Housekeeping is not difficult. It is tedious and time-consuming, what more with my limited limb dexterity and poor postural balance. Today is the first time I prepared and cooked a complete meal by myself since becoming wheelchair-bound. In between that, I loaded the laundry into the washing machine and hung it up to dry later. Those were the easier chores. The cleaning up after in the kitchen is one task I find no pleasure in doing. Scrubbing the greasy wok was a messy affair when the sudsy water was splashing all over the place. This is something I will have to get used to. Still, so far so good. I am going to make it through the first day unscathed.

Yanti has left. She was sniffling the whole morning, her heart heavy at having to leave. She was given the liberty to upkeep the apartment as she saw fit. She did a good job. I was given a two year reprieve after Mum passed away. Now that I no longer have the luxury of a domestic maid for the daily chores, I am determined to make this work. This is going to be my greatest challenge yet. I will be cooking my own food and doing my own laundry from now on. My neighbours Soon Leong and his wife have offered to help clean the apartment on a weekly basis. That should lighten my workload considerably. With their assistance and other neighbours who have been helping me with my grocery shopping, including Peter, this feat can be pulled off without much hassle. God is my strength � that is what Gabriel, my baptismal name, means. From Him, I draw strength to persevere. By His grace, I am confident that I can succeed. A new chapter has begun.

Photo taken on July 10, 2005.

The haze has lifted somewhat in Penang. Visibility is 5km or more. The sooty stench that had been hanging in the air has subsided. Penangites can breathe a restrained sigh of relief for the moment. This is a welcome change, albeit temporary. Those few days that the island and much of the mainland was enveloped in a veil of blurriness was beginning to affect my respiratory system.

On the other hand, my mind has been smoggy of late. I have been engulfed in a series of yet unresolved issues. Perhaps I have been impatient. I could have been running ahead of each and every of them, with the misguided belief that I could get them sorted out speedily. It has not been so. Moreover, I am alarmed to see that, somehow, my funds have been draining out faster than they are being replenished. For the life of me, I could not figure out what and where they have been channelled to.

To top it all off, I am approaching another crossroad in life. From Saturday onwards, I will be living without the assistance of a domestic maid. It is not the fear of living alone that worries me. Rather, it is the unknown that bothers me. I have been psyching myself up for the past one month. I am prepared for it. I am confident that I can manage. Still�

When I sat back and did a mental assessment of my emotions for past week, I could see that those issues were actually blown out of proportion. I attribute that to sleep deprivation. That not only made me sluggish during the day, it was a major contributing factor to the depression I have been experiencing.

Sleep � that is what I need more of. Hopefully when I have fully replaced those lost hours, this depression, which is consuming all my physical and mental vigour, will fade away. In the mean time, the only thing I can do is to live up to my blog tagline � Living one day at a time. That is the only sensible thing to do.

Taman Pekaka & Taman Lip Sin - 6.18pm, visibility 4km.

Related entry:
Haze in Penang Update - 10.48am

Taman Pekaka & Taman Lip Sin - 10.48am, visibility 1km.

Related entry:
Haze in Penang