Today I feel somewhat relaxed, which is odd, especially when you work in this company. There is never a relaxed moment in this company. Today, is different.

You know what makes me happy?

Discovering new favorite artistes. And yesterday, while cooling down during RPM class, Kris played this wonderful song. I never asked people for song titles, preferring to hunt it down on google. So, I tried catching repeated lyrics in the chorus and all I could get was, "I wouldn't be the same, without you..."

And that was how I discovered Brooke Fraser last night. Can I say, she has the most amazing voice ever.

Brooke Gabrielle Fraser, is an award-winning New Zealand singer-songwriter, who is also one of the principal worship leaders of Hillsong. She currently has 2 albums:

1. What to Do with Daylight
2. Albertine

I reckon, Without You will make a perfect First Dance song choice during weddings :)

I have a couple of favorites from her list of songs and I plan to add her albums into my collection, real soon :)

1. I went to Cold Storage to buy my second bottle of the long-awaited-but-procrastinated Cranberry Juice. I chose Del Monte.
   
   Reason: I needed to find a way to consume more than 8 glasses of water a day. I'm not a fan of plain water so I tried squeezing drops of lemon into a pitcher of water for a couple of days last time but it didn't last because it was troublesome. Cranberry Juice is working just fine. Besides, ladies, Cranberry Juice keeps your urinary tract clean :)
   
   I pour just slightly over 3/4 of water into a huge mug, and top the rest with the cranberry juice. It's better than drinking Ribena ok. If you like, you can add ice cubes but I try not to drink too much cold stuff.
   
   
   
2. I ran 40 minutes and sweated buckets! It felt so good afterwards. Sweating is good because it removes toxins from our body, if you do not know that already. My skin was absolutely glowing as I was leaving the gym.
   Reason: I am fat.
   
   
   
3. After gym, I walked ALL THE WAY to Subway and bought the 6-inch sandwich in Teriyaki Chicken - Honey Oats Bread with everything, extra olives and pickles. I feel so healthy today, I'm afraid I might barf later.
   Reason: I am fat.
   
   
   
4. I bought a huge avocado to make my regular Avocado Honey Mask. I will post pics of the tutorial when I get to it. My avocado is still not ripe yet. I enjoy making stuff with my bare hands and slabbing them onto my face, it's fun and most importantly, they are cheap, extremely easy to do and most importantly, they work extremely well.
   
   I like to experiment around with oats, yogurt, egg, etc but found avocado works best for my skin. Avocados are packed with rich E, B and K vitamins. Those vitamins are essential for a beautiful healthy skin. Wow wee, I sound like an avocado farmer, trying to promote avocados.
   
   Reason: I love pampering my face! I think I might be addicted to masks. I just did a Black Sugar mask last night and woke up with glowing skin this morning. Ahhh... bliss. I like anything that is packed with antioxidants because I am 27 and I am getting very old, you see.
   
   
   
5. I replenished my color contacts. I usually go to this shop at One Utama who has this year-long Buy 2 Free 1 promotion for only RM130. I bought 2 in my usual Green and for once, I am trying a pair in Grey. I hope I don't look like I have cataracts in them Grey contacts.
   
   
   
6. I can't think of a number 6. But I am gonna spend a long time in the shower later massaging my scalp, scrubbing myself thoroughly with my Bodyshop strawberry scrub, and trim my eyebrows later. And then I'm gonna do a hand treatment myself which involves some cuticle cream, gloves and 30mins.
   

Have I been treating myself badly over the past months that I have this sudden NEED to love and pamper myself?!


In fact, I am so totally in the zone of Love Thyself mode that I've decided to reward myself with the Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic phone, which will only be out maybe next month. Ok, mr tay is sponsoring me so that didn't count as self-rewarding.


Also, I did something drastic on 31 Oct that made me feel oh-so-proud of myself. It cost me a lot of sleepless nights, tears, courage and determination to really stand up, face it and deal it. And dealt with it, I did. I could not have been prouder myself. And as 2008 comes to an end, a new beginning beckons.


A new beginning is beckoning indeed and I can't wait to find out what's installed for me :)

So, I'm in a blogging streak today. I just blogged earlier on My 50 Random Favs below.

Yesterday, my bf and I braved the busy roads of KL to shop. I know I have self-inflicted a shopping ban onto myself which allows me to only start shopping in Jan 2009. Today is different, I'll tell you why.

Basically, the idea of a self-ban on shopping for me is to clear my cc debts, which is working pretty well for me. I allow myself a certain budget to spend every month, but using ONLY cash.

So yesterday, Mr Tay made a HUGE SHOPPING PURCHASE at Sapura Auto Sdn Bhd. Me likey his purchase very much too! *glee* It's in Black, nice set of numbers, nice everything. Can't wait.

We then headed on to Pavillion and Tangs was having a huge sale. Like, 50% + additional 20% that kinda HUGE sale. Funny thing was, I went to the ATM to withdraw some cash and boy was I shocked. I had MORE money than I thought I had. Much more, I dare say. Bank interest, my dears. Heehee...

