But did you know, I don’t always like to swim.

When I was very young, I loved to swim! Like how other children wait a whole year for their birthday, asking and exasperating their parents till the day arrives, I agitatedly wait for Saturdays when Dad would take us to Ayer Keroh Country Club for a swim.

The first time I got to AKCC, I ran to the pool and dove in with my shoes and clothes on. Mum was horribly embarrassed. I loved waterplay so much, I was angry when Mum decided that I should spend Saturdays playing the piano instead.

When I was a teenager, I didn’t like swimming anymore because after every swim, I’d have to spend hours combing gently to disentangle the afro on my head. My hair is not the type that you can run a comb through easily. The hours of grooming just to look like a sane person didn’t seem worth the swim.

When I was a young adult, swimming gave me the space to reflect but the reflections, far from being therapeutic, disturbed me. I felt trapped in my own thoughts and hated it.

So, it’s been a while since I’d had a good swim. I’m really glad that I’d learned it when I was too young to care about entangled hair or deep thoughts. And I’m ectstatic that last week, I splashed into the pool again.

I guess there were seasons when I was like these baby otters who tried their very best to escape from having to swim. Their Mum was so persistent, they didn’t get any say.

I guess my Mum was trying to achieve the same thing when she dragged me to the piano on Saturdays. :)

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Soon, I began to feel really tired. Being tall has its shortcomings. For one, your back aches really easily. But just before I left the land, I saw another photographer searching the sky, probably looking for me. May be he was planning to capture my pic to sell to TODAY for a million bucks!

Little did he know that this clever giantess had crouched down to escape alllll the public attention and was going to exit by invisibly commando crawling along the ground. Good luck trying to find me in the sky, ha!

And so, that marks the end of my quick trip to Universal Studios, Sentosa. As soon as I exited, I immediately shrunk back to my normal height. So now, if you see me around, don’t be afraid to come by and say Hi. As for what actually happened to cause me to grow momentarily, I can’t explain it either. I guess some things are meant to remain a mystery forever.

What?? You’re saying you don’t believe I shot up to 30x my normal height for a brief moment in time?? You’re saying all these photographic evidence above are simply the Miniature Effect from Canon’s new range of compact cameras?

You… you!

Huff!

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The first thing to look for is a horse-drawn carriage handbag to tote the netbook about. After all, netbooks are meant to be like your mobile office, only that they don’t need to look “officy”.

A bed of roses should be able to cushion the US$999.00 netbook nicely.

Next, add a dress that would attract… butterflies!

Spritz fragrance into the sky and let the droplets fall upon your hair, face and shoulders.

Finally, do not resist adding dramatically dark lashes to to brighten your eyes.

Flash a mystic smile, and you sparkle, Girl!

Only thing is, you’ll need to add a pair of  your own shoes to complete this look. Well, what shoes would you like to wear?

One day, I was about to leave the fiancé to take a 4-hour bus ride home, and I was very sad. As sad as eeyore on a dark and rainy day.

All of a sudden, the fiancé spotted a funny-looking tree. It looks like a papaya tree but it is not a papaya tree.
And its lower branches have fallen off, just like how a papaya tree’s lower branches would when it’s big.

But where the branches have fallen off, are left marks on the tree truck that look like big fat lips.
The fiancé exclaimed, that tree look like it’s been kissed.

I looked up and he’s right. The tree does look very funny.

My eyes lit up and I couldn’t help smiling. And I stepped into the bus with a silly grin on my face, as I kept thinking of the funniness of the silly smothered-in-kisses tree.

What do you think about that brings hope and joy to any day?

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” – Philippians 4:8

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But for some unexplainable reason, blogging haven’t come easy lately. There are so many things that I want to say and share with you.

A baby elephant being born at Taronga Zoo makes me happy.

A scrapbook of people being treasured makes me happy.

A daintily decorated room makes me happy.

A delicate flower waving in the wind makes me happy.

Taking all these in every morning at www.google.com/reader makes me brilliantly happy.

A scrumptious fiancé coming home from overseas? That makes me fly into the air happy!

Then, there are things that makes me want to crawl into bed and never see sunlight ever again.

My grandma being 89 years old makes me worried.

People not leaving #JackNeo and his family alone, irks me.

Jack’s wife. Disillusioned, hurt, misplaced, trampled.

Jack’s children, hearing it in school, watching it in the news, and reading it on the internet.

God, strengthen those who’ve been betrayed by their Daddy.

I was thinking that may be, just may be, I should come up with a new year resolution and for a brief moment, I considered committing to blogging more regularly.

But you know what? I don’t like committing to doing things! I like committing to people, so how about a change of resolution. In 2010, I commit to updating you more regularly. How about that, hey? But!!! But… there’s a chance I may not be updating through this blog.

