Marsha Maung: I write. I love. I live

After the peeing-in-your-face incidents, shopping mall toddler tantrums, mentally-crippling bullying in school, high school entrance, cute puppy loves, worrying 24/7 internet invasion in their lives, teens don't cut their moms/dads any slack. Not even when they're fully-grown and completely capable of doing owning their own bank accounts and throwing out their own trash.

A parent's job is just never done.

Accordingly, moms work an average of 98 hours a week and that's why we're always 'Superheroes' who are tired AF all the freaking time. 😂

My boys laugh at me for lasting all of 2 to 3 Youtube videos in bed at night before I automatically clock myself out of this world and into dreamland. Somehow, the tiredness grips me and yanks me headlong into involuntary rest - much like a tired toddler who vehemently insists that he/she is not tired.

The morning started out with us joining son's friends at the ice-skating rink and since none of them seems worried a…

You set your goal at 5km. You reach it and set your goal at 10km. You reach it and set your goal to 15km. You reach it and set your goal to 20km. You reach it and set your goal to 25km. You reach it and set your goal to 30km. You reach it and set your goal to 35km. You reach it and set your goal to 40km. You reach it and set your goal to 45km. You reach it and set your goal to 50km. You reach it and set your goal to 55km. You reach it and set your goal to 60km. You reach it and set your goal to 65km. You reach it and set your goal to 70km. You reach it and set your goal to 75km. You reach it and set your goal to 80km. You reach it and...at this point, you should stop reading this paragraph because it's never going to end.

The Idea Behind the Goal The idea is that once we achieve a set goal, we experience an epiphany of emotions. We're elated and give ourselves a pat on the back. Well done. I wouldn't call it a problem, but I WILL call it an endless loop simply because we n…

We've got to be better than this. And the authorities have got to DO better than this.

The news I got this morning was not only horrifying but it marks a point whereby we need to sit down and collectively come up with something better for the future of humankind, not just kids and their parents. But as human beings.
For the love of God, why are there such monsters in our midst?! Horrifying! https://t.co/WHXfo4qhi1 — Marsha Maung ❤️💕💖😍🤣 (@marshamaung) November 11, 2018 The mother of the child uttered the bitter, vindictive words of “I will not remain calm until the perpetrator is brought before the court and justice is served”. To that, I say she's holding back an explosion of devastating emotions. I don't know if I would have been as polite.

If it's not by the hands of God or fate, a child should not see such an end, no matter how many angles you try to look at it from, and how we try to argue it. Stress? Anger? Frustration. Drugs? Bad childhood? Alcohol?

Insanity?

…

You don't always get to choose what you're handed in life, but you get to choose your responses. It makes a world of difference the perspective you take about what's ahead in life.

If we think of everything, including the bad, as miracles (it doesn't have to be), we are more peaceful.


Happy holiday, Malaysians!
Love,
Marsha

There's a saying that goes something like this - when nothing is happening, nothing happens. And when it does, it hits the fan all at the same time.

Nah, there's no saying like that BUT it sure feels like it right now.


First off, we're going through some major shifts in this small, humble little family of ours. I try my best to keep my head above the water but sometimes, I learn how to survive choking on salt water.

Second of all, I want to tell all you parents of young children this: you don't know what's in front of you, you really don't. If you think teething is the worst thing EVER, you're in for some surprises.

Third, I am a Buddhist. And you know how they tell you the worst thing you can do in life is to attach to earthly stuff and beings and whatnots? Yeah, turns out, it takes a plane ticket to Tibet/Bali/Thailand/Myanmar (take your pick), a month in a monastery and weeks of meditation. If you're a normal person like me, this whole detachment thi…

Apart from Mills & Boons (don't deny it all you 1980s teenage girls out there!!! 😁) and boxfuls of second-hand books I have no idea where my dad got from, if I had enough money on me, I would spend it on a Reader's Digest magazine.

Filled to the brim with everything from wound-salving stories of rescue missions to life-changing scientific discoveries, the packed magazine presented me with a world outside of my young life. It was a reservoir of both joy and knowledge for a young, curious mind!

Challenging myself to discover new English words, laughing out loud at rib-tickling anecdotes and jokes, and gawking at mind-blowing pictures of bucolic landscapes of faraway lands was what Reader's Digest was to me. I kept and re-read them which didn't make sense to some of my friends.

The magazine has scaled down a fair bit over the years, no thanks to the Internet and the fact that very few people actually read these days. I often feel a sense of camaraderie when I see som…

You know how you start off with one cup of coffee in the morning. But then something happens mid-way, you’re distracted, and the cup of formerly-hot cup of coffee gets left on the table only to be discovered hours later colder than Canada.
The hours that follow, you’ve also made yourself a hot cup of chocolate when a guest whisks you away and the cup joins the formerly-hot cup of coffee on the table.

At the end of the day, you might end up with five cups of half-full, empty, stained, or full cups left unceremoniously on the table. What’s this got to with working from home, writing or doing anything official?


What if we all stuck to the one-cup rule for one day? Don’t make another cup of anything until you’re done with what you’ve made before? What if when you feel like drinking something warm, you down the earlier cup-of-something and THEN fix the new cup-of-something-new?
What I am trying to suggest is for us stick to our guns...even when we feel like we're losing ourselves in the s…

The rain outside is just insane right now. One moment I was walking to the car basked in a little bit of sunshine, another moment I could hardly see the road ahead of me when I was driving. 😓The wonders of being in a tropical country.

But we are a pretty lucky bunch. No hurricanes, no tornadoes, no earthquakes, no volcanoes, no winter, no heat wave (close...we come close - LOL) and no other natural disasters. Mother Earth loves us.


It's been some time since I've posted about things coming out of my kitchen. Bear in mind, I am a work/stay-at-home mother of 2 ravenous boys. I make it a point to cook at home as much as I can but I've got to tip my hat off to people who post cooking videos.

I tried that, I honestly did. Do you know how hard it is without proper equipment and lighting?! Gosh, it doubles or triples the usual cooking time because you're thinking of all the things to do and say or showcase in the video or whatever it is you're trying to post.

I gave up. A…

We're not even shy about it anymore - to post a negative comment, to jump to conclusions, to judge a stranger, to negate a report based on our personal views and interests, or to shame someone simply because we can.

There were a few times that I almost made the human mistake of being slightly more human than usual, i.e. leaving my TEENAGE BOYS in the car while running in to pay for petrol, double-parking with my kids still in the car, or pissing someone off in a restaurant. It's stuff we used to get away with before the internet happened not that they're right, but it's not always wrong and some are easily corrected and forgiven.

I stop mid-sentence, turn to my friends and boys and whisper, "Gosh, I better stop. What if this ends up on Facebook or something". Why does every action I take in real life have to feel like I have a knife to my neck?

Recently, an article was published in a local daily about how cutting out carbs from one's diet could result in …