Michelle
At SISTV today... ends Friday June 27th, 12 CST.

Coupon code is ONEDAY - get 20% off your whole order!

Run now to the Boutique!!!

Have fun shopping!!! :D
Michelle
I am totally knackered today... it's been a long crazy day at work.. and now fine-tuning plans for the Virtual SISversary.... totally completely exhausted!

I am soooo jealous of the FGirls who are enroute/already in Nashville for the big SISversary event this weekend... I wish could be there too!! Hopefully next time...

My cousin tagged me during the weekend.. so here we go...

~ 01
1. WHAT IS YOUR FULL NAME?
Michelle Tan Suk Yen

2. ARE YOU CURRENTLY SINGLE OR IN A RELATIONSHIP?
In a Long Distance Relationship

3. DO YOU HAVE ANY PETS?
Nope

4. WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE ICE CREAM BRAND(S)?
Don't really care... as long as it's ice cream!

5. WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE ICE CREAM FLAVOUR(S)?
Mint Choc Chip

6. WHO IS/ARE YOUR BEST FRIEND/FRIENDS?
Not gonna start listing... :)

7. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOURSELF?
Extrovert but can be a bit shy in new crowds, girly tomboy (yeah, go figure), chatty, friendly, creative, I don't know what else.. you tell me.

8. DO YOU HATE VEGETABLES?
Nope

9. CAN YOU COOK?
Yes

10. CAN YOU PLAY INSTRUMENTS?
Yup.. used to at least.. piano and clarinet


~ 02
1. CUPCAKES OR COOKIES?
Depends on my mood

2. ART OR MUSIC?
Art for sure, but I do love music too

3. VANILLA OR CHOCOLATE?
Chocolate

4. DOGS OR CATS?
Puppies and kittens! :)

5. SKYPE OR MSN?
MSN 'cos I don't skype

6. ITALIAN FOOD OR JAPANESE FOOD?
Both...

7. MORNING OR NIGHT?
Depends on what I'm doing..

8. BLACK OR RED?
Both!

9. GUY BEST FRIENDS OR GIRL BEST FRIENDS?
Both are equally essential!

10. MOM OR DAD?
Duh! Am i supposed to choose?!

~ 03
5 WISHES :
That's for me and God to know...

5 IMPORTANT THINGS :
Faith
Family
Friends
Scrapping & Photography
Travel
Life companion
Wait... did you say 5?


5 IMPROVEMENTS:
Keeping true to myself
Improving my photography
Pushing myself more in my scrapping
Ummm.. talk less? LOL!
Reaching my goal weight


5 PEOPLE YOU TRUST:
They know who they are...


5 HATES:
Backstabbers
Judgemental People
Negativity
Umm... can't think of anything else right now.


Well.. that's all for today... I need to go to bed!!
Michelle
My week went by in a hazy blur... mainly just work and that's really it! :D

I did go running after work both on Tuesday and Thursday - so proud of myself for getting off my butt and get in some exercise. Although.. my hands and arms were totally frozen after my run on Thursday.. they were completely numb to the extent that I had to use the hair dryer to thaw them out!!!

Friday night I had plans with Lisa to have dinner and go watch Sex and The City. I got home from work, ordered some prints from Snapfish (they had a 1 cent promo that ended Friday midnight) and got ready. Lisa came and picked me up around 7.45pm and we headed into town. We went to ARoy, a Thai place to have dinner. We've both never been before.. the food were pretty ok.. nothing spectacular, but decent. After dinner we walked towards Reading Cinema and tried to kill time for a bit. At that stage we had about 45 minutes to go before the movie at 9.30pm. So we went to get our tickets which we booked online only to be told that we just needed to present the credit card with which the tickets were bought with at the stand where they take your tickets.. so that was easy enough. We both had a craving for ice cream... so went and checked out Wendy's and took us almost 10 minutes to finally decide on what to get. Heehee... ice cream is good!!!! The movie is freakin' brilliant! I LOVE the dialogue and the shoes.. and the clothes.. oh the clothes!! It was really an awesome movie.. loved every minute of it!!! And I'd go watch it again in a heartbeat if only tickets weren't so expensive! Got home and actually chatted with Kevan on MSN for close to 2 hours (no idea how that happened!) before i went to bed.