Last month, I was seriously considering moving to using Google’s blogspot. At that time, the blogging engine I was using was really slow in uploading photos – every time I try to show you one teensy-weensy picture, I would have to wait forever.

However, since then, the makers of WordPress have upgraded the blog engine. It seems faster now, and if it continues going in this direction, I’ll be here for you! Always! Forever!

But if not, let’s all move to the countryside that is blogspot.com, shall we?

For Christmas Eve, we had a potluck party at Thomas, Mei Yee and Little Jacob’s house. I made Konnyaku Jelly which is a good thing because everyone else brought too much meat. The Wockers Family sang us Christmas Carols in German and in English.

Thomas, Mei Yee and Little Jacob live on the top floor of a walk-up apartment. I had such a good time walking up that I felt I could make up for it by being generous in my eating.

Christmas Day, we went to CEFC to watch our dear friends, Milly & Boony present Love Story. It was presented through singing.

There was a moment of poignancy for me during the performance, when the girls sang The Rose by LeAnn Rimes.

Lyrics:
It is the one, Who won’t be taken,
Who cannot seem to give.

Have you allowed Jesus to take you as His bride?

On the 28th, we had a belated Christmas celebration by going for an all-you-can-eat buffet dinner with a few new friends. It was the night in which I acquired a paunch. Paunchy Precious, hey it rhymes!

I felt guilty about it when I saw the vast array of food. I was thinking of baby Munei and wondering what were we doing spending on an all-you-can-eat dinner when we could spend on feeding some who are starving in other parts of the world. I do know there’s a time for celebration and a time for sadness. I guess, this is the time to celebrate.

On New Year’s Eve, Maria Cecilia and I went to Cornerstone Community Church for the Watchnight Service. The Pastors gave us a surprise performance, singing a song by Keith Green.

Soon everyone started joining in of course. It was an exciting night, counting down, blowing trumpets and renewing our commitment to loving the one who loves us most. Nothing could be better than that!

On New Year’s day, our good friends Jason and Lyn got married! This is really the season for celebrations. Their cosy and friendly wedding was held at the Asian Civilization Museum. There were lots of mingling around because of the way the wedding was designed – cocktails, buffets and an instant photo printing booth.

Me entering to grace the wedding, *cough*

Smug Jason and his gorgeous Lyn.

The proof of the wedding is in the signing.

Instant Photo Printing by http://pictureworks.com.sg/
I’m the one in hot pink, what colour did you expect I’d be wearing?

And tonight: the celebration continues with dinner atop the Singapore Flyer! Isn’t the New Year over already? My jeans are complaining!

With the leftover fabric from the sarong, Yius made a Bible cover.

We’ve been experimenting with making Bible covers as many Bibles, their cover is made of leather which disintegrates with prolonged use.

This is our first success at it!

Sewing is outside of Yius’ job description so she does them only when she’s completed her professional duties at home, and only when she wants to which she does: she finds sewing very calming).

In other news, infant Ethan is a Liu Lian Tou (Durian Head). Wanna know why? Hop over to Ethan’s Mommy’s blog. :D

I’ve come to the opinion that nursing mothers really need to stock up on chocolate and other comfort food. The sound of a baby crying distresses the heart even when you know that all you need to do is change a diaper for the crying to stop. I guess it’s like how the sound of a hammer pounding on your wall feels distressing even when you know that once the nail is in, the hammering will stop and you will have a nice place to hang a photo. Hmm…

I once visited a house that belongs to a couple where the hubby and wifey are hard-of-hearing. They don’t live there anymore, they’ve moved back to live with their parents after having a baby because they are unable to hear when their baby cry.

Speaking of crying, I came upon a heart-rending post where a couple had to decide to give their son up for adoption. I’m not sure if anyone will be willing to provide this boy with the family he needs, they will need to be really committed to loving him, long-term.

In another blog, a couple had to admit that their son is a psychopath.

I didn’t know that there are these kind of issues that families have to grapple with in this world.

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However, I checked back today and found a few comments that really energized me for blogging again. These are not the usual comments from friends that say, “Wow, that’s nice!” or “Hey, that’s interesting that you did that,” but are comments from strangers that ask for help.

“Excuse me, may I know how to get to this place which you blogged about?”

This type of comments get me very excited as I am able to hit reply and help someone. So that’s a good reason to keep on blogging.

In other news, I have been enjoying my days teasing baby Ethan. I have bought his first books for him and he will be starting homeschool with teacher Precious very soon.

Baby Ethan acts really funny whenever he has to bathe. He curls up into a little ball and screams like we’re dunking him in hot oil.

Hello, it is just Guinness Stout!

And Guinness Stout is good for you!

