Five on a Friday - The Blog Edition

I love my blog. I love sitting down and thinking about what to write and connecting people from all over the world. The Internet is a truly wonderful thing. There are a couple of things that bug me too so this will be a balanced five today... I hope.

1. 14 People who I have never met in real life follow my blog. This is amazing to me. I love the thought that people from all kinds of places are finding at least the occasional interesting thing among my mixed bag of offerings. I have barely mentioned the fact that I blog to people that I know in real life and I have found that to be very freeing. I can truly be me.

2. It is a form of creative expression that I have been missing for a very long time. I always used to write and then I left University and I stopped. I missed it but I did not really have any idea how to bring writing back and I have never been a journal keeper. This has enabled me to write again without any pressure and to remember just how much I love doing it.

3. Generally the blogging world is super supportive. I have found that bloggers are almost all generous with their knowledge, ideas and keen to help new bloggers learn the ropes. There us a real generosity of spirit that is a really pleasant change of pace from the real world.

4. Comments - a double edged sword. I love getting comments on my blog and I love leaving them on other people's blogs that I have enjoyed. My problem is twofold. I am never sure how to respond to the comments left on my blog and I sometimes get overwhelmed sharing the love on all the blogs I read. I always respond if someone asks me a question but I am never sure if I should be individually responding to all the kind messages. I would love to hear other people's thoughts on this as it is something I really struggle with. I am currently following over 100 blogs and I struggle to leave comments even when I really enjoy a post just with the sheer volume of posts I read. 

5. Moving from blogging for love to blogging for profit is a minefield. I am totally not at the point where this could be a consideration but I have seen blogs I love go from creative and interesting places to very commercially driven spaces and it makes me a little sad. I know how much time and effort goes into something as small as mine so I totally understand the need to make the time financially productive but I really wonder if there is a good middle ground. I have seen a couple of bloggers pull right back from their commercial endeavours lately as they just do not feel right about the way their blog has changed. I think it may just be an extension of the work life balance conundrum. Is there ever a happy middle ground?

I would be really interested to hear your thoughts on blogs generally or some of the points I have raised here. Have a very happy weekend wherever you are.

Project Life: Birthday Week

This week was almost totally about the main event - Scarlett turning two. We devoted the day of her birthday to doing all the things she likes to do.

This page is mainly Clementine edition Project Life with Crate Paper, Dear Lizzy and Echo Park stickers to gussy it up. The colours are a little off but I am grateful to have these photos at all as my camera has been broken by Miss 2.

Scarlett had a great day attending her gym class, building a bunny at Build A Bear, sushi for lunch followed by an afternoon at the zoo.

The zoo in Singapore has a great carousel which Scarlett loves to ride. The pictures along the bottom are of various animals we came across during our afternoon there. It is a very open zoo and it is great to get very close to the animals without bars in between.

I love the MWL washi with the hearts and clouds. I expect to use a lot of that over the coming weeks. I have also got a few bits from Echo Park and I think bananafish studio on this side of the layout.

I am hoping to pick up a new camera this weekend so if anyone has any favourite point and shoot cameras they would like to share please let me know in the comments. At this stage I will be getting the newer model of my Sony digital camera but I am open to persuasion.

Wordless Wednesday : Singing in the Rain

Miss Scarlett enjoying the afternoon rain.



 

Busy Busy Busy

Wow! I have been a bit slack the past few days but things have been very full on at AIS HQ.

Scarlett had her first day at school (well pre school) on Friday and it went really well. She loved every minute of it although by the time I picked her up she was exhausted. She behaved exactly as we had predicted which was nice. There were no tears or fuss, in fact she told me to go within minutes of getting to school. My only real complaint is she absolutely refused to have her photo taken so we have no record of her first day. 

We have had our good friends down from Kuala Lumpur for the weekend and we have spent lots of time with them. It has been lovely to catch up as we realised it has been four months since their last visit!

Prior to their arrival Tet, Monkey and I went down to Marina Bay to check out the iLight exhibition. It is a collection of sustainable light installations all around the bay. It took us a good couple of hours to walk the route and it was well worth it. It runs until April 1 so if you are in the neighbourhood I would totally suggest you check it out.

The sunset that night was beautiful. I love the colour on the water of the bay.

