FIRST DAY AT SCHOOL!!

It was Ellen's first day at school. She was happy to go to bed early the night before, and reminded me to wake her up if she was still sleeping in the morning. LOL...

She was SOOOOOOO excited, I can't even begin to tell you how. VOLUNTARILY got changed into her uniform (summer dress), asked me to tie her hair, put on her socks and shoes and patiently waited for the rest of us to get ready. I made her a ham and cheese sandwich, cut several cubes of cheese, sticks of carrot and cucumber, several grapes and 8 rice crackers. I then found her dress too long, and started hemming it at 8am. kekeke....

There was absolutely buckley's chance of finding a parking spot near the school compound. We had to park 2 blocks down and walked. She was a little nervous, according to Peter who was holding her hand when they walked into the classroom. Apparently she clenched, probably overwhelmed by all the kids and adults. But as soon as she found her hook for her school bag, found her name tag and met the teacher, she was all cool. In fact, she turned around and hugged and kissed us goodbye before we were ready to go! Talk about nervous!

They start off with full days straight up. Parents were allowed to call the school to check on their progress, but we didn't feel the need to. So come pick up time, she was the last one to get picked up!!! Can you tell we are 'relaxed'?? LOL... The teacher said she was her little helper ... always eager to help out. There was a girl in the class who was a bit asthmatic and needed some treatment in the nursing bay. Ellen walked her there a few times after she was shown where the sick bay was! And we missed orientation as we were overseas!

I took some photos of her today, but will post them another day. It's late now... better go to bed early so I can wake up tomorrow for her 2nd day at school!

I 'SEEM' like a very busy woman.....

Thank you very much to all the wonderful people who left me a comment from my previous entry. I truly appreciate the support I have from all of you. I am also very touched by the fact that although we only "know" each other through a craft, it never stopped people from caring. I sincerely thank all of you, and for your words of encouragement.

For what it's worth, one of the comments was left by Vickie's school counsellor, in her presence. Thank you, Kee Peng. I am grateful of the time you are spending with her, chatting to her.

So .... to show my appreciation, I will actually draw 2 prizes, from everyone who left a comment. I will announce it next post.... this is too long a post :D I had a wonderful day on my birthday. Presents, not that much. One of my girlfriends, Jorja, bought me a $40 voucher to spend at the Stampin' Up workshop I'm having in February, DH got me a birthday cake, Jess baked some gorgeous cupcakes at the Crop For Kids meeting. My best friend, Ruey who is now having a good time in Las Vegas, promised me she'll make me some Philippino lumpiah when she gets back. MMmmmm... I love lumpiah. Although, I suspect it is a training and handover session as well so she won't be the only person who knows how to make it. That means, whenever there is a get together with our mutual friends, I will have no excuse to say I don't know how to make them! LOL ... But never mind, we'll find a way to share the load .... hehehe

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CROP FOR KIDS ... tickets are now available for sale.
Event: Crop For Kids All-Day Fundraising Crop
Date: Saturday, 15th March 2008 (the weekend before Easter)
Time: 10am to 5pm
Venue: Springvale City Hall in Springvale
Price: Tickets are A$30.00 per person

EMAIL US AT ..... cropforkids@gmail.com

Group bookings will be available for groups of 8 or more. This not only guarantees that you will sit together, but as an added incentive to book as a group, there will be a special draw on the day for one group to win a small prize. Group bookings must be paid for in one payment, and the payment must be received within 1 month of booking via cheque or direct deposit.

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Dance and TKD

So a few things have happened since my birthday. It's almost been 2 weeks! Yikes... So I've signed my daughter up for a dance class. She is doing Jazz & Tap and she started today! It was quite funny to watch actually. She looked a bit klutzy :) . All the other kids were in their hot pink leotards, gorgeous skirts and proper shoes. It was a 3-5 yo class and most have done the class for a while now, so all the more she looked like she has 2 left feet! LOL... but she said she had fun and wants to come back next week!

As for the little man, we think we are going to try him out in Tae Kwon Do. Will take him for an introductory class, see how he likes it. The centre we are taking him to calls the 4-6 year olds, Little Ninjas. So we told him, he's going to learn to be like the Ninja Turtles... LOL

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Plum Jam

This year is just unbelievable. We have had so many fruits from our fruit trees in the backyard! Trees I never thought existed because they never produced any fruit for as long as I've lived here! So we've had bucket loads of plums and nectarines (I even did a layout on the nectarines!) So I decided on Friday to try making a Plum Jam. You think I had any luck finding flippin' PRESERVING JARS?????!!!!!!!! I swear, over the past 3 days, I went to 4 supermarkets, Target, BigW, 4 kitchenware stores, Ikea, ..... it's like I'm trying to activate a Homemade Jam Revolution!! No one had the twist-top preserving jars!!! It's ridiculous! So we have to go into our fridge and empty out jars of half-used sauces and what not, just to wash them out and sterilise them, so I can store my first-attempt-homemade-plum-jam... and I don't even know how successful I'm going to be? Or if the plums are still going to be all right by the time my jars are ready!!!

