The F4 Gang at Nabins

This is a scheduled post.

Back to updating backdated entries yet again.

One evening in April, the F4 gang --em, hs and wy-- decided to meet at Nabins after work to immerse in the quintessence of Arabic fantasies. Besides catching up with one another, it was also meant as a dinner meet up to celebrate em's birthday.



How I miss these gals!




We got em an adidas sports bag which she liked a lot. Now she has a gym bag so she has no excuse not to go the gym. =P




Then, the sneaky gals caught me by surprise when hs suddenly pushed a recyclable brown bag with flower motif across the table saying it was my advanced birthday gift. It was early April then and my birthday falls on the later part of May. So the dinner meet up was meant to be a celebration for both em and me!

You could see how surprised I looked below.




They knew I was into some arty phase and got me lots of DIY craft stuff. How thoughtful of them! They also knew I was into the caring for our environment so they put everything into a recyclable bag which I could use instead of wrapping the gifts. Thoughtful to the max!


The next gift cracked me up. They wanted to get me something I could use for Halloween since it's an event that I would never miss each year.




They got me glow in the dark nail polish! I did not use it for this year's Halloween for it didn't quite gel with my whole image but I would definitely use it in time to come.


We ordered lots of food to share.




Like really lots...




and lots of food.




Then came the desserts. I didn't quite like all the dates. They were too sweet for my liking couple with the fact that they looked like shrivelled cockroaches. Lol.




After eating, we chatted till we had to catch the last trains. I really really love these girls a lot!


A parting shot before my camera battery died. Em was commenting how rare it was that all of us were sporting a full head of our natural black hair then.




Aside: Canon S95 is good for low light but the original and compatible battery sux big time!

The waiter forgot to zoom so we had to use wy's camera to snap.

This is after increasing the exposure by a lot.




My birthday wishes message board is currently sitting my the side of my desk.




I realise I seldom post my work outfits (they're quite boring cos I don't possess a fanciful wardrobe for working clothes) so here's one for an Outfit of the Day shot.




Dear hs is one of the close friend whom I was referring to whose wedding fell in November. What a coincidence that she just sent us some gorgeous pictures of her wedding day over email when I was doing up this post. Here's a bridesmaids picture to share with all of you. The theme was pink.



I will blog about her wedding when I manage to catch up with writing about November.

An Intensive November

As mentioned before, November has been a whirlwind month.

With the weddings of two very close friends and being part of the bridesmaid entourage for both weddings, I've been really busy. In between was my Phuket trip with the BFF. All other pockets of November were filled with meet ups to discuss and plan for parts of the wedding, impromptu meet ups with various groups of people and many many errands --both planned and impromptu--  to run almost every single free day. There isn't a single day where I stayed at home and lazed for the whole damn day. I've been getting 2, 3, 4 hours of sleep each day without replenishing them with naps and frankly speaking, I'm really exhausted.

The hubby would finally be back from the seas on the last day of November and I foresee spending lots of time with him to make up for the lost time the past 3 months. Then half a month later, we would be going on our long-awaited honeymoon to London and Paris! Wee!

Actually I'm sorta bumped that our trip got postponed due to his sudden unforseen circumstances at work. If he had not been delayed, it would have been our 3rd day in London today.

I have planned the timing to fit into my schedule without affecting the weddings, my classes and some personal goals too much. Nevertheless, it is fine to embrace change, the unforseen circumstances and the random happenings in life. Things haven't been going their way but no matter what, we would always be able to work our way around them at the end of the day. =)

I'm having a really full plate but I would continue churning out some posts. Gosh... I stopped backdating from April's updates. At this rate I'm going, I wonder when I would ever be on time for my blog.

I would also attempt to do some scheduled post to keep my blog running during my trip so that you lovely friends and readers would not see virtual cobwebs here.

Thank you all for your heartfelt comments on my dream of Charmaine. I really enjoyed reading what some of you shared.

Like a true blue Gemini when it comes to split personality, I would be emo one minute and happy the next so please do not worry too much for me.

Look out for more regular posts in time to come... I HOPE.

Dreamt of you...

I think I'm ready to share my flashes of dream about Charmaine.


Before I continue, I've to say that my tear ducts have been malfunctioning till now since Charmaine's cremation on the Sunday of 23rd October.


I simply have no more tears in me, not even tears from yawning.


I simply have no more tears in me, not even when I listen or read about sad news.

I simply have no more tears in me, not even tears to lubricate my eyes when my contact lens got stuck one night. My whole eye was red but stil, there was nary a drop of tear.


I'm one with such active tear ducts that my tears would streak down my face even from yawning. I cry when I watch sad movies. I sob when I read or listen to sad stories. I tear very easily even when I don't feel sad at all which I hated coz I hated my tearing to be associated with weakness until I realise and come to embrace the fact that strong people cry too.


It's only human to cry.


I felt a little abnormal when I had no more tears in me the next day. For a period of time, I tried looking and relooking at the tons of photos we have taken throughout the years. I rewatched all our crazy videos from when Jase and Charmaine were just toddlers to pre cancer days and after. I read ourfeistyprincess.blogspot.com coz Cyn has never ever failed to move me to tears with all her emotive words.


