Listmania 8: Reverse Bucket List

I have to admit I was not entirely sure how to go about this post. I have not had the most exciting life ever. I am quite widely travelled I guess and have lived in a few interesting places but I still feel there is just so much more I would like to achieve.

 

Overseas Experiences

• My parents, who had never been further than Australia, moved our family to Singapore when I was 8. What was supposed to be a 2 year  experience turned into a nearly 20 year love affair with Singapore for my parents and an enduring second home for all members of my family.
• Travelling all around South East Asia on dodgy buses, no name airlines and cockroachy trains in the 80s. One trip we went on consisted of 24 hours on a bus to reach a city in Southern Thailand that turned out to be the red light capital of the region. Eek! Did I mention we had our 80 something year old Nana on this trip too?
• Travelling to the UK and France as a 15 year old on my own. I had a great 5 week trip visiting York, Bath, London, Derbyshire and Paris. I spent some of the time staying with friends but much of it I was on my own staying in B and Bs and hostels. 
• Finding a great travel companion in a work colleague when I lived in Singapore as a teacher at an international school. We went all over the place and it was great to go with someone who was happy to do their own thing and not bothered if you had a pool day or went off to a market without them while they had a massage. I have especially fond memories of a trip to Vietnam with her.
• Our babymoon to the US. It was just supposed to be a holiday but we found out we were expecting shortly after we booked the trip (to take our minds off nearly 4 years of trying for baby). I was 18 - 20 weeks pregnant and we drove from LA up to San Fran through Yosemite National Park and Death Valley down to Vegas and back across to LA. Amazing trip that I would do again in a heartbeat although I am not so sure that Miss Three would cope with all the driving. Oh and we did a day trip to the Grand Canyon (self driven) too. We saw a lot of the country and got to see the Killer live in Vegas. It was magic.
• Family holidays to Phuket around Christmas with my family on the years we didn't go back to NZ. We have introduced the same thing with my family now and I love seeing Miss Three enjoying the same food, clear water and amazing hospitality that was part of my childhood.
• Living in Singapore for the third time with my family (ie hubby, daughter and me) and experiencing a very different Singapore from that I had experienced in the past. Singapore as a SAHM is a very different kettle of fish from Singapore as a single woman or a child/teen. It was always the dream for my imaginary children to get to have a similar childhood to myself and circumstances have conspired to make it a reality. I am very blessed.
• Visiting Japan - a country I had no interest in (in spite of having a Japanese husband) and falling in love with it.

Education

•  Getting to attend an international school for a big chunk of my education. The best part is the acceptance of different cultures it gave my siblings and I from a young age. I am still in touch with lots of friends from this period of my life and see someone from my old school at least once a year either on our travels or theirs.
• Going to boarding school. I loathed every second of it but I have some amazing friends to this day as a result of the 13 months I lasted there.
• Being able to discover what I really enjoyed at Uni. Fees were low enough that when I discovered I really did not like law I was able to change and complete a history degree without it being a hugely expensive mistake.
• Teacher training in spite of having said (as the daughter of two teachers ) that I would never do it. It is a skill that is so useful and transferable and now that I am thinking about working again is something that offers enough flexibility to be able to work and spend time with my family.
• Insurance qualifications. It sounds like the driest topic ever but I loved getting my quals. I miss insurance way more than teaching but it does not work well with a family.

Real Life

• Going way out of my comfort zone for one day and meeting my husband.
• Throwing caution to the wind and getting engaged after having spent less than five weeks in the same place as my husband
•  Changing careers so we could live together - it seemed like such a huge step but I found a career I loved just as much and we were in the same place!
• Overcoming significant family traumas including the deaths of three of our parents, being in Japan during the big quake 2 years ago and losing friends in the Christchurch quakes and becoming even stronger as a couple as a result.
• Thriving after the shock diagnosis of a life threatening chronic health condition when we thought hubby was just a bit run down. It has certainly made us take more chances and live our lives more fully.
• Giving up on the idea of having children after 4 years of unexplained infertility only to conceive the week before we went back to the specialist to see what else could be done. Miss Three was so worth the wait.

This has been such a great exercise in gratitude. I have had so many extraordinary opportunities in my life and more than a little bit of luck. I would love to see you take part in this week's link up at Home Life Simplified . 

