Girlfriend

A month or so ago, Miles the cow cat wasn't feeling very well and the vet asked whether there was a new cat in the house or the neighbourhood that might've stressed him out. I said no, I didn't think so. Well turns out there is a new cat.  A girl cat. A flirty one at that. She pranced past, watching Miles while he ogled her, then skipped off over the fence when she spotted me. Oh but not before doing a little sexy move atop the fence. She left Miles pacing back and forth from the lounge to the laundry, meowing and chirping for her for the next 20 minutes. I know she looks like the perfect cow cat match for him but I'm going to have to talk to him about girls...they're nothing but trouble! Trouble I say! Damn she's pretty.

Supermoon 2012

Well turns out the moon was pretty close to the earth today. A case of 'Moonageddon' or perigee-syzygy. It sure contributed to my Superinsomnia last night.

The moon is still big and bright and I just caught a few magical glimpses of it before the rain came. The weekend has been relatively disastrous and Mr Moon has managed to put a smile on my face. So yep all is forgiven :)

Clouds

Halo

Not so round, are we?

watching

Here's hoping that I'll sleep better tonight.

♥

Photo excursion - Sculpture by the Sea 2012

Yay! Made it to Sculpture by the Sea at Cottesloe beach yesterday...lugged a macro lense with me because I wanted a different, narrowed take on the sculptures. 

Check out the Sculpture by the Sea website to get the big picture :)

♥ 

Double, double toil and trouble

...fire burn, and cauldron bubble - Macbeth Act IV, Scene I

I've been digging Milani's gold lacquer recently; it has large chunks of hexagonal glitters swimming in clear polish. Shakespeare popped into my mind yesterday so I decided to team Butter London's Macbeth with gold french tips. 

This is the first time I've used the glitter as tips and it's really fiddly; I ended up getting too much clear polish on the tips, just to get the amount of glitter that I want. Me likey a lot, but I don't know if I'll be doing this very often :S

I forgot that I had to stock shelves later that day and by the end of it, my nails were a mess. So there I was at 11pm peeling off what's left of the gold bits. 

What does one then do with half-painted nails? One slaps on something dark and mysterious. OPI comes to the rescue with its blue-black shade. 

The nail guide strips go on again...

And my nails are fixed...

...just in time for getting snap-happy at Sculpture by the Sea the next morning :)

I used:

Manicare All-In-One (as base and top coats)

Butter London - Macbeth

OPI - Yoga-ta Get This Blue

Milani - Jewel FX Gold

♥

ARRRR!

I love Pirates of the Caribbean. 
I especially love Captain Jack Sparrow's wit and charm.

And now I've totally taken notice of the movie's theme song. 

Came across this video the other day; my jaw dropped and my heart stopped. Mind-blowingly amazing. My favourite comment on the video - "his ass plays better than me". You'll see ...



I was so amazed by this that I couldn't wait to try it out myself. So I put this video on loop for ages, then paused and played it repeatedly in order to learn it by ear. I also found the option to play it in slow mo. Total godsend. Seriously, why have I never learned songs this way? The visual really sped up the learning process. Fully recommend it.

I managed to get to the 1 minute mark and I really don't have the energy to go any further without piano scores. So here is my attempt at half the song...obviously I didn't hit as many notes as Radnich did, but I enjoyed playing it at speed. Mum always said that I play the piano as if I'm chasing a train :D




There are a few sticking keys, very frustrating. The paddle also makes a clicking sound so I sprayed it with WD-40, which in hindsight, I shouldn't have done. hmm.

I'd gladly offer piano notes to those wanting to try my version of the song, but this is all I got. *ahem* *sideway glance*

I was never a fan of music theory, the stave, notations and such.

So if anyone knows anyone who knows anyone who might have the piano scores, may I please have a copy?

: )

♥

Lilac nails!

Yay, public holiday, a day to devote to creativity :) Thanks to Pinterest, I've had ideas galore for my nails and here's one of them.

With my most recent drugstore find, a pretty shade of lilac, I thought I'd amp it up just a little using a dark purple shade. 

1. One layer of base coat
2. Two light coats of lilac 
3. Dark purple polish painted freehand and cleaned up with corrector pen
4. One layer of top coat

This'll add some fun to the work week ahead!

I used:

Manicare All-In-One

Manicare Nail Enamel Corrector Pen

Natio Dazzling Lilac

Nine West Shade 317

♥

Want at first sight!

There it is. 
A spur of the moment statement about an instrument I knew absolutely nothing about.

And by 30th Jan, I had a ukulele.

I went looking for a uke on Ebay and when I saw 'the one'...BAM!...do want !!! I also had my sights set on a limited edition uke (I have a thing for rarity) but that was relatively plain and exxy. 

For the next 5 days or so, I watched the listing like a hawk. In that time I read (thanks Wiki) that ukes commonly come in four sizes: soprano, concert, tenor and baritone. I didn't hang around long enough to find out what that meant. My Google search returned over 8 million results so I figured I'd take a proper look when I actually have a uke.

