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Meet my friend, Ashley ……

celine — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 13:08:10 +0000

Rather than coming up with ten thousand excuses for my long silence, and my many promises of updating this blog every other day, why don’t I write a little about my friend Ashley. Even though we have not met (sure hope we will one day), it is such an honour to even know of her existence. I am being dramatic? Of course, not! Pay her a visit at Lil Blue Boo, if you don’t believe me.

I stumbled upon her blog last year while looking for a weekend craft project to keep my girls occupied. Till today I am still thanking google for her! I didn’t just find a blog with a chock-full of ideas plus detailed idiot-proof tutorials, I got to know Ashley. She is an amazingly gifted lady who paints, prints, sews, saws and practically everything else I think. She has a keen eye for colours and is able to turn most junk/scrap into art. And the best part is, she spends a lot of her time to teach less crafty people like yours truly here. Despite her talent she is extremely generous in teaching and sharing her gift, which is so rare nowadays especially in the blogsphere. Most are just interested to promote the stuff they sell and/or increase readership (with giveaways) to monetize their blogs.

Ashley’s Subway Art – one of my favourites.

When her clothing business took-off to an extent where her dresses sell out within 18 seconds, she remains the same Ashley that I know before all the success. She continues to provide detailed tutorial and answered all craft related problems ….. wait… she did more than that. She even shares the various printing methods that she uses on the dresses that she sells. Shocking, huh? Truly God sent!

Another admirable trait of Ashley ….. she encourages market place competition. She takes the trouble to visit the facebooks of emerging sellers (her future competitors) and writes them encouraging comments. Unbelievable, huh? Whenever she is bashed by her “selfish competitor”, she takes it with a stride with lots of dignity. She discourages negativity among her fans, and does not expect exclusivity.

Anyway, there are lots more of why I like Ashley….. but I better stop, just in case David is reading. He will be soooo jealous and might insists that he gets his share of exposure here too.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Ashley for all the hours that she spent to maintain her amazing blog, to thank Ashley for making craft projects less intimidating and fun, to thank Ashley for detailed idiot-proof tutorials, to thank Ashley for encouraging creativity and to thank Ashley for sharing her crafty side with us.

Happy April!

celine — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 14:58:59 +0000

[Picture nicked from my fellow bootcamper's blog www.arminbaniaz.com]

I love blogging. But I love “doing nothing” even more ……. at times.

This is what happened in March. I was in a staring-into-space-and-doing-nothing mood when my girls were at school. Why? I was depressed. I injured my left knee so NO BOOTCAMP and NO RUNNING for me. Without my get-me-up every morning I felt lost, lousy and helpless. I tried to drown my sorrows by taking afternoon naps. I felt worse. I ended up getting migraine and felt worse. I should have known cos me and naps have never been the best of friends!

Actually I have no one else to blame but myself. When my left knee started to hurt, only just a little, I totally ignored it and continued with bootcamp and my weekend runs with my Mister. The pain got worse. Know what I did? I took pain killers, and continued abusing it. I went for medical treatment only when I could not straighten my leg and it hurt so much that I could not drive. Total idiot, right? I had to endure many therapy sessions with my physio plus 30mins a day “jogging in the pool” to aid recovery.

“Rest, rest, rest, rest …..” It became the daily slogan from my physio, my Mister, my friends and everyone else. I was so tired of staying at home and doing no real exercise at all. I was bored to tears!

My physio reluctantly gave me the go ahead to do some running, after our session today. I am allowed to run slowly for 30 minutes. Can’t wait to hit the park first thing tomorrow morning.

I miss runnning. I miss drenching in “sweat”. I miss my iPod. I miss the “happy hormones” at the end of it. And the amazing surge in energy during the day is to-die-for …… I know, I know, I am being dramatic. But the fact is, I am just so excited to have my knee back, and being able to start running again.

I hope tomorrow will come sooner…….

If Dreams Are Meant To Be Met

celine — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:40:10 +0000

This is the perfect scene I would love to wake-up to everyday, if I have my way. I always dreamt of living by the sea with my man during our retirement days. We will have our dream house then, incorporating two of our must-haves ……. a whole floor for his music room and a super humongous craft room for me filled with all my “toys”.

Here we will live our perfect lifestyle, away from the hustle bustle of the city life, with the sea as the backdrop. We will start our days with an early morning run by the sea, followed by a full session of pilates and many many hours of crafting (for me) and reading (for him). Here no cooking is required (yeah!), and my man will enjoy having Diet Coke and crackers for lunch and dinner!

I get all excited just by “dreaming” about all these. If dreams are meant to be met, this will be my paradise.

*Stop dreaming*t’s time to move my butt and do the dishes. Aghhh… the hard realities of life!

My plot of land for my dream house by the sea

Time to Recharge

celine — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:53:23 +0000

It has been a long, long time since we took a local holiday. Each time, we would prefer to take the kids overseas, always planning and deciding which country we should visit, and constantly on the look-out for cheap airfares. Its a natural progression for a developing society and country, I suppose. Can’t help thinking about the holidays that I had, when I was my daughters’ age – its always to the rest of the states in Malaysia, and farthest I ever went before I went to Australia to further my studies, was to Singapore. And that was by coach!

The last time we took a local holiday, was 7 years ago. My elder daughter was 3 years old then, and we desperately needed some time to ourselves (lousy parents, huh?). KK, one of my best pal offered to babysit her for the weekend so we took off to Tanjung Rhu Resort, at Pulau Langkawi. We had such a good time there, that we decided to re-visit the place, this time with the girls.