It's cold. Airi-chu, I summon you!

Brrr, it's getting cold up here!

It's rained quite a lot this past week, which is great news for me because cold weather is so refreshing! I love being indoors and listening to the rain pitter-patter on the rooftop, while sipping tea of course. I've been using the lovely tea pot that my sister bought me for Christmas! 

It's very princessy. In fact, I feel unworthy of such elegance, given my clumsiness...

Sometimes I use the cup too, but when I am VERY cold and need lots of tea, I resort to mugs. (Do not be offended dear sister!)

The only downside of this lovely weather is that our apartment has turned into an igloo! But fear not, I come prepared!   

Wheeeee-aahhh!

This is me, dancing in my Pikachu Kigurumi to a song by Greeeen! Believe it or not, this kigurumi is the warmest thing I own! I got it two years ago for Halloween. If you're looking for a tame, cute outfit that will catch the hearts of all the nerdy Asian boys, I can speak from unfortunate experience that this will do the trick.

The way the fabric hangs creates a very slimming effect from the front. 

Nifty, huh? And on the back, there's a tail:

"Wigu wigu" is my sound effect for wiggling!

There's also a hoodie:

The hood is cute when you wear it, but if you bend your head down, you'll end up looking like a crippled Pikachu!

Oppa is so cute; he coined the name, "Airi-chu"! Brilliant isn't it? I feel like such a cool Pokemon now!! 

Airi-chu, I summon you!

That's it about October weather!

Luview:

So...LuView had a photo contest and I went ahead and entered. The pessimistic me doubts I shall win, but we'll see what happens. Either way, it was fun making the entry!

In one of my pictures I used the rose that came in the bouquet my sister gave me:

Sister says this picture looks like an Asian version of Beauty and the Beast. Aw, I'm so embarassed...I'm no Beauty/Belle! Although, I daresay it's pretty accurate as far as Oppa being the Beast! His legs are quite hairy....

I tried to make the most of my rose, so I even attempted the whole "rose-in-mouth" thing. It looks pretty charming in movies right? Alas, this was the result for me:

2 seconds before it fell on the ground. 'Tis an unposed picture, promise!

Such a failure! It kept falling out of my mouth, leaving me to sink my front teeth into the rose stem. Eww! The stem has been soaking in that old water since last week!!  

Mixed Feelings:

And lastly, switching gears, here's something that I've been having mixed feelings about. I don't like posting excessive pictures of myself, even if it's my own blog. I don't find myself attractive, so naturally, I don't like seeing my face everywhere. 

Don't get me wrong, I like taking pictures! Everytime I turn on my camera I end up with a handful of silly pictures. I'm just not as enthusiastic about posting them. I am scared of coming off as vain, especially since I'm not even close to being confident.  

But, BUT, being a reader myself, I understand that there photos are much more aesthetic than words (not much of a reader am I?). After all, picture is worth a thousand words! So, beginning this blog entry, I am going to make an effort to share more of the (silly) pictures I take with you! Please appreciate my efforts towards making my entries easier on the eyes!

Okie, I clock out now! G'nite!

My Birthday, 2011 Edition

 Yesterday marked a new year for me. Yep, it was my birthday!

Sigh, I'm turning so old now. I can feel my back aching already. I've even gotten to the point where I am considering lying about my age, sad huh?

Cake:

Due to my denial, Oppa and I decided to hold simple festivities early, on Thursday rather than Saturday. I like it better actually. It eases me into my new age over the course of 3 days, rather than giving me a breakdown on Saturday. Good idea, huh?

So on Thursday Oppa and I picked up a fruit cake from Safeway. Such a simple cake still looked so so pretty when lit up!

We sang and I made a wish. But right as I was about to blow the candles out, I noticed something.

Was that MOLD on the blueberries?!

"No no, it's just sugar frosting!" Oppa said.
"No no, it's mold!" I persisted. We looked closer, and sure enough, the blueberries were quite furry!! Can you spot where?

'Oh well, we'll just scoop the affected blueberries off,; we decided. But NOPE, turns out, the little mold spores had hopped from fruit to fruit and contaminated 90% of the fruits!! In the end, we scooped off practically all of the top, making a nice pile of moldy fruit:

But that's okay, we made do with the 10% of oranges and blueberries that were left :) I refuse to let it ruin my day! But who woulda thought that Safeway cakes would have moldy fruit on them, huh?

Card:

Oppa also wrote me the cutest card--well, more like drew! When we write cards to eachother, it's usually half writing and half doodling. Here's one of the pictures he drew:

Haha, it's so cute, he drew himself as a little acorn! Perfect, since after his acorn-like haircut I've been calling him my Little Acorn (totally cheesy/corny/sappy I know...).

He even made a little cartoon, since he knew I was feeling sad about getting old:

Caption: Me: I'm old!

Oppa: It's ok...everything will be alright.

Still sad! T.T

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.

