Cinco de Mayo Goes Crafty

Cinco de Mayo gets a crafty spin so pull out your glitter and glue and create some fun and festive goodies to celebrate.

Create a recycled milk jug pinata!

Kids LOVE this project!

Create some party lights! SO EASY!

Ribbon wrapped paper lanterns.


Perfect art project for KIDS! You will only need glue and chalk!

Jazz up dollar store candles with papers and ribbons.

Cha Cha Cha Candles are SO CUTE!

Create some floor cushions from woven rugs.

Chicken with mole sauce - yummy.

Mango Margaritas

Coffee Filters flowers are a fun centerpiece that kids can make.

Small Worlds Collide.

In life, we are almost never fully aware of the power we each have to send out ripples into the world, ripples which change perspectives, impact lives, small cause small worlds to collide.

I've had a number of people ask about Grandpa Zhou lately. His health has been much better, and he's been doing well. Today, on my way home from a day's lesson of learning how to suture surgical stiches, a friend, B randomly said, "Oh yes! And I just wanted to tell you- did you know, after I read about Grandpa Zhou, haha, I was so inspired. Haha, my girlfriend and I, we stopped for a lady selling tissue paper across a bridge, we've decided to stop for her more often- Grandma Chen! "


We keep thinking we need to fund-raise mindblowing figures, accomplish impressive projects and perform great and mighty wonders before we can make a difference to our world around us. I used to think so too. I really did- I thought dreams had to fill entire galaxies to be considered the least bit worthy.


But now I see, it is in the smallest things, too, by which we can send out ripples. We keep thinking our small actions don't count, that one life touched is just too insignificant a figure. But it's not true. I realise now- that it's not true.

Our random Encounters matter. For every life we meet, we send out ripples into new worlds. And sometimes, these worlds even collide... beautifully.

Some of you may remember this- that I met Hideo, a homeless old man roaming about in Singapore many months ago. I liked him because he had a passion for what he did, writing- and was not afraid to go hungry for it. He would exclaim, in a clear voice of power and exuberance, "Man does not live by bread alone!"

I loved to listen to his profound ideals about life. He was a homeless man sleeping at the airport, but I loved that he was true to himself, and never despised himself in spite of the way the world saw him. Like Grandpa Zhou, he takes his art very seriously. They both hold on to dreams which carries them into a wispy old age with that fierce glint in their eyes, never fading for a moment. And they both hold onto an almost child-like form of idealism which cause them not to quite fit into this world, cause them to be somewhat misunderstood yet passionate, burning with hope and drive for their ideals and values, even if they might seem somewhat unacceptable by practical standards.

Two days ago, I find an email from a Stranger in Tokyo:

Hi Wai Jia,

I found your blog because you mentioned Hideo Asano in your article here: http://kitesong.blogspot.com/2007/05/hideo-asano.html

I met Hideo a few weeks ago in Tokyo - we spent a lot of time together and I decided to help him - so I did his website :) If you could add a link to his website in your article, it would be a great help to promote his work.

He is quite struggling at the moment - it is raining in Tokyo for nearly two weeks - he is sleeping in the park - so a lot of trubble for him. I try to help him with his website - perhaps I am able to attract a publisher by this website - that's why I want as many backlinks to hideoasano.com as possible to get a better ranking in Google.

So thanks :)

Carl





A life is not merely one person, not merely a figure on a checklist on ways to save the world. For random Encounters are like ripples, too. They touch not only lives, but worlds, and when they do, it's just amazing to see how small our world is, how close and near our worlds really are.


A homeless Japanese man who sleeps in airports. Singapore. Tokyo.


Grandpa Zhou. A reader of a tiny blog. Grandma Chen, on another side of the country.


We send ripples, make impacts on people's lives all the time, every moment.

" I just wanted to tell you how reading about Grandpa Zhou inspired me to speak with Grandma Chen! Just wanted to tell you, that's all. Hahahaha... "

I am learning, it's the small things which count, too.

Small worlds collide.

Newspaper Column: Cookie Bouquet

Here is my lastest column....

Homemade Cookie Bouquet
By Cathie Filian and Steve Piacenza

Add some sweet flavor to your next party with this unique cookie treat that is sure to impress. The bouquets are easy to make and can be customized for any occasion. Kids love cookie bouquets at birthday parties and parents love the “no mess” serving of cookies. If you want to say thanks, a special hello, bon voyage or get well - bake up a bouquet of cookies.