The Singapore skyline at night is pretty stunning.

One of my favourite installations was these deck chairs. They lit up whenever anyone sat on them. The colours were stunning.

Some of the surrounding buildings got in on the act.

This installation from New Zealand called Light Box was my favourite. There were all sorts of short films and images flickering across the various containers. It was quite mesmerising.

These were Scarlett's favourite. They were more her scale and she could touch them. They reminded me of undersea creatures.

Even Singapore's national symbol, the merlion, was all aglow with the festivities.

I hope this gave you a little taste of the installations on display. It was great and something that all three of us really enjoyed.

I had planned to share a little more but technical difficulties have meant that I have been working on this post for nearly six hours so I will call it a day.

Project Life: an update

I know it has been a while since I have posted anything much about Project Life. I am behind but only in so far as I am working on the weeks when we were in Japan at present, so not horrendously so I guess. We are having some serious additional pages in for the Japan trip... I am okay with that. I think it is more important to get the photos printed and journalled somewhere than to quibble about more than a double paged spread per week. To be honest, we did more in 12 days in Japan than we usually do in 12 weeks in Singapore so there is quite a lot to record.

The most exciting thing for me is how much Tet and Scarlett enjoy this project too. Tet is actively taking photos while on his work trips and even keeping notes on what he does. He does all my photo printing too which is a big job. Scarlett loves looking through the album and I am getting over the fact that she has borrowed and lost a pocket's contents! Fortunately I have photos so I will be able to replicate what was there!

This was a pretty quiet week. We went for our regular Saturday sushi lunch and I took quite a few photos on this visit. There is also a picture of the pathway running along the Singapore River that we walk along at least once a week. The journalling is about the sushi. I just grabbed some bits from my Project Life box so there is some Amy Tangerine lettering and I think the patterned paper is a Studio Calico one.

During the same week Tet spent a couple of days in Taiwan, including about six hours at Taipei Airport waiting for his flight home. The coffee cup is a special Lunar New Year one from the only place in the airport with free wifi he could find. He spent a lot of time in there. There are also some shots of Tet and Scarlett in the bath, out for lunch and Scarlett checking out my PL album. Again I think those are Studio Calico papers and the journalling spots are Martha Stewart that were sent to me in a stash exchange. I love them! Thanks Michelle.

I challenged myself to try all the page protector sizes initially and I have come to the 4 6x6 protector page. I decided to record some of the more frequent things Scarlett says to us. While they are familiar now I am sure her quotes will be forgotten in a year or two so I am glad they are recorded. My favourite is how she tells us she "love you too much" when she means much too. Some of the alphas have slipped a little so I need to go back and refix them I think.

This page is all photos of Tet's three nights in Bangkok. He has yet to update the journalling hence the blank labels but he assures me he will do it before he heads back there next week. He has included a Thai Coke Zero can (his drink of choice while away), some buns his assistant bought from a road side stall, an amazing lantern and the inflight entertainment system on his flight home tuned to his favourite band. An eclectic mix of photos. I used a 6x6 paper pad for the backgrounds - all from the Teresa Collins Everyday Moments pad.

There are lots of little stories from the week on the opposite page. We went to an Open Day at Scarlett's new Preschool and decided it was the place for her. We went on a play date, saw a new bridge being built on our walk by the river, bought a special cupcake on Valentines Day and tried a new mall. This page is made entirely from the Clementine edition of Project Life  and I really like how it turned out.

I have another complete week but I think this post is long enough already! Hope you have enjoyed looking at my pages. They are nothing startling artistically but they are a really good record of how we have been passing the time recently. I just love this project! I hope those of you who are working on it feel the same way.

Two in a row

I have been working on scrapbook layouts while Scarlett has been napping lately. As she has been sick, the naps have generally been quite long and I have got quite a lot achieved this week. Two double page spreads for Project Life and two layouts is a good effort for me during the week.

This new layout is also based on one of Shimelle Laine's starting points. I was also inspired by a challenge on my LSS's site to complete a layout that is 80% product from one company. I have a lot of both the Amy Tangerine and Dear Lizzy Neapolitan lines by American Craft so I decided to have a go.