Back to Ebay. On the last day of the auction, with less than 30 seconds before it ended, I placed my single, all-consuming, devastating bid. One that would blow other bidders away because they didn't see me coming, or their app failed to notify them that they've been outbid, or they have slow internet, or they were frozen in awe of my ninja-ness. In a blink of an eye, the all too familiar appeared on the top right corner of my page "Congratulations blah blah blah". *fist pump*

Eight agonising days later, the uke arrived at my work and that's when I thought to myself "um girl, who are you kiddin?"

That day I was one happy little vegemite and I couldn't wait to get home to find out how it all works. The first link I clicked on was a godsend. 


Step 1: Buy a ukelele *done*


Step 2: Tune your ukulele
Turns out, my little four-stringed instrument needed tuning in the order G, C, E, A (Good Cooks Eat Alot)...it reminded me of All Cows Eat Grass from my years of struggle with music theory :)


Step 3: Learn how to play
This was such an easy tutorial to follow - 3 chords - C, F, G7
And apparently, the chords for Sunday Morning by Maroon 5, which was also my first piano cover on YouTube :)


So. Here is my attempt...



This is as far as I've got to and I can't wait to learn another song soon!

More on my pretty ukulele in my next post :)

♥

Chinese New Year

In an attempt to be a good Chinese daughter, I rang the folks this morning and cheerily wished them a Happy Chinese New Year (after mentally deciding against trying to pronounce Gong Xi Fa Chai, Wan Shi Ru Yi).

That was met with silence, followed by "umm, it's not New Year yet..."

I cringe yet again at my un-Chineseness and wonder why I haven't been disowned.

Well we kept chatting anyway and here are some good parts of the convo to help me forget the naggy and disapproving bits heee :)

Me: so what are you both planning to get up to today?
Mum: cleaning and sorting. Just told your father to sort out his wardrobe.
Me: but you've both been sick for weeks, just rest and get better
Dad: [in the background] yah, *indistinct mumbling* *giggles*

Mum: I've been feeling dizzy

Me: oh. hmmm

Mum: yah hmmm

Me: maybe it's due to low sugar levels

Mum: I've always had high sugar

Me: yeah I know, but it could be low sug....

Mum: no no I've always had high sugar

Me: ok

Mum: I think I've been playing too much computer games

This somehow reminded me of some screen shots that my sister took in 2010. This is what we often have to deal with when on Skype with the parents:

no faces

Mum pretending to listen but her eyes are on the TV. Dad forgets we are here

They eventually become fully engrossed in the tv show, discussing the plot and such

Well being Chinese New Year and all, I wanted to get in the spirit and put up some pics from earlier in 2011 when the folks were in Perth. They were showing us kids how to make lanterns using red packets / ang pows :)

Happy Chinese New Year + Year of the Dragon!

♥

Snow dome kit

I received a snow globe kit two Christmases ago and haven't been able to make up my mind on what to put in the dome. 
Here are some highlights:

"Create Your Own Sparkling 3D Wonderland"

"Contents:

• 2 transparent ball domes
• 2 dome bases
• 2 rubber rings
• 1 pack snow piece
• 3 pack glitters
• 6 shaped cutting tools
• 5 colours modeling clay
• 1 pack of salt
• Easy-to-follow instructions"

"CAUTION! For children over 4 years of age only"

It had me at CAUTION.

As there are 2 snow globes, I decided that I'd make WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth Class) and EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator); they're such a cute couple :)

I found the instructions to be quite wordy and confusing. I was also very disappointed to find that the colours I had differed from those pictured on the box. A 4 year old might not have noticed nor cared but I certainly did. Boo.

I had 2 shades of yellow, red, green and black. 

And so Stewie Griffin came to the rescue...in green shoes.

Imbecile! Release me at once!

 "What is this, a Tommy Lee pool party?"

What's left of the kit

So what shall I make next? I'm thinking it should be something cool for Stewie to swear at.

Stewie: Damn you, vile woman!

♥

Happy

2011 has been quite the challenge, in fact the last few years have been a struggle on many fronts. I admit that I'm lacking direction, I don't know what it is I really want for the future and how to get there. Trouble with me is that I want to do and learn so much, all at the same time, with resources (aka money) I don't have. I want the humanly impossible and it has rendered me immobile.

Yesterday someone said to me, "You seem to have so many burdens in your life. Your house is a burden. Your work is a burden. Your relationships are a burden. Your self is a burden. There is not a single thing that brings you happiness."

Harsh I know, but it was said by someone who genuinely cares about my wellbeing, with the intention of possibly jolting me into some sort of action. Well the skies didn't open up with revelation nor did I get an immediate dose of get-up-and-go. Instead I got defensive and insisted that there were MANY things that I'm VERY happy about (even though I knew that that wasn't at all the point and I'm merely distracting myself from the issue at hand).

I've been feeling teary and down in the dumps since, so I decided to list just a handful of things that make me happy. This is a slice of pretty that I can revisit when I need to remember the painful but necessary conversation last night. 
When I need to get some focus.
When I need motivation.
When I need a kick up the bum.

My happiness:

unconditional love from Miles

my creativity in arts and music

having a coffee a day

this boatshed (yeah, common knowledge)

books and bookshops

Thanks to my parents' sacrifice and hard work, and being born on the cusp of Gen X and Y, I've had a blessed life. I have all my limbs intact and senses complete.
I mustn't let my life go to waste. I have so much potential!

“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.”

-Neil Gaiman

♥