Watercolouring

I like many things and I am also interested in various things. Some of my interests require in-depth training and learning, which I either cannot afford the money on or I can't accord the time to.
Some other interests like colouring, and gardening, is more accessible to me...

I'd been interested in watercolours for some time but never really dabbled in it. The girls were doing painting over the weekend and I had a sudden inspiration to try playing with it too.

So there I was, huddled over the girls' small IKEA plastic table, armed with a cheapo Popular house brand paintbrush (which was getting matted and damaged already) and drawing paper, flanked by a cheapo watercolour tray from Daiso and accompanied by a small plastic cup of water.

Took me several strokes before I got the hang of it...And here is my first watercolour piece....more like a trial piece haha...

Gerberas....or at least my interpretation of them. The colour of the picture doesn't do much justice to the actual work though. :) I think it looked much nicer in real life haha. Nothing fantastic, but still, it was a good virgin attempt.

I got inspired and as usual, acting on my whim, I bought watercolour paper and a fresh set of better quality paintbrushes from Popular the next day. I also watched 2 videos on watercolour painting....

And voila...the works I did yesterday...

Nothing fantastic BUT, you can definitely see the improvement in the ombres, gradients and textures. :)

And again, the paintings look much better in real like....I'm not a good photographer and somehow always ends up taking dull photos of the paintings....not sure why though....

Hope to find some time again to paint a little...am thinking of using these to make cards for friends and family...:)

Jiayou

Didn't sleep till 215am. Was woken up at 430am and then again at 630am.

Alyssa slept quite badly last night due to her stuffed, runny nose and bad cough. She's starting to sound quite phlegmy as well.

Fingers crossed that she will get well soon.

Fingers crossed also that I will survive today in the office....feeling a little groggy and breathless...tummy doesn't feel too good as well with her semi-lying on me and squashing my tummy for most of last night.

Of flies and buffaloes....

From time to time, I take a walk through Nadya's classroom at her pre-school, to look at the children's works hanging on the walls or displayed in files by their form teacher.

Yesterday, I saw one of Nadya's work It was so cute. They were learning "ff" and "ll" words as well as words that started with the letters "f" and "l". The kids are usually given free rein to construct their own sentences, but they need to use words containing "ff", "ll", "f" and "l".

She wrote this.....

"The fly was flying and bumped into a buffalo. The fly yelled and then found a lamp."

Hahaha...Quite corny but so cute...!

The Gift of Life

I've had good friends undergo IVF and other fertility treatments but they mainly kept the experience to themselves. In one case, I only heard about it when they managed to successfully conceive.

I guess, for something so personal and emotional, it might sometimes be best to keep the journey to themselves. Too much sharing may get unwanted questions from others, which may in turn trigger emotional floodgates.

Recently though, someone has chosen to share her journey with me. Maybe it is because we are in the same team at work. Maybe because she feels close to me. Maybe she feels I understand her. Whatever it is,  ST has been going for various medical tests and treatments and hormone injections for what is known as an IUI treatment. She has been sharing some stuff with me from time to time.

I really salute her bravery and determination. Definitely not easy to get an injection to the belly every night. The whole process and journey is challenging physically, mentally and emotionally. She confessed to me recently though that she was finding it increasingly difficult to keep a check on her emotions. She was starting to feel the strain and stress of it all. I could only encourage her and remind her to manage her own expectations.

She went for a checkup today to see if she has successfully conceived. She skyped me earlier on with a concise "Result out le. Unsuccessful."

Sigh...jiayou gal...

Go where you are wanted

https://www.scarymommy.com/what-i-realized-after-ghosted-by-best-friend/?utm_source=FB

I saw this article on Facebook and it resonated with me.

Some extracts:

"How often, I suddenly realized, I have spent time knocking on the doors of those who don’t want me, trying to convince them I’m worth it. Years I’ve spent worried, wondering what I might be able to do to make myself valuable enough for their attention......

......I’ve never been a person lacking friends and love. And yet those people who love me have gently stood in the wings waiting for me to finish standing onstage before those who don’t love me, tap dancing my ass off in hopes that one of them might clap.

It is not selfish to go where you are wanted, either. It is self-love and self-care to allow the people who love you to love you hard, and to gently release those who don’t...."

I had had difficulty letting go of some people. People who used to be close with me and on good terms but suddenly chose not to stay in contact or who chose to ignore when I reached out. Two of them I'd known for decades. I now know the term for it: "ghosted".

It took years of doubt, of reaching out (to no avail), of keeping those friends at the back of my mind, and lots of to-ing and fro-ing between wanting to let things be and wanting to try to reach out again, before I finally came to terms with myself and with the situation. I finally let go.

As the article says, go where you are wanted.

People come, people go. Accept that some folks no longer want or need you in their lives. Accept that they once left a mark in your life and they have since moved on and you should to. Focus your attention on those dear friends who have stuck around for so long.

Conversations with an almost 5-year old

The other night at home. I was sitting on the floor, knees drawn up in front of me. Feet were planted on the ground 30-50cm in front of me. My chubby calves were hanging loose.