Cookie ingredients:
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups flour

Royal icing ingredients:
3 large pasteurized egg whites
½ teaspoon cream of tartar
1 lb. sifted powdered sugar

Supplies:
Vegetable oil spray
Lollipop cookie pan
Lollipop sticks
Icing bags and tips
Food coloring
Small beach pail
Floral marbles
Styrofoam
Brown sugar

Steps:
1. To make the cookie dough: Preheat oven to 400˚. Cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer. Beat in egg and vanilla. Next, add baking powder and flour, adding flour one cup at a time. Blend in last cup of flour by hand. The dough will be fairly stiff, but if the dough becomes too stiff, add water, one teaspoon at a time.

2. Spray each well in the cookie treat pan with vegetable oil spray. Fill each well with dough, filling almost all the way to the top. Slide a lollipop stick roughly halfway into each cookie. We used 6” sticks and 11 ¾” sticks. (Be aware of how large the inside of your oven is when deciding what size lollipop sticks to use.) Bake for 8 to 10 minutes. Allow the cookies to cool before removing them from the pan. You can use the tip of a spatula or a knife to help ease the cookies out of the pan. Allow the cookies to cool completely before decorating.

3. To make the royal icing: Beat the pasteurized egg whites and cream of tartar with an electric mixer until frothy. Gradually add powdered sugar and beat for 5-7 minutes.

4. Transfer some of the icing into small bowls and add food coloring to each small batch of icing. Any icing you have left over in bowls at this point should be covered with a damp towel to prevent hardening.

5. Prepare a few decorating bags for icing. Insert the decorating tip coupler into a plastic piping bag, add icing, and twist the end of the bag. Cut the tip of the bag and screw on a decorating tip. Transfer each color of icing into a decorating bag and decorate the cookies. Allow the icing to harden.

6. To create a cookie bouquet, start by filling the bottom portion of a small beach pail with floral marbles. (for weight) Place a piece of styrofoam on top. Sprinkle brown sugar on top of the styrofoam to create “sand.” Poke the cookies into the styrofoam, placing the ones with the longer sticks in the back.

Cathie Filian and Steve Piacenza created and co-host Creative Juice on DIY and HGTV. Visit www.cathieandsteve.com for more information.

180 degrees.

I remember feeling very foolish when I used to make 180-degree sharp turnarounds, walking right back to the spot where something gripped me. Why it gripped me the way it did, I still do not know. All I know is, the turnaround was worth it because every time I chose to do so, a part of me changed forever, in a way I least imagined. It seemed really stupid to me, at first, to go out of the way in the opposite direction to do what had to be done, but looking back, I don't regret it. It was those tiny decisions which released a certain power which till today, I am unable to explain.


Everybody has some reason of their own for loving, in spite of the certainty of it sometimes being unrequited. When you smile at a Stranger, at a random sick patient in a hospital ward, or a busker by a busy roadside, isn't that in some way, a form of giving out unrequited love, too? We do it, hardly out of the motivation of wanting it returned to us.

If human beings are truly creatures motivated by reward, then what is the reason behind this strange phenomenon?

For surely, to give out unrequited love is not a factor for survival. We all need love to live, but surely, wouldn't you think we could live without this foolishness of giving away something which will hardly be reciprocated? After all, cynics survive and get by, don't they?

God's word says that even the worst person in the world would love those who loved them- but what is striking, rather, is the person who loves those who do not love them, who hate them, even.


Our lives are filled with millions of opportunities for these acts of kindness, and it is in our tiniest acts of giving out unrequited acts of kindness, the tiniest ones, which really define who we are.

Did you walk past a blind busker today? A blind man on a busy roadside, trapped in his own visionless world of darkness- or did you pass him by and by your apathy, turn him invisible?

Did you look at a middle-aged woman standing on the train today, her feet aching from her heels and her body, tired from the demands of a day-job and housework at night, slumped against a metal pole? Did you rationalise that you deserved the seat you were on far more than she did?

Or worse, did it not cross your mind at all.

Do these million tiny things which present themselves as opportunities for random acts of loving, without reciprocation, cross our minds every day, or have we hardened our hearts to them?


For every opportunity, whether taken a hold of or not, changes our hearts, whether we want them to or not. Our every decision to every opportunity presented to us defines who we are, who we become- even those we choose to shrug our shoulders at.



