I’ve got the OLYMPIC FEVER!

Headed to the Olympic Park yesterday to make a bit of history.

Everything about the Olympics is exciting. From the pomp of the opening ceremonies to the amazing feats of strength, I love it all.

The stadium is all set.

The Olympic Park interior is looking really good thanks largely to its flower beds, which may have the slightly forced look of the recently-planted, but are no less dazzling for it.

With the London Olympics nearly here, I quote here some  motivational thoughts from previous Olympic winners. These, I find very inspiring and would like to share with you all. If we view the Olympics as a metaphor for life, we can create these values within ourselves.

1. I never competed against anyone else. I competed against perfection - Carl Lewis (winner of 10 Olympic medals, including 9 gold).

2. When I go out on the ice, I just think about my skating. I forget it is a competition - Katarina Witt (German figure skater, 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics).

3. And then in life, you always have to try, and today, I may not have succeeded, but I am happy to have tried to beat my record - Noureddine Morceli (Algerian athlete, 1996 Summer Olympics).

4. I am building a fire, and everyday I train, I add more fuel. At just the right moment, I light the match - Mia Hamm (American football player, 2004 Summer Olympics).

5. When anyone tells me I can't do anything, I'm just not listening any more - Florence Griffith Joyner (American athlete, 1988 Summer Olympics).

6. The first thing is to love your sport. Never do it to please someone else. It has to be yours - Peggy Fleming (American figure skater, 1968 Winter Olympics).

7. To anyone who has started out on a long campaign believing that the gold medal was destined for him,, the feeling when, all of a sudden, the medal has gone somewhere else, is quite indescribable - Sebastian Coe (two-time winner at the Olympics, after losing the 800m final in 1980).

8. Olympics - A lifetime of training for just ten seconds - Jesse Owens (African-American athlete, 1936 Summer Olympics).

It will be real privilege to be part of such a fantastic day even by being a mere spectator. I'm thoroughly in the mood now for the real thing. 

Roll on 27th July!!:-)

Family Bonding...

I love weekends. 

It’s spending time with my family. Weekends are reserved for our family and we try out a chuckle and exciting bonding activities. Our weekdays are full of many important things to do and even during weekends, we even still got some things to do.

This  world is in hyper-speed, and we all need to slow down and work on our bonding, even if only for 5 minutes. From the simplest of things, like lending a helping hand, to an all out weekend adventure, and anything in between, like playing kids games, or any other activities.

In our case , these are some of the things we do….

Ours is a family that's eager for some adventure, sometimes we try things as simple as biking. We’ve been to a lot of trips together , camping and some sort of adventures.

Funny and weird as it can certainly seem but shopping is additionally a good way to bond. I believe it’s  also a de-stressing activity and helps me  learn more of children are into these days. You will also get to know the most recent fad on the market so as you don't feel left out in the trends market.

And most of the times we just stay home and spend more time with each other. Either we cook , or have  DVD marathon inside our living room.

It doesn’t really matter how we spend it.

Family bonding needs not to be something out of the ordinary. 

What's important it's time you spend with them.

College bound...

At breakfast, my daughter, candidly reminded me about college orientation. Her College Orientation. Geez, it still felt like days after her graduation now we are talking about college.:-)

Oh yes! Louise is about to embark on the next leg of the journey called “life.” For all of us, this leg is bittersweet:  Sweet, because as she goes off to college, exciting new worlds will open up for her which will inspire and will help her grow in incredible ways.

It’ll be sad as well because we will miss her. It’s undeniably clear that she’s no longer a little girl who lived in a protective bubble of family and community, as safe as possible under the watchful eyes of mom and dad.

But before I get mushy and all that. I should prepare a list. It’s like my own little project plan for the college move.

• ·         What needs to be purchased?
• ·         What needs to be packed?
• ·    What communication is due to the college, dorm or housing complex   where she will  be staying?
• ·   What do I need to write down now so you can avoid the last minute scramble.

Oh well , I guess this weekend would be the best time to sit with her and create our “College Packing List”.Better be prepared for the Big Move..:-)

Keeping Treasure!

As a parent, I’ve always felt in my heart that my children’s toys, books, clothes and artworks are worth keeping.

How I  wish I could keep the special toys , stuff  and crafts that my kids have made throughout their early years. These things will become memorabilia that will always be a pleasure-for them and for us (parents) -to look back on.

Mr.Biker Boy

Matt was 4 when we got him his first bike. It was a present for his birthday.

 

Matt was in love the moment he first laid eyes on his new bike. He's had a little red bike with stabilisers (those thing that keeps the balance?). It was pretty fancy. I was so exicited and wanted him  to ride it. Well John was checking if he could ride without help. Turn out that he needed some help (grin). John taught him  how to ride that  bike and thankfully he had lots of patience!

