Baking, skills, hobbies...

I've discovered a few things about myself. I am actually quite creative! :D I am damn good at patchwork and quilting, I can cook quite well (good enough at it to cook for dinner parties, bake creative cakes and cater for children birthday parties) and not too bad at face painting.

Skills like sewing and cooking were taken for granted before when every woman was expected to learn these skills. I can't believe I have learned to sew and cook as I used to detest Domestic Science classes. My mother used to scold me for refusing to step into the kitchen. PT was the better cook when we first started going out. He is out of practice and I have improved by leaps and bounds. Hahahaha!

I stumbled upon quilting in 1998 when a friend brought me to a quilt shop. I was just browsing around and before I knew it, I had signed up for classes and bought the equipment and material needed for quilting. I was hit hard by the quilting bug. I was actually happy that PT was busy with work 'coz it meant I could sew and sew and sew and sew without interruption. I bought a sewing machine soon after signing up for classes and I was sewing 12 hours a day, stopping only for meals and toilet! Quilting was also how I coped with a miscarriage in 1999. Instead of crying and moping, every emotion was put into the quilt design. The quilt was to say goodbye to the baby who was not meant to be ours. The quilt was also a gift to the baby we will eventually have. Laura has outgrown the baby quilt now but it is kept away to be given to her when she is an adult. Hopefully, the quilt will be used by her baby.

August...

A lot seems to have happened since I last wrote. Half of August has gone by. We experienced the worst haze ever with API going beyond 500 points in some areas. The air was so bad, the smell of burning could not be shut out by closing all windows and doors. The movie, Soylent Green, keep coming to my mind. I was afraid! What if this type of air becomes the norm? We won't be able to go outdoors without being sick? Children won't be able to go outside to play? We won't be able to have picnics or go to the beach or just toss a ball outside? Already a game like football is played indoors (called futsal) and more and more indoor tennis courts are being built. How can one have a fun childhood without a space to just run around and scream as much as they want? Where they can play hide and seek all day? Fly a kite?

We've been thinking of buying a house with some land so our children can have a space to run about. Price of houses in the Klang Valley has become ridiculous! Plus we do not have a big budget to get a big spacious house. Also, we will never be assured that what is greenery around us will eventually be houses and condos. Our dream house is not going to fall on our lap. We have to get off our butt to look for it, won't we?

The start of change...

I have started my quest to live healthier. I've been thinking of ways to get some exercise into my day and always had excuses. Tonight, it suddenly occured to me that I can swim after the kids are in bed! I will not fool myself by joining a gym 'coz I will end up paying a lot of money and not go. In fact, we are members of a club with a newly refurbished gym but we have not used the gym yet. Next, I'll have to go get a bathroom scale to monitor my progress. I'm not losing weight just to look good lah. Being from a family with history of diabetes and high blood pressure, I want to stay healthy and be around for a long time. After all, I want to learn to work a power drill, sew lots of quilts and learn dressmaking, play paint ball, learn hairdressing, go for some more bungee jumping, learn to make all sorts of nyonya dishes and grow up with my kids!