Running for a cause

Suddenly July is upon us and you know what July brings? Daily thunderstorms. Ordinarily thunderstorms don't worry me but this Sunday is the day I go for my first paid run. (I pay to run) I heard it's a rain or shine event. What am I saying? It is a rain or shine event. I don't want my Adidas running shoes to get wet. Yes, I'm acting like a spoilt brat. I find it hard to find the right pair of running shoes and I don't know if the shops still sell this model. It's super comfy.

Me and hubs will be participating in Jurong Lake Run. It's a run for a cause meaning some proceeds (I don't know how much) will go to charity.

We have collected our race pack and it has a lot of freebies from the sponsors.

Will I be running with this PayPal towel round my neck? I think not.

Our race bibs. See - I'm running under "Projects By Jane". Mine is a leisurely 3km run. I could walk if I want to. It's allowed. Hubs is doing 6km.

This is my running top. I don't think I'll wear it. It's sleeveless and I have thunder arms. It's also a little large around the chest.

These are skin and hair care samples.

These are some protein bars. Is it too early to eat them?

And how thoughtful. Some Ebene cream for the stiffness that will come later.

Today I went to the jogging park for my usual 6 rounds. But after 4 rounds, I almost stepped onto a dead animal and thus ran screaming home. Am afraid this is all the preparation I'm putting in this week. I shan't return to the jogging park until "it" has turned into dust. Come Sunday, I hope I won't be carried out in a stretcher.

Declutter and reclutter

Today I woke up and decided I didn't want to live in a dumpster any more. We have so much clutter all over that it's impossible to tidy up the whole flat. I decided it would be wise to tackle a small area every few days.

I realised I wanted the balcony cleaned first because I'm going to be spending a lot of time there. It's where I take photographs of my bags.

Despite the small floor area, the cleaning took up so many hours of my day until I ran out of steam. Finally I finished everything and of course I'm totally exhausted.

We use the balcony as a storage space as well. Many years ago when we first moved in, we bought this shelving unit from Ikea. If you're familiar with Ikea, you'll know their furniture has names. If I remember correctly, this one is called Ivar. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I would hate to address my shelving unit by the wrong name.


What you see here is a clean and empty Ivar. No, today's blog post is not a pretentious "keeping it real" kind of post. Which is why I'm not showing you the before pic. You get to see the glamorous pics only!

(Edit: Thanks to Anna, this shelving unit is called Sten. I remember always calling Sten Ivar because we also have a Ivar shelving unit.)

Well, just imagine hoarding horror. Hubs uses the shelves to store his flip flops and some shoes. We also regularly dump our plastic bags, shopping bags, boxes and basically anything we felt like dumping. Speaking of plastic bags and paper bags, we have so much we qualify as hoarders. What? Are we afraid we'll run out of plactic/paper bags? It's impossible to run out!

I threw away bags and bags of unusable stuff. The rest I bagged into 5 recycling bags. If I forget to put out these recycling bags outside my door on the next recycling pick-up date, I'll be one sorry person.
 
Speaking of hoarding, I was quite shocked to discover hubs has 15 pairs of flip flops. I am runner-up with 8 pairs.

Have you ever had furniture regret? This stupid high chair is my furniture regret. We bought it years ago when my son was still a toddler. I had this fairy-tale idea that I would put him on the high chair in the kitchen while I prepare his food. The chair was high enough so he could see what I was doing. That was the idea. Well, I put him on the chair and he would sit there for a few seconds. Then he would ask to come down. And so the high chair became this useless piece of furniture which we kept putting in different locations in our little flat. Finally one day, it became permanently dumped in the balcony. Every time I look at it, I feel sick in my stomach. Sometimes in my dreams, I swing an axe at it.

This is the window grilles at the balcony. We were too cheap to install windows. Outside is this crazy looking tree. Yes, it's one tree but it looks like another tree is growing on top of the bottom tree. I hate this tree. If it weren't there, I would get better lighting. What's the average life span of a tree? Will murderous thoughts help?
 

This is the unglamorous wall I use as background to take all my pics. It is a very small piece of wall but I make it work. It has this stupid electrical cable which I have to hide. Above is a hook for my long bags.

There is some blue tack on the wall above the hook which I had tried to get hubs to remove but it's there year after year. Anyway, thank goodness for photo cropping.

This is another cheap Ikea table which I use to place my objects to photograph. I don't remember if it has a name. I cover the table with a white fabric and then I take the pics.

This is a tea container with tea which hubs gave me recently. Can you make out the table cloth and the wall? White fabric works like magic for photos.