Our hearts either harden, or soften- there is no in between.



Very often, we only remember the big things in life- the big Goods that we do, and the big Bads we commit. But if life is made of big moments we remember, then what happens to the tiny ones we forget?


This is what happens- they define us, change our hearts- forever. It is in our tiniest acts of loving, loving without return, which cause our hearts to stay aglow, alive and pulsing each day, or if neglected, become crystallized, ossified, and hardened beyond redemption.


In our busy lives walking along the business district and the busy malls, how many needy people have we passed by, with nary a glance at them? We give ourselves the excuse of being too busy, but in actual fact... so tell me- what will you do with that extra minute of time saved from not stopping for someone who needed it. We drive on the roads like drunk, angry bastards, cutting a lane sharply here, honking at a hogger in front, cursing at the driver in front of us who drives just as well as ourselves- all in the grand name of saving time. We saved ten seconds from that first lane cut, another ten from the second, saved half a minute from waking up that sleepy road-hogger, and another ten seconds from overtaking the other lousy driver. One grand, whole minute saved (or rather, fifty-nine seconds, when you took a sec to glare at the irresponsible pedestrian you zoomed past.)


A WHOLE MINUTE SAVED! ONE WHOLE MINUTE! SIXTY SECONDS OF EXTRA TIME! Did you know the maginificent exploits, groundbreaking frontiers and important tasks one could do with AN EXTRA SIXTY SECONDS saved?


Wow. Mindblowing.


It's true. In that one second we chose to walk by, to walk by for the sake of that precious sixty seconds saved, something big does happen. Our hearts harden. And it only becomes a matter a of time before an entire fortress is built around it, and the poor, the needy, the unloveable become completely invisible to our eyes.


It might seem really stupid at first to turn around. Come on, you've walked past the fellow, you've a place to go, people to meet, you don't have time for this nonsense- besides, you'll remember next time.


Sure, you'll remember next time. But remember that your heart changes every time, whether you wish for it or not. So if you feel that tug on your heart, don't go forward any longer, turn back. Turn around and walk a hundred metres to that old man with good eyesight sitting by the road with a fake white cane, offer the lady with dyed red hair in front of you a seat even though she's been standing there for 15 minutes (perhaps you took that long to struggle within yourself- I know I have!), and maybe, say from the bottom of your heart, that you're really sorry anyway for a harsh word you said.


It may seem really foolish to turn around. It's not like you have anything tangible to gain. Why can't I mind my own business, everybody should take care of their own world, shouldn't they? This giving-your-heart-to-people business entangles life too much, makes things so complicated. You know why you get heartbroken so easily? It's because you give your heart away. Learn from your lesson, keep it close by you and it'll remain intact, good as new. What's this nonsense about turning around.


But when you do turn around, things are turned inside-out, and upside-down. Turn 180-degrees often enough, and something in your spirit takes a hundred-and-eighty-degree turnaround too. You find, that surprisingly, it's better to have it broken, than hardened.


Something in your heart changes, forever- even if you do have one less minute to conquer the world today.

"... It is more blessed to give than to receive."

-Acts 20:35b

Sherlyn Chopra In Lingerie Posing for Dard-E-Sherlyn Shoot

Katrina Kaif Shows Cleavage in Black Dress

Well she is simply dressed but looks a absolute beauty in the black dress
Katrina Kaif has denied recent news that her 17-year-old sister Isabel will play lead opposite Salman Khan in the period drama Veer, scripted by Salman Khan and to be directed by Anil Sharma.

Brinda Parekh Hot Recent Photoshoot Pictures

Brinda Parekh has only done one movie in Bollywood. that is a small role in Madhur Bhandarkar's Corporate but that has made her one hot babe of Bollywood. She has done some Tamil films like Pokkiri, Polladhavan .Here are some of her hottest pictures. Enjoy!

The Heart of the matter.

How I let it become what it became is unfathomable to me. Had it happened to someone else, I know I would have scoffed disdainfully. I had always heard about what it could do to you, did all I knew within my means to avoid it, was sure that I had given it enough clearance. Yet, when I saw it for what it was, everything finally became clear to me.

How I let it become what it became is unfathomable to me, still. One could blame oneself too easily. Yet, reality is such that we all have allowed it to become something we wish it had not become.