So we happily went into Tangs and I took some clothes to try but NONE fitted me. Oh, I was getting agitated. None of the clothes fit. Their sizes were all out of whack, I tell you. On some sections, I'm a size 6 and on some other sections, I'm a size 4. But NONE fitted me well. It's either too loose or too low. Like what the hell.

So, I moved on to shoes. Saw nothing that I like except this pair of NineWest which was priced at RM379 and I got it for RM169. Mr Tay calls it the Bondage Shoes. Rightly so, coz it's FIERCE baby!

I'm gonna get this as well (la la la):
NineWest Foxygirl
USD39.99 with 20% off PLUS free shipping.

Somehow to me, it's cheaper to get NineWest from the US site. I've calculated + included the postal fees etc and in the end, the price is still cheaper than KL. And I'm lucky to have always gotten my orders correctly with the right size. I wear a size 8 on all pumps and high heeled sandals and a size 7 and a half on flat sandals. And it has been accurate thus far and I'm happy :)

*** I have 16 days more to go!

Music that is.

50 songs that I listen to in loop when:

- I work
- I'm stressed out
- I'm driving (I have a USB port in my car, yay)
- I'm cleaning up my messy room
- I'm cooking
- I'm basically just chilling out.

Like now.

These are 50 narrowed down songs which I've selected to be included in my imeem. If you do not have an imeem account, get one already. It's amazing.

This compilation took me 2 days to complete. I had to painstakingly select and deselect just to keep within the 50 songs. 50 amazing songs.

I particularly like this incredible collection of Bossa N' Roses, Bossa N' Marley and Bossa N' Stones. Roses as in Guns N Roses, Marley as in yup, Bob Marley and Stones as in Rolling Stones. Imagine, Rock and Reggae tunes being produced in a Bossa Nova form. Incredible. Also, keep a listen out for Karen Souza performing Creep. Yes, the same Creep by Radiohead,

My other favs - Rise by Samantha James, Shake It by Metro Station (my friend's daughter, Jamie goes bonkers when this is played), Texas, Cardigans, Feist, Lifehouse, The Bird & The Bee... I can't narrow it down further, there are just too many.

If there is one song that I feel that has the highest airtime for the last couple of months, it would be Tiesto feat Andain's Beautiful Things. I have blogged about this song before in my previous entries. I have this love-hate relationship with this song. I will blast it on loop for the entire day for a couple of days until I get so sick of it, start hating it and bam(!), it's off my playlist for awhile. And then, a month later, Beautiful Things resurfaces and makes its way back into my playlist again and here we go again, non-stop playing for the entire 1 week. It's a vicious cycle.

We're at Day 4 of Beautiful Things. Like now.

Check out my imeem:
My Random 50 Favs

 

I would screw the worrying thought
of whether my interest
would guarantee my survival in the real world
and
sign up for a full time Uni course in Animation.

 

Somestimes I see beautiful animations and I get depressed.

But here are 2 pics.
Will update when I have the time.
All pics are in my Facebook.

boy huh? what what???
girl *stares with big hopeful eyes + attempts to send telepathic message over*
boy OH! I KNOW.
girl *wide grin*
boy "Selamat Hari Raya! Maaf Zahir dan Batin, bi!"


puki.

This will probably be the ONLY song that will ever convince me to sing at the Redbox.

(you don't know just how hard the boy have tried to get me to sing)

Baby, take note :)

Lucky I'm in love with my best friend
Lucky to have been where I have been
Lucky to be coming home again
Lucky we're in love every way
Lucky to have stayed where we have stayed
Lucky to be coming home someday

 

* i look forward to 4 days without work.


* attending a wedding on Sat with the bf.


* going to a house-warming dinner at the bf's grandparents' new place, which will be filled with his 1 million aunties and uncles and little cousins (who has never called me 'auntie' in the past - bless them)


* been having RM0.80 Gardenia Sambal Ikan Bilis bun for lunch for a couple of times last week and this week as well. sometimes RM0.80 bun would have to satisfy that hunger pang when you just have no time. i had better lose some weight from all the Sambal Ikan Bilis madness.


* my mom just emailed me to announce that she will be going to Bali for her company trip. i am missing Bali already :(


* i love Feist.


* currently reading The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. reading extremely s-l-o-w-l-y for fear of finishing it up too soon. it really is a very very good book, loving it.


* The Time Traveler's Wife has been made into a movie. it is still in production, should be out sometime this year. Eric Bana as the leading actor, I mucho mucho heart. Not liking Rachel McAdams for the role of Claire.


* YOU MUST READ THE BOOK.


* currently blogging from One Utama, while waiting for mr tay to come pick me up. there is this moron with the username BadBoy who is repeatedly trying to access my laptop via Bluetooth. it says, "BadBoy is trying to access your computer. to allow access click here. to deny, ignore this prompt." son of a __________! i had to close the annoying prompt so many times! i then proceeded to Advanced settings and clicked No Devices in the the Accessibility tab. no more BadBoy. clever me.


* my new calling name in mr tay's hp, as of last night is - Supergirl