Accomplished!

The last few weeks have been trying to say the least -- instead of the kids falling sick, it's the adults who are taking turns to drop like flies! (moi excluded, thank you immune system) For a while, I really felt down in the doldrums what with the lack of sleep, stress from feeding a fussy baby (she doesn't like sweet stuff - so milk cereal is a no NO. Strange kid.), a challenging preschooler (whose latest catch phrases include "i don't want!", "i don't like!", "fine!"), a sick hubby, a sick helper, a sick grandma.... Thank God that His mercies are new everyday cos just as I wanna scream and give up, something comes through and makes it all better :)

Among other news, we are also proud to have finally:

1) kicked the daughter out of our room into her temporary cot room cum work studio till she's older, sleeping better and able to share her brother's ginormous space upstairs

2) cleared the boxes which have been sitting around from last Nov so the studio is at least presentable - you can see the floor now!

Unlike messy old me, the mister is a house-proud fella who couldn't be happier that the worst room in the house is now a tidy spot and is continuing his rampage through the rest of the house to make them every more cozy and er, minimalistic. Toys and random stuff strewn around? No way jose!

This studio has been a long time in the making and though it's far from perfect, I'm just so glad for this little oasis of muse and inspiration! I can quietly tool away while the daughter is napping on the studio couch or take a break to caress my collection of jewels and knick knacks and of course the dresses! Vintage frocks all a happy alongside the vintage bags.

Guess who's a happy girl now? :)

A photo booth story

Here I am trying to get a decent photo of the young lady for her first passport.

And as all parents would know, babies make the worst photo shoot models!!

How do you get a child to

a) look straight into the camera so her eyes, eyebrows and other facial features are obvious

b) without some sort of grimace/ funny face / hands flapping about

c) with agreeable lighting conditions so there will be no shadows?

It took 2 days of trying + whole lot more of coaxing + a frustrating 2 hour attempt of wonky online application (which failed) + another 10 minutes of calling the helpline (which merely told me to send an email to their IT help desk) + 3 days of waiting for the IT help desk's reply. Not the best week of my life for sure.

But here we are! We survived the gauntlet and the long-awaited red passport is now ready for collection. In case you were wondering, both Nathan and Sarah are full-fledged Singapore citizens. Here is my contribution to nation-building -- a "foreign-talent" engineer hubby and 2 little cute hybrids to boost the declining birth rate :)

Majulah Singapore!

Tallis Girl - SGD 65 - Sold

Inspired by Cecilia Tallis' (Keira Knightley) famous satin green frock of love and loss in the Atonement movie (I bought the DVD for the wardrobe alone -- me and my favourite 30s tsk), here is another emerald stunner.

An amazing brilliant deep green pendant with accents of apple green chrysoprase rondelles and green onyx cubes on a brassy link chain. Necklace measures approx. 18" in length.