So. Damn. Funny!
We’re enjoying one of those weird wintery days were despite the fact the sun is shining and the clouds are high and light, it’s snowing. It happens when the temperature at a certain level turns any moisture in the air into snowflakes.
Just enough to dust the grass but not heavy enough to coat the trees, yet!
It's That Time of Year!
Are you a big spender at Christmas or, like me, are you a frugal re-user of wrapping paper, bows and ribbon, and a repurposer of unwanted gifts?
I take great delight in salvaging Christmas paper, gift bags, bow and ribbons, and why not? If they are still useable and in good nick, I will set them aside and if deemed useable again, will keep them. I’ve even got the OH doing this. Especially with our own Christmas presents, i.e. the gifts we give each other on Christmas morning.
I’m also big on going to the Dollar store to buy their bargain holiday items. And I love their crafting section to make homemade gifts. Nice glass jars get filled with candy, candles, or other silly items. And I love to make stocking stuffers with found or repurposed items. And no, I’m not ashamed to admit regifting presents to someone else who might appreciate them more. I don’t do baths, so what use is an expensive bath-bomb to me?
I like to spend my money on one or two important gifts for the people I love, and wrapping isn’t one area I waste time and money on. I can make a gift look like it came from Harrods with the right addition of bows and ribbon. It’s not about costs, it’s about presentation.
And you, what do you do? Come on, fess up your own secrets. Did you home make those scented bath salts for granny and put them in a $2 jar from the Dollar store? Yeah, I know you did.
𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧
WeblogPoMo AMA #1
The first question I got asked for Annie’s #WeblogPoMo AMA (Ask Me Anything) challenge earlier this year, was from Lou Plummer in which he asks:
“If you could work as a tour guide in one of the places you’ve traveled to, where would you pick? And why?”
Of course, for me, there is only one place and that’s Singapore. An island that was a huge part of my impressionable childhood years, those years from 8 through to 11. As an adult I’ve dreamed of and yes schemed to get back there for a visit, though it’s true the island I remember has changed, vastly, in the intervening years. And what was once a place of idyll life for me, is now a roaring metropolis of the 21st century, a tech hub, a tourist mecca, but still … As a tour guide? Hmm …
All those flashy hot spot amid the history and splendour of a place I remember maybe gives me a different perspective to be a Tour Guide. One able to recount the history in a way others cannot. I remember the riots during the 60s, I remember the civil unrest, I remember people being shot at, the undeclared war going on in the shadows between super powers like the US and UK, pushing to influence a people who wanted nothing to do with the colonialism of the day.
It’s easy to be a tour guide taking people to the Botanic Gardens, or to the Raffles Hotel, or one of the latest landmarks … but what about the advance of the Japanese on Singapore during WWII, or what happened at Changi prison? Or that, as a child, my parents and I met the Prime Minster of the day, Lee Kuan Yew.
I wonder if I would be an interesting tour guide or not, given maybe the average tourist probably wouldn’t want to know any of the painful history of this tiny nation island.
But then again, who knows.
𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧
Sadly, all too true …
Well, we went from minus five on Monday and wintery weather to an almost balmy plus 4 and rain here, this morning.
Rain now for the rest of the week right on through till Monday, they say. Bah humbug!
𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧
Time
If you want to understand time — which is how you come to befriend life — turn to stone.
Climb a mountain and listen to the conversation between eons encoded in each stripe of rock.
Walk a beach and comb your fingers through the golden dust that was once a mountain.
Pick up a perfect oval pebble and feel its mute assurance that time can grind down even the heaviest boulder, and smooth even the sharpest edge.
𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧
I want to update and change the avatar on my m.b. account but, micro blog doesn’t seem to want to comply. I’ve tried three different logo/avatars but, m.b. just keeps showing the same 8 year old version of me, even after I deleted this particular image. Am I missing something?
Do I need to update the avatar somewhere different from the Account page, @manton can you please advise?
What is it with shopping regulations that says you cannot buy a perfectly useable stick of dynamite on a Sunday to blow up your ailing/aging washing machine that takes this moment in time to suddenly spew some gunk and turn your nearly brand new crisp white bedding set into a murder scene, as if a mouse got drowned and mangled in the tub!
It’s sacrilege, that’s what it is, sacrilege I tell you.
Does anyone know a plumber?
𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧
To quote a line from William Shakespeare’s The Tempest …
“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
People & Blogs Featured Interview
Today I am honoured to be featured in Manuel Morale’s online series: People & Blogs.
If you would like to read my interview, pop on over to Manu’s blog, HERE, and find out what I have to say.
I would like to say a big thank you to Manu at being asked to join such a prestiges alumni, I am truly honoured. I’d also like to say a big thank you to Robert Birming for suggesting me.
𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧
Today’s most important questions is, “what’s the best way to cut a tomato?”
Is it:
- North to south.
- West to east.
Answers on a postcard… what, oh, okay, answers in the comments please. Thanks!
Movies: Fast Charlie
This run of the mill gangster flick on Netflix was made all the more enjoyable by performances from Pierce Brosnan, James Caan, and Morena Baccarin. However, stealing the show in the single scene she was in, Sharon Gless as the foulmouthed mother in law, got some of the best throw away lines going I’ve heard in a long time.
If you’ve got nothing better to watch, grab some popcorn, suspend your sense of disbelief, and just enjoy the stunts.
Three bags of popcorn 🍿🍿🍿
“Book collecting is an obsession, an occupation, a disease, an addiction, a fascination, an absurdity, a fate. It is not a hobby. Those who do it must do it.” — Jeanette Winterson, author of The Passion
Yep, pretty much spot on!
Why, yes, this did make it to my Christmas list. I eat a lot of noddles.
My sister in law called last night talking Christmas and, of course, presents. Not ten minutes later, I got a text from my nephew’s girlfriend (the sensible organised one in that pairing) also talking presents, asking what did I want this year?
So, of course, 8 year old Alex is now sat at the computer, a million windows open, surfing the entire world wide web looking for stuff to add to an ever growing list of things I would love (price no object) that I’m going to share with them all.
Here, you asked, and I responded.
What? I can’t have a dirt bike at my age? Driver’s licenses? I’ll break my neck?
Can I at least have the squishy bunny night light for my bedside table?
Pretty please?
𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧
When my mother complained to me as a very young child not to eat the dirt, little did she know how I was arming myself for modern day living by ingesting pre-methylenomycin C lactone.
Mother, oh mother of mine, I was being a good girl and eating my vaccine right out of the dirt!
Yay, look what just arrived by courier and, on time too.
My monthly supply of Stash TEA!
Yes, that’s 16 boxes and 300 teabags. What can I say, we drink a lot of tea in this household.
𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧
TV Shows: Obi-Wan Kenobi
Of all the Star Wars iterations I have seen so far, this one was the weakest. From the very first episode Obi-Wan known as Ben, because, you know, he’s in hiding, was a moaning old fisher woman from start to finish. He. Never. Stopped. Complaining.
Obi-Wan’s failings aside, it was fun to get some of the backstory to Leia, and see her as a plucky 10-year old besting dear ‘Ol Ben and getting them both in and out of trouble. Kudos to the young actress, Vivien Lyra Blair, for nailing the part and making it her own.
But the one character/actress who gave heart to the whole series with her sacrifice has to be Indira Varma playing Tala Durith. I want a limited series with Tala running the underground.
Now that’s a spinoff everyone could get behind!
𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