Thursday, April 28, 2005

Baby Ira's Recovery

Praise God! Baby Ira seems to be making it, with every ounce of strength that the Lord has put into his tiny body. (Read more here) I know his proud parents couldn't be more happier and thankful for what God is doing, and for all the fervent prayers that they have continued to receive from friends and strangers alike.

Josue and I are scheduled to attend an Awards Banquet tonight with Farmers Insurance. Yea, it sounds all fancy and stuff--which it is-- and we need to dress up pretty and such. I'm not a big fan of such occasions, but we'll have fun! Hopefully I will include a picture later on on my next blog.

Posted by Malaysian Debster at 3:01 PM | | Comments

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Senseless Emotions

I'm feeling funky, actually don't really know what I'm feeling. My day really hasn't been awful, except for the fact that my poor hubby is down with the cold, and my body hasn't been that shaavy either while I've been trying to take care of both of us today. It's alright, really. Right now I'm anxious because I'm trying to get hold of my mom back in Malaysia but to no avail. To make a long story short, I had a crazy long-distance phone conversation this evening with a bank officer back in Malaysia who is currently taking care of my loan case. This particular financial institution has been the source of my pain lately. They're trying to force me to make ridiculously high payments for my loan that I obviously cannot commit to at this point. The guy was not understanding about my situation, and he made me feel I was wasting my time trying to reason with him when he clearly wouldn't listen, or at least try. There were so many other things that were wrong about the conversation, which made me even more mad. And of all things, he called me when we were over at Tim's for TND (Tuesday Night Dinner), which was bad timing, of course. I was upset by the time I went back into Tim's apartment. I talked with Melissa and Josue about it shortly after and felt a lot better. I was SO upset and frustrated, I just needed to get it off my chest. I can't believe how this bank was treating me and my parents--their customers. Why can't these people function like how loan institutions do here in the States? I've had virtually no problems with my loan people here, and yet, my own 'people' at home are being so difficult and inconsiderate over my case. Ugh...I don't get it.

Thank you for reading my blog and letting me vent my feelings. This is probably rather petty and I probably shouldn't be this upset. I'll have to see how this situation continues to unfold at time goes...

Posted by Malaysian Debster at 9:35 PM | | Comments

Monday, April 25, 2005

Titleless Blog Entry for Monday

Josue got hit by some kind of bug and he's been sneezing all day, just not feeling completely himself. I myself am not feeling tip-top either, for whatever reason this body of mine is protesting. Yeah, we whine about how we feel right now, but we don't ever remind ourselves that it's just physical and thankfully nothing more. We are blessed regardless. Which brings me to my next point. I have a couple of friends who are in a lot of emotional pain right now. Feel free to read Joe and Laura's blog to find out in more detail for yourselves, but basically they need tons of prayers and encouragement right now. Their baby was born last week with a serious condition and he's still struggling in the hospital right now. I can't really explain the details, so I do encourage you to read the link.

Joe and Laura are struggling to find the Lord's plan and will for their baby. The Lord appears to be silent to them. I'm sure that everything will be revealed to them soon. But in the meantime, the most logical thing to do for them is to PRAY.

Posted by Malaysian Debster at 8:28 PM | | Comments

Friday, April 22, 2005

New Orleans Part II

On Sunday morning, Josue and I got up early, beat everyone else to the shower and got ready for church at 10 am, or at least that was when we had to leave. Church was located about 20 minutes away. What a great time worshiping the Lord together with our dear friends. We hadn't done that in awhile as a group. It was a little hard for me to stay quiet because I felt tempted to want to talk and such, but of course, I behaved. =) After church, we ran by a grocery store to get some drinks and ice, and then we headed home to start the crawfish boil!

