Yup, I'm talking about the "To-do" list... It never seems to end, well at least for me. It's 6 minutes to 1am now and my mind is filled with thoughts and ideas! Unlike most of my colleagues, besides work & family, I have tons of "activities" after working hours. Having that said, 100% of these activities are from my church. I always want to be the person handling this and that for events. Coz I cannot stand seeing floppy events. But the saddest part is that I DON'T HAVE THE TIME to do the million things that I want to.

Coming back from a meeting with my senior pastor got me pumped up to do more. I came up with the idea of giving back to the community this Christmas as a church and I gave a special name to this little project, which I think I shall reveal after Christmas :D I've just finished draftting my ideas and plans for this project and I am so so so excited!! I got everything planned out and just a little bit of touch up to the plans and we're good to go. Then, I looked at the calendar to set datelines and I suddenly feel so doomed. I'm involved in so many events and I think I just double booked myself. I hate it when this happens. It kills every excitement there is. :(

I had new ideas to sell our album before the Christmas season and it requires $$ and much 00:00. Everyone is so busy I dare not ask for help. Not sure if I am creating trouble for myself but all I want is to have pretty packaging and a pretty Christmas at church. I also suddenly thought of the church Christmas deco... Last year, Sean, myself and another friend did the church deco by ourselves and we were the ones who suggested to make our church look more Chrismassy. Sometimes I think to myself, why do I care so much? Why do I bother? I might even be commented as being "kaypo" (busybody) but hey, I love Jesus, I love my church. Let me do! Haha! I hope that I will learn how to pass "this" down to the people around me.

I pray for more people to take ownership of the church.

So, Christmas aside, it's already the end of the year and that means plans for next year have to be made soon. See what I mean by the never ending list? It just keeps getting more and more. I'm afraid I've jeopardised my time with my precious mommy & daddy and even my por por. :/ I need more that 24 hours a day, more than 7 days a week! I used wonder why I take these stuff so seriously. I mean come on, this isn't my job. Nothing will happen if I don't do it. I won't get sacked. Bla bla bla.. then I realised, in the midst of those questions, that I'm really doing this because I love my God whom I serve. I love the people whom I serve. I would give up my job if I could. I'm that serious about church.

If you've read thus far, pray with me! I need really good time management, more creative juice and a little more push to get things moving! Can't wait till Christmas!

Thank you for reading!

Love,
Sheryn

Hello! I just came home from Life Group and what I've gotten out from the meet is that people inspire people. It's common when a young person gets inspired by an elder person but not this time. Our LG now consists of young people (younger than me) and week after week God's been opening my heart and my eyes to see that they have so so so much to offer! They are a precious bunch! Sometimes their behaviour can be a bit out of place, and may sometimes tend to be rude but I think the 'older' people should look pass that. Not just place our focus on what they are not doing right. 

I was out for almost 12 hours today and when I came home, I walked to what looks like confetti but it's actually fire cracker paper.Well it's Deepavali today and I don't mean anything rude. I noticed that people started playing fire crackers during this season only few years back. Back then when I was younger, people only play with fire crackers during Chinese New Year.
Really confused now. 

I am so fumed up seeing only my corridor this dirty coz obviously my "neighbour" upstairs helped us "decorate". They were having a party and I was sooooo tempted to go up and let them know it's not cool to do that but I was stopped by Sean. I took a broom and I swept the floor and shoe cabinet and I made sure their guests saw me and would feel bad. I was so angry! I stormed into my house after that and I just had to calm myself down. Didn't know it would take so long to cool down. 

Being angry for 30 mins got me thinking about the place I am staying at. I live in a relatively high densed flat unlike many of my friends for about 22 years now. I have neighbours who are immigrants. For example, the people staying upstairs. I face quite a lot nonsense here... I face problems like not enough car park space, once in a while I hear people fighting. The most recent case was just a few nights back when I heard shouting and crying from upstairs. I can hear the "kotai" a few times in a year and as I'm typing now, I have some Chinese song as background music which I rather not having. I have to go through the suffering sounds of fire crackers during CNY, Deepavali and other festive seasons. The struggle is real. There are so many more stuff that I can list but I'm a bit too lazy now. 

So yeah, I am not very happy with the condition here now. I wish I can move with my family to a more peaceful place. I wish money wasn't an issue. I wish this place would remain peaceful just like 10 years ago. i wish I had more car park space, I wish I don't have to suffer noise anymore. I WANT TO MOVE OUT! 

Take me away... *sobs*

I'm sorry I know it's supposed to be a "today I choose joy". I have failed. But I did try to find something to be thankful about. While I'm writing this, I have a bed. I have a roof over my head, I have electricity. I choose to be contented, although I really don't mind moving out. :D 

Thank you for reading!

Love,

Sheryn 

Yesterday I finally got the chance to try out the food at 43 Cafe, Penang. I've been eyeing on their food for the longest time. And since my Life Group venue was around that area, we decided to have a try. Thank God I remember about the cafe!

