Okay, maybe not none… I do still know how to get back home from my backyard.

I can read maps. In fact, without maps I would be truly, hopelessly lost. Incidentally, I am a visual learner and therefore can not use a GPS when driving. I cannot concentrate on the road while either looking at the screen or listening to the robotic voice. I therefore rely on the street directory while parked safely on the road shoulder.

Now this post will contain some drawings. I have not drawn for a long long time. I used to draw all the time when I was in high school……then I got all discouraged because I thought, “I’m just mediocre, so why bother?”
There are many blogs nowadays that are filled with awesome drawings  such as Hyperbole and a Half and Crappy Pictures… I thought I might try my hand at some illustrated posts. Not all my posts though because it’s too much work to draw, scan in and colour with photoshop because I am lazy.

So yes, it has been that long since I drew and therefore please bear with my amateur drawings.

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We live in a suburb about 25 minutes drive away from town and we usually do our groceries in another suburb that is only 8 minutes drive away from home. In order to go home from there, we’d have to drive across a river on a bridge. According to my (accurate) assessment, our bearings are so:

So, to go home, at the end of the bridge, we should turn left to go towards North.

HOWEVER, just to confuse people, the road looks like this:

Just a week ago after doing groceries and travelling home, this incident happened.

We were crossing the bridge when I spotted cars traveling on the road highlighted in pink:

I asked the husband, “If we took that road, where would it take us?”

There was a long pause…. and then he replied, “That’s the road we take to go home. We’ve been taking that road for the past TWO years.”

*Silence*

In my mind, I was working this out (let me rotate the map only because we have now reached the bend and straight ahead is south, not east):

See? How I am making a RIGHT TURN when I wanted to go home? It should have been a LEFT TURN!!! No????? How could both turns right bring you to both North AND South?!?!?!? I don’t get it!!!!!!!!!

At this point, my brain was about to explode and I must have looked like this:

Husband asks with trepidation, “….a..are you okay?….”

And that’s when I…

It’s too hard. I’m not going to fight it anymore.

Husband has to get in the last words though. He said, “I don’t get how you can take string and make it into garments but not get how the road goes under the bridge.”

Are you naturally good at directions? Or are you like me? (I even got accosted once by police because I was hopelessly lost! Something I can boast about!)

I love how close I can get to the flowers!

This flower was the size of my thumb. Sooooo tiny and yet so perfect!!!!!! <3

But I think about how long this blog has been around and funnily enough, we do develop some attachments to something that is virtual…. I still like writing and blogging and I know I would want to have this form of outlet available to me when I need to, even if there isn’t anyone else coming here anymore (incidentally, IS THERE anyone out there reading this? HAHAHA).

2011 has been a very busy year for me and my family. We had a new addition mid November. Here’s a few pics of him:

Carrot (as Chubbs had nicknamed him when he was still in my tummy), is a very good baby. He sleeps through most of the nights and is generally cheerful. He is also outgrowing his clothes fast. He is about 2 months old now and almost outgrowing clothes for 3-6 month old babies!We are very blessed to have him.

On the uni front – I did very well in the last semester. (1 High Distinction, 2 Distinctions and 1 Credit [which was 2 marks short of a Distinction!])

As I have taken summer semester off to have Carrot, I would be replacing the units in an extra year. I am returning to Uni at the end of Feb… (hope I would be able to update the blog still!!!!!!)

On the arty crafty front – I’m still knitting and sewing. I do have some bags in the store and hope to sew more bags to add to the store as well as handdyed yarn.

Photography wise, I would like to join fatmumslim’s Photo-a-day challenge. I *may not* do a photo everyday.. (don’t want to promise anything! Look what happened to my project 365! LOL) but I try my best!

We had a barbie by the beach yesterday. Lovely summer day! The coastal drive down was beautiful and the food was DELICIOUS! I wished I took a photo of the food before we ate!
We then went for a hike after lunch:

There were uphills and downhills and it was fun for the 2 older kids. Our purpose was to wear them out for easy bed time… hehehehehe.

This picture was one of the first I took yesterday. I forgot to check the camera settings and therefore had overexposed shots. Ack!!!

Sunshine walking down the stairs leading to another beach.

We found beds and beds of MUSSELS!!!!!! Most of them are tiny but some of them are big enough to be eaten. Not that we eat mussels though.

This oyster shell got me into trouble – I didn’t see the tide coming in and my shoes and socks got wet! Chubbs also had a wet shoe as he stepped into a tide pool by accident…. Hahaha.

After the hike, we had delicious watermelon (ahhhh the joys of summer!) and then we went to rest for a while at our friends’ house.

