Bare Necessity

We were at The Curve on Saturday night, and the minute we came up from the basement parking lot, we both set our eyes on a few pieces of evening gowns in flirty fabrics. They are perfect for our bridesmaids! I picked 1 halter in pastel butter and aqua green, one baby doll in aqua green. The halter one resembles the pic on the right to which you can dress it up or down, extremely versatile! I’m going to steal it from my sis after the wedding for my honeymoon! Hehe As usual, Jason took up the role as negotiator and we got 2 pieces in a very, very reasonable price *I’m proud of you dear*

So, bridesmaids’ dresses, check! Getting these dresses made me feel as though I've accomplished a heck lot! Hohohoho!

And then over at Ikea, 2 queen size bed frames for $245 each, one wrought iron bed frame for $499. I kinda like the iron one; it conjures up a very romantic setting for a room. Alas, it’s not Jason’s taste. But I like! I like! I like! Besides, I do actually think the prices are pretty reasonable, no?

Currently our apartment is bare, like seriously B.A.R.E! Hehe. We thought since we’re going to be staying here only temporarily, like for a year, we’ll keep the furniture to its simplest form. Thus, furnishing the master bed room is the only project we have in hand.

I’ll be off to JB and Singapore this coming end of week! Uhha! I do really need a little time off, too much of reality, i.e. current office job, really drain you off. I’ve been reading so much about the variety of good food in Singapore and the SALE! Oorgh, I can’t wait! I can’t wait! I can’t wait!

Free, Fun, Talent Noon!

We had a photo shoot yesterday afternoon at the studio for yet another ad for our company. We had so much fun! Like, shhhooo much! :)

It was one of those moments where our marketing colleague came in from a meeting and went like, “hey leishia, steph, we’re going for a photo shoot later, and we’ll have lunch there” to which we both went like, “oh ok, let’s go”. And automatically we started packing our stuff and got moving. Uhm hmm, we were THAT professional hehe. Oh, and this “Leishia, bring along your Domino’s coupons, we’re buying you guys pizza.” Yeah, sure, free talent, and lunch off my coupons. LOL

One colleague were to be the father, another one a mother, and steph and I to be the children. We kept making fun of everything but the father was a weenie bit uptight, so we kept mocking him. Steph was particularly mischievous and funny. We laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed till the cows came home!

Oh boy, I did really have that much fun and laughs. When the ads are out and if I do look ok in there (read: child role in the form of an auntie/maid), I’ll post the pics. Hehe.

Oh you know what?! I’ve become one of those brides where they get nightmares about her wedding! I dreamt that suddenly it’s September 17th, and it seemed everyone (as in my mom and I) just realized its 17th! And horror of all horrors, I didn’t have a make up and hair artist! So I kept calling Judy, our bridal shop assistant, to ask for help, but she said she’s not free. So I put down the phone, just when I did so, I also realized, dramatically no less, that the veil given by my colleague wasn’t sent for dry cleaning yet! I panicked and I fell off the bed.

No lah, I didn’t fall off the bed, but I did panic and woke up. There you have it, the first manifestation of wedding stress. Haiks.

But I guess it’s quite normal, because almost all of the brides I met seem to be having one level of stress or another. Even Jason gets this sort of dreams! So bring it on! September 17th! Hah!

Letter Box

Here, you can find me here: leishia26 (at) yahoo (dot) com

Quoted

A peep into John M Gottman’s The 7 Principles for Making Marriage Work (taken from my favorite website):

What can make a marriage work is surprisingly simple. Happily married couples aren’t smarter, richer, or more psychologically astute than others. But in their day to-day lives, they have hit upon a dynamic that keeps their negative thoughts and feelings about each other (which all couples have) from overwhelming their positive ones.

Couples simply have different styles of conflict. Some avoid fights at all costs, some fight a lot, and some are able to “talk out” their differences and find a compromise without ever raising their voices. No one style is necessarily better than the other- as long as the style works for both people. Couples can run into trouble if one partner
always wants to talk about the conflict while the other just wants to watch the playoffs.

… one of the most surprising truths about marriage: Most marital arguments cannot be resolved.

The key to reviving or divorce-proofing a relationship is not in how you handle disagreements but in how you are with each other when you’re not fighting. So although my Seven Principles will also guide you in coping with conflict, the foundations of my approach is to strengthen the friendship that is at the heart of any marriage.

Bad Shaped Skirt & Talking Orang Hutan

I went for my lengha fitting last night, and boy was it disappointing. The skirt was out of shape with the fabric hugging my hip and the waist, oversized. What I wanted was a simple rest-below-belly gypsy sort of flare skirt.