The way this worked was that Ted (Jeremy's dad) had everything brought out of the garage and set up the evening before. He had gotten about a total of 80 pounds of fresh crawfish to boil. He basically boiled a huge steel pot (sitted on a gas stove) of water, and then put in some Cajun spices specially for the boil, potatoes, sausages, corn, onions, lemons and whole garlic. While waiting for the pot to cook and boil up, the gang started playing some baseball and/or frisbee in the backyard. What a beautiful day it was! There was also a cool hammock set up for anyone to lay on. Pretty soon some people from church also started showing up for the boil. When the boil was ready, Ted just poured out the crawfish (and all the other ingredients) from the pot, spreading them out between 2 picnic tables for people to just stand around, shell them and of course, eat them. Wow...it was spicy, but oh so good! It was a little gross and messy, but it was also all about the experience that made everything so delicious.

After the boil and after cleaning up, the gang was invited to go sailing on Ted's and Nancy's sail boat on the lake nearby Covington (I don't remember the name of the lake). Sailing! I had never done that before, so this was absolutely exciting to me. And without being too technical about all that happened before, in between and after the sail, let's just say we had a blast just being on the water in the boat, admiring other people's boats, enjoying the cool breeze and the beautiful sunshine on our skin, and most important of all, each other's company.

We didn't get home until about 7 pm, and we ended the evening by throwing a quick surprise party for Melissa. Her birthday was actually on Friday, but this was the perfect day and opportunity for the entire group to celebrate with her. Before too long, we said our goodbyes and exchanged hugs with Kristy and Jenny. They had planned to leave and drive home to Memphis that same night since Kristy had an important test the next morning. As for the rest of us, we drove home to Dallas the next morning while Jeremy flew back to Chicago. It was a quick and short but definitely fun-filled weekend!

Posted by Malaysian Debster at 9:51 AM | | Comments

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Oops!

Hmm...in my last blog I mentioned "Kristy and Laura". What I REALLY meant was Kristy and JENNY. Yikes, what a blunder. We had been doing that all weekend too, always calling Jenny as Laura. (For my non-ACU friends, Jenny and Laura Rich are a couple of our coolest friends who are twins, and for some of us, we still can't seem to get them right! Yeah, and we call ourselves 'friends'...) Anyway, I just wanted to clarify that and don't want either of the Rich sisters to feel bad. =) More about New Orleans later...

Posted by Malaysian Debster at 9:21 AM | | Comments

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

New Orleans Part Uno

The next couple of entries of my blog will probably be about the trip. I will try and be as detailed as possible (key word TRY) with much pictures because that's always the best part. The pictures shown here were mostly taken with Adam's cool and brand new digital camera.

We left late Friday night and drove to Covington, Louisiana. Adam drove most of the way, yea, he was the bomb. The rest of us tried to sleep as much as possible. I know for Josue and me though, it wasn't too successful. On the flipside of it, it was equally hard staying awake, especially when it was Josue's turn to drive and I sat in front of the van with him. I don't think we'll ever do this again. =) Zach drove the last leg of the trip while Josue and Adam sat at the back and played FIFA on the Playstation which was hooked up to the TV in the van. Good thing Josue brought it along. That machine really pulled us through most of the time to and fro, well, at least for the guys, otherwise they would have been bored out of their minds. When we finally arrived in Covington, we were greeted by Jeremy's parents, Ted and Nancy, who had just woken up. They made us a lovely breakfast of eggs, biscuits, bacon and hashbrowns. After breakfast, we had time to just hang out and do whatever at home. I took a nice hot shower and went to bed for about 2 hours. I was completely knocked out in my sleep, just clueless about my surroundings. I know I was exhausted!

At about noon, Kristy and Laura arrived from Memphis. It was nice to meet up with them again. All of us then drove about an hour down south to New Orleans to pick up Jeremy from the airport. After which we decided to park downtown and just spent our afternoon doing the typical tourist sightseeing there. Here were a few things we did: watched one the performances of the DragonMaster Showtime, enjoyed beignet at Cafe Du Monde, walked along the Missisippi River, and visited St Louis Cathedral (which was absolutely beautiful and serene), among other things. We ended our time out by having dinner at Jeremy's favorite Chinese restaurant in town. And by his recommendation, a few of us ordered the very famous shrimp fried rice, which was actually not bad at all. Thanks for the tip, Jeremy!