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More Scrapping

I've done more scrapping - cybercrop challenges, 123 Challenge and DT work for Addicted to Craft. :)

A 'Juvenile' Birthday Card - Scrunched and inked Kraft cardstock and the core of some cardboard, and used a Kaisercraft chipboard dinosaur.



Sweet! - a layout using the colours of Scrap Therapy (bluey-green with pink)


Nectarines Galore! - My nectarines layout! This was Belinda's Blind Challenge on Scrap Therapy. If you want to take the challenge, just click on the link. :)


Addicted to Craft DT layouts
Decade of hairstyles - Scribble Scrabble papers and diecuts, American Crafts chipboard letters, Doodlebug letter stickers,


Beautiful - Scribble Scrabble papers, DaisyD's title rubon, Prima Marketing flower, Maya Road Office Sheers


Time to go - Dream Street Papers, Doodlebug letter stickers and Hambly Journaling overlay


Why that Tongue? - Dream Street papers, Doodlebug letter stickers, American Crafts chipboard thickers, Maya Road chipboard letter and Office Sheers, Everlasting Keepsakes chipboard star.

123 Challenge
How many candles..? - My first-ever 123 Challenge layout! Yay me!!! hehehe...


I know time flies.... I just don't know where to???? I still have a list of Crop For Kids 'admin' work to do .... and DD is going to start school in 2 days! I don't know how to pack her school bag! She doesn't have a pencil case yet! And I need to go grocery shopping tomorrow to make sure I have enough in the pantry to make her snacks and lunch! DS is starting kinder in 3 days, I can't wait to have a few hours of free time to clear my head!

Have a great week ahead!

Another year older. Another year wiser.

Yes, today is my birthday. My 38th. Have you ever imagined how your life would be like at 38 when you were 18? People only look forward to milestones, they look forward to 16, 18, 21, 30... actually, some don't really look forward to 30. They think they are getting old. Don't you just shake your head and feel like shaking them up when 27 or 28yo girls tell you that they are afraid to turn 30 because that's "old"?

Did you look forward to those 'milestones' when you were much younger? And did you stop celebrating birthdays after you turned 30 because you thought life is just about over the hump so there's nothing to celebrate?

I didn't. I loved it when I turned 30 and loved reaching my birthday every year after that. No different today. I even look forward to my next milestone... the 40th! I don't know why. I just am. It might sound tacky to you, but I do celebrate life. OK... there are lots of day-to-day frustrations and mundane stuff that I may whinge about, but seriously, life in the big picture is good. I have a roof over my head, and I have my healthy family, we are living in a country with no war and killings. What's not good about life? And with that... I'd like to share a part of me that I've not shared with many before.

Most people do not know, I have had a previous marriage, in Singapore. I got married at 21, and gave birth to a baby girl when I was 23. We named her Vickie. When we split in 1997, I made a very hard decision to let him have custody of her. My rationale was he has a close-knit family, and his mom has always helped us look after her, whereas I would be a single mum, with no support, my mom works, so there will be no way I could have supported her. I honestly felt that she would be better off with them. For all these years, and I still do, I questioned myself, my conscience .... could I have done anything differently? To make matters worse, I dropped communications with her for many years. I tried keeping it up when I first moved here to Australia, but then the number of times I call her cut down. Then there were none. As the lapse between phone calls got bigger, I felt more and more embarrassed to pick up the phone again. I just didn't know what to say? I'm sorry? I didn't think it'll cut it. Effectively, I was responsible for losing contact. I was never there for her when she was growing up. I wasn't there for her when she had great results for her exams. I wasn't there for her when she needed a mother.

As the years went by, I became more and more guilt-ridden. My 2007 resolution was to contact her again. And I did. It took me a while to compose that first email, but I eventually did it. There was no reply from her after 3-4 emails, but one day, she replied. Didn't say much, but she replied and that was ALL I wanted. I wasn't expecting her to forgive me. I wasn't expecting her to warm up to me. I was expecting her to hate me.

We are now on each other's MSN. I will have lots of monologue sessions, sometimes decorated with monosyllable answers. Again, it's a start. I have literally abandoned her for so long, I really don't expect her to fall in love with me again. I'm just grateful that she is not logging off MSN in the midst of our conversation.

I know this is very private and many people may not want to know about this. But I've battled this dilemma for a long time, and I don't think I want to hide her existence. She exists in my life, she has been a part of my life for 14 years. I cannot turn back the clock and undo what I did, but I can make changes from now on. I am responsible for the void that I've left in her life. I would love for her to be part of my family too, when she is ready. I'd love to scrapbook about her, except I don't really have photos of her other than those she took of herself with her phone. So, I'll work on that.

So there.... it's out. I have a 14yo daughter in Singapore. Her name is Vickie. She's in Secondary 3 (Year 9 equivalent). I am not sure how she would feel about this if she ever read it, but I'd like to honour her existence, for no better word.

