These glorious days

Hello, apparently I still get some traffic this way. I've started a joint blog with Fergs at These glorious days for a month now, so posting occurs over there.

I haven't quite figured out what to do with this space, so for now I'm going to just let it stay quietly over here and dream.

Memorable March

Alright, this post was initially supposed to go up on the 31st. Really.

• Sunday, 1 March: EGM for our next building project. Despite the hefty price tag, the floor returned an overwhelming vote of approval and at that moment I was proud to belong to such a brave congregation.
  

• Saturday, 14 March: Launch of the building fund* and the Man U vs Liverpool match after that. In my short career as a Liverpool supporter, this stands out as the most thrilling match so far. How many other results can top 1-4 at Old Trafford?
  

• Sunday, 15 March: Parents meet parents over a light lunch at Madam Kwan's, MidValley. I'm happy to say that my parents appear to really like the Ongs.
  

• Thursday, 26 March: I went to a new (and proper) hairstylist and decided to start from scratch so it was off with the messy layers! I hope to make this the start of better hair days.
  

• 31 March - 6 April : The Krabi-Phuket-Subang-Singapore whirlwind tour.
  

Besides all that, after a bit of house-hunting Fergs and I narrowed down our options and decided on a place. Cell's been taking off in an encouraging manner, though whether it can be sustained remains to be seen.

Yup, lots of highlights in March.

*About two weeks after the launch it was announced that the total amount pledged has exceeded the targeted amount by RM1.5 mill. I don't say this often here, but the appropriate response is "Wow." and "Praise God!"

Soul mates

I admire couples who share so much of the same wavelength that they are able to produce this. The roll sticking out of her nose is "a rolled-up banknote, just in case I need to pay for something."

I think that the phrase "soul mate" has a massive expectation of completeness attached to it, so this definition I stumbled upon makes a good point. Except the part about leaving.

WEEDLHA!! I wish I had a better sense of humour.

Patriarchical impressions

Posting here has gotten real light lately. It's all pretty picture stuff. Time to change that around.

So, Fergus took up the bible-in-a-year challenge his church launched. He's maintaining a somewhat daily journal to record his journey and because there are usually doodles involved, I read his entries. Naturally, I've started to read the corresponding Bible chapters for that day too.

I’ve just finished Genesis and it’s been a thought-provoking journey. We talked a lot about the Patriarchs and I don’t think I’ve ever evaluated and reacted to them as much as I just have. Of course they’re very familiar ground - from Sunday school stories to the regular love affairs my church pastors have with them - I've heard how their life stories pan out and expositions of the virtues they embodied many, many times.

So with that, it’s unexpected to find myself actually getting upset over the glaring moral failings these heroes of faith had. Jacob in particular offends my sense of justice. He's deceitful, cheats to get what he wants and comes across as a hapless, self-pitying, no-good parent (check out Gen 42:36 - "You have deprived me of my children....Everything is against me!", and his inability to maintain the peace among and be equitable towards his many sons). Yet, he gets rewarded for all that by receiving an awesome deathbed blessing, great prosperity and being chosen to spawn the nation of Israel and establishing the Messianic line.

Another thing I noticed is that Joseph, usually held up as an example of forgiveness and grace, set up traps for his brothers, yanked their strings, sent them back and forth from Egypt to Cannan, worried the crap out of them and got them to bow face down and beg for their lives a couple of times BEFORE saying “Hey bros, it’s me and I’m actually all cool with you all.” Which, while I'm not going all out and saying was a form of revenge, must have at least made it a little easier to let them off the hook at the end of it all right? Yes, I've heard it said that he was just testing them to make sure that they had repented of the wrong that the did in the past, but humour me here please.

So. These are just some hastily-collected impressions from Genesis. On to Matthew now.

(For additional reading, check out Fergus' impression of the Patriarchs.)

DIY round up

So I recently learned that you can carve your own rubber stamps out of erasers. A-ma-zing!! I've had a very short-lived flirtation with stamping before, but it got frustrating because I couldn't figure out how to produce consistent, even images and my stamps have been untouched ever since. But this looks fuss-free and besides, it'll be more fun to carve any motive I want instead of searching for it in stores.

Source: Herbal Tree

You can also make a tube dresses out of an oversize-tee. Easy peesy! I don't wear tube dresses, but I reckon that this might be useful at some point in time.

Source: Project Muff Stit

To DIY: Memory clock

Clock from Dutch by design [Seen on tea for joy via design*sponge]

In my head, I imagine this to be the centerpiece of a living room, and each frame will hold a highlight from its corresponding month - a doodle, photograph or small trinket. At the end of each year when each frame is filled, a photo is taken to commemorate that year and starting from January, each memento is replaced with a new one.

Stop motion elegance

Her morning elegance by Oren Lavie [Via design*sponge]

I don't like posting videos here, but this is the best music video I've ever seen. Such amazing execution - the concept, song, styling and actors all come together so perfectly. Please, please watch it.

By an unfortunate coincidence I was toying with the idea of experimenting with stop-motion just the day before. Now I'm not sure whether to be inspired or intimidated.

Gardening stories

One day, I want my own space to grow plants. A small strip of ground or a few windowsills because I can't manage a large area. I've tried that with dismaying results before. But it's something I've always wanted to do, and a few gardening stories today has reignited this interest.

It started with a gardening doodle by Andre Jordan from A beautiful revoltion. One of the comments left below linked to the story of how a rock garden was built: shaped by hand from a mass of rubble over the course of two years. As an added bonus, I also found out that cultivating a wildflower meadow takes three years.

Two things I'm taking a way from this:
(1) Diligence will rule. (Jon Acuff strikes home again!)
(2) Instead of waiting for beauty to come into your life, cultivate it instead.

Here's to a good weekend.

Photo credit: Matthew Stinson