To encourage young ones to read & my first give-away

I love to read when I was young, so much that I would go through a book a day when I was in primary school. I would borrow books from the school and National Library. To encourage the young ones to read, I've printed these from the digi kit Bookland Book Lover that I bought from Two Peas, for their Christmas pressies.

The bookmarks, aren't they the cutest?

Bookplates, so people will remember that they borrowed your book....

...and a reading log.

The whole set! No wonder the new printer was protesting and signaled "No ink" after three consecutive print runs.

Love these woodland stuff! I have an extra set of bookmarks. If you want one, please leave a comment by Boxing Day and I will select one lucky winner on 27 Dec.

8 days to go till Christmas

We bought a new printer, HP Photosmart 4280, last Fri. This time, there's a cover at tha part where you load the paper, so Jonathan will not be able to stick his hands inside. We set it up on Sat and I started printing in batches Christmas trees and some stationery for Christmas pressies - all in colour. I love it coz the printing was quiet and fast, and the quality was quite good. I think I had better give the printer a break coz yesterday, the monitor displayed "Low Ink".

I made some Christmas cards. Love the piece trees designed by Tia Bennett that I bought from Two Peas.Sneak peaks of the stationery sets I am giving some of the older kids in Singapore. JOna wanted to play with them...guess he was fascinated by the colours, but I had to say a firm "no", although I hate to be saying so much "No" so many times.
Can't wait to go back to Singapore for Christmas and New Year. My parents will be glad to see Jonathan walk, run and babble. My Mom will love him coz he is not a fussy eater and will finish up his food.

No fish in the market tomorrow!

The local fishermen in Miri are going on strike tomorrow to draw attention of the public to their plight, which they claimed had been ignored. All unsold fish will be taken off the stalls, refrigerated and re-sold after the proposed strike.

Although the government helps them with a RM200 monthly subsidy and other assistance, th local fishermen said it is not sufficient in view of the hight costs of fuel and vessel maintenance. In light that oil prices have dropped, but subsidised fuel has not been reduced, the burden is on the fishermen to contend with reduced catches and competition from foreign fishing vessels.

Fish in Sabah and Sarawak tend to fetch lower prices compared to Thailand and Peninsular Malaysia. So foreign vessels prefer to sell their catch back in their own countries, depriving local consumers of our own fish.

Over in Labuan, 83 fishing trawlers will halt their operations for 3 days in protest against the increased price of diesel that has rendered their business not viable.

In Kota Kinabalu, bogged down by escalating diesel prices, 143 trawlers are not going to sea to stem further losses and to protest. One of the owners, Mu, said that the daily catch could not cover current expenses. For an instance, each time they fish, they would gross RM13,000. Of which, RM11,000 would be for diesel and the remaining sum for paying their workers. He has been fishing for 33 years and the last six months of this year are described as the hardest.

I hope this is resolved soon, otherwise we will not have fish on the table.

Our printer is spoilt, no thanks to Jonathan

I wanted to print some stuff to make Christmas cards, and now I can't....coz Jonathan was fascinated by the sounds made by the printer and he reached in and pulled out the printer ribbon! Don't ask me how and why he did it....and we just bought a new colour catridge too!

So the hunt is now on for a printer. Any ideas? Someone said Epson printer's print resolution is better but they had some problem with the printer head last time, and not sure if that's fixed. HP's print resolution is less than Epson, but no worries about the printer head. I must get the printer by tomorrow so I can do work over the weekend.

Christmas shopping

This year I started earlier in my Christmas shopping. I bought some new clothes for four World Vision kids that Simon and I sponsor. A boy and a girl each in North Thailand and Mongolia.
I also made some simple gift tags for them, which they can hang anywhere in their home. Nothing fancy, just a simple tag to wish them a Merry Christmas and our love. Finally used up my Bamp Bop tags that I've been hoarding and the last of the Love Elsie Noel rub-ons.
OK the youth in Thailand may not have experienced snow (neither have I), but these snowflake brads have to be used coz I've had them for like two years!
I still need to make some gifts and the rest, I will buy when I reach Singapore on 21 Dec. But I can only start shopping on 22 Dec coz we arrive at night! Sigh, still last minute for some gifts...

Tragedy hits home

A Singaporean lady, Lo Hwei Yen, 28, was killed in the hostage situation at the Oberoi Trident Hotel in Mumbai last Thursday. Her body was found on the 19th floor of the hotel. She was in Mumbai for a one-day seminar, and was understood to have been shot in the head and abdomen. She was just married last year and leaves behind her husband, family and friends to mourn her.

I do not know her personally (but I found out she went to the same school as me). Her death was senseless.

The Mumbai terrorists didn't come to negotiate in a 'no surrender' attack. This scenario made it hard for the Indian authorities to predict what was the next move. They never demanded the release of prisoners or even mentioned the Middle East conflict.

Others killed
A Brooklyn-based rabbi and his wife were killed in the siege on a Jewish center in Mumbai. Their son Moshe, who turns 2 on Saturday, was rescued by a nanny and has been handed over to his mother's parents.

The decomposed body of Malaysian, Hemalatha Kassippillai, was found on the sixth floor of the 565-room Taj Mahal Palace hotel. The sixth floor bore the brunt of the violent terrorist attacks that burned down the entire floor. The terrorists made two of the hotel's sixth floor rooms as their headquarters.

Staying on the sixth floor was Malaysia New Straits Times's consulting editor, Sabina Sehgal Saikia, she too was killed in the attacks. The wife of the hotel's general manager and his two sons also perished in the fire that gutted the sixth floor. Another luckless guest on the sixth floor was Greek tycoon Andreas Liveras, who was slain by terrorist bullets.

Senseless...

October Afternoon - new stuff

Oooooh, I can't wait to go back to Singapore at the end of the month to get my hands on these goodies from October Afternoon - Night Light and Weathervane die-cards and journal cards. Aren't they yummy?