What? It is already eleven days and two months into 2015. Seriously, where did all the lost time disappear to? Time is whizzing too quickly. Sometimes, I wished I had the power to freeze time, don't you? Anyway, here's February Instasummary.
Instagram videos on blog run in fast forwards, skips and jumps. They are better viewed on
iamjolene Instagram page itself for sound and image quality, as well as full streaming and on smartphone Instagram app for emoji to display.
~1 January 2015~
Happy new year from Hanoi! May 2015 be a good year filled with peace, joy and good health for everyone!
~1 January 2015~
Latergram video. New Year's countdown party on the streets of Hanoi. Bye bye Hanoi and hello Singapore in a few hour's time.
~3 January 2015~
Memories from the turn of 2014 to 2015:
Caught a full blown URTI bug and was so sick from the flight back home with no other medication but Panadol Extra. Flaring red tonsils, super painful throat, uncontrollable coughing, leaky stuffy nose, feeling like I'm drowning in my own thick mucus, pain through one side of the nose and forehead, blowing small trails of blood out and feeling like a useless bum sleeping and sleeping and sleeping. The only consolation of it all? The discovery that Kleenex Ultra Soft 3 Ply makes blowing nose such a joy and wondered what have I been doing blowing my nose with other brands of tissue paper and even toilet paper!
~6 January 2015~
The most refreshing feeling in the world -- The first shower after waking up from being sick in bed and bathed in perspiration for the whole day. It is as if all the heat, cough, cold, sore throat and whatever sick stuff have been washed off from the body for that brief moment. It is as if the refreshing water injects health and invigorates the soul for that temporal phase. A-MA-ZING! (Disclaimer: Image doesn't belong to me.)
~8 January 2015~
Throwback Thursday. The one where the bimbos melted at Butter Factory. It was such a boring place with such a boring crowd that we had to 自 high.
~11 January 2015~
Throwback to when I was saying a silent prayer for myself and my loved ones at La Madeleine, Paris. Fast forward to now, let's all say a prayer for those affected by the Paris shooting at the offices of Charlie Hebdo and the kosher supermarket. Shifting the geographical lens closer, let's also say a prayer for those affected by the AirAsia QZ8501 crash and for the heroes working tirelessly to find the missing bodies and plane parts.
~13 January 2015~
Received a 3D Bomb Curl Brush as one of my Christmas gifts. Prior to this, I've never heard of this amazing brush at all. It could create spiral waves just by twirling the brush and blowing with a hair dryer. There are YouTube videos available. Just google "3D bomb curl brush". The spiral waves effect is beautiful just that it could not last overnight for my hair texture. With its hollow spherical shape, it could also be used to create volume and bounce for short hair. For my length of hair, I'm pleased with the result of my layers being curled inwards after blow drying my hair every night. It's the kinda style I like especially since my hair had gotten quite coarse and unruly with the hair ends going in all zig zag directions due to the change in pH of our water recently. The brush is a dream to use. My hair flows through it without much tugging and friction. It has since become my nightly blow dry hair brush. 😍😍😍
~17 January 2015~
Hubz thinks I should continue to grow out my fringe. Keep or cut? It is slowly growing outta the Rufus the Sheepdog phase.
~17 January 2015~
First time trying the baked bee hoon from Famous Kitchen. Me likey! So different from the usual crispy noodles. It is one of their signature dish. Romaine lettuce with preserved bean curd is a great greens side dish. I didn't quite like the lobster rolls fried with salted egg which is on promotion. You could choose the way it is done eg black pepper, salted egg etc. The salted egg part is good but the insides taste like very dry and tough meat instead of lobster. Guess that's why they are on promotion.
~18 January 2015~
I love how apt the picture is. Have you read Mark Manson's article The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck? It is trending on Facebook and if you haven't read it, you should. Most of us struggle throughout our lives by giving too many fucks in situations where fuck do not deserve to be given and that's when life fucks us. We have to be like this cool cat every now and then.
~20 January 2015~
Grapes... Why you so nice to eat? 🍇🍇🍇
~21 January 2015~
Finally visited baby Sam today! What a pretty little girl looking so cute and small next to Hello Panda. Eyes look like Mummy @xtinaong. 😍 @tifducky ,we miss you.
~21 January 2015~
Baby Samantha has mummy @xtinaong's eyes and Daddy's smile.
~23 January 2015~
There are a few versions to this but I like "yeah right" best. #englishisfun #iloveenglish
~25 January 2015~
Gift from London. Same silk cashmere scarf, different colour, different packaging. Hmm. Which one should I choose?
~31 January 2015~
When I think of water colour illustration, Manolo Blahnik comes to my mind. I wanna learn how to do water colour art next!
~31 January 2015~
2015 was one of the rare year where there wasn't any free desktop calendar given out from any available source (work, vendors, agents, friends etc). Only in the 2nd week of January did I start to hunt high and low for a pleasant looking one with enough space for writing. I found one at great discount from Art Box because seriously, who buys calendar in the middle of January?
~31 January 2015~
You know how fussy I am with schedule books? I need them light and thin. I need them spineless. I need space at the dates to jot down notes. I need them to be of light colour. I need them to have the illustration style that I like. I need them to be pleasing to my eye. I love my 2014 Mixed Cats Schedule Book so much that I was looking forward to their 2015 one.
Alas, there wasn't any book remotely similar to Mixed Cats or even matching my criteria in the whole of Kinokuniya and various malls in Orchard. I wasn't the only one. While searching at Kinokuniya, a gal stood beside me and started lamenting to her partner that she was disappointed at the lack of variety this year. I struck up a conversation with her by relating to her how we were in the same "predicament". When I showed her my Mixed Cats schedule book, she got excited and said that was something like what she was looking for but there was NOTHING remotely similar. The wonders of how the search for schedule books could connect 2 complete strangers.
But I digress.
In the end, I bought this Peter Rabbit one. I love Peter Rabbit illustration but I don't understand WHY the cover is in such a shocking state of pink. Shouldn't Peter Rabbit's style be beige or light colours? It matches majority of my criteria but it sure took me some time to get over an excessively PINK schedule book.
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~31 January 2015~
So since I was in the mood for posting flipagram videos and whining about how the variety of schedule books sucked for 2015, here's a throwback video of my 2014 Mixed Cats one which I absolutely adore. I don't care if you hate cats, I love this kinda cat illustration and colour scheme. I also love that it is light and thin and spineless and with space at dates to write notes and I just love to look at the cute kitties and sweet cookies illustration. 🐱🐱🐱
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[This is a scheduled post.]