This photo is from one of our reasonably regular trips to Bintan. It is just a short ferry ride from Singapore and we really enjoy spending time there. Scarlett is obsessed with elephants and there are both real ones and these statues where we stay. It has become part of our trip for Scarlett to go and say hello to these elephants when we arrive and to farewell them when we leave.

I have mainly used papers and embellishments from the Studio Calico Day Dream Believer kit and add ons with a few additional Amy Tangerine and Dear Lizzy items from my stash. I was pleasantly surprised how well the two lines worked together on this layout and it came together pretty quickly. The only non AC items on the page are the bling and one of the strips of paper is Crate Paper which is now part of AC so maybe that could count too. I think my favourite things, apart from the photo, on this layout are the banners down the right hand side and the grey Amy Tangerine lettering on the grey cardstock.

I am a exhausted after a rough night sleep wise last night. Monkey is much better but she had a wake every hour night last night and finally decided she was up for the day at 4 this morning. I did all the middle of the night wake ups so Tet got up with her at four and I grabbed ninety minutes sleep before I was up for the day. I have discovered that I prefer no sleep to that amount!

I am off to work on the first of our Japan pages in Project Life now. I hope to have some pictures to post of some earlier pages for you tomorrow.

Enjoy your Wednesday.

Finally a layout to share

I know! How long has it been?

I have been quite crafty lately but more with Project Life to be honest. I will get around to posting some photos of that this week too.

I have completely run out of my Studio Calico January kit and am now making decent dents in my February kit as well. I am really enjoying the February kit. It has a lot of the Dear Lizzy Neapolitan line from American Crafts which I love. I have also picked up a few additional pieces from the line at my LSS so I am well stocked with embellies and paper that all go together beautifully.

The layout I am sharing today is from our babymoon to the US in September 2009. It was supposed to be just a holiday when we booked it but we found out I was pregnant in between booking and going on the trip. We had a fabulous trip and drove 3000 miles in the 12 days we were there. This photo is from the early part of the trip when we spent a few hours in Santa Monica before we took the scenic route north to my friend, Tina in Berkley.

There is a little bit of concealed journalling behind the picture. You can see the tab sticking out to the right. It reads: So happy and in love. Our longed for trip to the US with our 18 weeks along baby in tow. I felt Scarlett kick for the first time the previous night. Life was good. Santa Monica CA Sept 2009.

I am currently taking Shimelle Laine's Hitchhiker's Guide to Scrapbooking class over at Two Peas and I am really enjoying it. This layout is based on one of her starting points from this class. I love these as I can go as elaborate or simple as I like but remain safe in the knowledge that the essential proportions of the page will be correct. 

Please let me know if you have any questions about the products used or indeed Shimelle's class. I am just finishing off a second layout based on another starting point which I hope to share tomorrow.

Thank you all so much for your kind messages regarding Scarlett's health. I have the loveliest readers! She is definitely much better but still not perfect and certainly not her usual happy self. We have delayed her first day of pre school until Friday and fingers crossed she will be well enough to really enjoy it by then.

Listography: Five reasons I know I am a Kiwi

Kate has posted a more open ended list this week - Five reasons I know I am a... I have gone with Kiwi as I certainly feel my otherness a lot more living in Singapore. There are certainly a few things that make us unique.

1. I love Marmite. Not the weird English Marmite but the proper made by Sanitarium Marmite. It is an addiction I have successfully passed onto Scarlett too, to justify her possession of a Kiwi passport. Shockingly I found this news story today where it has been advised that stocks of Marmite are running low as a result of the quake and rationing may be introduced. I must admit that whenever we have a visitor come from home who asks if they can bring anything we always ask for Marmite or coffee beans - addicted much?

2. My coffee of choice is the flat white. Or a latte, or a mocha -  really anything as long as it has an espresso base and is made with care. This is not that common in Singapore but we have a good little espresso machine in our kitchen and friends and family have been very good at keeping us supplied with good beans. Our absolute favourites come from the Lyttelton Coffee Company. I got a kg for Christmas from my sister. Sad to say they have nearly run out but I have a birthday in April so I live in hope of a top up.

3. Hearing the terrible dirge that is God Defend New Zealand can still make me cry. We have what is universally regarded as one of the most hideous national anthems in the world. It has been greatly improved by the recent adoption of singing the first verse in Maori but it remains funereal in pace and prose! Still if I catch a rugby game or a New Zealand athlete wins a medal somewhere my heart swells as I hear the anthem performed.