She put them in her wheelbarrow and wheeled them around her huge garden!

Alrighty. I promise to TRY to write often. Do holler in the comments if there’s still anyone lingering around!

This was taken with my friend’s macro lens. I love how near you could get to the subject.
This is a ‘fly’ made by her very talented teenage son. He uses them for fly fishing in the river. The fly is less than 1cm big!! I’m very impressed by his skills!! I think it takes a lot of patience, imagination and precision…. not an easy task!!!

I was trying to capture the different colours of the strawberry leaves… but I thought this photo has a little too much going on in the frame. Lacking a point of focus.

This photo is light painted. Which means that this shot was shot completely in the dark. f1/18, exposure time 8 secs. Most recommend an ISO of 400 but this was shot on 250. The subject is illuminated by a single flashlight that had a cardboard pasted over it and a tiny hole poked through the center.
All focusing was done manually and I’m very happy to achieve the effect I want!

This figurine has a story – Her name is Lenore and her creator is Roman Dirge.
I made her out of sculpley clay and painted her (because I was then too poor to afford coloured sculpey). She is ALMOST 10 years old and was a gift from me to my then boyfriend. He loved it so much he kept her in a pristine condition and then we got married and she’s still around today. She was one of the first handmade gifts I gave to him (along with many t-shirts with hand drawn characters which he wears till this day even though the characters have faded away).

Sigh this is the best my kit lens can do for macro shots. I can’t wait till my macro attachments arrive! Then I can really play with macro – my dream come true. Hurry hurry international post!!!

Forrest Gump said that “Life is like a box of chocolates.”
To me, my life is like a tin of colour pencils. You can’t always have blue (the colour that makes me the most happy) days and sometimes you have brown or grey days.
If we would open our eyes to look around, life is very colourful indeed….
We even dream in colour!

Here’s the first installment:

This is the cardigan (or rather, part of it) that I’m designing. The notebook holds my design notes and diagrams. The book below it is Jodi Picoult’s “My Sister’s Keeper”.

Effect I used on this photo is Lomo!
I’ve always loved Lomography but alas, it’s so costly to develop rolls and rolls of 35mm film. I have a Supersampler but it’s been untouched for years. I love the Holga the best of all.

Would posting a heap of photos help you forgive me for abandoning this place?

Okay.. just roll along with me here….

First up, recent photos of the kids!

I love his feet and toes.

Through my (fisheye) lens.

Look at the way he is looking at her! LOL.

He was about to push her!!!!

So…. are we interested in what I’ve been up to recently?
Well.. I’m having school holidays at the moment and return to Uni early July (which is soon!!)

I’ve been knitting loads and reading loads, happy to be away from assignments and exams for a bit!
Here some photos of my WIPs (Work In Progresses):

My Olive blouse, knitted with Wollmeise (Blau Tinte 100%) and the collar was knitted with Malabrigo Sock (Caribeno). It’s an endless Stockingnette stitch right now and I only work on it when I need a project that doesn’t need much brain juice.

Well I thought knitting a blouse or cardi in sock weight was bad enough…. Clearly I’m insane to start a Featherweight cardi with malabrigo Lace. I know, right? It’s not in hibernation yet but this is at the bottom of my WIP list. Grrr.

This is my Huntington Castle Pullover. Knitted in Rowan Summer Tweed. I’m left with just a little bit of the hood and seaming the sleeves to go!!!

Uh… another semi-abandoned project… This is crochet and I’m trying to make a hexagon blanket throw for our sofa.

I have another major WIP (possibly the last of its kind too) that I’ve been brewing and that is this:

Which kinda explains why I’ve not been updating much (on top of the school work and housework I have!)

I know my tummy is big for weeks (16 weeks now) but I am assured it’s normal as it is our 3rd baby and my insides expand much faster for subsequent babies.
I’ve JUST finished with feeling nauseous and horrible everyday and am now able to keep my dinner down much better. My spirits have improved although I still feel tired a lot of the time.

We are not finding out the gender of the baby and he/she already has a nickname! It happened when one day we asked the kids,

Me to Sunshine: Do you want a baby brother or a baby sister?
Sunshine: Hmm.. I want a baby sister.
Me to Chubbs: Do you want a baby brother or baby sister?
Chubbs (eyeing the carrot in his food bowl): I want a BABY CARROT!!
Thus, we have our little baby carrot.

Okay dokey. If you are on my list of Facebook friends, you’ll be able to see the other photos I’ve taken……
Once again, sorry for the absence… I will try to make up for lost time.