It didn’t feel right, heck, it didn’t look right to begin with! :(

The tailor was on leave, the lady boss wasn’t around. So we called her up and expressed our disappointment. She asked us to return to her shop for a second fitting today and assured to rectify the wrongs. You better be right!

Fingers crossed and double crossed they’ll be room for alteration. From what it seems, there’s not much fabric left at the seams for altering work. Man, we paid so much for that! Gah!!!

On a different note, Jason was back from his work trip to East Malaysia! I was presented with a basket full of random goodies last night (each with a story of its own!)! Yay! I know, I should be snapping pictures but the batteries died on me, so… heh :)

I’ve got a pair of wrap around pants, 4 mini bottles of sold-in-Sarawak-only sodas in different flavors, a pair of pearls earrings, 2 cookies & 1 chocolate (which he gotten on board and wanted to eat but kept for me instead! Awww), and a cutesy orang hutan soft toy which giggles “I Love Yous” when you press her belly! It was cuteness overload! And I did something that I swore I would never do 5 years ago: hang the monkey in my car’s back seat! Guilty! :)

Heartache

Dear all,

It is official, though I’m not giving up as yet, that all my email boxes are (almost) defunct. Irretrievable. Ever since the other day I mass-sent out our save-the-date email, I couldn’t log in anymore till today. Heck, I even typed and compiled A.L.L the email addresses ONE by ONE a day before. It must be a conspired sabotage! It must be!!! @#$$%%#$ >:(

To those who replied to our save-the-date mail to congratulate and to wish us well, my zillions apologies. You have no idea how eager I am to receive those email from you guys!

I’ll get a new email addy soon. Do drop me a line along with your email add so that I can keep you in my mailing list. Thanks so much!

Brewing Point

Thanks to Cath, we’ve gotten some quotations from the printers and busses for out of town guests. I’m seeing some light here.

We’ve also contacted a few travel agencies for travel packages. Oh did I mention? Air Asia’s goHoliday packages that we were so excited about couple of weeks ago? Yeah, we couldn’t, for the life of us, make any bookings through their website; so we emailed them stating our problem with our booking, but an automated email was all we got insisting it’s our credit card’s fault with no follow up whatsoever. So much for “now, everyone can fly”!

And the lengha lady called up and told us my lengha shall be ready by end of this week. Oh boy, the end of the tunnel is getting reeeally near!

Well I’m leaving you with some eye candies to feast on (I'm diggin the first, second, and fourth gown!!!)...

Missing Link

I did it again.

I think I forgot my password to my email. But then how can you forget something when you know you remembered it? It doesn't make sense!

It’s just so scary. You wake up one day, happily trolling along, and the next thing you know, one part of your memory, liken to a piece of puzzle, apparently is lost! Just like that! Irretrievable. All you get from yahoo is, “your ID and password is invalid”. No matter how you beg them, they just refused to let you through.

What if another day, I wake up to another piece of lost puzzle? Or the whole set of it?! Is that all to me?

Urgh, I’m so trembling with anger and confusion now!

But if I make myself distracted with, oh I don’t know, say, food, shopping, and dogs, I do see a lighter note to my weekend.

My weekend was spent in Melaka. My husband-to-be’s hometown. Gee, that sure gives a weird ring to it… Anyway, he brought me back to his old church, and met up people from his past. It was all good and funny. After the service, we went for Cendol with Cath, her husband; Rach, their daughter, and Mr. Poo, the funny bone of the group.

The small cendol stall was manned by this petite aunty alone, and it seems the stall’s always full house. The minute we hit the place, Cath’s husband and Mr. Poo started to help the aunty in making the cendols for us, and for the rest of the customers! It was ticklish to see them getting all serious in mixing just the right bowl of cendol for the thirsty visitors. Mid way, the petite aunty asked us to look after the stall, because Cath’s husband was going to fetch her to get more cendol. Like, huh? I tell you, it was funny!

So with that, production line was stopped temporarily, with Mr. Poo washing the bowls and Jason cleaning the tables and arranging the chairs, while Cath repeats to customers who streamed in to wait while aunty resumes her business later, and to take a seat first.

It poured in the morning just before, but there at that moment, the stall was beaming in warmth, seeing how much of trust the aunty bestowed upon her customers to help themselves with her food stocks, leaving the cash box behind when she stepped out; and the customers were so patient in waiting for their creamy, cold bowl of cendol; no complains, no frowns. They even helped aunty to make the cendols for other customers! I was loving my moment there yesterday afternoon.

To make my day even warmer, the gang volunteered assistance for our wedding planning without hesitation, something we really appreciate. For the past 1 to 2 years through out our planning, we were all by ourselves in everything. We are truly blessed whenever friends came by and offer help and actually mean it.