Saturday started out pretty uneventful... a little sleep in till about 9am.. got up.. got my coffee.. checked emails, checked SIS... etc etc... and then Elvry rang around 11.40 and asked me to go for yumcha (dimsum) and I was like.. but but.. I haven't showered! She just basically said... go get ready and I'll come pick you up! So I went to yumcha.. met Ivan, Elvry's Filipino friend.. it was just 3 of us at yumcha.. was great catching up with Elvry and getting to know Ivan.. we had lots of laughs.. talked heaps about anything and everything.. and of course food's always good! Just when we were about done, Dhani came by to catch up with us. Elvry was going to the All Blacks vs Ireland game that night.. and wanted to buy face paint.. so we went to the $2 shop and actually painted the face just outside the shop (yeah.. she couldn't wait!) LOL! And then Ivan wanted to go shopping so we headed to Lambton Quay.. drove around for a bit trying to find a carpark.. and eventually got one! Within 2 minutes of parking the car.. Ivan purchased a scarf! Geez.. talk about wanting to shop! hahahah... Dhani and I chatted quite a bit about photography and places to go take photos.. and just got to know each other pretty much. It was good. We've seen each other around at various Indonesian events before.. but never actually got introduced or talked. We agreed to contact each other the next time we go out photo hunting. So excited to have new friends to go take photos with! We ended up at Starbucks for a quick drink and Elvry dropped me home around 5pm.

Not long after I got home, Tuntun texted me to see what I was up to. I've not seen him since March.. and he was missing his brother who just went back to Indonesia. I told him that he could come over and hang out if he wanted company. I was hosting an International Sister chat on SIS at 8pm.. so was planning to stay in anyway. By about 6.30pm the weather had turned horrid! It was really cold and wet and I was soooo glad I was staying home! He came over around 7.45pm and we just hung out watching American Idol and Princess Diaries on tv.. and just caught up. And also I was hosting the International Sisters chat on SIS. I think it must have been really nice on the other side of the globe 'cos no one was around! Eep!!! Only Caro, Rach, Lesley, Natasja were around.. and Cris dropped by to say hi.. but that was it! Oh well...

Today I slept in since I went to bed really late last night... I signed up for the SISTV official ATC swap (despite saying that I won't take on anymore swaps for a while!), the theme is art. And I actually finished my cards!!! We had to make 15 each.. this is the first time that I've done something soooo far ahead of my deadline and actually liked them! Usually the pressure brings out my best ideas.. but I was so inspired from the moment I signed up for the swap and the whole thing came together quite easily for me. I just need to photograph them, get Stacey's addy and send them off to her!!!

I finally got to talk to Jay today.. he's doing well after his surgery.. thank you all who sent prayers and good vibes. He's home and not in too much pain. He's been doing his recommended exercises to strengthen his back and so he doesn't get stiff muscles from lying down too much too... so glad everything went well. :D

Well... I best be off to bed.. It's back to work tomorrow... and this week is going to be busy.. I just have a feeling! And this weekend, of course, is the SISversary weekend! I have so much to do before that!!

Have a fabulous week!!!
Michelle
on her weekend and saw that it was awesome!

It was a long weekend here in Wellington - Queen's Birthday weekend and the last long weekend until October! Yikes!