When you have recovered from shock, picked up your jaws from the floor, and now change your mind about what kind of person I am, you can make a comment on this post, perhaps wish me Happy Birthday, or perhaps even say HI to Vickie. I have a little something to giveaway because today, I am Birthday Girl so I can. Leave a comment by Friday midnight. I will draw the name on Saturday.

(And before any blog smackers come in and start any form of abuse, you can save your breath. Nothing you say are things that I have not already said to myself, so go find something new to amuse yourself.)

Have a GREAT day!

Happy New Year and I scrapped!!

HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

We had family and friends over for lunch on New Year's Day. That's usually what I do and I'll tell you why (I have more than enough reasons). Firstly, everyone else does their Christmas Eve, Christmas and Boxing Day gatherings with their family and we have quiet ones. Then everyone winds down from all the silly season rush and have quiet New Year Days, we will in turn have them over for a nice lunch. Secondly, being New Year's Day, I don't have to be bound by any food tradition. I can put anything on the menu. Lastly, I don't have to frantically make sure I have everything I need the day before unlike Christmas Day where if you forget something, it happens to me a lot, you are stuffed cos no shops are open!! So I'm usually doing New Year's Day. I guess that's MY tradition?

So... what was on the menu? Get ready for this.

Mains
Rendang
Nasi Kunyit (a savoury saffron rice)
Grilled leg of lamb
Sang Choy Bao
Fried Chicken Spare Ribs
Prawns with seafood dip (cold dish)

Salads
Potato, prawn and bacon salad
Mango salad
Coleslaw

Desserts
Chocolate Raspberry ice cream cake
Creme Caramel

Apart from the Creme Caramel that was made by my SIL (and really yummmmm), and the prawns that were bought, we made everything else. But don't get too excited, I didn't say from scratch. It was soooo satisfying, in that I had the menu planned down to a T, and I felt like Nigella Lawson using all these smart shortcuts to great food! Rendang was needless to say, a Prima Taste recipe that I cooked the day before. Leg of lamb was marinated by the butcher so all we did was grill it to perfection, chicken spare ribs were marinated with a packet seasoning and fried, prawns were bought, seafood dip was just a clever mix of a few pantry/fridge ingredients, potato salad dressing was a clever idea from Ruey - using Praise's Dijonnaise (although my potato salad had a few more tasty ingredients like bacon bits, spring onions, hardboiled eggs and prawns), coleslaw dressing was bought, so was the coleslaw mix. The only things I made from scratch were Nasi Kunyit, Mango Salad, Sang Choy Bao. Here, indulge in some salivating pics...

Sang Choy Bao



The rest of the spread.... same spread just from 2 different angles. It still looked like we have enough food for 2 army troops.



And of course, I didn't get around to taking photos of desserts. But just believe in me that they are yummy. ;)

The day was soooo hot though! We had a 40C day (104F)! Luckily the cool change came through late in the afternoon. We had friends that stayed and chat and we ended up eating the leftovers! LOL... It was an awesome day.

A few days later, we went to Mikaela's 2nd birthday celebration. I haven't scrapped for sooooo long, I had to use this pathetic excuse to claim that I did something scrapbookey ... gift wrapping and a card.


Then I joined a cybercrop organised by Scrap Therapy. It is Scrap Therapy's 1st birthday celebrations, so they will be having cybercrops every weekend for the month of January. It's a good opportunity for everyone to get back into their scrapping mode, isn't it?? I did a bag tag, a challenge layout and a blind scrapping layout. It was sooo fun! I have never blind-scrapped before but I had heaps of fun. So impromptu. I had my layout done in an hour.... that's because you are not required to think! If only I had a brain, I'll be dangerous! LOL...

Bag tag for Ellen's school bag - ST DT member, Julie's free class. It uses Heidi Swapp's clamshell packaging for her embellishments. How clever! Thanks, Julie! I had wanted to make a bag tag for Ellen's school bag but I have NO CLUE whatsoever where to begin. So this class came at the perfect timing.



A Challenge Layout - To use 3 or more of the following items ... Pink, Alphabet, Ribbon, Template, Your own handwriting (PARTY). I kinda liked what I did, the photos have been in my folder for ages, I just couldn't get them to work with the papers I've chosen. Never thought pink will work! :D


Blind Scrapping Layout - I didn't know what blind scrapping was until then. You are required to have a list of supplies ready. Then you are given the first piece of instructions, eg to cut a piece of the pp you have into X by Y size to stick onto one of the cs you have selected. You cannot add anymore products onto the list... just 'blindly' follow instructions. You'll be amazed at the decisions you make as to where to stick that sheet of pp, that embellishment ... etc etc But boy it was fun... not knowing what comes next! :D


I have another kiddy birthday party to go to on Friday & Saturday. Not to forget, my own birthday is on the 16th! I'm turning 38! Will see how many people actually READ this post and survive up to this point cos I know most people speed-read ..... and then see if anyone remembers .... tee hee.

Have a good week!