Archive for the ‘Lifestyle’ Category

A couple of days ago I picked up some green pea seeds, soil and a plant container at the local hardware shop. I wanted to plant the peas in the hopes that we’d be  able to enjoy our own home grown green peas by the end of July. We just live in an apartment so the peas were planted in the container and pots.

My mother in law has a garden at her weekend house somewhat half the size of a football field.

It did came to mind of such a waste it is not to do anything with it. Here I am planting peas in pots when there is a land waiting to be used. *sigh* Well, the place isn’t mine. But would be nice to have our own garden, with an outdoor fire place,  a nice fish pond - complete with a garden pond filter and a small fountain, and rows and rows of vegetables. I’m not the flower type. I’d rather plant vegetables.

Anyhow, lets wait a few more days and see whether my peas would sprout or not.

The tradition to give wedding favours or small tokens to guests to a wedding ceremony has been around for as long as I can remember. In the culture that I grew up in, from every wedding that we attended, we would bring back home a handmade flower with an egg that we call, “bunga telur” or if translated directly would mean, ‘egg flower’. Why? Because it is to be the symbol of  fertility, in the hopes that the newly weds would be blessed with beautiful, healthy children.

However, nowaday, tokens or wedding favours become more and more unique. Like beautifully crafted silver bells.

Or wedding cds with pictures or videos of the couple, or selection of music that means something to the couple, etc.

Or sweets and candies  in lovely, personalized wedding favor bags, or boxes.

All the above wedding favors are from Jean M’s wedding favor collections at myjeanm.com. They offer all those beautiful wedding invitation and accessories that would simply make a girl’s dream wedding complete.

Now, what ever the wedding favors or tokens may be, the aim is to show the guest how they’re effort - to come all the way to the wedding to make the celebration a succesful happy one - is much appreciated.

If ‘modern furniture’ is mentioned to me, the things that would come up to my mind is, versatility, comfort, fresh & elegant design. These characteristics, I believe, may be some of the reasons why people would opt for modern style furniture. Of all the modern furniture out there - from modern office swivel chairs to modern dining tables - I love the designs of modern couches. We all have got to admit that we do spend quite a lot of time sitting on our living room couch - we read on it, we take naps on it, and watch television while sitting on it too.

Since they are usually one of the biggest pieces of furniture in a room, modern couches designs tends to set the mood of the room that they are set in - Fun, elegant, sophisticated, classy, cosy etc.

In the concept of modern design or modern living, space saving is important. You will find that many modern couches tend to have the slim and sleek designs. Some would even have additional function to them when you can even convert the couches to beds.

I do believe that, if you are looking for a new couch for your home, a modern couch would do no wrong.

I, just like many thousands or perhaps millions of people in the world are just the watchers of sports. Mainly football. Some people I know never even played the game in their lives, yet love the game fanatically. Well, not so strange is it? As we all love a good movie sometimes despite never being actors or actresses ourselves.

I just watched one of Ghibli studio’s anime - Only Yesterday. It’s about a Japanese lady reminiscing her childhood days and moving on to the next level of her life in the present. In the anime movie, there are scenese when she and her friend as children had to attend radio exercise sessions in her summer holidays.

This radio exercise accompanied by special music is what the Japanese call, “Radio taiso”. The Japanese been doing it since world war II and practiced by every one - school kids and even office workers. This morning exercise has become part of Japanese culture and perhaps it wouldn’t be too much to say that everyone in Japan would know the exercise ritual by heart. It is said the purpose of this exercise is not only to promote good and healthy lifestyle but also to create unity among classmates and co-workers.

We love Japan because they produce cool animes, good Japanese dramas, horrifying ghost movies, amazing gadgets, and much more. Perhaps we should even try to bring this Japanese tradition into our schools and workplaces. Hey, it may even help get rid of belly fat faster.

A good friend emailed me a url of a really interesting website - thisiswhyyourefat.com. If you cannot guess already, the site is filled with mouth-watering,fat rich food pictures. The pictures are submitted by readers from everywhere.

<photo via thisiswhyyourefat.com>

Looking at a double coronary burger, I wonder how many hours one would need to exercise just to burn all those calories away?

Nevertheless, I just got to admit,many of the  food in the website does look wonderfully yummy…

Well, I’m quite sure if I like to eat these sort of rich food, a fat burner would be my close companion.

I love gadgets. Well, most people I know likes gadgets. Some cool, cute, interesting and even wacky. Just like these usb speaker that looks like your American Standard toilets.

Interesting… very interesting…. that someone would want speakers that look like toilets.

But then I suppose, novelty items are kind of an in thing these days.

I claim myself as a non-morning person. But my husband would argue with me that there is no such thing as a morning person or night person. According to him, human beings are primates and also part of the animal world. Most animals that cannot see well at night would usually sleep when the sun is down and wake up at the break of dawn. When he puts it that way, sure it makes sense. Originally, in the olden times people usually prepare to get to bed when it gets dark outside. However the more technologically developed we are, starting from the invention of electricity light, we humans began to sleep later and later.

So okay, human beings are not made to be a morning person or a night person, we all should sleep early and rise early. But since nowadays, our light bulbs are bright as daylight we can do things that normally we do in the morning. And some people like myself, prefer to work at nights because it is rather quiet since most people are already asleep. But is it something genetic? That we are born to be a morning person or a night person? Nope, just habit.

I guess, I have to agree with my husband. There isn’t such a thing as a morning or night person, but habit would make one either of the two. Although I didn’t really mind to become a night person, but since I have to wake up early everyday to prepare breakfast and all, the habit of sleeping late is taking its toll. I have not even touched 30 but I believe if I don’t start changing my sleeping habit, I better be prepared to be needing tubs and tubs of anti-wrinkle cream. Or botox. No matter whether you are a human being of the 18th century or of the 21st century, enough sleep is essential for health and beauty.

A diamond studded mercedes. This is Saudi Prince Waleed Bin Talal’s 38th car, a diamond studded SL600 Mercedes and is worth $4.8 million.When you earn billions, less extravagant auto accessories would be insufficient huh??
When I checked the hungerreport.org website, it is said about 115 million people in the world are hungry. And there are some people who drive more than one car and afford to encrust their luxury cars with diamonds.

Sad eh?

With the existence of the internet, comes a new way of window shopping. Online window shopping. Something which I love to do sometimes. Shopping is therapeutic but just browsing at things at the shopping malls can be as therapeutic too I feel - makes me feel good just looking around most of the times.

Now, online window shopping too can be a relaxing thing. I love to browse and read about the latest gadgets, or products that has been long in the market yet I’ve never seen before. Products like the latest blackberry phone to sleeping aids like the bed wedges, all are interesting to see and read about.

According to some, technology may be a hassle, “the end of human civilization” (quote from “You’ve got mail”. ). But to me it is some sort of a blessing indeed being able to window shop without ending up with sore feet.