LIVING AND LOVING IT: Lessons I am learning...

When last week started, it felt slow but by the time we got to Wednesday, it felt like we were flying through the days. Busy as it was, I managed to pick a few lessons.

Spur of the moment is sometimes good. Hubby and I had been planning a movie date for a while but a couple of times we had to postpone. On Thursday evening, we were finishing work and planning to go home when he remembered our plans. “Let’s go for a movie!” he said. Usually I prefer to go out when everything has been planned out from the start of the day. This hadn’t. But I thought, ‘why not?’ and off we went. And yes, we had a good time.

You do not need as much as you think. We ended up going for the 9.40pm movie. Since we had left early, we decided to have dinner at a food court. He had rice, chips, gravy and vegetables. I had sweet and sour chicken with vegetable rice. It was not as well made as you find in those nice Chinese restaurants, but it was good. I was surprised though when I did not finish what was on my plate.

In fact, I ate half and had the rest packed. I suppose this was because of my earlier detox diet. I have learnt to eat what is enough. I do not have to eat until I am stuffed. I do not have to have a full plate of food each time I eat. Small portions of a variety of foods plus water makes for a good meal.

If you look hard enough, you will always find a lesson in a movie. The film we watched that evening was Think Like a Man Too. It was not great, but it was not bad. Most of it was silly gaffes and the lessons came at the end of the movie. One of them was, relationships with partners, spouses, mothers-in-law or children are work. But if you put your energies into it, as you should, the results are worth it.

Learn to live a little. We obviously got home late from the movie. Luckily for us, the next day was Class Day for our older girl, at school. We were told to go anywhere from 8am to 5pm and that after we had spoken to the teachers, we were to take the children home. So we agreed to wake up at 6am instead of the usual 5.30am. Five hours after we had slept off, the alarm went off and we struggled to get out of bed. We finally got up at 6.40am.

Usually, we would be in a panic to try and get back lost time, by bathing as fast as possible, skipping breakfast and racing to school. Instead, we decided to let it be and took our time. We even took the girl’s younger sister along (from her interactions with her sister’s classmates, it looks like the baby girl will love school) and she had fun for the short time we were there. And so instead of feeling like a rushed morning, it felt like a relaxed one.
Thank God for his mercies. I remember when I was in school, that I aced my English and later on Literature exams.

Math and Science, however, were not done as well and I sometimes struggled. It is why whenever I see our daughter do very well in all subjects, I attribute the gene to her dad, who is just as smart. The class day was encouraging. We spoke at length about her struggles and weaknesses, but by and large, the girl had scored highly in everything and the teachers were all praises for her. I could not have been more proud. And I silently thanked God for his mercies.