We're not very good with directions (yes, even in a small island) so we depended on Waze.
To our surprise, the cafe is operated in the porch of a home. 

One thing that was different in this cafe is that you walk in as a customer, you leave as a friend. I guess this was the owner's intention; to befriend with his customers. He was super warm to us. He introduced and guided us when we were deciding to order our dinner. That little cafe serves about 6 types of food, which includes pasta, pork satay, pork steak, burger and homemade "ice scream". 

You need to know why I said authenticity goes a long way. I can safely say that this is the first place that I've ever been that serves food made from scratch, WITHOUT anyone having to shout about it. It wasn't written on anywhere. For example, there's writings on Miam Miam in Gurney Paragon's wall "Our food is made from scratch daily" 

No. At 43 Cafe, you can taste the "made from scratch" yourself. No one has to tell us. 

So after being guided on what to order, I ordered Spaghetti Carbonara
(you can choose your main ingredient: Mushroom or Pork Sausage) I chose mushroom.
Upon ordering, I made sure what I ordered has the egg yolk on top as I've seen in Instagram photos posted about this place. Just wanna make sure I don't get disappointed when my food arrives.
And when it was served to me, the owner said "here's your egg yolk" haha! *shy*

Besides our mains, we've ordered the pork satay. One word. LEGENDARY! Every part of the pork was properly marinated with their special sauce. You can NEVER find this taste ever in Penang. It was simply amazing. When we both had our first bite, we looked at each other with enlarged eyes and a wide smile. We knew this was from heaven! 

We both ended our meal with their homemade "ice scream". I told Sean no matter how full I was I will not leave until I finish off our meal with this. My colleague raved so much about this. The owner highly recommended "Black Dog" which is a combination of Guinness Stout and dark chocolate. But we were heading to Life Group after dinner so we opted for another one, with a lighter (but still alcoholic) flavour. I wasn't so sure what exactly was in our ice scream but it had a little alcohol taste in it. We were strongly advised to eat it with sprinkles of salt to bring out the alcohol taste, which we both did. We even tried with chili flakes as recommended, to get the cold and hot effect.
But I still prefer having it with salt. 

We will definitely be back to try the rest of the food on the menu because 43 Cafe has earned our "Favourite Dining Spot".  

Thank you for reading and sorry if I made you drool! And sorry if you're not from Penang, Malaysia... I feel your pain! HAHA. 

But it's okay, if you happen to visit Penang in the future, here's what you need:

Address | 43, Jalan Sungai Dua, 11700 Penang (Housing Area)
Operating Hours | 5.30pm - 10.00pm
Facebook: 43 Cafe 

Love, 

Sheryn

Just came back from music practice in church... Right after we were done running through songs for Sunday, Sean started strumming to One Way by Hillsong and we all continued jamming. We had so much fun. For me, I just cannot help it but to reminisce about my youth days. We used to have a lot of fun together musically. We'd jam from songs to songs and wouldn't want to leave church. We love each other's company very much... Then after One Way was done, Sean again, started strumming to Here In My Life by Hillsong. I remember that I love worshiping God with his song and immediately sang into the mic. while halfway through, I heard a small voice asking me, "do you remember?" Yes, I answered to that voice.

So what led me here was a comment someone gave me earlier today at work that made me realise something quite important. 

Weeks ago, due to the haze, my skin reacted to it and had rashes and was super itchy, my face was red. So I went to the Spa to look for aloe vera to help soothe the itch. And one of the therapist (a very helpful Bangladeshi man) helped me apply the freshly cut aloe vera on my forehead. He met me today and asked about my skin condition and I said it is gone. then he went on to comment that i had many spots on my face. pimples. And I was a bit sad coz I had nicer complexion before this. He said "dulu cantik, sekarang banyak bintik" (you used to be pretty but now there are so many pimples) and asked me to go for facial. Well, if you know me, I don't do facials. So I said "takpe, biarkan saja" (Nevermind, leave it as it is) He then say, "nanti boyfriend tak mau you" (your bf wouldn't want you anymore). The moment he said that, I just laughed and I was so sure that if i had 100 more pimples, I am sure that my boyfriend still wants me. 

Now now now, I think this is something. This is something that I believe is very important, to know that your boyfriend loves you not only because you look good. I mean I really believe that Sean loves me for who I am, even if I have pimples or I am plump. I believe with all my heart that this relationship is not centered on the outward appearance, although I cannot take it for granted. I need to do my best to look presentable too but I am certain that I don't have to look a certain way, dress a certain way or have a certain skin to be loved by him. I simply need to be myself, love God and love him. SIMPLE. 

This short conversation with my Bangladeshi friend has just made me realised how secured and confident I am with Sean. Thank you, Lord for bringing us together.

Random but this is how I roll... I can be really crazy.

Like really crazy...

Sometimes, not the funny kinda crazy but more to hurting kinda crazy...

But despite that, we're still together.. Yikes. Too cheeesy! (But but but I love cheese... :D)

Thank you for reading!

Love, 

Sheryn