Still Feeling Peckish

So kid #2 is finally back from her school trip to the UK. She had a whale of a time although I suspect the teachers did not because we chatted with one of her teachers at the airport who said that she was getting too old for this kind of overseas school trip! In keeping with the craziness of a typical teen schedule nowadays, kid #2 had 2 more school camps lined up in the week immediately after this trip, so I grabbed her on the one evening she was actually home for some mom-daughter time. We headed to Gardens by the Bay to check out the new floral display that was transitioning from tulips to lilies. Then for dinner we ended up in Satay by the Bay, the nearby hawker center where I was able to find a decent low carb meal. This was not a typical food court because it had Turkish food!

Kebab plate – awesome with just meat and veg.

Anyway I’m grateful that kid #2 still talks to me and she was telling me about how all her friends went into an “existential crisis” when they saw the beautiful English coast and their eyes were opened to the world out there. They started to ask what they were doing with their lives and why they were trapped in a study-performance grind in Singapore. Now when I was a 15 year old (way back when…haha) I sure didn’t have the opportunities to travel like this kid but I suppose every teen goes through these same questions on purpose of life and significance of self. We had a good time sharing and also talked about how we need to carve out time to know ourselves and know God. We talked about solitude time and finding rest in the middle of busyness. And the intentionality of taking breaks.

Back at work it has been a rather harrowing 2 weeks on call and patient problems aplenty. But this week I realized I was really grateful for the high of clinching correct diagnoses for patients or finding solutions to move them to the next step of recovery. The job exhausts me and yet exhilarates me. But I know I’m due for some soul care time again soon and am also looking to find a day to do that next week. In the end the purpose of Sabbath rest is obvious but the job doesn’t always allow it – it has taken me years to figure out that I really need it and that I should intentionally schedule it.

So I was rather saddened when I spoke to a colleague yesterday and I had tried to catch her for lunch and a chat, but she said she couldn’t spare the time because she needed to work extra hard “to prove herself”. She clearly didn’t see the need to take intentional breaks or little pockets of time out. And when I see adults with self-destructive behavior patterns I know all the more the importance of teaching kid #2 how to manage her time and her expectations of herself.

Since I have been so busy on service I haven’t had the time to cook much, but I recently had some people over for a planning meeting at my place. Most people who come over to my place are well-used to being fed and I usually need to shake things up a bit and make sure they aren’t served the same food all the time. This recipe is a quick and easy dip that literally takes minutes to prepare. Cold Storage was having a clearance sale for lumpfish roe, which is why this became a double egg dip.