These 2 transparent containers are miniature bath tubs. On Sunday I bought something from Sephora and the cashier asked me to become a member as it was free. So I did and I received the bath tub. I said it was cute and received another one right away! I immediately thought they would be perfect to display my pouches.

But you know what? If I want my decluttering to work, I have to stop collecting every dem container offered to me. Must tell hubs to stop going through the rubbish bin.

VivoCity Craft Market 30th June to 1st July 2012 Post-mortem

Dear readers,

Over the weekend I was at VivoCity Craft market. As always, it started out with a taxi ride. This time, a taxi driver who lived in my neighbourhood drove me. He called out to me from the 3rd storey of a car park: Muay, muay! It took me a while to realise the voices were from above. I almost went crazy for a while there.

He was a very chatty driver. Told me his whole life story and his grievances with his kids. We compared notes about raising teens and our water/power bill.  (His family uses 3 times what mine uses and his has only 1 more member) To be honest, I'm not a chatty person especially with taxi drivers. But he was quite an interesting character and had the habit of brand-dropping. Like, my Rolex watch.... Gosh, I should have worn my Marc Jacobs. (ahem)

When I reached VivoCity, the first thing I do is to check where my counter is. Alas, I was allocated the table of death. For the uninitiated, any table that isn't on the perimeter is a table of death. And based on my history, I have always done badly when allocated such a table. Some sellers NEVER get the table of death. I do not know why but I've done a few tours of duty already.

Well, never mind. Table of death or not, the market goes on. While setting up the display, the lady with the spray can which triggered my migraine showed up and her allocated counter was right next to me. I felt like it would be the longest weekend of my life once again.

But I told myself my fengshui was different this time. My counter was close to the door and the sea breeze came in now and then. Speaking of sea breeze, I tried to reach into the deep dark depths of my brain to recall the Geography lessons I had learnt as a teenager. Breeze coming in from the sea - is that sea breeze or land breeze? I have zero memory of any Geography I had learnt.

Anyway, it turned out to be not as bad as before. Yep, the spray can was used. Again and again and freaking again. I did get a migraine. It was horrific at times but I think I tolerated it a teensy better this time. Anyway, I got all doped up. So, on Sunday, my dear kids came to help out and for dinner they went to Pizza hut but they couldn't eat the last slice of pizza which they brought back to me wrapped in a paper napkin. So I was staring at the last slice of pizza and wondering if I should eat it. I know cheese isn't good for me. It gives me headaches. It's been proven.

Then I kept thinking to myself. I already have migraine. I'm on medication. And I really, really gave it a good long thought

I mean, we have but this one short life.

We live. We die. And in between, let's have a bit of cheese now and then?

With that ringing endorsement, I ate the last slice of pizza. It was delicious. It had a lot of cheese including the orangey kind hidden in the crust.

Of course I immediately regretted it. What's wrong with me? And what stupid, stupid half-assed philosophy is this?

We live. We die. And in between, let's have a bit of cheese now and then?

I can't eat cheese. And I better remember that. So, listen people. Don't ask for my advice regarding eating anything because you know what I would say.

We live. We die. And in between, let's have a bit of ______ (insert food) now and then?

But good news. I checked the schedule and for my next VivoCity craft market date, she won't be there. One less thing to worry about. Oh, today the puffiness on my face finally subsided. I'm wondering. What the hell is in the spray can?

Have I ever shown you how I display some of my bags? I let them sit on the gridwall.

Enough blabber. Let's get down to business.

11 sexy zippy wristlets went to VivoCity.

And then 3 sexy zippy wristlets were left.

And this little black and white sexy zippy wristlet went
"wee wee wee" all the way home.

And this black and white crossbody bag did not find a buyer either.


You know, over the years, people and these are well-meaning people have often said to me:

Jane, why don't you make more bags in black and white. They will sell very well.

The next time anyone says this to me, this will be my reply:

Shaddup

Sales was pretty good despite my table of death location. You know what this means? There are no tables of death.

I wore my uniqlo Barbie tees. Maybe these are my new lucky tees? My smile looks a little strained on account of the head pain.

I sat behind Ruby, someone I've known from my MAAD days. She takes scraps and makes stuff out of them. Awesome. Check her out here.

Hey, guess who showed up on Saturday???????

This, my dear readers is MeiLing from Malin Textile whom I buy my lovely, lovely fabric from. How sweet of her to visit my little craft market and buy a sexy zippy wristlet from me? And yes, she is the one who sold me the blue fabric! I was so touched and so happy. Her shop has a facebook here.

My stock is low once again. It is good news. Of course it is good news. Will worry about my stock level later. I'm happy I sold a few brooches because I really want to make more. See ya.