I've been making my own fruity/floral tea concoctions at home and absolutely love the nightly (almost) fragrant-cup-of-tea-in-hand-while-watching-tv experience.
Current favourite is bael fruit + dried longan + chamomile mix. Second favourite is honey fig + dried pear + chrysanthemum and next on the list is honeysuckle + rose + chamomile. And I always add a teaspoon of Manuka honey to sweeten it up a bit.
flowers and fruits
my personal lime pixie
Santa came early for me this year and brought me my own electric lime pixie!
Love love love my first cuppa!
rainbow balloon
Here's my second self-designed longstitch project. Learning from the first experience - the girl with the umbrella, I kept the design simple this round but experimented with brighter colours and different stitching directions - vertical + horizontal + diagonal.
Here's the sketch on the drawing board. The placement of the various elements - the hot air balloon, the sun and the clouds, and the colours all mean something to me. However, I actually thought of placing the balloon upside down only after I've started it, so I just let it be. A pity the idea came a tad too late. Remember the inside cover page design I did on my latest journal? So this longstitch design is part of my entire inner world thoughts and feelings.
Drawing transferred onto the blank canvas. I'm still trying to find a more suitable canvas with slightly bigger holes... preferably 2mm by 2mm openings.
And now the finished product. I like how the vertical, horizontal and diagonal stitches make the picture more 'pop-up'.
This is getting really enjoyable! I already have some ideas on my next creation. As I'm still in the experimental stage, I'm thinking of doing something along the lines of shadows and silhouettes or stick figures. We'll see how it turns out. Back to the drawing board for now.
di and rajiv's wedding
I had the privilege of being invited to Di and Rajiv's wedding at Emu Plains. It was to be my first time attending a wedding in Sydney and I was awed by the simple yet so filled-with-love ceremony that I thoroughly enjoyed myself and went home full of warm fuzzy feelings.
I kind of regret changing my mind on lugging my big dSLR with my telephoto lens to the event and hence missed out on adequately capturing some of these heartwarming scenes. Nevertheless, my compact Sony still managed to catch a few of these moments. Below are some of my favourites.
Click here to view all other photos taken on my humble point and shoot.
should i get a pair of tom fords?
I've been looking for a pair of spectacle frames that suit me so I can ditch the contacts once I get home from work to allow my eyes to rest earlier. Currently I wear my contacts all the time except for when I'm in bed ready to sleep.
I have not come across any frames that I absolutely love until I tried on this pair of Tom Fords courtesy of a fellow guest at a wedding I recently attended. I love love love them! Should I go get a pair made?
all things japanese
Got an invitation to a housewarming party where the theme was "All Things Japanese". I had in mind to turn up as Lightning from FF XIII and suggested for Pawpaw to dress up as Ichigo in his bankai costume carrying his Zangetsu. However, unless I made those costumes from scratch myself, it was 1) impossible to find the right costumes and 2) too costly to buy just for one party. My back-up plan was a sexy French maid costume I saw in a Hot Dollar shop but even that was $40!
In the end, I combed through my wardrobe and put together a Japanese school girl outfit with only a $15 expense on a tight fitting shirt. The nerdy glasses were a present from Angel J; the short black skirt was something I've had since my late teens and I remember I used to wear it very often for clubbing; the simple black jacket is work wear; the tie, knee high socks and Converse shoes were borrowed from Pawpaw (don't ask me why he has those socks!)
Pawpaw didn't want to spend a single cent but reckoned he looked Japanesey enough... =_="
I only bothered to take photos of people or animals that had on costumes... here we have a French maid and a ninja dog (is that one of Kakashi Sensei's ninja dogs?!)!
A Geisha and a ninja (and a lady in a simple kimono behind the ninja)!
Beautiful dog in a fierce dragon costume with the word 'Japan' on it.
The hostess cooked lots of yummy Japanese food: sushi with assorted fillings, miso soup, fried noodles and Japanese curry. Love love love it!
After-dinner entertainment was the xBox where I got addicted to the Fruit Ninja game.
Look at my super fast movements! LOL
And my arms got extremely sore the next day.
What shall I dress up as for Halloween????????
stitch and sew
A random impulse pick-up at a Spotlight store turned into an obssession with longstitch projects. Seeing how I have so much wool and thread and needles etc all over the place now, I needed to get some proper housing for them.
So I got this nana-looking sewing box for $10 at a Lincraft sale. I actually really like the pale lilac colour and the embroidered flowers (they look like sunflowers!) on the lid.
Sitting by the large french windows in the reading corner of my room with the sun streaming in, a cup of hot chamomile and honey tea in my hands while I get my sewing kit out to resume my current unfinished project with soft soothing music in the background, I feel like I'm some kind of upper class gentlewoman from the 1800s. LOL
After finishing my first longstitch piece from a purchased kit that included the design, canvas and wool, I thought I'd design my own pieces from the second project onwards. So I started out sketching on the drawing board and finally got a chance to use my favourite Faber-Castells for some colouring exercise! Happy like mad. The tedious part was then transferring the sketch onto the sewing canvas and putting the stitches in.
And here's the completed project (left most is the piece from the kit and the centrepiece was something I got at an artisan market a few years back). Although it looks decent from a distance, I am personally really disappointed with some of the details - lesson learnt: due to the small sized canvas, it's best to keep the design simple without too much facial details. And if you'd noticed, I had wanted to put my signature (I practised it for a long time ok!) on it but eventually did away with it as it was too tedious to sew it on.
I already have my next sketch ready to be transformed into another masterpiece. ^_^
first run in years
I started on long walks such as this in a bid to resume some sort of exercise regime after years of inactivity with the ultimate goal of re-attaining my running pace from the school days when I used to compete in cross country races. With some training, I also hope to sign up and complete a marathon with decent timing someday.
I had my first jog today in what must have been four years. I decided to let my body slowly be conditioned and not overexert my heart and muscles all of a sudden. Hence, I kept it to a slow and short jog of 1km at a pace of 7min/km followed by a 0.55km walk at a pace of 13min/km as tracked by my cool new app on the iPhone - Runkeeper that also maps out the route I took on the GPS.
Below are some pictures of me flaunting my absolutely cool retro running gear for cold days such as today (15 degree celsius with >40km/h winds) and doing my stretches at the northern rocks at Maroubra Beach before jogging southwards along the cliffs to the beach and back up.
Ended the afternoon with a pleasant catch up with Summer who just turned one year old 2 days ago.
I feel healthier already.
埃及铁塔内的苹果
I had a sudden inspiration in the middle of the night and quickly woke up to pen down the below.
想起那时，美丽的小岛上
那突如其来，细细的雨水
无忌惮的打在封闭许久的城墙上
白茫茫中，却正好出现七彩的天空
引雨，引城，陶醉其中
晨阳虽姗姗来迟，却与诚恳的宇宙相约在车站
一路到机场，谈谈，嬉戏，笑笑
跑道在前，幼小的心灵幻想着把红苹果送到埃及
无聊的书本一扔，正是小推车成为白色雨天的娱乐
风徐徐的吹，江滔滔不绝的流
十五十六三十一
雨嘀嗒嘀嗒的照下，城静静的依然树立着。
加十，二十，三四五十
雨会继续下
永不退色的城墙会继续淋着雨
而那长年累月呆在埃及铁塔内的苹果，则会永远鲜红。
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