Posted by Malaysian Debster at 9:22 PM | | Comments

Monday, April 18, 2005


This is me holding a live crawfish before it joined the rest of its comrades in the boil for us to enjoy later...I promise more pictures later with the continuation of my blog about the trip to New Orleans.  Posted by Hello

Posted by Malaysian Debster at 5:25 PM | | Comments

Sunday, April 17, 2005

Greetings from New Orleans!

Quick update. I'm working on this quick blog from New Orleans. We're actually in Covington at Jeremy's parents' house. Covington is located about an hour north of New Orleans, and it's beautiful out here. Their house looks like a wooden cabin right smack out in the woods. There are tall trees all around the compound and a huge backyard. In fact, we played frisbee last evening after we came home from our outing in the city. Extremely fun!

Anyway, we arrived in Covington after an overnight drive from Dallas at about 7:30 in the a.m. After having breakfast, a few of us took naps. I was completely knocked out for about 2 hours and was glad that I could at least sleep some. Then at about noon, we all drove over to the city to pick Jeremy up from the airport and went to hang out downtown. We just walked around the Bourbon Street area, watched the DragonMaster Showtime, and ate 'beignet' at Cafe Du Mont. I'll explain about the dessert later on. Anyway, we had tons of fun. We ended our time out with dinner at Jeremy's favorite Chinese food restaurant.

I'm about to grab some breakfast while everyone is starting to get up to get ready for church. More to blog later!

Posted by Malaysian Debster at 8:03 AM | | Comments

Friday, April 15, 2005

To New Orleans We Go!

My arms are well rested and feeling a lot better, so off we head to N.O.! We leave late tonight with Adam, Zach and Melissa in Adam's parents' van, and we should get there sometime in the a.m. While there, we'll be catching up with Jeremy and his parents, Kristi and one of the Rich twins, don't know which one. =) It'll be like an ACU homecoming, well, sort of. But for sure it's going to be all about the crawfish boil. Mmm.....

Posted by Malaysian Debster at 4:06 PM | | Comments

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Ouch!

Ok...I can't type for too long. I feel like I've been working out my arms to the point of soreness and they feel extra heavy and stuff. I went into the doctor's this morning to have a medical examination as part of my paperwork that I need to turn in to INS. Everything went peachy until I took my necessary immunization shots. I not only receive 2 different types, but I was also poked into 2 other times: one for blood sample and the other for a TB test. So all in all, I had 4 different needles poked into 4 different sections of both of my arms. No fun, and now they hurt, and I feel weird, as in drousy weird. Don't know if it's the meds or because of all these needle-poking.

I'll probably blog again tomorrow when I feel a lot more normal. Meanwhile, I'm going to rest my arms....

Posted by Malaysian Debster at 4:27 PM | | Comments

Monday, April 11, 2005

The Morning After...

Ugh, I almost feel like I'm having a hangover and I didn't even drink a drop of alcohol last night! My body is sore and I'm so exhausted. Didn't even realize how late I had slept in this morning. Josue was so sweet, he didn't have the heart to wake me up, so I had slept through. Needless to say the trip really wore me out. It was truly an adventurous weekend, I can say that much. With the Lord's protective hands, we safely got back to Dallas with the load still entirely intact. The whole couch set came in 3 pieces, and we also moved back an additional entertainment center and a desk for our office at home which needs to be assembled together from a box. The load filled up the whole truck space and completely covered the driver's blindspot while driving. So 3 of us had to take turns to be the driver's eyes and to make sure that the roads beside and around us were clear whenever we overtook someone on the highway. We truly had to work as a team. It was a miracle that we made it to Abilene (we had to drop Ernesto back at ACU) because we were getting really edgy with each other. I know I was ready to kill myself (or someone of that matter!) because of the tight squeeze. Yikes. On top of that, we had already been behind schedule, so I wasn't too happy about that either. Thankfully by the time we got back to Dallas, we had Robert (good friend from Skillman) and Gideon (our neighbor) who were ready to help us move the furniture and we were done in less than half an hour. You should come check out our place sometime. We actually have a proper living room for people to comfortable sit around now and not the former ghetto version! Hehe...

