Cross-Stitch Project: Chinese Wedding Scene 2

Here's an update of my Chinese Wedding Scene project.  

Mikey & Molten

Mikey's okay! Yeah! And I will be bringing Molten home as well. Double yeah!

Hopefully they can come come tomorrow. I'm waiting eagerly for foster mom's call to say that I can bring them home.

Kitty News

Seems like Molten is a boy?

Mikey is down with the flu and is now at the vet's. The prognosis doesn't seem too good. I really hope he pulls through.

His siblings are okay. So that's good.

The good news is that there's an 80% chance that I'll be bringing both Molten & Mikey home.

Keep your fingers crossed for Mikey. I hope he'll be okay.

Homecoming

It's confirmed. Mikey's coming home next Saturday. He's much younger than I originally thought. Turns out his birthdate is approximately 5 May. So that makes him a young tyke of only 23 days old.

For his well-being, we decided that it's better for him to spend a little bit more time with his siblings. Being the tiniest of the three, it'll be good for him to have more time to build up his strength and immunity.

Whether Molten will join him in coming home with us next week still remains to be decided.

Home Bond

It's the second day in a row that Mindy has not been successful in her escape attempts. It's not that she hasn't tried.

With the meshed-up gate, it's hard to tell that there's something there but she senses that something is not right. She has been staring at it the last 2 evenings trying to figure out what exactly is it and why does the gate look blurry to her.

To keep her entertained, I went and bought her a cat tree today. She had one in the past but that was thrown out when she had a lice problem. She's been amusing herself with the mouse that's attached to the tree for the last half an hour. Let's hope this will be enough entertainment for her to forget about the outside world.

Stoned Out?

I was very shocked and disappointed by the remarks made by actress Sharon Stone about how the earthquake in China is a karmaic result of the China/Tibet issue.

I do not see how the 2 events are linked. One is a natural disaster that left tens of thousands dead, hundreds of thousands injured and millions homeless. The other is a political even that is basically an internal affair between China and Tibet. I don't believe that it is fair for her to link the 2 events. It is like saying that Hurricane Katrina happened because of the US invasion of Iraq. Are the 2 events linked? No. So it is not fair to say that Hurricane Katrina is a karmaic result of the US invasion of Iraq. In the same manner, it is also unreasonable and ignorant to say that the Wenchuan earthquake is karma because of the China/Tibet issue.

Any individual who garners media attention (be it because of political or entertainment fame) should always bear in mind that whatever they say have an impact on the general public. Irresponsible remarks like these have no place in this world. It only serves to generate misunderstanding and hate.

Houdini Cat

Mindy tried getting out again a few times today. My mom was saying that one time she tried climbing the gate today, she basically fell flat on her back. I think all that weight makes it harder to be agile. So my dad covered more of the gate with whatever polycarbonate we have left.

In the evening, I saw her trying to climb the gate but because the polycarbonate covered part of the gate, she had problems getting past it and jumped back down. To prevent further escapes, I went to the pet shop and got a mesh. We spent about half an hour meshing up the rest of the gate.

Let me tell you, I didn't think it worked. Mindy got out again. I'm not sure how but to play it safe, my dad moved the marble table in the backyard further away from the wall.

We've ordered more polycarbonate to cover up the gate better.

I'm really in a bind as to what I can do.

Anyone has any suggestions??

Mikey & Molten

I just received the pictures of the kittens. This is Mikey. I am hoping to bring him home this weekend but that is to be confirmed later this week.

And this is Molten. She's a real sweetie-pie ain't she? It's not likely that I can bring her home. I'll leave it to my mom and dad to decide as they'll be the main caregivers.

Another Cat Scare

We had another cat scare today.  Mindy got out again!  I have absolutely no idea how she got out this time around since my dad has already blocked out her previous escape route.

My dad realized she was not around at about 8 pm.  I was playing with her at about 7.  So she got out between 7 and 8.  My dad and I walked around the neighborhood calling out her name.  She came running out from one of the neighbor's house and I scooted at her to get inside.  Luckily she listened and ran into the house.

This cat is really given me a headache.  We have to figure out how to block out other possible routes.  We think she climbed up the gate.  Meshing up the gate wouldn't work as the mesh that is sold at the pet stores basically provide her with a means to climb up.  We are going to get more polycarbonate to cover up the gate.  

Hopefully all our efforts will work now and she'll stop trying to get out to explore the world.  The only good thing about this is that we know for sure she knows her way home.  And this is also a good thing as it's showing us where we need to plug the "holes" before the kitten comes home to us.

New addition?

Today I went to 2 different fosters to have a look at some kittens.  I've been thinking of adopting another pet for a while.  I know that with 4 dogs, having another dog is a near impossibility.  So the other option is another cat.