Nadya came by and poked my calves. They wobbled. She poked again. They wobbled again. And then wobbled some more.

She announced: "Eeee Mama, you are like jelly. You have jelly legs. I like jelly."

And then she shrieked with glee and guffawed.

-_- '''

Less junk, Less gunk??

Nope, note there yet.

Less junk, less gunk was my motto for the year but I've not had much time and luck in trying to stick to it.

Everywhere I look in my house, there's a pile of stuff waiting to be looked at and sorted through to determine if it's to be thrown or kept. Every single room in the house needs to be looked at. There are old clothes to be packed away, kids toys to be packed away or discarded, etc.

FFS. I think I even need to look through the refrigerator to determine what needs to be thrown away or kept because the helper is scared to throw things away even if they are past expiry.

Forgotten corners are collecting mega dustballs and hair. Missed areas by the helper still have a layer of oil and dirt on them. I need to nag/remind/show/guide her to be more thorough.

It's grating on my nerves and weighing on my mind somewhat. I wish I could have many more days of leave at my disposal. So that I can take a whole week's worth just to clean and clear up the house.

Close one eye and 看开多一点? Already看开alot compared to last time. How else will there will be organically growing mounds of stuff in various nooks and crannies of the house? Sigh....

I need to:

• Clear up my desk. Managed to clear one round a few months back but now mounds of letters, papers, school notes, kids drawings, forgotten pencils, rubber bands, hair ties and hair clips are piling up again. 

• Clear up the chest of drawers in the living room. 2 small drawers. But they are bursting and spilling over with notebooks, storybooks, random colour pencils, crayons, pom poms, art pieces from school, art work from home, paints, magic pens, etc. Managed to throw away a pile of stuff the other day while the girls were napping. Hope to clear more from these 2 drawers soon.

• Clear up the niche shelf in the living room. Same thing. Filling up with more drawings and artwork, bits and pieces of stuff from toys, other trinkets, school art pieces, furry pens, forgotten keychains, stationery, etc. 

• Clear up the kitchen cupboard filled with snacks and biscuits. Remnants from birthday goodie bags, half-eaten packets of biscuits leftover from the girls' whims and fancies. You get the drift. 

• Look through the cupboard above the niche shelf in the living room. I've not taken a good look in there for at least 2-3years and I believe there are stuff old enough to be discarded in there. Old towels or stuff that are probably yellow from mould and musty from age already. 

• Clear up the girls' wardrobes. There are old stuff that need to be packed or thrown or given away. There are new stuff too that need to be either opened up or given away. 

• Clear up my own wardrobe. Old clothes that I couldn't bear to throw away in past rounds of clearing are still hanging my cupboard. Part of me feels sentimental for some articles of clothing. Part of me bears a silent hope for a day to come when I will be able to wear them again. And another part of me just wants to throw them away. The internal struggle. It's real. Lol.

• Clear up the storeroom?? I have no idea what is in there actually. Things were conveniently shoved in there and then forgotten. I only have less than a 50% idea of the full list of things in there now. 
• Look through the drawers below our bed?? 4 big storage drawers, each almost filled to the brim. One contains my bags and undergarments so that's fine. The rest are filled with craft materials and the girls' things....

• Et cetera.......

Wah

This has got to be right up there as one of the most touching things someone has told me.
Came from ST, one of my team-mates and someone whom I brought into the team last last year. She's 5 years younger but I get along pretty well with her. Guess our values and approach to things are quite similar. 

"I always feel like you get me the most. 你懂我. Hahaha, next lifetime, I wanna be your sister!"

Wah.

Books...

We usually bring the girls to the Marine Parade library but parking is cumbersome there and there is not much shelter. 

Since it was raining on Sunday morning, I suggested to K to bring the girls to the library at Heartbeat@Bedok instead. 

It was a good move! The place was really nice and the kids section was comfortable and spacious. 

The layout was well-thought out and even had toys mounted on walls to occupy younger kids. 

When we bring the girls to the library, K and I would each have our own 15-20mins to search for our own materials and books. 

As usual, I ended up at the gardening section, which turned out to be quite difficult to find. 

And I ended up with these 2 books...:)

Hope to be able to learn more about both moss and bonsai...quite interested in these 2 things....

I Love You

The photo doesn't do this card justice. I swear it looks alot nicer in real life! 

As do alot of watercolour paintings....

To occupy the girls for a little while on Sunday morning, I plonked them at their desk in the living room and gave each of them a watercolour palette, water and brushes. 

And voila! Nadya came up with this card for "Mama and Dada" as well some other abstract art. 

I thought this card was simple, sweet and really pretty! 

Nice gradation of colour and good mix of blue and green...

Nadya was proud of this too and requested for it to be put up on the master bedroom wall...:D

I've been interested in watercolour painting....

Maybe I should "steal" their palettes and come up with some card designs myself....heh. 

My loves

We visited the Tsum Tsum Mid-Autumn Festival exhibition at Vivocity's SkyPark on Friday evening. 

The girls had fun and I got to admire the beautiful sunset. 

It's been ages since I saw such a pretty sight.

Bonus: Because we brought the helper along with us, I got to take uninterrupted wefies with K! 