Friday night I caught up with Nixon over dinner.. it was good. We've not seen each other for a few months.. and as always had lots to talk about. After dinner, Andy came and picked us up and off we went to Koko and Gina's place in Avalon. Andy sought out Koko's help with his comp problems and Gina and I had a lovely catch up session. It's been too long since we saw each other. After dropping Nixon home, Andy dropped me off and we chatted for a while in the car. He's leaving New Zealand indefinitely in a couple of weeks.. it's sad to see friends leave. At home I chatted with Edwin online and made plans for Saturday.. so that was good. :D

Saturday I had a mini sleep in (till about 9.30am) and just pottered around the house for a bit. Put finishing touches on my Scrapjack layout and emailed that off to Stacey. The FGirls and Mod Squad got to guest jack this month's jackee Lisafisa. Go check out the Scrapjack blog. Here's my take on the layout.



At around 1pm Edwin came and picked me up and we headed off to Old St Paul's church in Thorndon. It was really quiet which was good since we wanted to take photos there. I learned to use the different settings on my camera (I'm embarrassed to say that it's taken me this long to learn how to make full use of all the different settings!). Just experimented a lot really. It was good. We spent close to an hour there. Edwin of course is an amazing photographer and has a proper DSLR... and he's a great teacher too!

We wandered into town next... found a parking spot near Hotel Intercontinental and we bumped into Budi, one of Edwin's friend who's also an avid photographer. So we chatted with him for a bit and then wandered off to Queen's Wharf to find objects to photograph. I fell in love with the new Meridian Energy building. It's a really cool structure.. and there was a nice wooden panel wall there that I thought would make a pretty cool background. So I set up my tripod and tried to get jump shots using the timer. It was really frustrating as I couldn't get the timing right. God knows how many times I had to re-set the timer and how many times I jumped around (kept me warm though!) Edwin had a field day photographing me making a fool of myself. LOL! But I had a lot of fun.. and I finally got the shot I wanted... after I don't know how many tries.. but looking back through all the pictures I got, it struck me that I looked really happy in many of them.. even the blur ones.. even all the out takes.. I have never been a fan of my 'natural' shots.. somehow I just don't think I look good in them. But I was really pleased with some of the ones I got... I think I looked/felt really carefree.

And after we got sick of me jumping around, we went off towards Lambton Quay to look for a few more shots, by that stage, it was starting to get dark and we called it day - a very good day at that.

That night I stayed home and hosted the International Sisters Chat at SISTV. I chatted with Kevan for a bit too and uploaded my photos.. found that I shot 244 photos that afternoon alone! Crazy! And of course I scrapped.. tried to but no mojo for paper scrapping so I went digi for this month's Kiwi Jack Me Up. Come and play along!! Yup.. I used the photos I shot that afternoon!



Sunday was a very relaxing day. I got up and had my coffee... and turned on my laptop to check my emails and the SIS boards and then picked up Eat Pray Love which I started months ago! I usually read pretty fast, but in the past few months I just didn't have the luxury to sit for a few hours to read (well, sometimes I chose to scrap instead). But yesterday I wanted to finish the book and so I did! I caught up with a friend online too and then just hung out on SIS for a little bit till I went to mass at 5pm. Went to New World Metro for a few essentials and picked up McDonalds (I was craving it for some reason!) for dinner on the way home. The Chronicles of Narnia was on tv last night.. it was really good (yeah, I haven't seen it before) and now I can't wait to go and see Prince Caspian which is coming out on the 19th! After that, Girl with the Pearl Earring came on and I watched that too. Pretty good. I couldn't sleep.. not sure why.. but at 1.30am I suddenly got the urge to paint.. so broke out the acrylic paint and canvas! Painted for a bit and went to bed at 3am.

Today I had a real sleep in.. the first time in a lonnnnngggg while! It was nice since it was pouring down outside. Rained pretty much the whole day! I finally got to catch up with Giuseppina online.. we both kept missing each other for the past month or so. So we had a big catch up session while I finished up the canvas I started last night and then started and finished another one! Pretty productive I must say. Still have to take photos of them though.

Tonight has been pretty cruisy.. just relaxing.. chatted with Jay on the phone. He's got his back surgery tomorrow.. so if you could say a little prayer for him.. I'd really appreciate it. :D

So... it's back to the grindstone tomorrow.. I best get ready for bed and have an early night.

Have a great week!!