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Last night, I dreamed that I am a famous blogger. I received a phone call from a radio DJ who was airing our conversation live on his show. The DJ said that he had discovered three people who didn’t like me and who wants to expose the dirt on me. I think the DJ was trying to provoke me towards anger while live on air. This was how the conversation went.

Bob: Hello Hillary, I have a few questions for you today. Are you ready to answer them live for our 2 million listeners at home?
Me: Hello Bob, please go ahead and ask away.
Bob: Hillary, I heard that your real name is not Hillary and that you are pretending to be someone you’re not. Do you have anything to say to that accusation?
Me: Bob, it would be a miracle if my parents had named me Hillary at birth, considering how my dear Mother can not pronounce Hillary very well. Chinese-speaking people have a problem differentiating “L”s from “R”s. My real name is Cheng Leng and it’s a name I’m proud to have. It’s my heritage. However, Hillary is a convenient name to have for my line of work.
Bob: Hillary, I heard that you have three vicious dogs at home who have attacked people before. The fact is, I heard these nasty tidbits about you from three blog readers who claim to genuinely dislike you. Do you have any comments?
Me: Bob, I am upset to hear that there are 3 people who do not like me at all. I had thought that I would be able to be friends with all 6.7 billion people on planet earth but from the sound of what you’re saying, it looks like I will only be able to have 6,699,997 friends at most.

(Poor Charise got framed.) Notice how I steered the conversation away from my vicious dogs, ahem.

I forgot the the last question that the radio DJ asked but from what I can remember, I handled the entire interview very well. I didn’t get upset and I was calm.

What do you think the dream meant?

Woohoo! I felt victorious. A 24-hour blogathon, I’m sure it will be exciting and fun. As a former Girl Guide, I’m always prepared!

Later that night, I started wondering,
“Eh, so what is a Blogathon har?”
I nudged Nadnut on MSN. She said,
“It’s a competition among ten bloggers. There will be two winners. One will win by the number of votes. The other will win by the number of comments.”

Uh oh. Votes? Comment count? I began to feel slightly unwell.

I then sought Nic for counsel. He said, “It will be okay lah.”
I said, “But what if NOBODY comments on my posts? Not even one?” That has been known to happen sometimes at http://precious-living.com

I began to get the jitters. Jayden got the jitters too, as seen on YouTube.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeaSc16Sg5A

Since the Blogathon was going to be held in the window display at Singapore’s TANGS Shopping Mall, TANGS (formerly known as C.K. Tang) had to make sure we didn’t turn up in singlets, flip-flops and tattered shorts. We were given a budget of $500 each to pick an outfit from TANGS that we would wear during the Blogathon. At this point, I made such huge shopping mistakes that I should warn all females: do not venture beyond reading this point lest you get a heart attack.

!!Final warning now!!

1. I did not check out the TANGS website before going out to shop.
With the generous budget, we could pick any outfit that we like as long as they are from specific brands including Martina Pink, TokiDoki, Library, Fred Perry and TANG+CO. Having not checked the website, I wrongly assumed that TANG+CO is a brand itself so when I saw clothes labelled “Alannah Hill”, “Paul & Joe”, “Kors”, “Nicola Fenetti”, et cetera, I walked away from those racks. Yes, I deserve a slap. TANG+CO is the location that houses all these fabulous brands.

Back story: When I was a student, there was only one Alannah Hill boutique in all of Melbourne and it was filled with the most beautiful clothes on earth. All I could do was stand outside the shop window and stare longingly as drool collect and dribble out both corners of my mouth. It was only after graduating that I “rewarded” myself with one exquisite Alannah Hill blouse, one Alannah Hill handbag and one Alannah Hill brooch. That was 8-9 years ago.

I have been Alannah Hill-deprived ever since, not knowing that it is available at TANGS. To think I could have picked out one Alannah Hill outfit for the Blogathon and I did not. The tears in my pillow, *weep*.

2. I did not give myself enough time to rummage through the racks
My appointment to pick out the clothes was at 3pm but by the time I got there, it was four. The camera crew had waited so long that I didn’t dare stall any longer. After a brief video interview, I dashed through two floors of TANGS to briefly view all that’s available. Within half an hour later, the crew politely asked if I would be ready to make a decision. I zoomed in at Martina Pink, took three pretty dresses, tried them on in the changing room and made a decision on one. It was zero to $125.30 in 40 minutes flat.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jqg_YQXjj4

Now, I really love the red satin dress that I had picked out. The heaviness of the material shows that this is quality stuff and it felt soooo smooth and cool when I brushed my hand at the skirt that a chill ran up my spine. Fabrics that feel good to touch always make me feel weak inside.

However, after looking at the price tag, I began to feel discouraged. The dress is “only” $179 and is on sale for 30% off which totals $125.30. Does price indicate Wow factor? Had I chosen too little since TANGS had thought we would need clothes worth $500? Thankfully, after the video is out, I was able to review my choice and I do think this is the genuinely gorgeous stuff, the shiny red satin is the kind that’s not just wanted or desired but needed like marrow for your bones.