I felt like an android devoid of human feelings when I attempted to rediscover my lost emotions.


I've not told anyone snippets of the dream except to Cyn mommy coz I wanted her to be the first one to hear of it, not caring whether she would cry from it or not. Anyway, she has been laughing and crying every other day which is pretty normal. I thought that by relating to her the dream face to face, my floodgates would open. It didn't.


On to the dream.


I don't exactly know where we were in the dream, probably in Cyn's house. Putting myself in dreamscape, I knew it was cyn's house but I don't have any recollection of the setting at all.


Somehow in the dream, we all know that Charmaine had passed away but she was still around at times. When I reached their place, Cyn told me charchar was still around and so I asked her where.


"You will be able to see her if you use your heart to feel," cyn answered.


I felt my emotions stirring and as if magic dust was sprinkled into my eyes, there char was sitting on the sofa with her cheeky little grin and waving to me.





"I CAN SEE HER! I CAN SEE YOU CHAR! Can I hug you?"


I was delirious to be able to see char in her cheeky self, healthy and all.


"You have to keep using your heart and everything would be real," Cyn reminded.


I kept my feelings there and went over to hug charchar.


I could feel her in my arms. I felt her physical body. I felt her warmth. Then, everything seemed to gravitate away from me.


I woke up and stared a while in the dark room, making out the silhoutte of the things in my room. The hubby wasn't around and I was all alone on the bed, feeling so lost and lonely. I think I felt a little tear drop on the outer corner of my right eye; just a tiny little drop before I drifted off to sleep.


I didn't remember my dream immediately; but when I awoke, I knew I dreamt of her. There were hazy images but after a week, I was finally able to put them all together now.


I'm expecting myself to cry when I get all of these out in words.



I don't feel the tears coming and I don't like it.

I do feel the detachment and the distance and I don't like it.


Despite all these, it doesn't change the fact that I still love you, charchar. I prefer to think of it as you sprinkling some magic dust on me and healing my rather active tear ducts, giving me the strength not to cry at every little thing anymore.


Thank you Charmaine for doing so.


Godma Jolene will always love you.

You know blogging has taken you to a whole new level when...

you go to one of your bestie's house only to have her godbrother/ cousin asking,

"You're that famous blogger right?"

*flips a backward fall and faints*

I've to keep emphasizing that I blog but I'm not a famous blogger so now he addresses me NaFB aka Not-a-Famous-Blogger. -_-|||

As requested... My not so drastic new look

Some blabbers and sleepy state talk

I've been meaning to get this post up since I got home but I was settling so many impromptu stuff with my in laws that I've only managed to just settle down to blog with my eyelids half opened.

My domestic helper is flying back to her hometown tomorrow, no actually in a few hour's time but heck my "tomorrow" only starts when I wake up. I dunno if any of you even know what I'm blabbering about.

I've really grown quite fond of my domestic helper. She's really quite cute and I started to talk to her a lot recently. She's also very honest and I could safely let her clean my room and NOTHING would be stolen, quite unlike the many previous domestic helpers whom my in laws employed over the years.

So I'm sending her to the airport tomorrow as both my in laws could not make it and that would mark the start of my 1st errand to run for tomorrow. I've got 4 errands and meet ups in total tomorrow that would take me from morning till night. Have I already mentioned that the time now is SGT5.52am?

November has been a month of randomness and a whole lot of excitement which started right up from Halloween at the end of October to the wedding of 2 very good friends and being their bridesmaids, to the random last minute fun in Phuket with the bff and to all other randomness in life. I'm actually exhausted by all these random fun in life and how I CRAVE for a mundane life now! Like really C.R.A.V.E. and M.U.N.D.A.N.E in capz.


Our new look

It was such a fun filled day today with cyn mommy and godson jase and there's simply too much to write about the entire outing. I will do the entire post another day. I entrusted my camera to Jase who took loads and loads of artistic shots and inane videos so you can expect a post chock-full of photos that do not make sense.

Meanwhile, here are some before and after pictures of cyn mommy and me as requested.

Before... black hair was becoming boring and fringe too was untidy.



Before... Actually cyn already looked kinda pretty even with inches of natural regrowth hair at the scalp.



I only dyed and cut my bangs... Not much of a great transformation much to the chagrin/ relief [Circle correct answer] of many.

After...



This colour I chose would fade to an ash tone after 2 weeks. It was evident on the stylist's hair and I opted for it coz of the after-fade colour effect. Let's hope it works the same for my hair!

I love how the stylist managed to cut the bangs and wispy sides which I want! I absolutely love it that I kept tying up my hair. Jase loves it too! He was actually quite horrified initially after the hair wash.

He shook his head and said gravely, "Godma Jolene, you look too Americany!"

Yeah, new vocab from him!

Then after my hair was blown straight, he squealed, "Look like straight hair Japanese girl! I like."

This boy seriously better not become a smooth talker and heartbreaker next time.

After... Pretty mommy and godma with our new hair! Mommy also cut bangs coz her hair was flattening out.