4. I follow the All Blacks. Not with the degree of religious fervour of many of my fellow country men but I do try and catch the games when they play. I do know most of the players by name - I can even name some of the WAGS! I enjoy a good game of rugby and am happy to go and sit in a freezing stadium to watch my team play. It helps that I come from Canterbury which is the home of one of the more successful rugby teams in the world. It is easy to back a winner.

5. I can tell the difference between a kiwi and an aussie accent without even really trying. Most of my Northern Hemisphere friends can spot that someone is from Australia, New Zealand or South Africa but they struggle to be more specific. Usually within a sentence I can tell which of the three countries a person is from. Not a particularly useful skill I guess but people always like it when you get their nationality right, especially the Kiwis.

If you would like to join in with the list this week just click on this link.

Have a happy Monday.

Five on a Friday

Miss Scarlett is still pretty unwell so we are heading off to the doctor when she wakes up. This gives me just enough time to do a quick five things I have loved this week.

Blossom:  Living in Singapore the weather is pretty similar year round and we have none of the usual seasonal changes of a temperate climate. I really enjoyed seeing the earliest blossom of the season while we were in Japan. 

I took this photo at a beautiful garden in Tachikawa - a suburb of Tokyo. Seeing bulbs and blossom in flower made me so happy.

Soba: Yes the good old buckwheat noodles. Not as popular as their trendier udon and ramen brethren but their nutty taste and firmer texture gets me every time. I ate two amazing meals of soba while I was in Japan. The second one on an island, high on a hill in a traditional tatami style restaurant with views of Mt Fuji is a memory I will treasure. 

 I just love the presentation of food in Japan. Everything looks as good as it tastes. The soba here was served with tempura vegetables and tiny fish. The little plate came with shizo leaves and spring onions to add to the noodles. There are chilli flakes inside the little red bottle. It was quite a cold day and the steaming savoury broth was just what I needed.

Family and Friends: We do not get to see Tet's brother and his partner as often as we would like. It is always fun catching up with Shinya and Mirei. Scarlett is utterly in love with Uncle Shinya. She is definitely missing him.

This photo was taken when Shinya and Mirei first arrived at our hotel. Yes both those enormous bags were full of presents... we were very spoilt!

An Adaptable Daughter:  I love the fact that Scarlett is never phased by travel. She loves being in new places and absorbs new experiences like a little sponge. She happily played with Japanese children even though they could not really communicate. She was even greeting them with a friendly "Konnichiwa" even though we never told her that meant hello.

She really enjoyed bouncing on the trampoline with other children. It was a great trampoline with uneven surfaces. It was really challenging to get to the top.

Pamol : I think this is called Tylenol in the US. Monkey has been rocking a serious fever the last day and a bit and I am super grateful to have medicine that keeps her comfortable as much as possible.

So that pretty much covers the things I am grateful for currently. I had better go and ring the doctor and get an appointment for Miss S.

What are you grateful for this beautiful day?

Book Club is Saving My Sanity

I decided this year to be a little more into my own self care. Part of that has been joining WW and taking part in Cathy Z's great class at Big Picture classes. Part of this has been finding more time to rediscover the things I used to love before I was a Mummy.

I have always loved to read. My parents taught me when I was four in an attempt to keep me in bed past my regular five am start and from that day I have always had my nose in a book. Fast forward to Scarlett's arrival and I could count the number of books I have read in the past two years on the fingers of two mutilated hands. I missed reading but sleep became a priority and I have always done the bulk of my reading in bed prior to falling asleep.

I found a book club through Meet Up and attended my first meeting last month. We discussed an interesting book called The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake and I was hooked. It was wonderful to send an evening out talking about books with other Mums. We meet in a lovely cafe at the Botanic Gardens in Singapore. Generally we enjoy a bite to eat and a glass of wine and the conversation is wide ranging. Members come from all over the world  and it is just a good night.

Last night was my second meeting. I was a little worried whether I would get my book finished with our trip but we managed to have enough down time that I was able to reread Lionel Shriver's We Need To Talk About Kevin. It is a very disturbing but well written account of the life of a high school killer and his family. We had a good discussion again. I love the different insights people get from reading the same material.