So now, we have a few things off our mind, thank God! Cath is helping us to contact printers for our invitations, and also sourcing for buses to charter our Malaccan guests to the hotel on the wedding day. Jason and I’ve also been desiring to make a simple cross to be placed behind the pulpit in the hotel’s glassed foyer for the longest time, and you guessed it, the 2 guys were actually saying it’s feasible to make one! Ecstatic is an understatement!

So there you have my blessed weekend! And yeah, back to cracking my brain to dig out the password. I know it’s there, somewhere!

P/S: a while ago I blogged about this little dog who’s up for adoption, well, thank God, we found him a home. My dad’s staff is actually interested in adopting him. I was so happy! We brought the dog back yesterday from Malacca. He’s just simply a sweetheart! I really hope he’ll have a wonderful owner to call master!

STD!

We came up with this simple save-the-date wallpaper for our guests. As I don’t have soft copies of our bridal pictures, so I scanned the pic and added wording over it with Arcsoft Photo Studio 2000. It doesn’t look too refine, but oh well, we’ve gotten the message through. Heh!

My Weekend Was Awesome Because...

I had my ears pierced!!!

Argghh! Never mind I’m still walking like a robot, so afraid to move my head one bit lest I inflict more pain on my thick earlobes, earrings are now officially an obligated piece in my wardrobe!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

I got my cheongsam!!! Never mind it’s not really a cheongsam, rather just a wannabe. But bottom line is, I exchanged one of my evening gown with a 2 piece cheongsam-collared gown with the bridal shop, hence saving me big bucks if I were to buy it or even tailor make it! PLUS, I look great in it!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I also got my lengha!!! Never mind it’s not a traditional full, heavy, expensive lengha. On the contrary, the skirt is flowy and simply grand with all the blings. And it comes in the color of my choice: greenish aquamarine blue! The gown was left at the shop for alteration. The strap of the top is to be cut off, making it a one shoulder, asymmetrical piece. Jason has given a very tasteful suggestion as far as fashion is concerned! That is to have the back tailored bare, and have the piece pulled back with a string. And yes, we are going with that idea. AND, I look great in it too!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

And finally, I got my curls chopped off!!! Never mind I’m no longer sexily curly; I’m walking with one lighter head on my shoulder, thus making my robotic walk to cope with the thick, pierced earlobes much easier. I’m planning to straighten it after the wedding! In fact, I look much younger now!!! HAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAHA

Oooh, la vida e dolce!

It's All In Order

I received an email in my mailbox yesterday, and was I touched! It reminded me how faithful God is, and how magnificent He is.

At many stages of our wedding planning, Jason and I got very frustrated. We’d have our individuals opinions and tastes, we’d argued, we’d pull our long faces, we’d cry… ok, I’d cry, and hence winning the crown of being a bridezilla hands down, but anyway! It’s just, difficult! Planning a solo wedding is easy, but planning a wedding with and for so many other people spells disaster louder than anything else. OK, I think I’m over exaggerating here. Heh. Anyway!

So two nights ago, our appointed coordinator dropped us a bomb, saying he might be posted overseas in September and that he might not be able to join the wedding. We were freaking out silently.

Yesterday, Jason was on leave, and he went over to our wedding venue: Equatorial, to run things over with the new sales rep as the earlier girl who handles us has resigned, which to us, was another bomb.

With the previous girl, we had to bargain, we had to argue, we had to be stern, we had to press, to the extent I refused to join the meetings with her and let Jason be the middle man and do all the bargaining. But with this lady, who’s in the business for the past 4 years, she’s speaking on our behalf, as a consumer who’s going to put the kachings into the vendors' pockets! She’s getting us all the things that the previous girl refused to give into. She’s even giving us the chocolate pudding that I requested instead of rice pudding! Yay! I can’t wait to meet her to get down with all the details!

I know it’s petty; but do you know how important it is to have total control over all the decisions, just to make sure every thing runs perfectly, and every one would have a good time to remember by? All these little, little things add up to mean a heck lot. Trust me. But then again, I guess you gotta be a girl to understand. Heh!

Jason has been a sweet heart though. Most of the time he was the one who’d pushed me to get things done and give in to my liking :)

I just know, it’ll go fine. All things will fall into its places specifically, not one hair out of place. I just know; because...

“Before they call, I will answer” Isaiah 65:24

Tis What I Really Want!

Tis what I call a real cheongsam. See how it exudes beauty and elegance? When it makes you look good and vintage, THAT's when it's a cheongsam. Not those that make people call out to you in a chinese restaurant for tea refill. Geddit?

