Right Now - February 24th

• feeling : pain. in the butt. I cycled at the beach for slightly more than an hour today. Now my butt is hurting. I need to get me a padded underwear or at least tie a cushion to the bike seat next time. Ha!
• drinking : 100PLUS. Isotonic. And lots and lots of chilled water. 31℃/88℉ over here.
• wanting : sleep. yesterday I went to bed at 6:35pm * I must be out of my mind then*, I was so freakin' tired. 40 minutes later I jumped outta bed coz I suddenly remembered that I don't have a cleaning/ironing lady and I have to iron school uniforms. And ended up sleeping way later than usual because the nap screwed up my bedtime.
• thinking : I'm gonna walk funny tomorrow. I always do after any time spent on the bike.
• eating : oh we had fishball noodle soup at 4pm, I told my children we're having cereal for dinner. or toast. or milk and cookies. or whatever they can find in the fridge. you get the idea. anything as long as I don't have to cook and minimal dishes.
• enjoying : the fact that I got 4 days of work out this week. they're small stuff - some briskwalk on the treadmill, some weight lifting, about 1km of running *pathetic, i think* and cycling and walking on the beach. I'm starting over after 7 months of inactivity - I wanna go slow this time. and i tell myself I'm not gonna register for any race.
• listening : to my almost 10yr old singing her heart out in the shower.

• I pat myself in the back after I completed this layout because it came out exactly as I imagined it. Exactly. I think that has never happened before. I usually stray from the plan, on purpose.

• Still very much in love with the Valentine Flair Button. I just ordered more!
• I like that this layout is simple and straightforward. We're that kind of people, Mr.Husband and I :)
• Friday night over here. Have a great weekend y'all!

xoxo

Roots and Wings

• sometime most of the time I don't know what I'm doing. This parenting thing is hard.
• The other day I got an email from BabyCenter I think, the subject was - Are you ready for parenthood? I went - oh my God, aren't you like, 13 years too late?. Haha!

• Told ya, I'm in love with ampersands right now :) Had so much fun doing up that one.
• Check out the rest of our 'Collage' projects up on Crate Paper blog.

“There are two lasting bequests we can give our children: One is roots, the other is wings.”

~Hodding Carter

I hope we gave you both. ~Mommy.

*hugs*

19 days too late. . . but

• Hello February! :) Slow down will you?
• I edited my previous post to include the names of the girls who will be getting my handstitched tags. Please email me, darlings.

• The chevron glassine bag holds the recipe for the Stromboli. Had to stick some washi on top of the pocket to keep it from sliding out, but I don't mind so much. Especially seeing that I can wrap myself with washi and still have leftovers :)

• A few Chic Tags in action here. :) Everyday Life This Week ATC, Everyday Life Notebook ATC and Everyday Life ATC. I can't get enough of the ATCs as you can see. :)
• Love the look of Hambly Little Hearts overlay in one of the pockets. I may dig into my pile of overlay scraps more often!
• The coming week is gonna be a slow one. Mr. Husband is in New York and we'll be laying low. Maybe I'll sneak a movie or two while the girls are in school, but other than that, umm... yes, nothing much.
• I'll see you soon!

xoxo

Come say Hi! *closed*

Edited to add : The three sets of tags will be flying to Jacelyn, Diana Albright and Maria! Email me girls! :) xoxo

• All I wanted to do these past couple of days was watch TV. So I thought I'd stitch some tags.

• iPhone photo, but you get the idea. :)
• I wonder if anyone is interested in these tags? I have three sets to giveaway. They're not perfect, but they were stitched with so much love.
• They're not all the same colors. The other two sets have two different shade of grey for the word 'today'.
• So yeah, just let me know. Say hi. Say hey.
• I love you.

xoxo

Love grows here

• Have you been to Crate Paper lately? :) The Valentine's event is nearing its end. You'll want to take a peek, trust me - gorgeous projects on display not to mention the yummy giveaways :) Totally worth a hop to the Crate Paper blog in my opinion. *grins*

• My silly girls, a couple of years ago. Still one of my favorite photos of them. My heart still skips a beat when I take a look at them now and see how much they've grown. *sigh*

• The words were traced and handstitched. Each with a different hue of pink. DMC 601-605 if you want to look for the same colors. :) Font : Learning Curve from dafont.com
• Heart Blossoms from the Silhouette Store. I thought of Paper Heart collection the very first time I looked at it.
• *sigh* Love grows here. I think I need a cuddle now. Y'all have a great weekend!

xoxo

One silly question

• those paper straws I've been seeing lately - they're VERY pretty. But tell me, won't they turn soggy when used? I seriously want to know, because I'd hate to buy and use them only to get paper bits in my drink.
• thank you very much, in advance, for your answer and for not making fun of me. You know, just in case people only buy them for deco/photo op and not to actually use them? haha!

• Things I really love on this page - Justice tshirt tag. That supermarket receipt behind one of the photo which I hope won't fade soon. And photos from friends - I love that they send me photos of them running with Mr. Husband. So I get to have photos even when I'm not there!

• I have an insert this time. Used the Design G Project life page protectors for some of the photos I took during one Cross Country event. Included Mr. Husband's bib in one of the pocket. I try not to worry that the bib is bigger than the pocket. I just fold some part and stick it in there with a paperclip.
• Cute dragon was from a Chinese New Year red packet - I cut it to size.
• Bits and pieces made up the rest. Some misting, some stamping, some punching of scraps - and I'm done up to january 23rd.
• Because of the way I'm doing my Project Life, I can't promise when my next PL update is gonna be. I'll share once I have a two page spread to photograph! Maybe it's sooner, maybe it's later. I figured this is a big enough commitment already without pressuring myself to complete certain page numbers in a week.
• What about you? How is your Project life coming along? I would love to see.. link me up!!

xoxo

Love despite; not because

“You don’t love because: you love despite; not for the virtues, but despite the faults.”

