want to contribute as a guest-blogger, please do not hesitate to reach out! We’ll be happy to feature your posts. I know it may sound intimidating to some, but hey! nothing to lose. 🙂

#Writing 101: Commit to a Writing Practice

Category: Blogging Courses

Today’s Prompt: Write about the three most important songs in your life — what do they mean to you?

When it comes to music, I’m usually the one to go for lyrics. Of course the melody plays a part too, but if I have to choose, the lyrics would be the one that gets me hooked. Music has pretty much been a big part of my life – I can’t remember a day going without music when I was growing up, with my ears plugged to my then walkman, followed by the disc player, then the mini-disc player and in the last decade an ipod.

Unfortunately, my exposure to music had been halted when I moved to Thailand. English radio stations are limited and even if there is, I don’t like the mostly hip-hop songs the played on air. The days of napster (remember that?) were so, so over by then and I can’t remember where my source of music came after that.

I remember a quote from a while back – something to the effect of “every single song holds a fragment of your memory”. So true.

To choose just 3 songs is a tough choice for me, simply because there are too many songs out there which have held some importance over the course of my life. But, if I were to choose, here are my choices for the present moment:

1. Good Riddance (Time of your Life) by Green Day

I love the melody and lyrics to this song; and I like sound of the strumming guitar.

2. High by Lighthouse Family

This song brought me back to way, way back when I was in my tertiary days. For some reason, it always lifts me up in ways that could only speak to my heart when things got dull and stupid. Till today, it remains one of my lift-me-up songs which I sing in my head to help me through and get that spring back in my feet.

Damn! I want to list 5 more song choices, but this assignment says to only choose 3! *pout* But I’ll just list it anyway and hopefully, by the end of listing all the 5, I can make up my mind on which song I want to elaborate on for my 3 choice – they are: Bad Day (Daniel Powter), Logical Song (Super Tramp), Changes (DNA – a local Singapore band from eons ago), Corduroy (Pearl Jam), Wild Wood (Paul Weller).

I still can;t make up my mind. I wonder if anyone who is reading this actually know these songs I mentioned above? They are all so old school and my music taste has always skewed to punk, alternative, rock and at one point in time, I was head-bangjng to hardcore music like Rage Against the Machine, Sick of it All and Fudge Tunnel. I still have their CDs, but I think my eardrums would burst into flames if I have to listen to them now.

So back to my last song choice, I think I’ll pick Paul Weller’s Wild Wood. It’s one of those songs that puts me in a very pensive mood; it’s music we put on a car ride and it’s a song I don’t mind listening to over and over again. The melody is soothing I find and again, the lyrics while subtle conveys a really strong message tht penetrates right into your heart, your soul, your unconscious mind. So I’m singing this song in my head as I’m writing this…and trying to remember the lyrics as I write:

High tide, mid afternoon

People fly by, in a traffic boom

Knowing, just where you are going

Getting to know just where you are going

Don’t let them, get you down

Making you feel guilty about

Golden rain will bring you riches

All the good things you deserve now

I love the chorus the best – ” Climbing, forever trying…Find your way out, in the wild wild woods. NOw then, there’s no justice. Only yourself you can trust in”

The lyrics may not be accurate and because the assignment did instruct that there should be no editing or formatting or back spacing or pausing and I have to keep my hand moving, I’m trying my best to comply. So pardon me if this post is a little shoddy. You can blame it on instructions from Worpress #Writing 101 assignment.

And oh! If you are curious about the song Changes which was written by a Singaporean Artist from several decades ago, and one that is probably known by mostly, ifnot, only Singaporeans, I actually wrote about it here. I refrained from choosing it in the end because it reminded me of a very dark phase of my life – and Im still paying the price for it.

Alloftheabove written in 25 minutes. And I thought I could not do it!

#BloggingU #Writing101

#Writing 101: Stream of Consciousness

Category: Blogging Courses

Here we go again: Another round of Blogging U course and assignments with Writing 101 for the next 20 days!