I remember looking through the eyes of an excited little boy; remember the huge grin on his face when he saw it for the first time. It was a happy moment for the family. I find myself continuously yelling out reminders. Things like "watch where you're going!", and "pedal with your feet", and "look where you're going", and "turn", and "look up!", and "brake, brake, BRAKE!!!” Not to mention you have to chase little Matthew. Mr. Biker Boy was unstoppable.

Oh Matt’s all grown up now, yet that little red bike never fails to put a smile on his face whenever he sees it quietly parked on its own space in the garage.

Closet!

This past weekend I found myself realizing that I haven't done my seasonal closet cleanup yet!  So this weekend was quite productive – I got our closet organized!

Below I’ve put together a few of my best tips for getting your closet in order:

Tip 1: Clear it out

  Distinguish clothing and shoes that you wear and items that you need to get rid of. You can do this by the golden rule of closet organizing: If you haven't worn it in a year, toss it.

Tip 2: If the shoe fits

If you are keeping your shoe boxes, label what is inside. We like the Post-it Durable Tabs because they offer a writable surface and are quick and easy to apply. Alternatively, invest in clear shoe boxes with drawer-front pulls; they allow you to see what's inside so you can easily access your shoes.

Tip 3: Measure up

Once you have whittled down your wardrobe, you need to assess the layout of your closet. Measure the space you have, making sure to utilize backs of doors, floor space, and all interior walls. When you go to shop for boxes, bins, and other necessary space-savers, make sure you have your closet measurements in hand.

Use every square inch of your closet. Hang shoe racks on the back of your closet door. Classic belt hangers with multiple hooks are also a good solution for hanging camisoles, bras, or scarves.

Tip 4: Get hung up

Invest in the right kind of hanger for the type of clothing you are hanging. Use padded hangers for items made from delicate fabrics, plastic hangers for button-down shirts, and sturdy wood hangers for suit jackets as they help retain the shape of the items.

Remove plastic dry-cleaner bags (they don't allow fabrics to breathe, keeping the chemicals used in dry cleaning in your clothes).

Save time in the morning by coordinating your wardrobe. Sort by color, and hang like-types of clothing together (i.e. skirts, pants, blouses, etc.).

Tip 5: No sweat

Sort sweaters, T-shirts, and other folded clothing by color as well. Always remove sweaters from hangers and fold them. Hangers will ruin the shape of sweaters over time.

Store sweaters on shelves in manageable-sized stacks using sweater dividers to keep them from turning into leaning towers of Pisa. Even better, store them in sweater boxes with well marked labels.

Tip 6: Eyes have it

Keep items you use frequently at eye level or below and items you rarely use higher up. Labeled boxes are good for storing things like bathing suits or turtlenecks because you can rotate them higher or lower in your closet depending on the season.

Tip 7: Seasonal change

It's possible that no matter how much you try to edit and organize, you just have too much stuff to fit in your closet. If that's the case, then you need to resort to a seasonal system by rotating your fall/winter clothes with your spring/summer clothes. Covered clothing racks can be filled with out-of-season clothes and kept in your attic or basement or under your bed. Flat storage boxes can serve a similar purpose.

Tip 8 : Maintain

You’ve got everything in order, so try your best to keep it that way (it takes the stress out of getting dressed each day). Only put things back in your wardrobe if they are clean, in good condition, and make you feel great. If you’re short on space, store clean, out-of-season clothes in airtight tubs or suitcases until you need them again.

Busy Weekends Are Fun!

Yes! Had a very busy yet productive weekend. It was  exhausting in a good way, and it automatically makes them fun.  Well usually ,   weekends for me  involves either being blissfully lazy or being in a short trip , visiting relatives or just having fun with the family , I have to admit that productive weekends are pretty awesome as well!

Louise spent the whole Saturday helping a friend with her little handicraft business. So I got a little help from my husband and my son Matt....

Now when I say it was a busy and productive weekend ,  I don't mean spending  the entire weekend working on the same chores (I am slowly getting much better with this.)  I mean fitting a whole lot of stuff that normally gets ignored (for example, a long overdue/major house cleaning and de-cluttering) into those two days.  That kind of sums up the weekend I just had. 

And here is what happened this weekend, in our little world... 

 John made breakfast. Awesome isn’t  it?

1.       I spent 2 hours organizing my train wreck of a closet.It’s quite embarrassing to see the pile of clothes that we have and a large portion of it has to go to the  laundry baskets (haha).

I then organized it by type of garment and season. Some by colors ( I'll make a totally different blog about that..) 