~William Faulkner

• That is why, despite feeling like a broken record, repeating - "dirty clothes in the hamper, not on the floor" - "stop leaving your socks all over the house or I'll throw them away and one day you will have no socks left" - "how hard is it to put your cereal bowl inside the sink? I don't even expect you to wash it!" - "put away your clean, folded clothes nicely. if I want to just chuck and crumple them inside the wardrobe, I could have done it myself, from where i stand, i don't even have to go into your room."
• You get the idea?
• Yes. Despite all that, I still love them like crazy.
• And oh! one more - "why would you put empty containers inside the fridge? you expect them to walk out to the rubbish bin themselves? or for the water bottle to refill itself? geeez!"
• Haha!! Tell me I'm not alone! Tell me i'm not insane for laughing when sometime I wanna cry. LOL.

• My first layout for Chic Tags - and I'm already in love. So in love with the tags. High quality and not flimsy at all, they're just so awesome to work with.

• Look at that 'forever' button. Yum! I'm gonna need more than one pack of the Valentine Flair Buttons. I promise you will see them wayyyyyy after Valentine is over. LOL. Very useable and versatile.

• That yellow ampersand is from the Silhouette store - I bought it recently and I can't stop cutting out ampersands! Help! :)
• If you're following me on Instagram - you'll know that I've been working on my Project Life. A post coming soon, I promise!
• And if you're following me on Instagram - you also know I ingested about five million calories yesterday. *sigh*

Of being scared, of being afraid.

• I fear leaving them behind. My daughters. I know one day we will all die, but if I can ask for one thing, please God, let me stay alive until they can take care of themselves.
• I'm afraid of losing my mind. Really. You can never take your sanity for granted. What if I wake up one day and don't recognize them anymore? Oh My Goodness I can't imagine.
• On a lighter note, I'm scared of wild animals and the dark. You combine those two together and you get a very scared Sasha. The last time we were at Night Safari here in Singapore, I refused to get down from the tram. Much to the dismay of my family. They wanted to walk around in the dark, looking out for nocturnals. Thankyouverymuch. I told them they can do so and I'll meet them at the entrance. Haha! In the end, they stayed put in the tram with me. I heard whispers - *next time we go without mommy*. LOL.

• I need about 15 more packs of those Pebbles kraft alpha stickers. Love. :) Polaroid stamp from Cocoa Daisy. Stamped tag - I've had it forever, I think it was from an old Scarlet Lime kit. Stamped alphas - Studio G, also an old set. I love mine!

• Added some handstitching (actually, no - I stitch first once I have the rough idea of how my layout is gonna be), Hambly tapes, KaiserCraft pearls and eyelets.
• Almost 2am in Singapore. I ought to head to bed or I will be 'paying' for this for the next week. I'm a grandma, I usually sleep at 10. 11 the most. Ha!

xoxo

Don't let what you can't do stop you from doing what you can do

• I read that somewhere, sometime ago. It's true, you know. I'm guilty - many times over. This has to change. I need to concentrate on what I can do, rather than wasting my resources and concentration on what I can't.

• Photo printer/photos : I use my Selphy for almost all my photos, except for enlarged ones where I send them to the photo shop nearby. I also use Picasa as my platform before printing my pictures - that way, I can just select and 'hold' photos together and they will automatically fit two photos onto a piece of 4x6. The photos won't be exactly 2x3 but I don't mind that because I love the white border around smaller photos. I also don't edit my smaller photos. Saving whatever time I can here.
• Printing on journaling cards. If I could kiss Liz Tamanaha, I would do so everyday. Click here for the free template she prepared. It makes printing on those 3x4 cards a breeze.

• Love that stapled wooden butterfly from Studio Calico.

• Weekly spread : I have no rules set in stone for this. If I can fill a double page, great. If not, no harm done. Just look at my week one - three pages + one huge photo insert, and that's okay. This one here is week two and a little bit of week three. I might be adding a divider for different months later on, but nothing for now.
• Planner : I don't have any plan for this project. I'm more like 'fly by the seat of my pants' kinda girl. For me, Project Life is my playtime. I say do what works for you.

• And I made this today. Based on the speed that my children and I inhaled it, I can't leave without sharing the link to the recipe. Stromboli - just a fancy shape and name for a pizza according to Lauren, but I beg to differ. Stromboli, to me - is every kind of awesome and I like it much better than pizza.

She had me at pastries

• She is Katrina from Pugly Pixel. Notice some changes around here? Ah, yes, I changed some things around, all thanks to a free blog template from Katrina. Powered by Pastries - seriously how adorable is that name!
• I'm going for simple here. Clean, soothing grey. One of the way I'm embracing my grey hair. LOL. just kidding. no, not really.
• I'm also going for simple here because I don't have the ability to read and understand anything more than basic html. This simple tweak, took me three days + headache + nightmares. Ha! I think I talked about drop shadows and font choices in my sleep!
• So what do you think?

• Did you see a new blinkie *i just noticed it's not blinking, LOL* at the side bar? *grins* I'm so looking forward to be working with Veronica and the rest of the girls these few months! And I promise you, as soon as I get my package of tags and other goodness, you will see them appear lots especially in my Project Life!
• Speaking of which, I have a post going up soon for Project Life. I just need to take some photos first. If you have any question - please leave them here so I can help you in my next post.
• And because I don't want to post without a photo. . .

• Made these for brunch the other day. Pizza puffs, (as if i'm not puffy enough). Ha!!
• I'll see you soon!!