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.

Snapshots of July

Andy and Cui dropped by for a visit - it really feels like NYC is more their home now - and off to The Dunearn we went for a "posh dinner with a dress code", another of Cui's strange requests. Enjoyed dinner but enjoyed sneaking into BTC more. Quadrangle B at night, how nostalgic! Until we were politely chased off by security, my ex-student status did not impress them.



NAPS gathering, we're maintaining the numbers! At least for now. But Mal's returning to London and Wee just jetted off to Aust. Now that Eleta's migrating for good, don't know when we can pack a round table again.

Singapore River in the evening through a condensing lens. No, I was not at work at 6.00am.


Lunch time at Far East Square. We usually won't walk that far but wanted to help my mom take some pics for a ridiculous contest organised by her company. The only people in action I managed to capture were the Quiznos staff working the coffee machine and KM using a fork to eat his sandwich.


Food For Thought - nice location, lousy service and overpriced food. Was very grumpy cos they took my order for choc pancakes (recommended by Nic and Jia) and told me much much later that they didn't serve pancakes at 4pm.



The giant inflatable bunny that has been travelling around Singapore, heartlands and all.



The corner coffee shop at the intersection of Joo Chiat Road and East Coast Road is where I indulge in sinful hawker food. The best fried mee sua and tau kwa pau!

book hunt

The annual NLB book sale at Expo must be one of the largest crowd puller. I dropped by today, the last day and a few hours before closing, yet it was still very crowded. Didn't expect to find any good books at this late hour but was pleasantly surprised to spot a few. Noticed that non-fiction and children books out numbered adult fiction books by 70%!

NLB book sale is certainly not the place to pick up the newest titles but it's a good bet if you want to find those obscure, discontinued books. I think my best buy ever must be Madeleine L'Engle's "Dragons in the Water". I'm sure you can only find second hand copies on Amazon.

Speaking of which I bought a simplified biography of Madeleine L'Engle today. Am extremely delighted to read that her favourite author is... LM Montgomery! I mean they are BOTH my favouritest writers!

Bought a New England travel guide (all books at $2). Since the travel books are all dated (2006!), chose a series where the published date doesn't matter that much - a pictorial guide to the best driving trips in the region.

The last book I plucked from the bin is Imogen Edward Jones' "Tuscany for Beginners". It's chick lit mixed with a dash of Frances Mayes "Under the Tuscan Sun". Perfect for easy breezy reading on the MRT. Anyway I have high expectations from the author of the excellent Babylon series.

Scrapping memories

Everybody knows how I go ga-ga over scrapbooking materials, magazines and all that paper stuff. The truth is, I hardly get my hands down to actually scrapping my photos. I think it's equally enjoyable just flipping through the magazine pages, scrolling through blogs and dreaming of all the possible pages I can create.

Here's the HK pages which I did on a sudden whim shortly after we returned. I guess Dragon's Back on a drizzly, blustery winter day was an unforgettably un-Hongkong-ish experience. Some people think we're crazy to hike in HK, I mean why HK of all places right? But I always make it a point to do/see something less common in each place I visit and to have a varied trip - shopping, scenery, culture, outdoor activity - to prevent sightseeing fatigue. The piping hot and cheap egg tarts at Shau Kei Wan at the end just topped it.





Got this idea for a "memory file" from KP, one of my fav scrappers. What attracted me to this project was how easy and quick it was to put everything together and how ingenious it is to collate all your loose souvenir neatly into one file. Anything that can go under the puncher can be thrown in. While each piece of paper may look rather insignificant on its own, the whole stack nicely sums up what we did for our US trip.

Daiso is the best place to get all sorts of strange but extremely useful stationery supplies like the postcard folders above and the punched sticker extension below when you don't want to punch holes through a particular document.

Snapshots around town - Kallang River

It's true that when your friends get married, you barely see them, with or without their other halves. Which is probably one reason why I agreed, albeit rather reluctantly, to SX's demanding request. Please remember to photoshop my head off thanks.

Headed down to Brewerkz thinking that it will be relatively more empty cos of the location but a phone call reminded us that it was world cup season and there were large screens indoors and outdoors. Took a gamble and secured an outdoor seat which was pretty nice on a breezy evening. Was told by the football fan among us that it was Holland vs Japan that night hence the many Japs around us. Didn't stay long enough to hear the cheers.

Love the mirrored surface of the calm river and the darkening clouds at twilight. Imagined that I was staying in one of those riverside condos. Swoon. Remembered that the bridge holds significant memories for SX and WQ and the long stakeout we had to do on the night he decided to propose to her. Probably one of the most romantic places in Singapore, especially at sunset.

Ms Tan still doesn't have eyebags after screaming at all those kids!

Something to look forward to

Nothing but a Martha Stewart magazine could incite me to start blogging again on my lagging laptop. Nobody but the Americans will, and can successfully, devote a whole issue to their country's national day. Never have I felt more envious of the Americans who can have something to look forward to, summer that is.

Summer is when "the whole country starts living outdoors", where people kick off their shoes and sprawl on their lawns, when there's more sunshine (true), more laughter (maybe) and more time to spend with family and friends (really?). Summer means barbecues, kayaking at the lakes, campfires, Sunday socials, inflatable pools, sea shores, picnics, popsicles and walking barefooted in the garden. I like that the Americans have a shared mentality that summer is the time to relax and refresh and reconnect with your family and friends. Who can blame you for throwing your pen down to get some sunshine outside when the person next to you probably feels the same way?

It's not really the same here when "summer" just means more humid days, quicker tempers and drowsy afternoons in a freezing office. I can't even take enough leave to go for a real "summer vacation" (which to me means a one month or longer holiday). Do Singaporeans have the habit of delegating one part of the year to more leisurely pursuits? I cannot think of a particular time of the year where there is a collective change in our attitudes. Well at least students get to look forward to their June and December holidays or the 3-month university summer holidays (which I'm still deeply missing), but not for us working adults.