Wednesday, June 20, 2012

In Malaysia and Scalloped Skirt

Hello from HOT and sweaty Malaysia! I have been here for almost 2 weeks and after a grueling 27 hour flight from Washington DC, we were all pretty beat. I succumbed to my illness and there is something about the tropics that encourages germs to grow. It has taken me this long to recover from a regular cough and cold. My poor boys have also caught what I had but fortunately, they did not suffer from the same severity as I did.

My boys were thrilled that we got to fly on the Airbus A380 from London to Singapore. Even though we were in cattle class, the leg room was impressive. We have flown many airlines but Singapore Airlines never ceases to impress us with their impeccable service and quality.


Everytime I come home, I marvel at how different my life was before I came to the USA. For example, something as mundane as breakfast, we eat full meals, none of the "watered down"  cereal meals we have daily. This is wonton mee, dumplings in a bowl of soup (not pictured) with char siew, roast pork for breakfast. I miss my hearty breakfasts!


This is how they are sold, each separate stall is owned by a separate proprietor. You get to choose from soupy noodle dishes to steamy coconut rice dishes. Each meal costs about US$1.80. Here is my son standing next to his favourite stall. We call these Hawker Stalls in Malaysia and they are everywhere. As food is so cheap here, people have a culture of eating out and not cooking at home. I struggled when I came to the US in 2009 because I had to learn how to cook on a daily basis.


Anyhoo, this is a little intro to my country but what I really wanted to blog about was a skirt my sister was going to throw out. Excuse the iphone photos, some of them were taken in extremely poor light but I don't go outdoors to take pictures because mosquitoes attack us as soon as we step out of our screened protected house. This was a pretty formal skirt that my sister grew out of. LOL, I was very sick when I took this photo and I knew my neon bra would show through my white shirt but I could not summon up the energy to change!


Side view

I have seen so many bloggers wearing scalloped hemlines and saw this tutorial on Pinterest.



After some cutting...


The skirt is now been refashioned to this!


This picture was taken today, a week since the "before"picture. I am wearing it with a black corset-style top, another castaway from my sister - I need to find a top that would go with it but my wardrobe is limited at present since I am travelling. The skirt needs to be ironed but it was close to dinner time so I did not get a chance. Bless my son who took this picture! He has the shakiest hands but I am thankful he can take my picture!


Taken on another day.


The good thing is now my sister likes it enough to wear it so she is taking it back! There is half of the skirt left, enough for me to make another skirt out of it but I might make something else. Thanks for reading! Hope you have a good weekend! I am heading down to Singapore tomorrow and I hope to meet up with another blogger, Mongs, from My Thrifty Closet! Keyword is "hope"because she could be travelling as well!

Monday, June 4, 2012

Inspiration Monday: Jeans and Florals

This might be my last Inspiration Monday post for a few months as I leave for Malaysia and Singapore on Wednesday to see my family. I am bringing the bare minimum as I travel with two boys minus the husband. The idea is to make room for new purchases back home so I can fill up the bags for the trip home. I usually end up buying food that I cannot find here. However, I would try to take part where I can, I might pinch stuff from my sister's closet except that she wears mostly office attire.

Today the inspiration comes from Jenna Dewan. I don't know who she is aside from the fact she is married to Channing Tatum. I like her floral top. I was going to wear the one I wore several posts ago with jeans but that is being lazy. I like to take the approach where I can look at my wardrobe with new eyes to create the look using the many pieces I already own and why wear back the same thing repeatedly?  I had to search for another top which was floral and....


...here is my take, complete with a wave just like Jenna's. I have been pretty ill this last week, fever and cough. When I am sick, I lose weight terribly quickly because I just don't eat. Most noticeable is when my jeans don't fit me and slide down my waist. They are the same Lucky Brand jeans I wore here.  The jeans look loose on my thighs this time around. I think this is good, in preparation for my trip back home because I eat all the food that I miss and put on so much weight!


The top is from Singapore, I bought it 3 years ago from Tangs. It's made from silk but I don't wear it much. This is why I like Inspiration Monday so much as it makes me dig deep into my stuff. My sunglasses are from Ann Taylor's factory outlet for $22.00. My shoes are Franco Sarto's from TJ Maxx $39.00


If I don't get a chance to post for Inspiration Monday, I wish  you all a very nice summer, I will be reading all your posts still though, if my father's internet connection is quick enough to load up pictures. He is still using a dial up service so it is s-l-o-w!

Linking up to Inspiration Monday, join in the fun if you can, it is run by two lovely sisters, Megan and Nora Bird! There is a giveaway there, so do check it out!