Tomorrow is the first day of national (or rather international) Breast Cancer Awareness month.
Australia is up there with the best of them in helping to make a difference. Throughout October throughout Australia women (and men) will be working hard on events (usually with a liberal dose of fun) to not only raise money for research into this killer disease but to raise awareness of it.
My daughter Aimee has for a few years now organised Champagne brunches, afternoon teas and delicious dinners with all the proceeds going to breast cancer research. She has had the generous help of some great WA companies and small business people, who without batting an eyelid have given generously of their produce and products. I take my hat off to wineries such as Lamont, Oakwood.......
In Thailand, where I have a second home, more and more is being done to increase awareness of breast cancer.
I must say I am rather chuffed about a project I initiated and saw to completion.
It was early 2006 and I had been marketing communications manager of The Sukhothai hotel in Bangkok for a few months. What was meant to be a three-month contract was being extended and I was determined to get the hotel involved in some meaningful projects.
The Sukhothai become fully involved in two projects in 2006 but only because of the generosity and far-sightedness of the General Manager, George Benney, and the support of a sassy Director of Marketing and Sales, Anne Lewinski (coincidentally both Australians).
More tomorrow on the first project, "Charity in an A-B-C Cup".
cheers.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Transformation Cheryl's Makeover
Transformation Cheryl's Makeover: Teaser
A nice feel-good story about an everyday shopper, Cheryl, who is nominated and chosen for a Westfield (Australia) makeover.
Westfield Transformations: Cheryl's Makeover: Part 1
Westfield Transformations: Cheryl's Makeover: Part 2
Westfield Transformations: Cheryl's Makeover: Part 3
Westfield Transformations: Cheryl's Makeover: Part 4
Westfield fashion stylist Trish Murray and makeup artist Sarah Laidlaw take Cheryl under their wing and she emerges as a stunner.
Lucky Cheryl!
A nice feel-good story about an everyday shopper, Cheryl, who is nominated and chosen for a Westfield (Australia) makeover.
Westfield Transformations: Cheryl's Makeover: Part 1
Westfield Transformations: Cheryl's Makeover: Part 2
Westfield Transformations: Cheryl's Makeover: Part 3
Westfield Transformations: Cheryl's Makeover: Part 4
Westfield fashion stylist Trish Murray and makeup artist Sarah Laidlaw take Cheryl under their wing and she emerges as a stunner.
Lucky Cheryl!
IKEA creates 3D chalk art, Sydney
Wow, imagine turning part of Sydney's popular Circular Quay into a walk-in kitchen!!!
Passers-by, apron and all, were invited to pose for pics at a kitchen sink set - an illusion developed by 3D chalk artists Jenny McCracken and Anton Pulvirenti.
Woks off to IKEA for this innovative gimmick as part of preparations to celebrate its 60th anniversary.
As a die-hard IKEA shopper, I was tickled pink (yellow, red, blue and green, just like the cheeky apron) with this clip.
Congratulations IKEA.... love the new catalogue too.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Some things are worth talking about
Darn, I should have just left lazy hazy Sunday alone. I had to go spoil it with a post, an inane piece about nothing (sounds like an episode of Seinfeld), which then did the stupidest thing - it got me thinking.
Actually, it was about something close to my heart for ever so long - breast cancer awareness.
Now, this is not lip service. I believe that if you are passionate about anything, you have to (or at least you should try to) do something about it.
Amazingly, a few years ago while I was away in Bangkok working on a project during my stint as marketing communications manager of The Sukhothai Hotel, my daughter Aimee was in Perth working on a project of her own - both unaware of what the other was doing, raising awareness about breast cancer as a killer disease and raising money for research into it.
Hold on to your knickers, not everything at once.
Over the next few days, I will post for posterity more on what we did and how we went about it..... perhaps you might be inspired too.
So, stay tuned....
Actually, it was about something close to my heart for ever so long - breast cancer awareness.
Now, this is not lip service. I believe that if you are passionate about anything, you have to (or at least you should try to) do something about it.
Amazingly, a few years ago while I was away in Bangkok working on a project during my stint as marketing communications manager of The Sukhothai Hotel, my daughter Aimee was in Perth working on a project of her own - both unaware of what the other was doing, raising awareness about breast cancer as a killer disease and raising money for research into it.
