A day in Asheville - Glassblowing

Two Saturdays ago, we took a daytrip to Asheville to learn how Elise (of www.inthelightglassworks.etsy.com) makes her amazing glass creations. She gave us a tour of her studio and showed us all the work that goes into each one of her items. It was simply amazing to see how a glass ball ornament is neatly cut up and turned into beautiful glass pendants like this or this.

She was also generous enough to let us try making glass ball ornaments. I would have loved to try but I woke up that morning and was a total klutz so I figured it would be safer for everyone if I didn't.

Now if you think glassblowing is easy, it sure ain't!

Being a part of the Natural Grooming Tips

Here I am casually scrolling and browsing and almost fell off my chair when I stumbled upon my Organic Pakucho Makeup Remover pads in this Etsy Article - Handmade Weddings: Natural Grooming Tips from GreenUnion.
I have never been in The Storque before and I am just estatic!

I've been featured!

I've been featured by Fresh Peaches today!
Here is the interview:
http://suchcoolstuff.blogspot.com/2009/03/laksaware.html

Wilmington last week

Most of Jason's friends are turning 40 this year (including Jason himself).
Last week, it was Dave's 40th bash. We drove to Raleigh, and rode with Bert to Wilmington. In Bert's car were also 40 pink flamingoes, a heart, a bear, a smiley face and a cow.
You see, Bert's friend has a Flamingo Express business. They sneak up late at night, place these flamingos in your yard with a sign that may say "Honk! It's John's Birthday!" or something like that. And you wake up the next morning, look at your yard and go "Aarrgh.. these crazy people!!" or you just die laughing.

So, at 1am that night, the three of us were putting these flamingos, a heart, a bear, a smiley face and a cow in Dave's yard. We almost got busted.
We had some time in the afternoon to see the sights in Wilmington. Went downtown to see the ships, the quaint little shops and had a glass of Guinness at the Irish pub.
Then we went back to Dave's and Beka's for the party and we were the last ones to leave.
Jason always has a great time with his High School buddies.

Next morning, we went back to remove the flamingos and headed to Carolina Beach for a few minutes before driving back to Bert's place in Raleigh. Then back to Charlotte.

It's snowing in March!

Big flakes started falling down from the skies around 6.30pm last night. And by 9pm or so, we had a nice good layer of snow to play in. I think we got around 4-6 inches of white snowman material snow.
So Jason and I put on our snow gear and went out to play.

This is Jason's snowman.


And me making a snowangel

This morning, as I was taking my packages out to the mailbox, I slipped and fell on the icy road. Nothing bad. Just bruises and scratches on my knees and palm. I was mentally telling myself not to fall as I was walking down the walkway and the next second, whooosh...splat. Clumsy me.

Where is the Calm ? Part Deux

So after exactly six days since last week's incident, ServiceMasters were finally able to remove the 10 blowers, 2 dehumidifiers and the desiccant machine (the one with the hose that goes up the ceiling). We can finally hear ourselves think again. The noise from all those machines were starting to drive us crazy and making our skin look like prunes because it was so dry.


On Wednesday, the Construction manager came to reassess the restoration needed and will submit a report and breakdown cost to the Insurance company. Once the Insurance company approves the cost and receives our deductible money, they will pay ServiceMasters 50% downpayment before they can commence the restoration work.

So we hope everything will be back to normal within the next 2 -3 weeks. In the meantime, I found a plumber to install the Pressure Release Valve in the sideyard. I hope he shows up tomorrow.

And we need to schedule the tile guy to fix the two broken tiles in the bathroom.
So those are the two costs that we will bear including the deductible for the Insurance company, which works up to what we just received from Uncle Sam last week.
That totally sucks because I was hoping we would have some money from the tax refund to "play" with.

Where is the calm?

We had just come home and realized that the water pressure was suddenly very strong, causing the toilets to "sing" and it would not stop running. So we fixed that and barely 5 minutes later, I heard Jason yelling downstairs that we have an emergency.
I ran down and saw a waterfall coming from the ceiling close to where our fireplace is and soaking the carpets. And then more water gushed down on the dining table and three other spots in the living room. I just blindly grabbed all the pots from the kitchen and a couple of buckets and some old towels and placed them where the water was gushing down, whilst Jason stopped the busted pipe in the Master bathroom upstairs (actually, it was the hose-pipe that hooks up the bathroom faucet that had broke). The bathroom was flooded and it seeped right through to our bedroom soaking the carpets in there too.

We called the County Water & Sewer Dept. and the line was transferred to 911. We guessed all the piping work that they had been doing on the streets outside the neighborhood for the past couple of days caused the sudden increase in our water pressure which busted our pipes.
So anyways, there was nothing they could do to help.

Jason's parents drove over immediately (bless their hearts) and brought the heavy-duty vacuum to suck up all the water and more towels to dry up the floors. We moved furniture around and did whatever we could.

Tomorrow, we'll have to call the Insurance company and we made an appointment with the plumber to come look at the situation.

My heart is still racing and I am paranoid that the ceiling will fall in because the water is still trapped between.
But we're just so thankful that we decided to come home a little earlier tonight. If we had not, we might have lost the whole house, and Trouble might have drowned.

Finding some Malaysians at last

Last month, Jason stumbled upon the Charlotte Asian Potluck Club blog. He asked me to email them. I did and we were invited to join them for their next gathering which was held last Saturday.
We met four other Malaysian couples and another guy from Asheville who came without his wife.

The hostess, Sally and Kumar, made a fabulous spread and everyone else brought a dish or two. All Malaysian dishes. And everything tasted sooo good. It was just great seeing some Malaysian faces again and even better getting to know them all. Everyone was so friendly and easy-going and I felt right at "home". We talked about almost everything under the sun, including teh tarik, milo and the sarongs.

We were formally inducted into their group after getting the thumbs up for our Char Siu pastries. So Jason and I will be hosting the next gathering in Spring. We hope to not disappoint anyone with our culinary skills.