The heart is a fascinating organ. Two days ago, for the first time in my life, I was brought to a patient by my tutor and asked to listen for any abnormalities. One by one, we listened to his heart. "Anything abnormal?" he asked. The students before me shook their head.

Medical students are always told to look, listen and feel to what Normality is, so we can better pick up anything which deviates from the norm. I find the heartbeat such a fascinating phenomena that I find myself listening to my own ever so often.


When it came to my turn, I said, "The second heart sound is too loud. It ought to be much softer, I think."

"You got it," he said. "He has a diastolic heart murmur."



The heart is a fascinating organ. Blood in, blood out. Blood in, blood out. From the moment you are born, it never stops pumping until your last breath of life. The only time it ever rests is when it decides to rest, forever. Blood in, blood out- all of our lives.

For us to live, blood has to flow through our entire beings to supply us with sufficient oxygen. For the heart to survive, blood has to flow through the network of vessels which give it sufficient nutrients. Blood in, blood out- fluent, fluid, smooth like clockwork.

Hospitals in developed countries like Singapore are filled with patients recovering from heart attacks. Our sedentary lifestyles, high-stress environments and rich eating habits all contribute to the accumulation of lipids in our blood vessels. The lipids harden to form a calcified plaque which eventually erupts, blocking off crucial heart vessels. Blood in, blood... no longer out. This results in what we call a myocardial infarct or very simply, a heart attack. Blood in, but blood not out.

But here's what's scary- the lipids which contribute to the eventual heart attack which takes place in the second part of your life starts to accumulate from the day you were born. For decades, you could be eating, laughing, drinking, smoking, living ever so blissfully before that final critical moment where the plaque erupts, and stops the smooth flow of blood.

Pain seizes your chest like a thunderous judgement upon you. Some people feel the crushing pain in their left chest, but more often than not, it spreads like a fire gone wild to your jaw and left arm, paralysing you in agony. You fall to your feet, as if an iron man had given you a startling blow behind your neck. The ambulance comes. They tell you you need an operation and don't ask for your consent because you're in critical condition.


Your system stops working. Every living cell in your body is starving for oxygen. All your cells are dying... you are dying.

We all have evil gunk accumulating in the riverbeds of our bloodstreams. One could easily scoff at another for allowing himself so much indulgence, thinking he was free of it, when in fact, nobody knows how much gunk they really have, when it will erupt, when he himself may find himself on his knees, perspiring furiously, gripping his chest in unbearable pain.


And it occurred to me, all at once one day, why my heart has always been so weak. Some people said it was my sensitivity, or over-compassionate nature. Some said it simply had a genetic component. But it finally came to me one day, that the answer could be all of those, but none as convincing as what I felt God had whispered to me-

- that it was a clog in the system, that made the heart weak, causing a heart attack which nearly killed me. Just as cells are starved of oxygen, Anorexia was a physical manifestation of my emotional starvation, too.



For a normal person to live, Love, oh glorious glorious Love, must pulse through his veins every second. Love in, love out. Love in, love out. In my case, the clog, that hardened plaque, had stoppered the system such that Love kept leaking out like an emotional haemorrhage, without ever receiving an adequate inflow of the life-giving fluid. Love out... out... and out.


I talked to the family therapist, Miss A*, this week. We learnt that the reason why conflicts happen in Big Brick Houses, is because different people have different love languages. There are five love languages- namely Quality time, Words of Affirmation, Gifts, Physical Touch and Acts of Service. Our Love systems flow best when the same love language we give out is poured right back into us. We all speak different love languages- men, more often in the language of physical touch and providing acts of service, and women more often in gifts, which explains why we feel different levels of fuzziness when we receive love in different forms, and also explains why so often, conflicts arise when one does not interpret another's actions as Love, simply because of the different love languages they speak.


It came to me the other day, that the reason why I keep having to go for heart surgery is because of... the clog in my heart system. The clog that stops life-giving blood from flowing through my heart, that stops my heart from pumping oxygen through my body, the clog that stops my love tank from being filled... which makes me afraid to love, even. And it's name is... Unforgiveness.

Love out... out... and out. And the reason why none is flowing in is hardly because of a lack of love around me, but an inability to process the different love language being poured in. I speak the rarest, and possibly the most demanding love language in the world, that is, Quality Time. Very few people speak it and express their love that way. We live in a city which has too much cash and too little time. And so, when they in the Big Brick House express their Love in a different language, in terms of money, provision, expensive gifts and freebies, I find the black black plaque called Unforgiveness, growing in size, insidiously damming up the lovepipes in the heart.