Hold on to your knickers, not everything at once.
Over the next few days, I will post for posterity more on what we did and how we went about it..... perhaps you might be inspired too.
So, stay tuned....
Where on earth has the weekend gone to?
It's 6.30pm in Perth and another lazy weekend is coming to an end.
The past 40 odd hours have been an absolute waste of time .... and I have loved every minute of it.
How many of us start the weekend with good intentions - do all the things around the house that we don't get around to during the week. Perhaps tidy up the knickers drawer, or (more sensibly although neatly folded knickers do look nice) cleaning out the fridge or pantry?
I definitely also had every intention of pruning some trees (not mine but the neighbours'), weeding, perhaps a visit to the Asian grocer to get all the yummy stuff to cook some Thai and Asian curries, plus to-die-for crunchy munchies.
Instead, I veged out, a real bed potato, summoning just enough energy to refill a drink or graze. I read my Dan Brown novel The Lost Symbol (of which I have two copies, one I simply had to buy at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok while awaiting my flight home and the other, which I had totally forgotten about, awaiting me in Perth - a present from Aimee last October that I left behind so that I would have something to read on my next visit home!), watched reruns of my favourite shows on cable and fidgeted on Facebook.
I did no menial task and spent absolutely no time on plans, grand or otherwise.
But Monday is looming and I am determined, in fact I am resolute, about pruning those damned trees tomorrow morning, .... and tidying up my knickers drawer.
The past 40 odd hours have been an absolute waste of time .... and I have loved every minute of it.
How many of us start the weekend with good intentions - do all the things around the house that we don't get around to during the week. Perhaps tidy up the knickers drawer, or (more sensibly although neatly folded knickers do look nice) cleaning out the fridge or pantry?
I definitely also had every intention of pruning some trees (not mine but the neighbours'), weeding, perhaps a visit to the Asian grocer to get all the yummy stuff to cook some Thai and Asian curries, plus to-die-for crunchy munchies.
Instead, I veged out, a real bed potato, summoning just enough energy to refill a drink or graze. I read my Dan Brown novel The Lost Symbol (of which I have two copies, one I simply had to buy at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok while awaiting my flight home and the other, which I had totally forgotten about, awaiting me in Perth - a present from Aimee last October that I left behind so that I would have something to read on my next visit home!), watched reruns of my favourite shows on cable and fidgeted on Facebook.
I did no menial task and spent absolutely no time on plans, grand or otherwise.
But Monday is looming and I am determined, in fact I am resolute, about pruning those damned trees tomorrow morning, .... and tidying up my knickers drawer.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Home sweet home
I am one of those lucky to call four countries on three continents home.
Born and bred in Singapore, I was 23 when I met my future husband, a Thai, at a party I really did not want to attend but which I did because my good friend, Robert Joseph, a budding navigator with Singapore Airlines, had the unenviable task of "providing the girls" for an orientation party at his house for his fellow students at the Singapore aviation school.
There was Niv, a wannabe pilot, all suave and a real sweet talker, willing and able to teach me how to do the bus-stop!
We got married a year (and countless bus-stops) later in Singapore and I fantasised about this exotic life in exotic Thailand. It was not an exotic life but I suppose it had hints of being an exotic land. However, it did grow on me.
I mingled with my mother-in-law's maids and learnt the most common Thai (which is great if you have to get around on your own).
I found a job at the Bangkok Post with my strongest asset: ability to read and write English (yaay) and loved my 7 1/2 years there.
In this time, I changed nationalities (because my father-in-law, rest his dear soul, kept insisting that I had no choice as Thailand did not have such a thing as permanent residency!),
To cut a very long story as short as possible, I later joined the then Hyatt as public relations manager (another strong asset: a people person, a good talent if one does not naturally suffer fools gladly).
Allan and Aimee were growing up nicely (he into the cutest fellow imaginable who insisted on standing at attention at 6am and 6pm everyday - he was only 5 yet would go down by himself every morning to switch on the television and listen to the national anthem - and always had to have his shirts and T-shirts tucked neatly into his pants); she into a minx who once shaved her eyebrows and bits of her hair, and at another time raided my make-up, and both times then went promptly to bed, giving me the fright of my life when I returned exhausted from work at about 2am). I adored (and still do) them.
