flowers forever

Just back from the Sunday crop, left the ladies to have fun with I-Mei and here I am back in my studio working on a workshop for next month. I will post some peeks soon. I've been working on a series of workshops, re-defining the direction we want to take in the way of classes. Workshops that reveal and prod us into maybe taking a more positive step in our life journey. I worked on the project until 4am, happily. No complains. I asked Philip if he would mind if I worked for a week , just creating, like an artist, sleeping & eating only if I had to. "For how long?", he wanted to know. And I said, "As long as it takes. A week?" 12 hours later and I'm thinking ,"NAP!". And yet, I'm dying to get back to work. Interesting journey.

This project has no flowers in it. Not one. Not yet anyway. Which was hard since I've been on a flowery streak. I got tired of flowers on everything for a while and now the mood is back and I can't get enough. I'm using them on everything and finding new ways to dress them up. I'm having the time of my life, digging up old, less than perfect prints and putting myself in the shoes of the everyday scrapper, without the magazine quality photos, cropping the brooms and mops from the background and just having the best time. Funny how flowers have that effect on people. This layout just makes me smile! Woo hoo, flower power!

father

In the last week of the holidays I told Sarah that she could go for a movie with Mun Yee. It was Thursday and so she arranged to go the next day. I had forgotten, and so did she, that Philip had gone to buy Premier class tickets for Kung Fu Panda. Which she had been bugging him about for a while. Oops.
Philip was a little sad to be dumped. And Sarah sensed it. She told me ,"Papa's sad". I said, yeah a bit, he told me. She felt so bad. "Mama, what should I do?" I told her she had to do what she thought was right. So she went downstairs, in tears to her Papa's office and stuck the tickets he had given her at him. "Here, Pa", she said," I'm canceling Mun Yee, I'm going with you."

If you ever had a teenage daughter, you'd know just how important a day out means to her. But she chose Papa. Of course, Philip insisted she went with her friend and everyone was happy.

I wonder sometimes, how do I show my child who God is. Who He really is. The way He is to me. God revealed Himself in this. The way Sarah's Papa showed his love and grace is how she will know of God's love and grace. And I pray that her love for her Papa will be the kind of love she has for her God. That she could choose to do what she believed was right and would make her father happy, unselfishly. Wow! (sniff)

I supppose I see God as a father because of my father's legacy of love. I do miss him. And Philip , somehow, is made of the same stuff. The kids all made beautiful cards, expressing their love and admiration for this simple guy with a great big heart. I did too.

ideas, mondays & clappy the cat

I have so many ideas going around in my head at once. At least 5 are business ideas that might work. A few more, spin offs of our current business, yet more ideas for classes, marketing, creative parenting, creating order and decorating and upgrading. Not forgetting ideas for blog posts...I get all excited when a ' great idea hits me' sometimes I'll get together with Ming and we'll 'mind map' it, then wait for it to incubate. Reality sinks in, costs or time involved or prayer puts things in perspective and another idea goes on hold. Sometimes , they come back, and at the right time, take off.

Who would have thought that running a scrapbook store would put me in the busiest time of my life! It has been a crazy time and I find myself gasping for breath. Many a night, I'm kept awake at 3, 4, my mind swirling, after a few hours spent ordering or updating paper. Not the patterned kind. How much further can I go? Should I go? After all, I am middle aged. (smile) What a quaint phrase 'middle aged', and yet I am. Though I don't feel it. In fact , I feel pretty darn good, Good enough to miss my appointment with Dr Leong. Aack!

The short version of how this started? Okay, I've always been enterprising but since moving to Penang...
So I was sitting outside Dr Leong's waiting for my appointment , reading a book. 'Life after God' or something. Quite bizarre, like short stories, linked in a way . There was this story about a guy telling his kid a story about Clappy the cat, who had so many dreams , like wanting to be famous etc, but real life, bills, bla bla took over and after a while all the dreams became just talk. AHA moment, right there in the waiting room!! " Hey wait a minute', I said to myself, 'I'm Clappy the cat!' Thus ensued a search into 'possible careers for middle aged women with health issues'. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Of course, now I'm not Clappy, more like the Duracell bunny, or the monkey with all the instruments. Some of the band left... but wait a minute, I'm working it out , re prioritizing and I have really learnt so much in these past few years. Thank God for the Sabbath. Days off are super precious now. Good time to regroup, unwind. Now if only I could stop those ideas from interrupting. Although they do come in useful when you're working on classes . Here's one I'm working on for next month. How's your Monday going?
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journey book | complete

I've finished my half of our journey book from our mini vacation and Miss Sarah is going to start on her half now. I tried loading all the pages but, well, it took too long and refused to load so, here are some, for now =)