Sleeping Habits

I fall asleep under unusual circumstances. Unless I'm terribly exhausted, in which case I would doze off the minute my head touches my pillow, I need sounds to fall asleep. My husband thinks it's very weird of me to wait up for our night street sweeper to clean the street before I could sleep. The whirring sound of the sweeping was oddly soothing, and while listening to it, I dozed off.

That was when we slept by the window. Months ago, in order to create more space in our room, we rearranged the furniture and the bed is now away from the window. The sweeper man does not come by on schedule anymore. With that, I have to either listen to podcasts on my iPod Touch to fall asleep, or one of the many sounds of nature albums I have in there. Apparently I need to be either in a "jungle" or at the "beach" to be able to sleep.

Suffice to say, living in the 'burbs in future where it's so quiet you would be able to hear your own thoughts would really not work for me. Tim prefers the silence; I enjoy listening to the noise coming from the Greek restaurant nearby. He wants our future home to be away from the train tracks whereas I would not mind at all (sure, there's that thing about property value decreasing near the train tracks, but that's another story).

What different sleeping habits we have. Or how utterly strange mine is.

Vandals Be Gone!

A week or two ago, Channel 7's Today Tonight featured a story on vandalism, in which teenagers were vandalising school buses, public buses, trains, walls, etc. They were caught on CCTV scraping at the back of bus seats, carving out goodness-knows-what with a screwdriver. Windows were not spared as well. Nonsensical words would be scratched and carved on the glass. Teenagers smashing bus windows with baseball bats. Spraying graffitti on trains, residential walls, etc. The government spends millions a year just to clean that shit up.

I have zero tolerance when it comes to vandalism. The act (or even the thought of it) really gets on my nerves. I don't understand the fun in it. Oi, it's not your property. Keep your filthy mitts off it. How about if I were to carve my name on the cover of your laptop? So what's if it's not just a wall or the back of a seat? It's still your stuff, isn't it?

A few days ago, I saw something which really angered me. I saw what could be passed for a penis, sprayed in red, on a tree. I saw red (no pun intended). You can, as much as one can hope for, remove grafitti off walls. If not, then the walls can at least be painted over. That tree took at least 20 years for it to grow to that size, and it was ruined with a bloody spray can in just a minute.

You know what I'd love to do? Rather than just making these vandals clean up after their own mess? I'd love to have them stand in a row, in only their undies, while I spray them with spray cans. Y'know, the kinds that DON'T come off. Let's see how they like it. What, you can dish it out but you can't take it?

Bloody morons.

My New Project

I love jewellery. Who doesn't? Shiny baubles hanging from the ears, neck, wrist and even feet - they never fail to give that instant pick-me-up to an otherwise drab outfit. A year ago I started playing around with making my own jewellery. I started off with the simplest of tools, findings and beads. As time went by, those skills improved, and I thought to myself, hey, why not try to sell them?

My first sale was actually to Geekchic. She saw some beautiful knitting row counters disguised as bracelets, and asked me if I could make her one. I did, and I'm glad she liked it. With her encouragement, I approached a few haberdasheries to see if they were interested in looking at my handmade knitting accessories. I was completely over the moon when one of them purchased all of my stitch markers. It was a sign.

I wasn't contented on selling my pieces on a blog. Please don't get me wrong, there's absolutely nothing wrong with having a blog shop. But I was very keen on learning more about e-commerce and how to actually set up a shopping cart system on the website, so I decided that there wasn't a better time to pick it up. It wasn't easy, that much I can tell you. Doing everything from scratch was a great experience, exhausting, but exhilarating all the same.

Alrighty then, I've talked far too much now. Without further ado, please let me welcome you to my new baby, Sweet Contemplation Accessories!

All pieces are handmade, especially the chainmaille ones. I am a HUGE fan of chainmaille jewellery, and I think the complexity of the designs (and how rare it is found in retail shops out there) give them such an appeal.

I'm running a giveaway on my beauty blog if you would like to check it out and participate.

It's such a change, and I love every challenging bit. I'm praying hard that it will go well.

The Trouble With Money

You know when they refute it is not money that is the root of all evil, but the LOVE of money is? I believe both are statements are true. Sure you can love money too much to the point of destruction. But money on its own, the subject matter of it, can bring about catastrophic consequences. No, I don't mean literally mean we can start wars because of money alone (or can we?), but let's look at it in a micro level, shall we?

When money comes between two people, whether it's your partner, a family member, a friend, things are sure to go nasty if things are to go awry. It doesn't mean I love money so much that I must have all of it, hence breaking all ties if the need arises. I meant that money alone, even if it was just a few dollars, can make or break relationships.

I rememebered getting angry at a very dear friend of mine over money. I was frazzled with wedding preparations, and so was she. Our stress levels were so high that I finally snapped at her over something which shouldn't have even come up. She apologised, gave her reasons and all was good again. In hindsight, I was so relieved that things did not turn out ugly for us, and that she still remained a very close mate. If she had turned nasty and I hit back (you know how it goes), goodness knows what would result. All over money.

Sometimes I wonder if it's better to lose some money than to lose a friend. I don't mean heaps of money (that's another story), but perhaps a couple of hundred dollars. Sure there's that thing called principles. It's not the money, it's my principles that count. I was right. He/she was wrong. So there. A relationship that takes years to build and nurture can be destructed in just a day.

Is it worth it? Couldn't we just say "Okay let's put this behind us. It's just money. It's not worth jeopardising a friendship"?

If only the words could so easily come.

Something New Coming Soon

I haven't been updating for a while now. I've been very busy the past few months as I, believe it or not, am starting a small business on the Internet, selling my very own handmade jewellery. Not contented with putting my pieces up for sale on a blog front, I did up a website from scratch. It was a real challenge indeed, from making the jewellery, learning about e-commerce, photographing the pieces, adding them in one by one, to studying small business laws and legislation in Australia. It may be small, but I'm more than determined to make it work.

And to make it "official", so to speak, I've actually registered the business name with Business Victoria of Consumer Affairs Victoria and will be applying for an ABN (Australian Business Number). If all goes well, and I pray hard that it does, I'll actually be *gulp* paying taxes too. Talk about a catch-22.

I'll be announcing the website very soon, so do stay tuned. And yeah, I reckon I can actually call myself a small business owner soon. Really excited about it!

Getting The Husband on Twitter

I remembered when I first applied for a Twitter account, I wasn't at all keen on the idea. In fact, I placed it here, completely forgot about updating the darn thing, removed it, and put it back again when I finally got the hang of it. And now I'm addicted to the darn thing.

I kept bugging Tim to get on board but he wouldn't be bothered. Even though he kept saying that he should tweet (or at least write) about the stupid things he see on the telly. In the end, I signed up for an account for him.

And his first tweet? It was somewhere along the lines of "my wife forced me to get on Twitter".

Gee thanks.