Who? Me? Prone to exaggeration? I have no idea what you are talking about.

image by Pat Law

Once the shopping was done, I had a Kiehl’s skincare consultation because good skincare is just what you’ll need to prep your skin for 24-hours of sleeplessness. I told the consultant that I have dehydrated combination skin and she agreed. I was given a generous bag of samples to try. To be honest, I haven’t tried them yet. What I can tell you for now is that The Boyf have tried his samples and given his two thumbs up.

The Blogathon day itself.
We arrived at TANGS at 5:30 pm, changed into the brand new clothes, squealed while jogging on the spot at each other’s gorgeousness, unpacked the Lenovo U350 ultra-thin laptops which we would be blogging from, made sure we could connect to Starhub Broadband and stepped inside the window displays.

It was all quiet inside…

image by Victor Tan

At 6:30pm sharp, the shutter slowly started rolling up.

image from TANGS’ Facebook page

It went tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak as The Boyf and I were setting up.

Oooh, I lurrrrve the sheen of the dress.
Can you see how thin the laptop is? I immediately started downloading my favorite softwares including Firefox, Chrome (the kiasuness), MSN Live Messenger and TweetDeck. Unfortunately, after that, the laptop kept crashing and the Lenovo guy had to come click the One-Key-Recovery icon on the desktop. It is a very convenient button to click when you need to fix a laptop’s crash although having a laptop crash is not convenient at all. Always look on the bright side.

In the meantime, we interacted with passers-by. We should have played a game of charade with everyone. The person who guesses correctly gets to take home the shiny black KitchenAid mixer behind my back. *sigh*

Someone said that our window display looks like a scene out of the “I Love Lucy” sitcom. Do I look like a fifties housewife? I published the first blog post, “They made me a housewife at the TANGS Orchard Blogathon” which received 18 comments. Hello? Where are you commenters when I blog at http://precious-living.com?

Next, we were given a task -- to look for one stylish shopper and interview  her about her personal style. I found the uber stylish Adelynn Tan who was exploring a sea of eyeliner colors at Shu Uemura. Adelynn is a theatre actress. <3

At 12am, we had to move out of there to the Kiehl’s New York Loft which we would be sharing with Claudia and Melly. At 3am, we heard a knock at the door of our loft. The door creaked open and a skeletal hand reached in to wave at us.

*SCREAMMMMMMM*

Throughout the night, there was a constant trickle of passers-by outside TANGS. We should have set-up Mr Bones with a Lenovo and get him to sit with us in the window display. Wonder how the passers-by would have reacted to that. But since DK had taken Mr Bones out for a walk, I tried something else.

SCREAMMMMMMMM!

What? What? I was just trying on the Kiehl’s deep pore cleansing facial masque which was freely available in the Kiehl’s New York Loft. The masque gave me an interesting prickly sensation. After cleaning it off, (Girl Guide honor & honesty here), the skin on my face felt like a baby’s bottom -- smooth, gentle and buoyant -- for a full day and a half. Wow!

Did you know: that the area outside TANGS Orchard is a jogging spot? At 5am, regular  joggers were already up and about, hopping on their feet like nimble gazelles. Some were so kind to wave at us as they run.

At slightly after 6am, the first train screeched into the Orchard Road station and a throng of crowd flowed out. Another Wow. This is one road that doesn’t sleep at all.

At 10am, the voting booth at the entrance of TANGS was reopened so friends and family could come vote for us.

At 12pm, we moved to a new window display. I was too sleepy to look around. It was probably a sportswear-themed one.

1pm was Feed the Bloggers’ time. Family and friends were allowed to enter the window to provide us with lunch. Thankfully, Brokenshardz showed up with ginseng chicken + rice or I would have eaten the wooden hand on display, next to the sports clothes. Interesting combination.

In this window, The Boyf finally had the chance to switch on his television set (white screen on the right). He was so proud to be able to geek out.

Notice also our puffy eyes. I was and still am very proud of that. It’s a sign that we’ve been in battle, a war wound that has healed over time. By the end of the Blog-a-Ton at 6pm, I had published a total of 14 posts. The Blogathon really made me discover how much I love to blog. It is such a joy to have done something that I enjoy doing, with people whom I enjoy being with, for 24-hours non-stop.

So, Pat, when’s the next one? ;)

Postscript: The Boyf won the Blogathon with most comments while Nadnut won with most votes. Congratulations to both!

Post-Postscript: I took The Boyf’s prize-winning TANGS voucher worth $300 but am having thoughts of returning it to him, seeing how scrumptious he looks in clothes from TANGS.

What do you think? Should I? Should I? It’s so tempting, help!