Have a super week!

 

Sweet Treats - a Shimelle sketch

I love Shimelle Laine's sketches and starting points. Once again she made this layout a fun and simple process. I think perhaps I took it a little more literally than she intended but it is all good.

 

I can see this is a sketch I will work with again as it is super versatile and I would like to try it turned on its side.

 

This is a very ordinary picture of Miss Three eating ice cream which is a fairly regular scenario. There is just something about this image that I liked as I flicked through my photos. It also meant that I was able to use some of my Christmas papers on a non Christmas layout.

I decided to run with the using the same embellishment in all three spots. In this case I used the word love and sequins.

I was really excited to try the Amy Tangerine embroidery templates on this layout. It was a bit crooked but I love the look and the colour of thread included was perfect.

More sequins and sparkle. Can you have too much of this? I think not.

 
I was really pleased to include some little words from the new MME collections. I am obsessed with those word sheets.


Does this sketch spark your interest? I would love to see any of your takes on it.

 

Project Life Week 8

Yes, I am a week behind but the photos are edited and some are even printed for week 9 so all is not lost!

Week 8 was a week of two halves for us. Half (well two thirds) of the family was in Singapore and the rest was in Japan. So I decided to structure the week in the same way. One side f the spread is in Kobe and Tokyo and the other half is back at the ranch in Singapore.

 

This week is the reverse of the WRMK sleeve I found useful last week and I have to admit I do like this option. I have used a mixture of my  Studio Calico bits in the main on this side. The Jenni Bowlin labels were perfect for documenting where hubby went and who he caught up with while he was in Japan.The Thank you card is a Pebbles one. I have found this set really useful. Let's not talk about our cold weather/snow envy here either!

I am continuing with my KISS approach to Project Life. Three full size shots of what S and I got up to while Daddy was away and a tiny pair of photos of S and Daddy collapsed in different parts of the house asleep at 4 pm on Saturday. This page is a hotch potch of supplies. The large title card is from my most recent SC PL kit. The two patterned smaller cards are from MME. The other 2 are also SC cards. One has just been gussied up with some washi.

 I printed most of these photos with my Selphy. I am really excited about how easy it is to use and now that I have downloaded Pic Tap Go I am hopeful that I won't be using my computer to do much in the way of editing for PL.

Have a great Thursday. Even though I am a few days behind I am linking up to The Mom Collective's PL Tuesday.

Shimelle Starting Point for Subtle Backgrounds

Shimelle posted this starting point a wee while back and to be honest I finished the layout a week or ago too. It is the first layout in ages that I have misted on or used a mask for so it is a bit of a red letter layout.

In my usual disorganised fashion I didn't take a photo of the layout before I added to the starting point!

 

You may recognise these thickers as quite old Amy Tangerine ones. I have two packets of this pattern in varying degrees of used up and am trying hard to use them before opening any of the new ones from the recent CHA. The remainder of this layout comes from scraps of my Wildberry Court add on from the Block Party kit. I adore the Crate Paper background page. I decided to draw upon the red and pink in my daughter's skirt for the background piecing and embellishment. I love these Pink Paislee  mistable hearts and while I had the pink mist out I had a go at a simple ombre mask on some white cardstock. I am pretty happy with how it turned out.

The picture is from one of our many trips to this playground. There are lots of fun things to climb on and a pond with turtles and bridges and a reflexology path for hours of fun. Like so many playgrounds here there is no shade, so a hat and sun block are a must.

Two posts in one day! There must be something wrong with me!

Wordless Wednesday: Now She is Three

Celebrating at school

Wearing her birthday kimono from Bo-chan and Hitomi San

Happy Birthday Scarlett! We love you such a lot.

Cake and the missing sketch

In the lead up to Miss Three's birthday I had very limited free time and was working exclusively from sketches. This is another layout from that fortnight.

 These photos were taken at one of Miss Three's friend's parties last year. She and her friends had a wonderful time swimming, eating cake and celebrating a little boy turning two.

This layout is exclusively from my January Studio Calico kits and add ons. I love the mistable hearts and veneer arrows in this kit but decided to keep them nude as there was already a lot going on with the background papers.

I cannot for the life of me find the sketch this layout is based on. I saved this one to my reader but cannot find it. If anyone recognises the sketch please let me know so I can credit it.