I have just ordered my copy of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother which is next month's book. I suspect there will be some divergent opinions on this title. I am looking forward to getting reading.

Have you got anything you do which is purely me time? I would love to know what others do to keep themselves sane through the early childhood years.

Sorry for the lack of photos today but Scarlett has caught a nasty tummy bug so my day has mainly been spent washing bed clothes, pjs and trying to keep her calm and happy.

Listography: Top Five Cookbooks

The lovely Kate from Kate Takes Five has a new list challenge this week of your five favourite cookbooks. I do love to cook and it was nice to think of my favourites from the past and ones I return to again and again today.

In no particular order here are my five favourites:

1.  The Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen

 I was a vegetarian for quite a while and this book has some amazing recipes that make sure you are actually getting all the nutrients needed. Love it.

2. How to Be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson

I know a lot of people do not like Nigella but there are some fantastic recipes in this book and they are generally very easy, straight forward and no fail. All things I love in a cookbook.

3. Ladies, A Plate : Traditional Home Baking by Alexa Johnston

This is a gem of a book. Not only is it a cookbook but Alexa Johnstone has undertaken some meticulous research into the origins and recipe developments of New Zealand home baking favourites. The recipes are marvellous but more than that, they give a real insight into the way tastes change and develop and what influences those changes. I also love the second volume - ' A Second Helping'.

4.  Happy Days with the Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver

I still regularly cook recipes from this book. The fish pie is to die for. It also reminds me of a very happy few months I spent living with friends in Auckland. We cooked from this book all the time. I have other titles by him but I do love this book. I actually pulled a sicky to go and get my books autographed by him back in 2000. So my copy has his signature too!

5. Australian Womens' Weekly Stir-fry Cookbook

I could have named any number of the AWW book as I have bought several over the years. Sadly I have lost my copy of this one but it has some great ideas for good basic stir fries as well as more exotic offerings. We still eat a lot of stir fries so I may have to buy another copy soon.

I hope you have enjoyed my little list. If you wish to take part in this week's list click here.

I would love to see the books you cannot live without.

And We Are Back

Well in case you all were wondering, Wifi is pretty hard to come by in Tokyo or indeed Yokohama. I was working from my ipad (well when I say working reading blogs and checking facebook but anyway) which does not love LAN cables. I did have the best of intentions about using hubby's computer but then he kept taking it into work for some reason. All in all not a great blogging effort. However, we did have a wonderful holiday.

I have several posts worth of photos and I am really wondering where to start. I figured I might just go with Disneyland as most people love a good theme park. 

To tell the truth the day started with us all pretty exhausted. We flew through the night on Friday and had quite an active day wandering around Odaiba on Saturday. I do not generally sleep on planes and in spite of it being a really good flight I still stayed awake for all but about 15 minutes. We slept well on Saturday night but Miss S was up at six Tokyo time so that combined with no coffee made for a rough morning!

Our hotel had a free bus to Disneyland so we hopped on and were deposited at the front gate at around 9 am.

The closest resort to Disneyland. Maybe next time....

Tet and Scarlett just inside the gates

If you think it looks a little cold you would be right. It did not rain but it was hovering around 4 degrees and windy all day. After leaving Singapore with a temperature of 30 degrees, it was a rude shock. We were well wrapped up but eventually were compelled to buy Scarlett an extra layer.. her wooly hat, coat and scarf just were not enough.

A warm Mickey filled bun helped sustain us

Chip n Dale's Tree House

The Mouse himself...

Piglet

As we expected the queues to have your photo taken with the characters were enormous - wait times of 90 minutes - certainly not a starter for a just turned two year old. Scarlett did barge right into the Piglet area though as shown above. Oops!

Minnie Mouse's House

We knew that there would be quite a lot of things that were too old for Scarlett so we headed to the village of popular characters' houses including Minnie, Mickey and Donald Duck's boat. Scarlett especially loved Minnie's house with a fantastic kitchen with working dishwasher and fridge.