And several more hours organizing books and stuff. You see my family loves to read. So we have lots of books...some are actually very old. So I neatly put them on the shelves , and some I have to put in a box and place it somewhere. Just can't let go of most of them because of sentimental reasons..:-)

And then we have to deal with this! Yeah that is my son's old bike...and that's our garage. We haven't really been doing well in cleaning so we decided that it was the best time to do do!What a Saturday for me , John and Matt!

After spending more hours wrestling with a lot of stuff...it was time for break and check how we did.

And I can absolutely say...we did a great job!:-)

We finally (almost) finished cleaning.  I know there's still a lot to do but we did great!.  And I was pretty excited to find lots of little gem which I promise to share with you on my upcoming blogs.

It was a very tiring yet we had smile on our faces. 

We took a break to enjoy the  weather  on our back porch waiting for dinner to be served.

here's dinner served with love by my daughter Louise

What a day eh?:-)

No more cleaning on Sunday. We  drove out to attend church and spent most of the time  just doing almost nothing at home.

To sum it up..it was a FUN weekend!:-)

How was your weekend?

A Breakfast Treat!

Breakfast is the most fun meal for my family. There’s many things to make from muffins and sweet rolls to porridge and eggs, the possibilities are endless. But there’s one that they love best…PANCAKES!

I got this simple recipe from my mom. It’s very simple but I remember looking forward every Wednesday because it’s PANCAKE day! Something to look forward to in the middle of a school week.

Oh so much with that,  here’s some simple tips in making pancakes.

First separate the eggs, putting the whites into one bowl and the yolks into another. Add the flour, baking powder and milk to the yolks and mix to a smooth thick batter. Whisk the whites with the salt until they form stiff peaks. Fold into the batter – it is now ready to use.

Heat a good non-stick pan on a medium heat. Pour some of your batter into the pan and fry for a couple of minutes until it starts to look golden and firm. 

Continue frying until both sides are golden.

You can make these pancakes large or small, to your liking. You can serve them simply doused in maple syrup and even with some butter.

Easy right?:-) 

Now these are the fluffiest, loveliest pancakes ever (well , that's what my family thinks! haha). They ask me for them all the time and I get big momma points whenever I make them. It is such a great feeling to cook “real” breakfast for the family. The recipe is easy to  remember and what’s brilliant about it is that it works like a charm every single time.

This goes especially for my son who feels his day is complete having pancakes for breakfast.

Best Bear Forever

Best Bear Forever

I couldn't help but take a quick picture today of this cute sight from my daughter’s room:

Everyone, meet Cooper.

Cooper is Louise’s BBF (best bear forever.) If this bear could talk he could share a lot of stories.  When she was younger, Louise used to think that Cooper follows her around everywhere.  He's gone on a gazillion trips with her and the family. Like any best buds, Louise and Cooper have been through thick and thin together.  And of course, you might expect they have been through countless childhood illnesses, tantrums and a lot of those childhood moments.  Through it all, they made it; Louise through life's growing pains and Copper through many wash cycles.

And looks like they are off on another adventure together. In a few months time, Louise will be leaving for college. And guess what? Coopers coming with her!

It sure makes this mom's heart happy knowing my baby won't be alone at college.  If I can't go with her, I'm glad Cooper can.   Glad to know she's not flying solo.

It's Me...Sophie...:-)

Knock...knock…Who’s there?

Y.O.U.R.S T.R.U.L.Y -- SOPHIE

This is the random musings of a woman who loves to laugh and have fun.

I'm a wife, a stay-at-home mom, a friend, a woman who loves to write, paint and find ways to keep my creative juices flowing.

Living in the U.K and loving it. I heart - good books, conversations and desserts, the ever changing seasons, playing scrabble (and finishing a whole crossword someday, music, travelling and writing all about it. :)

I am a deeply sentimental person. I see the romance and tragedy of everyday life.

When I was young I wanted to be a writer. Not the kind who wears sloppy buns with hairsticks and a beaded eyeglass chain around her neck, and sits and types all day with a cat on her lap. I want to be the writer who travels by imagination and beyond my imagination. I want to be the writer who listens to every emotions.  I want to hear beautiful and tragic stories. I want to write words that impact people; make them cry or laugh or shudder.

Then I also wanted to be an artist. I want to lay canvases out on the floor and splatter blues and reds and yellows across it, but not before meticulously planning where each splatter should go and its size and shape and color. I want to draw people, and let my portraits tell their stories. I want people to look at what I create and remember it for an hour, a week, or forever.

By using my own words I can become an artist , rock star or anything that I want to be. Scribble on memories and keep them forever. Yes, I can do that, and writing is a good place to start.