This is where I’m supposed to do free-writing in just 20 minutes. No time to think, no time to ponder, no time to even think if my sentence structure or story would make sense. But, in today’s assignment, I’m supposed to loosen up. To unlock the mind. To write by the seat of my pants. (Quote-unquote Ritu!)

This should be some kind of poetry post or something, and making up random words that would somehow resemble a poetry. But at present, I am not inspired enough or in the right creative mind to be crafting poetry of random words.

At this point, my thought is trailing to the current number of followers I have: 72. It has been relatively slow-going and it’s not a number to boast of after 4 months of putting myself out there. Comments-wise, I only have had a handful since. And I attributed this phenomena to 2 things based on the feedback I have had:

My blog does not have the automatic follow button which all other wordpress.com users have.
The comment box I have on my blog has been deemed too unfriendly and labourious to some.

I have sought help to make the above user-friendly and spent a lot of time scouring for solution. The thing is, there is really nothing else I can do about that simply because, even though I am technically on wordpress, my domain is hosted on a wordpress.org – which means that I do not have access to some of the fabulous features which wordpress.com users have the benefit of.

This goes the same to my like button which I have on every post. I have to actually find a separate plugin of a like button and this like is not even linked to readers who actually clicked like on my posts.That simply means, I have NO frigging idea who you are if you happen to click like on my posts and that I am not able to track from my stats which posts of mine has the most likes.

As annoying it is for some of you out there complaining on the above, believe you me, it is me who finds it more frustrating that I cannot make it any easier for you as much as I’d like to. Simply put: THIS IS BEYOND MY CONTROL.

Why am I being such a snob and just use a regular wordpress.com account to blog, you ask? Good question – I took on this route, not because I’m trying to be a snob, but because when I decided to migrate my blog from Blogger to WordPress, I went with the idea that I do not want to risk the disappearance of my content on a free site, if ever something happens to a free platform. I also wanted to be able to fully customise my blog, the way I want it and how I want it. And, on the advise of a very proficient web-consultant, that immediately pointed to paying for a self-hosted paid domain.

You see, I am also following several other self-hosted blogs and even before the issues above surfaced, I don’t think that I gave too much thought if I have to fill up some information required if I really do like the content.

The only thing inconvenient about it is that sometimes, I am not able to catch up with follow-up comments if I don’t request for comments follow-up to be emailed to me. So yeah…it can be a pain in the ass and I fully understand it, although it is not an excuse for my own lazyness if I choose not to.

So at this point, I AM very happy for the small number of followers I have had so far in contrast to other blogs and I am very thankful to those who took the time and effort to not only key in your email address to receive an update of my posts, but also navigate my supposedly extremely labourious commenting process. You HAVE NO IDEA how much I appreciate the interaction and I am truly, truly, truly sooooo sorry I am not able to change things unless wordpress.com decides to do something about it or offer advice for a feasible alternative to work around this.

Meantime, if you do really like my blog for whatever reasons, my plea is: Please don’t be a lazy ass – just pop your email in to follow and just key in a few essential details, which as far as I know, would give you an auto-fill form after the first time, (assuming if you don’t clear your cache) should you be kind enough to leave a few comments.

I am not chasing numbers, but it would be nice to get to a 100! Why 100? I don’t bloody know – just because 100 seems acceptable. And, because you took the time to do the jack-alls of filling up your email addresses and details prior to commenting, I can only humbly assume that you are not bots – which makes you that much more valuable and special to me. 🙂

These few days over the weekend have been a little rough too as I have been working till the wee hours of the night to meet my deadlines for tomorrow. Honestly, I would rather be blogging! And I must have been stupidly crazy to embark on yet another Blogging U again, and wondering if I could really keep up this time.

I don’t think I have ever typed as fast this before. My 20 minutes is up. That is all.