Minnie's kitchen

Minnie's oven with a self inflating cake

We then moved onto a few rides that Scarlett liked the look of. She had a great time riding in the tea cups and even had us spinning quite fast at one point. She loved the giant horses on the carousel and the It's a Small World ride. The good thing about the day being very cold was that the crowds were pretty light and we never queued for longer than about ten minutes. We certainly bypassed a couple of activities because the waits were over an hour but there was enough to keep us happy for over nine hours without having to wait for long.

Riding the teacups

On the giant horses with Daddy

We wondered if Scarlett would be too excited to nap but all the running around tired her out and she slept in her pram for 90 minutes which gave us the chance to grab some pizza for lunch and warm up a little. We had grabbed a Fast Pass for the Toy Story ride that we had to use between 2.10 and 3 and like a star Scarlett woke at 2.10. We grabbed her some food and then tried the Buzz Lightyear ride. We did not realise it was a shoot em up style game but Scarlett did the driving and we did the shooting. She loved seeing all the Toy Story characters larger than life and loved turning the steering wheel as we moved through the ride. It was a lot of fun!

Scarlett, wrapped in her Minnie Mouse cape, sleeping

Hanging with her alien friends

We finished the day trying out the paddle steamer ride on the Mark Twain and we also tried the steam train and the jungle explorer ride on little boats. We saw some great animatronic animals on the final ride. We were having too much fun to take any photos though. 

The Mark Twain taken from the steam train

Ganges Gertie - our boat of adventure

We left the park at about six but not before having stocked up on a swag of Disney bento supplies for Scarlett's lunches and a Minnie balloon for Scarlett. She was adamant that was the gift she wanted. Minnie was left behind for Aunty Mirei when we left Japan 8 days later so it was a pretty good balloon.

We had a great time. It was nice not to have to pay anything other than admission and for any souvenirs or food we wanted. It was definitely a great time to go in terms of crowd size. There were a number of areas that we did not really look at this time around and we can certainly see us going back again when we have our annual Japan trip. Scarlett really enjoyed herself and seeing her delight on the carousel and inside Minnie's house certainly made it worthwhile. There is an adult oriented Disney Sea park in the same location so we might have to see if Scarlett's uncle might like to baby sit her and let us try that out next time too.

Quick update from Tokyo

Sorry for the abrupt departure last week. I fully intended to blog on Friday but I got terrible food poisoning from something I ate on Thursday. Fortunately medication kicked in and I was able to fly but it was pretty touch and go for a while there.

Tokyo has been wonderful. Beautiful sunny winter's day on Saturday and a lot of walking around Odaiba. Yesterday we went to Disneyland and it was wonderful. Scarlett had such a great time. She wants to go back... Right now if possible.

Today has been less wonderful. Another travel day across Tokyo which we knew was going to be a big ask. We were only about ten minutes into the first of two bus trips when Scarlett, out of the blue, began vomiting. We, or rather Tet who was right beside her, managed to get her cleaned up and changed and cleaned up the bus seat. We had a brief stop to regroup and then it was onto another bus. Did I mention it was only in single digits and pouring with rain? Fortunately Scarlett slept for most of the second journey and has continued to nap on and off all day. I have a feeling tomorrow we will see exactly what bug she has picked up.

Tet is working for the next four days so Monkey and I will just be pottering in suburban Tokyo. Or I may be nursing a sick little one in a very small hotel room... Either way it will be an adventure.

Sorry for the lack of photos but am blogging from my iPad. I will try and use hubby's work computer later in the week and post some photos.

I hope all is well wherever you are.

Photo a Day Challenge for March

I am definitely jumping on the band wagon a little late with the photo a day challenge but Project Life has really inspired me to take more photos. Lots of them will never be used and many will be deleted but it will mean that our life is being recorded.

Fat Mum Slim has been running an awesome monthly list of suggested topics and I am going to follow it and attempt to regularly post the results here.  Have a wee look at her list and join in the fun!

The word for today is Up. Monkey and I went for a lovely walk along the river this morning and I took several shots looking up at the trees and tall buildings. The final photo I took turned out to be the one I have chosen though. Two men up on the roof of a building cleaning it down. If I had not been looking up I would never have seen them.

I know I am not the world's best photographer and I only have a point and shoot camera but I am hoping the more pictures I take the better I will become.

I am linking this post up to the Fat Mum Slim blog and if you are taking part the link for doing so is here.

Have a great first day of March.