The Boy, the Boat and the Moon

I watch you sleeping for a long moment tonight and saw a face familiar yet new. A tiny mole I did not know of on your forehead, long eyelashes I never noticed before and a nose and mouth just like mine. You are my lovely second born who utters to me "I love you Mummy" every night before you sleep. I love you too sweetheart...always. And may you never stop loving this old lady.

I wonder wonder wonder...

It's 2 minutes to Dylan's birthday and as I was playing with him during bedtime earlier, I wondered what was going through his mind a year ago.

Swimming in my womb, he must have been going through his exit plan for the umpteen time, whether it's a good time to make his grand appearance or to let me wait awhile longer. I guess he must have decided that it's getting too squeezy and uncomfortable and being considerate of not stealing Gor Gor's birth weight record (4.475kg!), yet giving himself something to boast about (his birth length was longer than Gor Gor's by 1cm - 55cm), he made up his mind to break out of the oven a day before his due date (much to my surprise) and showed his mummy what a cute little bub he is and that two boys are just as fun as any daughter :p

By being born, he made me stopped wondering and started loving and appreciating this sweet sweet baby boy, my second son - Dylan :)

The last day of 2008

So here we are, the last day of the year. I guess the easiest way to see how far you've come is to see where you were this time last year.

Last day of 2007, the accounts for The Studio Loft were sorted and my Loft partner and I parted ways (business wise that is, we are still good friends). I was left to run the studio business which we started in May 2006, I just hired my first employee Ashley, I have months of backlog orders to clear, I was 3 months pregnant. In other words, I was in deep s**t and I thought 2008 will be a tough year. It was, but it was also my most rewarding year.

I have to thank my family (my in laws who come almost everyday to the studio to look after Dyl Dyl, Erwin who does most of the household chores and look after Kay, my dad who's the studio's resident handyman, Kayden for being such a great Gor Gor to Dylan and Dyl Dyl for being such an easy baby!), my friends (Alice who took my place while I was on maternity leave, Corinne who helped me with the breastfeeding shoot and for the lovely red chair, all others for their endless support and referrals), my staff (Ashley, Charlene and Hitomi our intern for all their hardwork) and not forgetting all of The Studio Loft's clients who made it a great year for me and the studio. THANK YOU ALL from the bottom of my heart :)

Halfway into 2008, I became a mother of two when my lovely Dylan boy was born! He's the sweetest and most cheerful cherub next to his brother and I love them both so so much :) It helps that Kay is not jealous of his younger brother at all and "ger-rums" him whenever he has the chance. I break into a smile thinking of them both together :)

Without health, there's no happiness. And I am lucky to be healthy the whole of 2008 and able to work 6 days every week! So here's wishing you all a very healthy and happy 2009!!!

35!

I'm 35 today! Thank you all for your well wishes :) Yes unlike most ladies, I am not shy to reveal my age :p Comon, it's just a number!

The day started off with us trying to introduce organic baby cereal to Dylan who is a few days shy of his 6th month. He wasn't too pleased and here are some photos of his reaction to the new experience.


Then it was off to the PS Cafe at Palais for brunch with the usual suspects. We make it a point to celebrate each other's birthdays each year and today was my turn. The food was pretty good but the waiter wasn't. He stopped me from taking any pictures of what we ordered :s Thank you Corinne, Yvonne & Nic, Terence and my family for celebrating this day with me :)

(Click image to view larger. All collages created by the wonderful free software Picasa 3. It ROCKS! Go get it! :D)

A week of surprises!

Surprise #1
My friend Raquel who's working in Dubai is back for a short holiday and she popped in the studio on Thursday for a visit. I decided to bring her out for lunch and invited the girls as well but they declined saying they will go for their lunch later. As we were coming back from lunch going up the stairs, I noticed the door was left ajar and the aircon was spilling out. I quickened my pace and walk through the door about to tell whoever it was off for leaving the door open and I was met with the girls and Rose (our cleaning lady) singing Happy Birthday to me with cake in hand :p Man was I surprised and I didn't even suspect anything. They even got Raquel in cahoots with them to stall for time. So sweet of you all, thanks girls! It's a great surprise :D And what a yummy cake it was too.

Surprise #2
It's the second Christmas Walk In yesterday and as the first one only had 3 families walked in, we thought it will be another relaxed day. I was about 5mins away from the studio when Hitomi rang me and said there were 5 people there already! The crowd didn't stop till about 3plus. All together, 31 families came for the walk in! A big thank you to all of you who came and made our second Christmas Walk In an unexpected success :)

Special thanks to my staff Charlene who shot all of you except the last one. She didn't even get a chance to sit down all day and also did not have her lunch. Same to Hitomi our intern who did well to coordinate all of you and organise the photo selection process. Thanks girls, much appreciated!

Surprise #3
I was shooting the first family this morning when a delivery guy walked in with a very cute looking flora arrangement. I thought it must be for the company upstairs and that they have made a mistake but the flowers were FOR ME! :p I quickly looked at the card and they were from that not-one-romantic-bone-in-his-body husband of mine! :D I was totally SURPRISED and ELATED to receive my FIRST (wedding bouquet don't count la) flowers from him in all our years together. CANNOT BELIEVE! Thanks baby! The card addressed to "Mummy" read: "Happy Birthday!! We love you lots lots!!! -Your 3 rascals, Dyl, Kay & Daddy". Awww, so sweet right? Love you all lots lots too! :)

my kooky bouquet, too cute! and the fat thing next to it too who kept trying to pluck out the daisies :p btw it's made of real flowers!


daddy and kay were not around to take this photo with us but their thoughts are!

