I'm a full-time mummy

I have always been careful with what comes out of my mouth. I am a naive person and sometimes speak out what went on exactly on my mind. Long ago, being honest like this got me into troubles as I am not being 'political' enough and because of this, I have slowly learned to guard what I want to say before I say it out. Which, most of the times nowadays, I rather just keep quiet and let it slide.

However, it happened again quite recently where I just shared what I feel on my mind and was then blasted for not having good 'taste' to appreciate some sense of style and I was also blasted with other things which in my opinion is hurtful.

Okay... my bad... I hope this will be my final lesson learned that I really should not bother to share my honest opinion. I mean, being honest sometimes is not good because there are people who really don't appreciate it and already set their mind that they have good taste and choice and that you don't know any better and that you should just keep your mouth shut.

Point taken. I'm writing this post as a reminder to myself.

Proverbs 21:23 (NIV), Ephesians 4:29 (NIV), Proverbs 12:18 (NIV)

Also with this lesson, I think I should stay away from people like this who thinks highly of themselves. A good friend is one who appreciates and takes criticism with good strides, not blasting back at you with hurtful remarks and putting themselves up higher. So, yeah, I don't think people like this deserve to be in my range of friends.

Do you ever have to deal with situations or people like this?

17th January 2013 is the day I colored my hair for the first time in my life. I was so nervous to do this and yet excited to be doing this because:

- I am bored with my jet black hair of 32 years +

- I am getting more white hairs at the top of my head (averaging 4-5 strands of white hair discoveries everyday)

- Why not try while I am still young and have the courage and time to recover from any mistakes?

And so, I get down to finding the opportunity to go out and browse through the many hair color products on the supermarket shelves. Browsing through the many brands and colors and shades... my oh my... not easy decision to settle down on one! In the end, I settled on Schwarzkopf Palette Intense Color Creme (4-89 Medium Brown Red Violet)

Next step is deciding whether I should color my hair at home by myself which I then decided not to because I do not know how and I might missed some spots and some friends in the SAHM group I joined in said it is better to bring the hair color product to the saloon and let the stylist color my hair as it will get messy if I do it myself at home.

I had earlier hinted to my hubby asking for his thoughts on whether I should color my hair and the first thing he said was 'No. Why color and damage your hair?' and yet I still go ahead to buy that pack of hair color because I just can't resist the change and excitement. I arranged for my MIL to take care of my 16 months old girl at home while I bring my almost 4 years old boy along with me and leave him at my SIL's condo (she works from home) as the hair saloon is just at the ground floor of her condo.

The first thing the stylist said when I showed him the color I got is 'This color might not be obvious in your hair because your hair is very black! But nevermind, we just give it a try.' I also decided a change of hair style a little bit and the stylist got down to cutting my hair and once done, he started mixing the tubes of color and stuff and I prayed for the best. Once my hair was colored, the stylist took a look at my hair and said 'Hmmm.. now look a bit reddish, nevermind, we will see what happened next'. I had to wait an agonising 30 minutes for the chemical to settle in and prayed I don't end up with a tomato colored hair and it was then that the stylist said 'You know, a lot of people will never return back once they started coloring their hair. They get hooked!' Oh my! Why only tell me now?! Arghhhh...

When the 30 minutes is up, the stylist put on the conditioner mix into my hair and then washes off the color. Blow dry and style my hair a wee bit and it was then that we realised...

My hair is still jet black as ever.

D'ohhhhhhh!!

That night, I confessed to my hubby about coloring my hair and he didn't appear angry or upset at what I did. Pheww... he told me that he is not against me coloring my hair, just that I should go for less chemical ingredients in the hair coloring products. So, yay for future possible hair coloring plans? Hehehehe...

Although I am disappointed my hair doesn't turn out Barney-ish (purple color) or tomato-ish as per the hair color packaging, I'm happy that at least I took this bold step! Of course deep in my heart I would've love to see some tinge of purple red shade on my hair but oh well, maybe next time I will go for a lighter shade of color.

What do you think?

Many years ago, I have a habit of finding and giving rabbit themed gifts to a close family member. Why rabbits? That is because the recipient loves rabbit (also the person was born under the rabbit sign in Chinese animals calendar.) From rabbit photo frames to rabbit table decoration items, it is just so much easier finding and giving gifts to this person compared to the rest.

Now the thing about themed gifts are in my opinion, it helps to narrow down the many many choices of gifts to be given. Rather than trying to figure out what to get for someone, at least by knowing and deciding on a theme, it sort of helps refine the search range. Don't you agree?

Another plus point to themed gifts are a very high chance of the person loving the gift you got them and seeing their thrilled faces when they opened up their gifts and realising they add one more gift to their collections. I think that is absolutely good enough to know your money is well spent on a gift that gets appreciated and loved.

My tip in finding the suitable gift is to first find out some information on the recipient's side such as: favorite colors, animals, style and the list goes on. Once I have these information on hand, I will then narrow down and come up with the closest and what I think is the best themed gifts to suit the recipient. From there on, it is just to find out what sort of gifts that can be given within my budget range.

What do you think about horse themed gifts?

** Disclosure: This is a sponsored post. All thoughts, opinions and words are 100 % my own.