We all have love languages we interpret less well than others. And I don't understand the language from the Big Brick House. I speak in the language of intimate conversation, meaningful time spent together, hugs, genuine words from the heart, sometimes gifts... and a city of bright lights, compressed time and artificial diamonds, most people just don't have time to sit by the beach.


The bloodjet of love leaks out... out... and out. For years. Pain, hurt, incapacitation.



Heart attack.



A bypass surgery is when the doctors put a pipe inside your heart so they can open up the vessel which got dammed by the plaque, allowing life-giving blood to flow through again. So that's where they've got me now, on the operating table, with four, five, six of them cutting me up to fix a heart gone wrong. They don't have anaesthesia in this hospital so the pain can be sometimes excruciating. Believe them when they tell you to take healthy-heart advice, because Unforgiveness is the fastest way to starve your body to death, be it of oxygen or of love.

Do you have a clog in your system too? The heart of the matter is- we all do. Humanitarians, pastors, missionaries, saints even, all have tiny plaques clogging up their hearts. Yet, how we let them become what they do remains unfathomable to us. One cannot forgive once and for all. It takes forgiving, re-forgiving, and re-forgiving each and every single day.

Just like the way God forgives us every single time, over and over, in spite of all our inadequacies, shameful shortcomings and blatant blunders, our sickening sins. Over and over, forgiving and re-forgiving.

Forgiveness- it's the daily bypass which cleanses our system. It's the only way to keep our hearts pumping, to keep the bloodjet streaming, to keep the spirit of Love flowing fluidly inside of us. Indeed, it's the only way we can live.

Forgiveness, that's what the story behind the Cross is about. It was the ultimate act of Love that God showed us. Is that why they say Mister God has a Big, Strong heart? Because there's so much capacity to forgive that absolutely nothing can clog His system?

So perhaps, that's what the Heart of the matter really is- Forgiveness.

Somewhere deep down inside, where you're most afraid to admit or even blissfully ignorant of, do you have a clog, too? And will you make the choice to go for a bypass before it's too late, before it hurts too bad?

Don't wait till it's too late, because remember, no matter how bad they've wronged you, you're the one who'll suffer from the myocardial infarct. But take heart, because God's in the operating theatre. He wears a surgical gown, a White one, too.

Question is, will you let Him?

" I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

- Ezekiel 36:26

*All posts under the link Therapy chronicle her journey to recovery from Anorexia and depression with professional help from the team at the Singapore General Hospital.

Models Ramp Show at Swarovski's Runway Party

At Swarovski's Runway Show , the fashion show held recently Hot models sizzled on the ramp alongwith bollywood celebrities

Jesse Jane Showing Off Cleavage

Here are some pics of Jesse Jane at some media launch.

Rani Mukherjee Looks Gorgeous in Saree

hats

Bow Wow WOW! has 5 different hat patterns and designs.

collars

Bow Wow WOW! has ideas for embellishing collars and leashes.

collars

Bow Wow WOW! has ideas for embellishing collars and leashes.

shoes

Bow Wow WOW! features patterns and ideas for doggie shoes.

bandannas

Bow Wow WOW! features 2 different style patterns for bandannas.

bandannas

Bow Wow WOW! features 2 different style patterns for bandannas.

Creative Juice Episode: Country Kitchen

Creative Juice - Country Kitchen # 612

Our kitchen is cooking with craft ideas. We make 3 different funky kitchen towels with real charm, tie one on with vintage style aprons, pucker up for crispy, crunchy homemade pickles that are packed for perfection and treat ourselves to mini cucumber sandwiches.

Click the links to visit DIY Network for all
the instructions and step-by-step pictures.

Apron Project: Combine vintage style with modern flair to create an awesome apron that’s right at home in any kitchen.

Oh how I love my machine.

Funky Kitchen Towels: Give plain kitchen towels some country flavor with image-transfer techniques that range from high-tech to refreshingly simple.

Homemade Sweet Pickles: Here’s the scoop on a classic recipe for sweet pickles that pop with color and flavor.

Cucumber Sandwiches: Vegging out with these tasty little finger sandwiches will keep you cool as a cucumber.

Creative Juice was created by Two Bees and a Pea Productions for DIY Network and HGTV. Learn more great craft ideas by visiting cathieandsteve.com.