Mum to a teen !

You know you have a teen girl in the house when:

•    You  have embarrassed her in school  but you are completely  clueless as to when, why, how?

•   "Don't you dare  talk to me in that tone" is the new "I'm gonna count till five "

•   Your lipsticks  mysteriously disappear & then reappear but look a bit  concave (you later  discover that she has made a lip gel for herself by breaking  off a piece and  mixing it with Vaseline!)

•    Most  of your time with her is spent you waiting for her to come out of the shower!

•    Her bestie comes over to study but you walk into her room and discover both lying with their  face masks and eye pads with the music blaring away.

• She informs you that she has to borrow her friend's top as she has nothing to wear for the school disco!In spite of a very recent shopping spree which gave you more than 10,000 steps in your FitBit.

•    Reading time consists of she flatly refusing to listen you read or  laughing at your choice of books and your pronunciation (Where did those days of "The  Gruffalo" or "A very Hungry Caterpillar" go ?) 

•  You are never ever funny! If you try to be funny, you'll get an eye roll and the "OMG,Mom you're so lame!".                                                                                                                                              
• In spite of all the daily  drama, you desperately want time to slow down for you to enjoy her antics  before she spreads her wings & is off to university ! 

Etsy Craftivist Fair

Handmade table mats, iron on patches, beeswax wraps , unique paintings by Instagram artists, tote bags which could  be customized by beautiful monograms, bespoke jewelry -"Etsy Craftivist Fair" was so soul-soothing !

Remember the days when mum used to make guava jam and grandma used to knit sweaters ? Well those days are back :-) In a different way, of course .

Handmade is back with a bang and many credit "Etsy" of ushering in  the trend.Etsy is an online platform  dedicated to  crafts and artisan  goods. People are now becoming increasingly interested in handmade stuff as they are greener and more easily customized as you are dealing directly with the artisan of the products.

I was so  enchanted with the crochet and knitted items! They can add a very homely touch to your living space.

This is the  third appearance of  the Singapore Etsy Fair in the outdoor plaza of Capitol Piazza in Stamford Road on the 30th November and 1st of December.

In many ways, handmade and artisan products are the future of retail in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. People would increasingly buy standardized products online and look for unique ones in community spaces.

This was an encouraging space for local crafters and the perfect place  to shop for people who prefer bespoke Christmas gifts for their loved ones.

 The products in the Craftivist fair  were sustainable, had a human touch and a different kind of beauty. 

Fun(zing) Evening Out!

Pop up movies seem to be a stand-out trend in Singapore nowadays. So decided to give it a go a few weeks back and the movie my friend and I chose was "Theory of Everything".

Buying the tickets was a breeze and the email confirmation came through promptly. There's a high level of social media engagement in pop up movies which I kind of found exciting. In the event page "likes" poured in as soon as I hit "going" 😊.

On the day of the screening ,however, I felt stressed out when I realized that  the place was quite  difficult to locate😓.When I called up the organizer, he wasn't of much help and confused us further . I breathed a sigh of relief when we finally landed in the place, because I was beginning to dread that we would be late and miss out on  a large chunk of the movie.

Upon reaching  we discovered that the  movie was due to start half an hour later than the scheduled time which was another dampener on our spirits.We went with three exhausted kids and a half an hour delay was a lot as it was a weekday. 

The venue was Science Drive 2 and we explored the area briefly as we had a little bit of time before the  movie .The restaurants/eateries were mostly quite expensive but there were a variety of choices such as Middle Eastern and Mexican. The place had lots of open air seating and seemed to be the perfect place to hang out after a day's work. 

We went to the hall when it was time for the screening .The seats weren't very comfortable. But that bothered us less as we got absorbed into the movie. The crowd was good and we could tell that they were mostly people from the neighboring Biopolis. It was less formal than watching movie in the theater which felt great and we could extend our legs and chat briefly and explain things to the kids. Felt somewhat  like a movie night at a friend's place.

It was a moderately good first experience of a pop-up movie and the tickets were pretty reasonable at S$9 per person. However, if you add peak hour taxi fare to the tickets then the amount you're spending swells up quickly. Made a note to self that  will only watch a pop up movie next time,if the venue is accessible.

Having said that, I must add that  I follow Funzing's  FB page and I give two thumbs up to  their selection of movies . Many of them are classics and interesting documentaries.Also, with the upcoming screening,you can have a say on the date of the screening by suggesting a date,which I think is a wonderful idea!  However, because of the timings, these screenings aren't very child-friendly .

Looking forward to trying out Peroni Sunset Cinema next.