My youngest baby, Murphy, is already 3 years 10 months old.  She still thinks of herself as a baby and is very frisky.  She loves cats too.  I'm not worried about the dogs accepting the new kitten into the family.  Usually dogs have less of an issue accepting new members as they are pack animals by nature.  If the new addition is introduced properly, they will typically accept it into the fold readily and think of the new addition (be it puppy, kitten, baby or otherwise) as part of the family pack and will protect it.

The first foster we visited had 4 3-month old kittens up for adoption.  3 ginger boys and a black/grey girl.  I was quite taken by Madhu (the sweetest of the 3 ginger boys) but my dad and brother were a little less impressed.  The plus point for Madhu is that he is used to having dogs around so he would be able to take to my 4 without a major issue.

The second foster had 3 6-week old kittens. 1 dark golden girl, 1 charcoal boy and a white boy with a racoon-like tail.  I aimed for the white boy and he basically stole my heart.  My dad was won over by the dark golden girl.  She was really a sweet little darling.  However, with so many girls in my house already, we decided we'll take the white boy.   As he's still a little young, the foster said he'll only be ready for adoption 2 weeks later.

We are going to name the boy Mikey.  My mom and dad even came up with a name for the dark golden girl, Molten.  I wish we can take both in but I think that would not be very possible.

We'll have to see how it goes.

Cat Scare

We just had a bit of a scare. My dad went around looking for Mindy and calling her name. She was nowhere to be found!

I asked my dad to check out the backyard (she likes to hang out there and our domestic helper has shut her out there a couple of times). Turns out she wasn't in the back yard but was outside the front gate! We found her desperately trying to jump over the covering that was put up to prevent her from getting out in the first place.

Luckily it was just a minor scare. She's back save and sound. We guessed that she couldn't have been outside for more than an hour. Now we'll have to figure out another way to cover up the front gate so that she can't get out. She hasn't been out for the last 4 years, so I'm still scratching my head wondering how she did her Houdini trick.

Cross-Stitch Project: Chinese Wedding Scene

Yeah! I managed to transfer the pictures from my Nikon Coolpix to my iMac.  Apologies that it's not very well taken.  I'll try to do better next time.  

Here's a picture of my work-in-progress:

And here's a picture of what it's supposed to look like when I'm done with it.

Hopefully I'll get it completed in a couple of months time.  This is not an easy project because the pattern is not very clear.  So I spend a lot of time trying to decipher what the symbols/colors are matched to.  Neither are the backstitching instructions but I'll come to that problem when I actually start to do the back-stitching.  

Great Singapore Sale 2008!

The Great Singapore Sale is now on!  For the uninitiated, the GSS is an annual event that used to start in June and end in August.  Each year, it seems to start earlier and earlier and end later and later.  

I think my first purchase would be the Nintendo Wii Fit.  Not that it's going to be on sale, but I'm getting it anyway!

Loading Pictures

Ok, seems like my problem isn't with loading pictures.  At least not yet.

After 6 months, today I realized that my iMac doesn't have a card reader!  So I had to find a USB connection for my camera to link it to my iMac.  Only I couldn't find one that fit my Nikon Coolpix.  Thank goodness my brother came to my rescue with a USB connector.

So there I was happily thinking that I can finally upload my pictures.  Ha!  I guess the iMac isn't as user-friendly as I thought.  It's not a plug-and-play kinda idiot proof system.  Turns out I had to download the camera driver.  

Right now, it's taking a couple of hours for the download to complete.  I think it'll be tomorrow before I upload any pictures.  Hopefully it'll work.  If not, I guess that means I have to upload pictures using another computer.

Cross Stitch Projects

When I went to Shanghai earlier this year, I bought a couple of cross-stitch projects from Cheng Huang Miao (城隍庙).   One is a wedding scene with the characters dressed in ancient Chinese costumes,  the other is a series of opera masks.  I started on the Chinese wedding scene a few weeks ago.

I'll post pictures of my progress once I figure out how to post pictures!

Meanwhile, as I was searching through my cross-stitch stash, I found a couple more UFOs (UnFinished Objects).  Hopefully I can get to them after I have completed the Chinese wedding scene project.

My first posting

I've been thinking about setting up a blog for some time now, but I just never got around to it. I guess I'm just a proscrastinator at heart.

It's also because I am not sure just what to share and what not to share. And do people really care what I have to say? At the end of it, it doesn't matter whether people read my blog or not, or whether they care what I have to say. It's just a way for me to document my thoughts and the happenings that I want to remember.

Perhaps this will come in handy one day when I grow old and senile. When I can't remember what had happened to me in the past, what I had done. This blog would then be a great way for me to walk down memory lane. Of course, the caveat being that I use this blog in the first place!

Here's the first step. I do hope that I will continue to document my journey in life here, if not for posterity, at least for the sake of ensuring that I don't lose my own memories.