Life was good, indeed it was excellent. We had our own little house, both had great jobs, had good help and an enviable social life. But it was not enough, or at least I thought so.
I wanted Allan and Aimee to have choices and although they would have done well in Thailand, I just felt (and I am sure I could have been absolutely wrong) that the social structure was not quite right for them.
So, using my wits and my wiles, I persuaded Niv to look to Australia, Perth in particular, as the place to nurture our children into young adults. It was the best decision I made - absence of maids notwithstanding.
We packed up everything and we left Bangkok. The year was 1989.
Perth was so different even then. It was small, it was not crowded (remember, we came from bustling Bangkok, which never sleeps), the people were different and even having our rubbish collected by white people took some getting used to.
Children being children, Allan and Aimee took it all in their stride. Their first year must have been horrific, understanding most of the language but not being able to speak it well. Looking at, and listening to, them now, you would never be able to imagine that English actually is not their mother tongue!!!
Perth became home and we all became Australians.
Then Niv made his way back to Bangkok to work in the airline industry again. I stayed behind, believing that the children needed me more - and anyway Bangkok was just a mere five hours away!
Allan graduated, then Aimee; Allan moved to Dubai for work, Aimee no longer needed a full-time mum. I moved back to Bangkok to work - this time in marketing communications at the incomparable Sukhothai Hotel - and again become a full-time wife.
Today, I am as free as a bird (still have a husband though), winging my way to Dubai, Perth, Bangkok and Singapore - my destination being wherever the urge takes me.
Right now, it is Perth, which has grown in more ways than one. I love the busy-ness of Bangkok, the sales in Singapore (plus my beautiful nieces and nephews, and their parents), the draw of Dubai but ..... I still also call Australia home.
Born and bred in Singapore, I was 23 when I met my future husband, a Thai, at a party I really did not want to attend but which I did because my good friend, Robert Joseph, a budding navigator with Singapore Airlines, had the unenviable task of "providing the girls" for an orientation party at his house for his fellow students at the Singapore aviation school.
There was Niv, a wannabe pilot, all suave and a real sweet talker, willing and able to teach me how to do the bus-stop!
We got married a year (and countless bus-stops) later in Singapore and I fantasised about this exotic life in exotic Thailand. It was not an exotic life but I suppose it had hints of being an exotic land. However, it did grow on me.
I mingled with my mother-in-law's maids and learnt the most common Thai (which is great if you have to get around on your own).
I found a job at the Bangkok Post with my strongest asset: ability to read and write English (yaay) and loved my 7 1/2 years there.
In this time, I changed nationalities (because my father-in-law, rest his dear soul, kept insisting that I had no choice as Thailand did not have such a thing as permanent residency!),
To cut a very long story as short as possible, I later joined the then Hyatt as public relations manager (another strong asset: a people person, a good talent if one does not naturally suffer fools gladly).
Allan and Aimee were growing up nicely (he into the cutest fellow imaginable who insisted on standing at attention at 6am and 6pm everyday - he was only 5 yet would go down by himself every morning to switch on the television and listen to the national anthem - and always had to have his shirts and T-shirts tucked neatly into his pants); she into a minx who once shaved her eyebrows and bits of her hair, and at another time raided my make-up, and both times then went promptly to bed, giving me the fright of my life when I returned exhausted from work at about 2am). I adored (and still do) them.
Life was good, indeed it was excellent. We had our own little house, both had great jobs, had good help and an enviable social life. But it was not enough, or at least I thought so.
I wanted Allan and Aimee to have choices and although they would have done well in Thailand, I just felt (and I am sure I could have been absolutely wrong) that the social structure was not quite right for them.
So, using my wits and my wiles, I persuaded Niv to look to Australia, Perth in particular, as the place to nurture our children into young adults. It was the best decision I made - absence of maids notwithstanding.
We packed up everything and we left Bangkok. The year was 1989.
Perth was so different even then. It was small, it was not crowded (remember, we came from bustling Bangkok, which never sleeps), the people were different and even having our rubbish collected by white people took some getting used to.
Children being children, Allan and Aimee took it all in their stride. Their first year must have been horrific, understanding most of the language but not being able to speak it well. Looking at, and listening to, them now, you would never be able to imagine that English actually is not their mother tongue!!!
Perth became home and we all became Australians.