I'm just hanging out at home right now relaxing while my hubby is determined to finish painting the entertainment center that we moved over. It's going to be mahogany and it'll match the shelves in our bedroom. The TV in our room needs a new place to stand on, so the e.c. arrived at the right time. We are truly blessed by Josue's parents with our furniture. Our place is gradually looking like home for us. These will all do for now until we can purchase an entirely new set later. In the meantime, we are liking our new and improved living room. =)

Posted by Malaysian Debster at 11:06 AM | | Comments

Saturday, April 09, 2005

Hola from Brownsville Texas!

Just wanted to drop a quick update from where we are. We traveled into Brownsville yesterday (about 8 hours from Dallas) with a Ford F150 truck so that we can move the couch set. There were 3 of us traveling: Josue, myself and Ernesto, Josue's younger brother. We were cramped together like sardines in a can; with me stuck in the middle of the two. Let me tell you, traveling like that for such a long period of time is truly an 'experience'. We would have to endure this and repeat the process again on our way home tomorrow. I will definitely not want to do this again.
=(

Other than the driving, everything else has been fun. It's really nice to be with the family again. It's always an experience for me just because I have to accustom myself to listening to Spanish spoken all around me constantly and putting in extra effort to communicate. But it's always fun and challenging. Too bad I have yet to fully master the language.

Posted by Malaysian Debster at 12:47 PM | | Comments

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Blah blah blah

Yikes, I haven't updated my blog in almost a week. I've been rather busy with various different things. Josue's work has been busy, and I'm learning more and more by working alongside him at home. I finally know how to work the system where I can find and get quotes for customers. So in case any of you want any insurance, ask me and I can give you an estimate! Hehe...Apart from that, today I went to Skillman and volunteered to help Nathan (our worship minister) with preparation for Sunday worship. Since last Wednesday, I've been going once a week to help take off some of his load. I get the music ready for the worship team and also prepare handouts for the main service. I do a little bit of the PowerPoint, but that's mainly Nathan's responsibility. I can be so computer-illiterate sometimes that it's not even funny. Ugh, definitely need to work on that. Ok, hmm, let's see what else I've been accomplishing...oh yeah, being a 'typical' housewife, I guess. I've been trying new recipes that I get from the Food Network and making Josue my guinea pig. So far so good though, he seems to like everything that I've made. Either that or he's not telling me that he doesn't like it for fear he'd hurt my feelings....Nah, I know he enjoys my cooking, and when it isn't good, he usually tells me anyway. =)

This is a little bit of a last minute plan, but we're leaving to go home to Brownsville on Friday morning through the weekend. It's going to be my father-in-law's birthday and we plan to surprise him with this trip. We've not been back home since our wedding there in December, so we're definitely looking forward to seeing everyone. Pray for a safe trip. While there, we plan to move Josue's parents' couch set up to our apartment here in Dallas. Apparently it's going to be ours from now on, thus replacing our current old couch that absolutely needs to go to the dumpster pretty soon. It has treated Josue well through his college years at ACU, but time for it to go. Anyway, that's our travel plan this weekend. The NEXT weekend we travel again, this time to New Orleans with our friends to visit our college buddy Jeremy and his parents and have a crawfish boil there. I'm personally SO excited about the trip because I love N.O. and have not been there in quite awhile. Plus, we're going with a bunch of our closest college friends who mean the world to us. 5 of us plan to drive down together from here, so that should be fab-fun too. Wow, I can't wait!!!

Ok, this entry has been long and random. Peace out and goodnite...

Posted by Malaysian Debster at 10:33 PM | | Comments

Saturday, April 02, 2005

Time Change

For those who don't remember, change your clocks tonight and set it one hour ahead before your day actually goes haywire tomorrow! Sigh, I have to lose one hour of sleep. That's really going to hurt...=)

Posted by Malaysian Debster at 9:32 PM | | Comments