Have a wonderful Tuesday.

ETA : I have found the original sketch this was based on! It was an Inspired Blueprint sketch! # 83.

Listmania Seven: Things I want to learn

 

I am gutted that I missed last weeks prompt! A combination of a hideous head cold and Miss Three's birthday extravaganza week left no time for anything else. The cold still lingers but the birthday parties are over and it is back to Listmania.

As a former educator I am an advocate for life long learning but not a great executor of this idea. There is a very long list of things I would like to learn - some mundane and some definitely bucket list material. Here are some of the more interesting challenges ahead.

Knitting : I can knit. I do knit and I love it. I find it super relaxing and I love working with the colours and textures of the yarn. However, I can only knit very basic things and I have no idea how to move forward from there. A good example is the beautiful shrug I have knitted my daughter. I have knitted all the parts but I have no idea how to put it all together. It involves all manner of complex picking up of stitches. As a result all the parts are sitting on my craft trolley unloved and unconnected waiting for me to crack the code that is the knitting pattern. 

While I wait for this miraculous moment I am working on a new project. A simple, knit only baby blanket that requires no joining, no fancy pants stitches and is a soothing project to sit down with in front of the telly. I have no idea what knitters did before YouTube as it has taught me almost all I know!

Japanese : My husband is Japanese. He speaks, reads and writes Japanese fluently. He also speaks, reads and writes English fluently. He values English a great deal more and has no interest in teaching our daughter Japanese beyond reading her some stories in Japanese. We have extended family in Japan who neither my daughter nor I can communicate with. Fortunately, Miss Three's school is introducing a weekly Japanese class so she can start to learn some Japanese language to go with the English and Mandarin she is already learning. I did take a term of Japanese classes when we were first married and really enjoyed them but every time I tried to speak Japanese to my hubby he laughed. My Japanese was not that bad but he just found it hilarious seeing my mouth move and Japanese sounds come out. Needless to say, I did not go back after the first term!

One of my daughter's favourite stories - it translates as What's Inside?

I still feel like I should make the effort to learn some more Japanese as we visit Japan every year and it is hard to get around if you don't speak the language. I also think it would help my daughter gain some appreciation of her heritage. This is definitely on the to do list.

Yoga: Every year I do a list of things I want to try and yoga is always on there and it remains undone every year. My fear of embarrassing myself in front of a group of strangers is definitely part of it. I am not a long, lean, willowy yogi but a round, short, dumpy one and I don't think many classes cater for that. I know all the stretching would be really beneficial and the relaxation component would rock my world . I would love someone to start an absolute beginners class somewhere where the unco-ordinated members of society could feel comfortable falling over and generally making  idiots of themselves. Mmm maybe there is a market niche?

To Apply Makeup : This is actually something I am working on at present. The whole make up thing pretty much passed me by. I tried in high school but my skin was so pale that only Shisedo made a foundation that wasn't five shades darker than my natural skin colour! I was a goth for a while so lots of black liner and blue lippy and I was good to go. After that I just put it into the too hard basket.

Recently, I have decided that perhaps I need to take a bit more care of myself and a made up face does make me look a lot more put together. I have been admiring the make up looks that Danimezza has been sharing on her blog and Instagram. I bit the bullet and picked up a beautiful starter kit from Benefit. The best bit is it comes with step by step instructions. I tried it out on Saturday and while at the time I first put it on I did not think there was much of an improvement, about an hour later, my face looked amazing. I am not sure if it all needed time to settle or what happened but I am determined to apply make up at least once a week and to use the internet to help me get a style sorted.

How could you not buy something with that title?

To Snorkel: I have been very fortunate and travelled to some wonderful tropical spots in my life and to places brimming with amazing coral and sea creatures. I assume that is the case at any rate as I never get to see them. I am blind as a bat. Cannot see anything without my glasses. As a result, without a hefty investment in a prescription snorkel mask, I cannot see anything unless it is inside my mask! I would love to experience the freedom of the ocean. Maybe when I win Lotto.

There are lots more things I could list but these are a great place to start. I would love to know if there are any things you would like to learn. Please link me up in the comments if you take part in this weeks list. Link up with Deb at Home Life Simplified. The weekly lists are always a good read.