Then Niv made his way back to Bangkok to work in the airline industry again. I stayed behind, believing that the children needed me more - and anyway Bangkok was just a mere five hours away!
Allan graduated, then Aimee; Allan moved to Dubai for work, Aimee no longer needed a full-time mum. I moved back to Bangkok to work - this time in marketing communications at the incomparable Sukhothai Hotel - and again become a full-time wife.
Today, I am as free as a bird (still have a husband though), winging my way to Dubai, Perth, Bangkok and Singapore - my destination being wherever the urge takes me.
Right now, it is Perth, which has grown in more ways than one. I love the busy-ness of Bangkok, the sales in Singapore (plus my beautiful nieces and nephews, and their parents), the draw of Dubai but ..... I still also call Australia home.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Girls are made of sugar and spice
A daughter is a bundle of firsts that excite and delight, giggles that come from deep inside and are always contagious, everything wonderful and precious and my love for her knows no bounds.
Happy birthday Aimee. Become the best that only you know you can be. Best friends forever, MUM xx
Are girls really made of sugar and spice and everything nice?
Well yes, until they grow up.
As they morph into teenagers, they (I would like to believe) unconsciously begin to assert themselves as individual young women in their own right. That is, without any doubt, a good thing. After all, how many young men would want to partner or marry a young woman who is the spitting image of her mother in form, feature, focus, foibles and fetishes!!!!!
The problem is: we mothers KNOW that we know best so we (or at least I) spend a great deal of our (read: my) time trying to impress upon our daughters how things should be and should be done - from cleaning their rooms, to keeping house (an impossible task at most times), to any and every thing under the sun. For us mothers, this is a losing battle but one we will not give up as long as we have breath without a fight or two or three. The trick is to realise that this mother:daughter battle must be as old as time itself and that mums must be able to coax a hug every now and then, which like an elixir makes most things right as rain.
Aimee was a gorgeous baby (all mothers say that about those bundles of joy) and grew into an adorable young girl - but with very untidy habits (a Buddhist friend once said a long time ago that perhaps it was a way of expressing herself! Until today, I have not been able to decode any of her secret messages).
However, for as long as I can remember, there was hardly a night that I did not go into her room after returning from work (either the hotel or the newspaper) to sit by her little sleeping form, taking her hand in mine and kissing it. Her fingers were so adorable. That habit has since stopped because her bedroom door is now shut and I would have to knock before entering.
There are so many things I could wax lyrical about Aimee - her uncanny ability to find the most perfect gifts for anyone, her big-heartedness, her many lovely ways - but suffice it to say that she is (apart from her joy of cooking) so not like me and for that I am glad.
With the passing years, she has grown into a young person with all the prerequisites of a great human being. If that means that I have done half a job as a good mother, well, well done Veronica (self-pat on the back). Truth is, I simply cannot accept much of the credit for how Aimee is shaping into this incredible woman; every person she has come into contact with has played a part in her development - and now, she is her own person... today, tomorrow and every day after that.
I am blessed.
Monday, September 20, 2010
My mum Charlotte
It was late August 2008 and I wrote this down so I would never forget it.
"I returned to Bangkok last night after another visit to Singapore.
I always have a grand time in Singapore, what with five brothers and five sisters-in-law (my beloved Miriam passed away on June 30, 2010, and is so badly missed) who take such good care of me, and 12 little people (nieces and nephews) to spoil and adore.
They're always a good reason to visit my land of birth but, this time, they were not the only reason.
I was there to celebrate the life of my beloved mother, Charlotte. She would have been 84 - she was thirty when I
made my debut in this wonderful, if at times troubled, world, the fourth of ten boisterous children.
Charlotte grew up into a ravishing beauty and remained beautiful until she died on February 14, 2007. I could write a book about Charlotte - her charms, her talents, her wit, her rather incredible life by any standard. But I won't.
I will, however, take a moment to recall her amazing ability to not only survive but excel as a mother. She could have had any man she wanted and most likely lived a life of luxury but, instead, she chose my father, a hardworking, albeit hard-drinking, battler all his life.
