Belated Thanks!

Thanks everyone for your well-wishes for my birthday! :)

• I think my scrapbook obsession is apparent to all. Thanks QF for the fabulously sweet scrapbooking kit!

• Thanks Yiwei, Jiaying, TY and TY for adding to my stash (oh joy!).

• Thanks Yivon for the bag and our MBS staycation!

• Thanks Wendy for the treasure chest of materials and my very own card!

• Thanks SX for the very writable journal!

• Thanks Des for the supermarket vouchers!

• Thanks TJS and R for the necklace, charms and all!

• Thanks KM for the 00:00 phone call and postcard (I'm sure your 5pm at Florence was a sunnier one than mine!)

• Thanks XX and Yilynn for organising our PS Cafe lunch!

• Thanks TR for the surprise cake and Gnomes books (how many more to go?)!

• Thanks A. Sandy for the watch!

• Thanks to my parents for the Kate Spade bag (en route) and cake (my retarded bro owes me a prezzie)!

• Thanks to my grans for their ang bao and Yosemite Sam!

• Thanks YY and Ivy for the super cute romper/dress!

baby installation

A new-age Anne Geddes!

Have not seen something so creative, uber cute, and original, all in one picture!

Check out more of Adele's creations at Mila's Daydeams. Quoting her "While my baby is taking her nap, I try to imagine her dream and capture it".

Hmmmm, I wonder do babies really have such fanciful daydreams? Maybe they have even weirder ones in their little minds.

Observation: Mila has tons of adorable rompers, dresses etc!

Plasticine People

I spend a disproportionate amount of my time surfing blogs and only 15 mins each morning flipping through yesterday's papers! Not a good habit I realised when people in the office start referring to the hottest news and all I can do is nod politely.

Read an interesting article on Monday where the author described "plasticine" young adults as "mostly white collared workers who are somewhat numb to life, have no dreams, interests or ideals, and do not feel much pain - or joy... Typically they work alone and for more than 50 hours a week. They feel as if they have expanded all their energy and all they get in return is a sense of emptiness".

The author cites doctors, bank employees, teachers, journalists, traffic policemen, civil servants, actors, taxi drivers as examples. No lawyers mentioned. Basically anybody can be a Plasticine, with people in solitary jobs more prone to being one. I understand what TR means when he mused about the importance of having peers in your job.

Thankfully, I don't think I'm qualified to be a Plasticine yet, not when I am capable of feeling pain and joy (sometimes I want to be numb!) or when all I want to do is travel, take photos, read and scrapbook. But I can think of a couple of people around me who seem to be in danger of being plasticined (I think it's a more negative than neutral phenomenon), hmmm maybe I should highlight this to them.

Snapshots of Europe

I understand why they say that September is the best time to travel - the crowd of summer has dispersed, the weather is still warm but you can feel the autumn winds sneaking in occasionally. How nice is that sigh.

The only travel I did this month was our annual family getaway at our favourite villa in Bintan (which was a very timely retreat), more of that later. However, was still dreaming of my trip to Italy/France a few months back (it seems so long ago!) so I tried to recapture some of the memories on paper, what else.

Florence - It rained almost non-stop the 3 days we were there but you know how the rule of inverse proportion works in such instances - the wettier it is, the less crowded it gets. Piazzale Michelangelo looks dreamily surreal that day, I appreciated it much more than the last time I visited it in sunny weather. But, the romp in the rain was probably the reason why TR had to cold sponge me that whole night.


Cinque Terre - a slice of heaven on earth. I can't say anything more, you have to visit it to know what I mean.



Paris on a too hot day. We did the obligatory Eiffel shots. Not saying that I did not enjoy it, finding a nice spot and sprawling on the grass is probably one of my fav things to do overseas. Nothing much has changed on the Left Bank (except us arrgh) as you can see in the picture below which was taken 2 years ago at around the same time.

this close to nature

Highly amused by these pictures of TR and the worm (millipede??). I suspect he's usually quite squeamish around insects but he looks like a kid transfixed by a new discovery in these pics. I'll say the hilly air of Cinque Terre does wonders to your mood and sense of being...

Here it comes

My favouritest golden month September has arrived but I can't seem to muster enough spirit to wish everyone a Happy September Day. The only thing that's taking my mind off other things (I need to keep things vague) is scrapbooking. Seriously it's one of those rare indulgences that gives me sustained gratification. It makes me happy, which is not quite so easy to come by nowadays.

Scrapbook/scraplifts I did for the twins' birthday:





Too adorable not to do a layout on these pics TR dug out from his attic.