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Awwww, it's so cute! It's accurate too, as far as me running to the bed to sulk. If you didn't realize, those beanbag-looking things are the blanket -.-

At the end of the card he drew a picture of himself waiting for a hug:

Hahahahaha, so funny and cute!

Hmm, if you still don't get it, I understand...this is probably an inside taste in humor...

Saturday Surprise:
So that was Thursday, leaving Saturday (my actual birthday) mostly uneventful--which is great by the way, since I'm still in denial. However, I got a delivery from my sister! She had told me it was a "little something" to have with my card. At 5:30pm we heard a knock at our door. "Flower delivery!"

FLOWERS! What a lovely surprise!!! But flowers are not little, they are quite expensive!! I was thinking more of a gift card you know, that's actually little! 

Thank you~~~!!!!

 

In most of the pictures I take for fun I make faces like this, but this time I thought it might be COURTEOUS to have a civilized expression, especially since my messy hair and pink lenses already make me look crazy. So here it is:

The bouquet choice is TOTALLY my sister. I mean, it's such a mature, harmonious nice blend: flowers, roses, purple, and red, all in one! I decided that the best spot for them was in our living room, perched up on our pink bookshelf:

 

 Looks so pretty up against the wall! The cat thing next to it is Oppa's mini vanity. He stores his man jewelry there.

Oh and look, whoever wrote the card has bad bad writing, tsk tsk~~

 

I also got well-wishes from my friends, my brothers, and my grandpa. His was the best, he sang Happy Birthday in broken English, so funny!!

Sangyu everybody!

Beautiful Red Rose For Love

A most horrible week

Well what a week it's been.
Taking last Saturday as a starting point, it was my nephews wedding. The kids, (ok not kids, 17 and 20 can hardly be described as kids) decided to stay home and not party. Myself and Mr S set of from Wiltshire to land in Greater Machester some 8 hours later, this journey should normally take no more than 4. So straight to the hotel, shower and turn up some what fashionally very late for the remainder of the reception.

Which was absolutly fabulous. I don't get to see my family very often and it was a perfect time to introduce Mr S to the rest of the family.

Is this the coolest wedding cake ever.

My newphew may be a Sweeney, but he still has what we call the Shaw gene, hence the groom standing on the yellow pages. Aint that the cutest thing.

In the morning we returned from breakfast to get ready for a few family visits to find my phone full of messages. A water pipe in the front garden had burst. Ok, so no visits but setting straight off on the return journey, with Mr S and my eldest daughter on the phone trying to find a plumber who will deal with underground work and on a Sunday, the water board, and angry neighbours.

We return 7 hours later, pipe bypassed for return and repair on the following day. Whew that girl deserves a gold medal for all the things she had to deal with.

The rest of the week hasn't been great ether.

I broke the feed dogs on my machine. So off to find another, I chose one of the old machines currently stored under my bed.

I first thought I would give the Riccar a try, only to discover, it has no lead. I was obversly paying alot of attention when I bought this.

So time to try out one of the old Singers

Tried it on scrap and it worked beautifully steady smooth very neat stiches. Very impressed was I. Until the bobbin ran out then I found the bobbin winding mechanism would not turn, read the manual, found screwdriver. blah blah, still no joy. So back upstairs she went, no way was I bringing the other baby down, Man they are heavy!

Time to dig out my first machine, its a Toyota, but we call her Tesco,

It didn't take long before I remembered why she was in retirement. Very dogy speed control and not able to get attachments, so unable to do button holes but between her and finally taking my overlocker out of the box she has been in for several years never used, I managed to make Loud shirt number 4.

Now needing to do buttonholes has meant I have dragged out The Beast, so named because she is extreamlly heavy and not portable at all.

The all singing all dancing Janome Memmory Craft 11000. Cool eh, well not if I can't find the intsructions. I have figured out the computer bit how to do a button hole but can I figure out the most simple task of how to remove the current foot and attach the button hole foot. Nooooo, So just about now I am feeling pretty useless.

And to top off this moan of a horrible week, My daughters laptop came back, it went away due to software problems, keep freezing. They returned it Thursday as promised with a note 'we have replaced the hard-drive and the key board' excellent she was very happy. Less than 2 miniutes later not so much, the damn keyboard dosn't work. Arrrrrrggggg. So it was collected again this morning.

So what's a girl to do, (for someone who suffers from the bad kind of depression, I have discovered for me, being a 'doer' helps a great deal).  I need to 'do' when I am unable to control things happening around me, my last resort is furnture moving. As soon as the kids hear the scrapping noise of furnture they scarper. Unfortunally due to the ongoing building work, everything is piled high and I am not able to move anything. My youngest will soon be up and asking for this laptop so no browsing for me.

Well theres only one thing for it, it must be ether off to the fabric shops or shoe shopping. I hope your week has been better than mine.

So long you lovely people. Sew Vala xx