Finding Miss Gostelow

Throughout my life as a student, there have been many teachers, lecturers, trainers and tutors but only a few stand out and are fondly etched in my memory and top of the list is Miss Gostelow, my primary school teacher. I never forget her even years on when I was in secondary school and in the MRT train, I saw her with her husband and as I was hesitating to go up to her, she saw me and instantly spoke in my direction,"Meiling right?!" I could only smile sheepishly after that :p That was the last time I saw her.

My little cousin who's like 20 years my junior happened to study at my alma mater Raffles Girls' Primary School and I asked her, during a Chinese New Year visit many years back, if Miss Gostelow was still teaching there, she scratched her head. Then I remembered that Miss Gostelow married a Mr Tan so I asked my cousin about a Mrs Maria Tan and she said yes yes still there! I made a mental note to search for her email address and drop her a hello but never did.

Then this week a Bloom client Nicole mentioned to me that she was also from RGPS and we started to talk about the teachers we remembered and of course Miss Gostelow was brought up :) So I did a google on her name and after a few different configurations with her maiden name and married name, I found a mention of her in the search results, she was one of the National Day Award recipients in 2002! Through that link, I learned that she's now teaching in Methodist Girls' Primary School. I quickly hopped on over to the school's website and started searching for her in the staff section but couldn't find her under TEACHERS. Disappointed, I tried a search of her name within the site and finally found her to be the teacher in charge of the Library there! Her email is also listed and I am going to write her an email this weekend :)

I am 99% sure she will remember me - Xu Meiling the clumsy "oopsy daisy" girl :p Will update here with a comment. This is so exciting for me, it's like finding a long lost pal. Speaking of which, I am also looking for my best friend in primary school, Irene Ng Wai San whom I lost touch after she moved out of her Ghim Moh flat. Can't find her on Facebook or Google. This will have to be another blog post. Miss Gostelow, I am writing to you soon!

Tough to be charitable

Last week I posted details of our Christmas promo and the very next day I thought why not increase the price from $25 to $28 and contribute the $3 to charity? So I contacted the Children's Cancer Foundation to make some enquiries on how I should go about doing this. I was referred to 3 persons before I was able to speak to someone about making a contribution. A nice lady Yenni spoke to me and she said if I put it like that, it will be considered as fund raising and a permit and auditing will be required amounting to about $500! So she suggested:

1. The Loft just mention that the studio will be supporting CCF for this Christmas and hoping to raise some funds (or fix an amount) for CCF and encourage the customers participation by donating a voluntary amount to make this event successful.

2. Sponsorship in kind, the studio can give free photo shoots for their beneficiaries say for 3 or 5 of them? They will select those born in December or else those from low income family, etc.

I decided to go with her second suggestion and I revised the promo flyer to include their logo and mentioned that the studio will be donating a part of the proceeds from the promo to the charity in the form of 3 x Little Big Shots packages. Then I emailed them for approval but received a call from Yenni's colleague to say that the first suggestion by Yenni actually requires a permit, that we are not allowed to mention "a part of the proceeds will go to blah blah blah" and also cannot mention "do your bit for charity" as this will again be insinuating that it's a fund raising activity thus requiring the permit and auditing :s Also he said I cannot use their logo... Sigh, so much red tape just to donate to charity, it makes me wonder why they make it so difficult for people to give them money. Then he explained that it was because of the NKF saga...

Anyway, he said if I can just donate to them without mentioning it in the promo flyer that will be good and will not require permit or auditing. So my bit for charity this Christmas will be a donation of 3 x Little Big Shots packages to 3 children from the CCF :) I can't wait to meet them all soon!

Stuck in a rut

My last post for October comes on Halloween! Yvonne (Kayden's godma) aka Lianmei, one of my best friends from QUT gave birth to her first baby today! Her name's Chloe Ting and I'm going to see her tomorrow, will post some pics :D Congrats Nic & Yvonne!!!

Lately I've been feeling kinda stuck in a rut about photography and the business. Nothing negative, I still enjoy the job and business has been good but I feel I am lacking of a goal. How do I put it? I feel that I am going nowhere. I would like to do more meaningful things through photography. I shared my thoughts with a few friends and one of them suggested I do some volunteer work, she mentioned Operation Smile.
Their purpose: Throughout Asia, Operation Smile Singapore volunteers repair childhood facial deformities while building public and private partnerships that advocate sustainable healthcare systems for children and families. Together, we create smiles, change lives, heal humanity.

I have emailed them to offer myself for volunteer work as they requested for professional photographers. Haven't heard from them but I feel quite excited about this :) Hope they reply soon.

Another fellow photographer Hart suggested to me that we should both hold an exhibition with donations from it going to charities of our choice. I thought this is a wonderful idea as well! Perhaps we can pick a selection of our work and get them printed on canvas and auction them off during the exhibition with proceeds going to charity. That will be so cool! Personally, I would prefer a children or women related charity as they are the foundation of my work and I would like to "give back".

What do you think of these two ideas? Hopefully I can do both :)

Returning to an old habit

Back when i was in Raffles Girls' Primary School, i recall being given a diary by the school to write a sentence or paragraph of what i did each day. Some days my entries would be as lame as,"Today i had noodles during recess.". Other days i would run out of space writing about an adventure i had with my pet cocker spaniel. Little did i know then that this early start to cultivating the habit of keeping a diary would lead me to many pages of personal and sometimes extremely emotional entries over the years and finally to an electronic version today!

As i start this blog, i hope to share parts of my life with you and in so doing, have a journal to which my kids can look back on later in life and have a chuckle or cry reading about how their mummy coped with their antics and got through parenthood :)

I don't know about you but for me, the best part of keeping a diary is reading it.