Wedding Etiquette 101

This makes a good summary of wedding guest etiquette! Here’s what Mrs. Bee gotta say:

Because wedding season is upon us, I thought this would be a good time to
discuss how to be a great wedding guest. When you’re invited to a wedding, the couple has asked you to be part of a day they’ve put so much time, love, and effort into planning. Observing some basic wedding guest etiquette can make the big day just a little bit easier for the bride and groom (in fact, and everyone else!)


1) RSVP. The bride and groom are usually paying per person (often hundreds of dollars) so they need to have an accurate headcount of all guests. If your plans change and you can no longer attend, or have RSVP’d for a guest who can no longer attend, notify the couple.

2) Send gifts to the couple’s home. This way the couple doesn’t have to worry about collecting, watching, losing, cards separating and taking gifts home on an already hectic day.

3) Don’t bring anyone who is not named on the invitation. Do not bring a date or children that are not specifically named on the invitation, and do not write in names on the RSVP card. The couple has put a lot of thought into who they’re inviting, they’re paying per person, and have probably created seating arrangements for each individual guest.

4) Show up on time. This seems like a no-brainer, but I don’t think I’ve ever attended a wedding that started on the actual time indicated on the invitation, due to late guest arrivals. A wedding is a carefully orchestrated once-in-a-lifetime event…
so please be on time.

Now that you’re a great guest, it’s time to enjoy the celebration and share the day with the happy couple. What else would you add to this list?

Exotic Blooms

Frangipanis, gardenias, orchids are awesomely simple, exotic, romantic, and sexy! Don't you think? I'm considering having one of them buds as my hair accesories instead of tiaras and all. You say?

Stressed Out

There will be some changes in my work scope, like, right about now. And I’m going crazy, getting nightmares after another. Argh. I love me some holiday!!! Oh, by the way, no more taking leave on Mondays: because that’s the day all my weekly reports should go out. Lovely, isn’t it?

Last night Jason and I surfed through www.airasia.com.my and I think we’ve got ourselves a honeymoon package. Just need to wait for Jason to renew his passport and we’ll book ‘em right after. At least something’s moving.

Marry Me!

I thought this cake topper is pretty darn neat, at least all men would share the same sentiment (even though they were the ones who proposed first)! Heh

Loving My Sweets & Swirls

This week, I'm loving my lollipops, a pressie from Jason; and this mug mat given by my friend. The lollies gave me a sweet idea for my wedding, and the circles gave me delightful swirls of colors on my otherwise boring desk!

The colors are so loudly retro yet subtly modern. I have them placed at my work desk and I like how they give me a tingly excitement every time I turn to see them happily cheering me on!

Happy Times

If only Polly can be my ring pillow on my wedding day...

I Heart Lip Tints

During emergencies, red-tinted lip balms make a great blusher (and the clear ones make a great emergency-moisturizer!). Just smear a small amount onto cheeks for that blushing-bride look and you’re good to go! I’m using Stila’s Lip Pot in Cerise. It makes your lips moist and supple minus the gooey feeling, and your cheeks a healthy cherry pink. Love it!

Say KLIMS & Wha?!

To sum it up, I had fun over the two back-to-back weekends. First there was the KLIMS where we all grumbled about having to be on shift work from Monday to Sunday; meaning straight to the motor show right after your day job in the office and work well into the night, and now that the show is over, there’s still no concrete info about how much allowance we’ll be getting. Chinese company, I tell you! But having said that, I still had quite a bit of fun there, especially during the last day of my duty. We took heaps of pictures with our concept car and made our dorky salesmen do the Saturday Night Fever moves! Heh.

And then there was an impromptu one day trip back to Melaka, to which we were introduced to a doggie, named Doggie (uhm hmm). Well according to Jason’s sis, Doggie’s a stray dog that decided to call her home, a home. And being pregnant and due, and with 2 uber mischievous sons in tow (the sis, not the dog), Doggie is not going to get any attention from her any sooner. But he’s one cool, obedient dog! I’m only sorry he’d come back again and again to be tortured by the kids. Poor thing. So if any kind souls out there who’d like to have a pet dog, let us know? I think he’s trained and very alert! He looks like a mixed Pomeranian and the size of my Polly a.k.a Poppin, and his eyes are a sea of blue!

Ooh, Jason bought me this really cool skirt! It makes me an instant Saree Party Girl! Whoo hoo! And we found 2 shops that we may go back again with my maids for their gowns. Can’t wait!

On the wedding preparation front, well, with our down payment to the hotel made last month, the preparation pretty much comes to a standstill. The only major things to look into now are invitations, the bridesmaids’ gowns, and honey moon. You simply have no idea how difficult it is to get these done, oh no you don’t! Well I look forward to having some time off from work and design the invitations next week maybe, and this time around, HAVE the final say. Heh.