And we managed to get a few minutes of "us" time here and there before one of the kids came to find us. 

Just......saying........

Email, SMS, Whatsapp, Skype messages. They do save time and facilitate our communications.

But sometimes, having a good face-to-face chat is still best.

Words and tone do get misconstrued in a non-verbal, purely written environment.

Just saying.

Spree

Just did a self-spree on Qoo10 again. To feed my terrarium hobby....
Another $52 gone haha. ;) This time round it was to stock up on vessels (bought 5 of them) and figurines (erm...almost uncountable lol).

I've been keeping track and I've spent $220 so far in the last 4 months for my terrarium and gardening pursuits, including today's purchase.

After today's purchase, I suddenly realised....I'm running out of space for my terrariums..
Gave 1 away. 2 are on my office desk and 1 open air succulent terrarium is still at home as I'm closely monitoring how it's faring (since it's my first time doing something like that). I also have a mini terrium of 2 growing marimo balls...this one is sitting unceremoniously in my kitchen. No choice, I don't have any other ledge/space/platform to put it at where the kids can't reach!

With 5 new vessels on the way....I need to figure out where to put them when I'm done doing them up...

Planning to make 1 to be put at my parents' place. I think they lack greenery in their house haha.

May I find time to do up these little garden jars!

Pray Tell

Sometimes I do wonder how I manage to tahan a working day when all I had the night before was roughly 6 or 7 hours of intermittent sleep, which was interrupted a good 5 times in between by one or both the kids.

Yep, happened last night again.

Each interruption took anywhere between 10 to 30mins to revolve. So actually on the whole I think I only slept 4 hours yesterday?

Pray tell, this desperate Mama is wondering how to get her kids to sleep properly...................:(

MC on 23 Aug

Was on MC yesterday. Had a bad tummy with cramps and diarrhoea and some nausea.
Accompanied K to watch a movie in the morning.  (Yes, I know, I was supposed to be resting...sigh)

Went home thereafter, had lunch and started packing the goodie bags for the girls' birthday celebrations in school in the coming 1-1.5mths...

Feels nice to do mundane and mechanical stuff. No need that much brain power.

Stuff for Nadya's classmates

Stuff for both Nadya's and Alyssa's classmates.... 

Stuff for Alyssa's classmates.....

Hokkien baby

I'm happy that Nadya is taking an interest in Hokkien...:)

She has been repeating "ey sai" and "buay sai" on and off for the last week or so haha. It means "can" and "cannot" in Hokkien.

She also knows "bang sai", "pi sai" and "chau"...erm..."to shit", "nose wax" and "smelly" respectively. Interestingly, most of these hokkien words that she knows all end with "sai"....lol...

Here's to more Hokkien in the future! While my kids should be strong in English and proficient in Mandarin, I do hope that they will be able to speak Hokkien and Malay like me too.

I am not an expert in Hokkien and can only hold simple conversations using it but I think dialects rock! And we should not let them die off....

I didn't know!

On a lighter note, I never realised that some of the National Day/patriotic/community songs are actually composed wayyyyy back in the 1960s! gosh...

Singapura, Sunny Island - 1962
Munnaeru Vaalibaa - 1966
Singapore Town - 1967
5 Stars Arising  -1969

Being songs that I grew up with, I always thought the songs were composed and written during my era i.e. the 80s.....I just realised how wrong I am!

In fact, when Singapura Sunny Island was first released, my mum was only 12 years old!
Wow, that really puts things into prespective haha.

累了

There are days when all I want to do is to lay down and sleep. Or veg out and let my mind do mindless stuff.

Today is one of those days. And these days are increasing in numbers....

My body is in office now. But my mind is floating around somewhere. I am tired. Quite tired. I cannot concentrate. My eyes are dry and itchy today. My neck is aching, as always.

The constant interruptions each night is wearing my patience thin, and wearing me out somewhat...I wake once when Nadya wants to go to the toilet and Alyssa has recently started waking at least 4 times during the night.

I don't know what to do except to trudge on mindlessly.....
Jiayou Michelle. Jiayou.

Last night

Slept 2 hours.
And then kept awake by an extremely cranky Alyssa for another 2 hours.
And then slept for a final 2.5hours.

That makes it 4.5hours of sleep in total.

All because of a damn plaster and the rashes it caused Alyssa, and her stubborn refusal to remove it, and her shrieking when I finally yanked it off her at 3am in the morning, and her subsequent meltdown, and her kicking, and .....you get the drift....

Panda eyes are totally in their element today. Dark and obvious.

I took essence of chicken this morning just so I could have more energy for work today....

Praying for a good night's sleep tonight.
Fingers crossed big time. Toes too.

Ti-gong boh pi....

FML Moment

The other day, I had an ulcer in my mouth. Near my front right incisor.
It started out small and grew larger over the course of 2-3 days. :(

And during that period of time, I woke one morning to find I had a pimple on my face. Near the spot where the ulcer was, just that the pimple was on the outside of the face and the ulcer was inside.

But both were at the same spot or almost at the same spot.

It was a FML moment lol. That area felt so sore for those 2 days....