Life |

In 5 Minutes….

September 27, 2012 By Alison 13 Comments

I am Alison.

I am short, not stout.

I am always doing doing doing, not so much being, being, being.

I am a mother. I am an insecure mother.

I am a rockstar on some days, on days when laundry gets done, toys get tidied away, dinner gets made and children are tucked in quickly.

I am abysmal on other days, when all these things get done, but I don’t feel accomplished.

I am a social media addict.

I am an ongoing learner. I chew up information and store them in my head.

I am a regurgitator of stored information in my head.

I am a rememberer of birthdays. Remember my head, the storer of all things?

I am a semi-perfectionist.

I am a writer of oxymorons (see above).

I am a full-steam ahead type person.

I am also a lose-steam-fast type person.

I am neither an pessimist nor an optimist.

I am a pragmatist.

I am a shopper of IKEA and all things on the cheap, because why buy a high chair that costs twice as much as an awesome easy-to-clean one from IKEA?

I am out of time.

For this post, that is. That was my 5 minutes of stream of consciousness, unedited, inspired by this post by Erin Margolin. Thank you Jana for the original inspiration.

Filed Under: Life

Home Is Where All The Children’s Stuff Is

September 24, 2012 By Alison 119 Comments

I wander through my house, camera in hand, eager to see what joys the Nikon can bring me.

I start here, where I am a lot. My favorite spot on the couch.

I walk to the bedroom, turn around and see this.

The view of our walk-in closet. I love that I can finally have all my clothes in one place. Oh, the simple things.

I walk down the hallway to the toddler’s room.

I’ve always loved this blue feature wall.

I look up and see this.

And it makes me smile, remembering when we chose this light online, and thinking, how cool is it, for a little boy to look up from his bed and see a rocket?

I head back to the living room.

We are prime examples of people whose houses look like a rainbow exploded all over it.

Where we draw, count and play with the iPad.

I put stickers on the toddler’s stool as a fun way to teach him to identify animals and objects. (And yes, to try and mask the crayons scrawls all over it)

I also try to encourage the use of Play-Doh the table. To no avail. See how foamy floor mats are awesome?

We play with this as a family. Even the baby loves watching the cars fly down the ramps.

The toddler has always loved the color green. And so it is the green car that is his favorite.

I end my little home tour, sit down, look to my right and see this.

My firstborn when he was around the same age my second is right now.

Happiness.

Home is where all the children’s stuff is.

Home is where my hearts are.

Right here.

Linking up with The Good Life.

What’s the favorite part of your home?

In other news, today my post I Don’t Sleep is featured over at Bonbon Break! It’s a totally awesome online magazine for women. Check it out, okay?

Courtney of Courtney Kirkland blog is compiling a list of the real top 100 bloggers. Who do you think are fabulous and whose writing deserves a larger audience? Let Courtney know by emailing her! More details on The Real 100 here!

Filed Under: Home, Kids, Life, List of 10, Photography Tagged With: Practicing my photography

What I Do When I Have Two Hours To Myself

August 22, 2012 By Alison

I am blessed. I have a good life. I have the privilege of staying home with my boys.

I am also very lucky to have in-laws who live nearby who love their grandkids and who’ll have them both for a couple of hours occasionally, leaving this Mama some precious free time.

Free in the sense that I don’t have a child hanging off me. Or one who needs his butt wiped. Or demands to be fed, given a drink/ snack/ whatever the toddler can think of.

So I had two hours!!

A few of you said that you would like to see more of my city, so I thought I’d photo document my little jaunt on Thursday.

I walked the boys to their grandparents house in the next block of apartments (yes, they live that near!). We pass by a water feature and some greenery. Nice, yes? The Malaysian flags are up to honor Malaysia’s 55th Independence Day on August 31.

I then drove to a grocery store nearby to get a few items. On my way, I pass a mall. And then it starts raining, which made me think, for a second (just a second!), that maybe I should have stayed home.

I had to go to this specific grocery store because. Well, because.

Off I go again, after my quick grocery store run. It’s a short drive to my next destination, a neighborhood building. I call it a building as I don’t know how else to describe it. It houses many offices, restaurants, shops and it has a courtyard in the middle. And yes, I did drive with my phone in hand just so I could take these pictures for you. See what I do for blogging? Down a leafy street, traffic light stop (there are 3 light stops in less than 2 miles), on the highway (or freeway as you know it), off the highway/ freeway under the bridge and into the building car park.

Here we are! I come here a lot as it’s just down the road from where we live. Top left, is a typical Malaysian bakery. Sweet baked goods. Yum. And looky, Starbucks! And a courtyard filled with tables and chairs for the weekly outdoor flea market which sells clothes, food, fruit and other useless things! Lastly, a local cafe, popularly known as a kopitiam, where I get my rare fix of Asian food (outside of my cooking).

What I ate: Spicy Sichuan noodles. It’s a flat noodle, tossed in a variety of dark sauces (soy sauce, sweet sauce, I think), with minced chicken, a poached egg, a lot of chili flakes, and clear soup on the side with green vegetables and fried tofu skin. All washed down with Asia’s answer to iced coffee – this particular drink is known as ‘cham’. A literal translation of ‘mix’ as it’s a mix of local coffee and tea. Best of both worlds, yes?

My short drive home down the road, up the hill, past the fountain and into the apartment grounds.

Finally, walking to the lobby from the car park. I thought of including my ride up the elevator and getting to my front door, but you get the picture!

So um, two hours, I drove to two places, bought some stuff from the store and ate a quick lunch. I know right? Why didn’t I go get a pedicure or something?

* this is by no means a clear representation of Kuala Lumpur, just my neighborhood!

What would you do with two free hours?

All pictures were taken with my phone, hence, linking up with mamamash and GFunkified for #IPPP!