When our home was burglarized....

On the very first day of my reservist training, Addy and I came back to our house, only to find our private space invaded.

3 laptops gone and about $600 worth of cash.

Whilst I was concern about the data privacy of our personal information being compromised in our laptops, Addy was fearful of the physical intrusion of privacy in our home. Imagine a stranger rummaging through your belongings, standing in your bedroom and looking at your life, it does give one the shudders.

It was quite an adventure calling 999 and having 10 officers visiting our home that evening, with the whole works of questioning, dusting the place for fingerprints and photo taking. Apparently, it is the first burglary in our neighbourhood. Despite the our window grill being damaged, the hole is a bit too small and that our external glass pane was not breached for a break-in via that way. The police premised that the intruder entered via the main door.

Our broken window grill from the outside

The whole episode was pretty disruptive, and that is what I did for my reservist. My Navy family was kind enough to release me; a part of me wanted to go for reservist as a holiday break..

We had to replace all our locks, change our grills to the wrought iron type, put up a CCTV thingy with signs. To allay our fears, we are going to put up an alarm system and buy an enhanced insurance plan. So much for staying in a 3 room flat.

But more, the incident made me think that there are indeed selfish people out there trying to take advantage of us. And our responses are reactionary - suspicious of our neighbours, being skeptical of others, walling up our houses physically and thinking that the world is more evil than we thought it is. I wonder how better to reflect on the incident to see how we can better learn from it and be more Christian. It is certainly very hard, trying not to curse and swear at that unknown person.

Whilst we try to gain back some normalcy in our lives, we thank everyone for showing their concern and that our family is at least safe. Whilst we sustained some lost memories and heartache, experienced lots of inconvenience and losing money, we hope this can be a warning to all around us to be watchful.

Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA)

Addy works in a hospice setting and came across many cases where LPA was not appointed for patients who has lost their mental capacity. The downsides are numerous but they boil down to 2 essential parts.

The first about personal care but this aspect matters lesser as family members are generally able to make such decisions for you. This would apply more when you do not have family members or would like a close friend to make such decisions for you.

The second is about personal assets. Even family members have little control over your assets if you have lost your mental capacity. There are horror stories of family members having great difficulty to utilize the affected's CPF to pay for medical bills or sale of assets to do the same. This is the hassle you would have to leave behind for your loved ones.

Addy and I are thinking to appoint designate our LPAs soon, just in case. Seems like we can appoint up to 5 people.

Generally, the steps to do so are:
1. Complete the forms from the Office of the Public Guardian
2. Visit a doctor, lawyer or psychiatrist with the necessary documents for certification issuance (essentially to indicate that you are sane and not under duress)
3. Notify your appointed members
4. Fill up the LPA form
5. Book an appointment and submit the application at the Office of the Public Guardian.

Cost varies depending on who you see to issue the certificate and how detailed you allocate the powers to your different appointed members. You can refer to this page for the relevant details.

Some may debate the necessity of this given that we should place our trust in God. But similar to insurance, what you are doing is planning for the benefit of your loved ones.

Our Wedding Bands - Rosary Rings

We got our wedding bands custom-made from eClarity.

They have a shop at Shaw Centre itself where you have to make an appointment to see. 

We designed our wedding bands after rosary rings as they would continue to serve to remind us of our faith and that it is the extra sticky glue that seals our bonds. Rosaries especially due to our affinity to Mother Mary.

I love rosary rings that can rotate on an inner rings so that's how we communicated our design to the capable Amanda who oversaw the customising of our rings. Service was fantastic and she did not even flinch when we asked for a redesign because the first cut was not good. Would definitely recommend eClarity to anyone who would want to customize rings, not to mention Rosary rings, since they have done it before.


*one of the diamonds came off already. Prob it is time to go for maintenance.