Charlotte was a miracle worker. The going was tough but she always put food on the table, clothed us and made sure we did not miss school. This woman - who once dressed in the finest silks and dined at the finest places - took in other people's sewing, made pickles and tarts, and when the going got really tough, spent nine hours a day slogging away in the home of a woman she had known from way back when for a sad $5 a day. In our blackest days as a family, she wasn't ashamed to ask for and accept charity (always from her older brother); but, when times became good, she made it a point to be charitable in return. Her favourite haunt in her last years was a home for old, many forgotten, people, although her largesse even made its way to Africa and India via missionaries.
I do not recall her ever complaining and she never swore (not until dementia turned her mind). Not about the drudges, not about my father - who wasn't a bad man, just a frustrated soul who never had enough money for anything. We were always poor but we were not unhappy. In fact, my siblings and I have been known to spend endless hours talking about "the good times" - of shoes with potholed soles protected with cardboard; of dresses and uniforms with hems turned down so many times they created a pattern of stripes; of paydays when Papa came home - usually pickled - with a packet of Hokkien fried noodles and maybe two dozen sticks of satay - a veritable feast; of my sister and me saving our pocket money (five cents and sometimes ten cents) for a favourite LP or a pair of stockings (garters separate) for Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve when we were in our early teens.
On August 19, 2008, at 6.30pm, my brothers Gerard, Sidney, Alfred, two sisters-in-law (Joan, Gib) and I - plus two little people - sat in church to celebrate our mother's life. As we joined in the prayers, I beseeched God, asking Him if she could join us, even for a few seconds. I felt, very briefly, a warm tingle spread over me. It could have been anything but I would like to believe that it was Mum, brushing against me as she quickly planted kisses on all of us.
Rest in peace, Mum. I love you and miss you so much.
"I returned to Bangkok last night after another visit to Singapore.
I always have a grand time in Singapore, what with five brothers and five sisters-in-law (my beloved Miriam passed away on June 30, 2010, and is so badly missed) who take such good care of me, and 12 little people (nieces and nephews) to spoil and adore.
They're always a good reason to visit my land of birth but, this time, they were not the only reason.
I was there to celebrate the life of my beloved mother, Charlotte. She would have been 84 - she was thirty when I
made my debut in this wonderful, if at times troubled, world, the fourth of ten boisterous children.
Charlotte grew up into a ravishing beauty and remained beautiful until she died on February 14, 2007. I could write a book about Charlotte - her charms, her talents, her wit, her rather incredible life by any standard. But I won't.
I will, however, take a moment to recall her amazing ability to not only survive but excel as a mother. She could have had any man she wanted and most likely lived a life of luxury but, instead, she chose my father, a hardworking, albeit hard-drinking, battler all his life.
Charlotte was a miracle worker. The going was tough but she always put food on the table, clothed us and made sure we did not miss school. This woman - who once dressed in the finest silks and dined at the finest places - took in other people's sewing, made pickles and tarts, and when the going got really tough, spent nine hours a day slogging away in the home of a woman she had known from way back when for a sad $5 a day. In our blackest days as a family, she wasn't ashamed to ask for and accept charity (always from her older brother); but, when times became good, she made it a point to be charitable in return. Her favourite haunt in her last years was a home for old, many forgotten, people, although her largesse even made its way to Africa and India via missionaries.
I do not recall her ever complaining and she never swore (not until dementia turned her mind). Not about the drudges, not about my father - who wasn't a bad man, just a frustrated soul who never had enough money for anything. We were always poor but we were not unhappy. In fact, my siblings and I have been known to spend endless hours talking about "the good times" - of shoes with potholed soles protected with cardboard; of dresses and uniforms with hems turned down so many times they created a pattern of stripes; of paydays when Papa came home - usually pickled - with a packet of Hokkien fried noodles and maybe two dozen sticks of satay - a veritable feast; of my sister and me saving our pocket money (five cents and sometimes ten cents) for a favourite LP or a pair of stockings (garters separate) for Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve when we were in our early teens.
On August 19, 2008, at 6.30pm, my brothers Gerard, Sidney, Alfred, two sisters-in-law (Joan, Gib) and I - plus two little people - sat in church to celebrate our mother's life. As we joined in the prayers, I beseeched God, asking Him if she could join us, even for a few seconds. I felt, very briefly, a warm tingle spread over me. It could have been anything but I would like to believe that it was Mum, brushing against me as she quickly planted kisses on all of us.
Rest in peace, Mum. I love you and miss you so much.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)