my tattoos

i managed to get photos of my tattoos today. but couldn't find the third one. it's an elephant. i will look for it later or will take new picture of it..

this is the first one. it was taken about 5 years ago.

and this is my second tattoo. it's a kind of fish. not sure about the name..

this is the photo of hippie py and hippie joy, taken in phuket when py was 7 months.

in our family, my sis, her hubby, my sis-in-law and i have tattoos, except my brother. he is afraid of the needle and does not intend to have one. but it seems to me that py is going to have at least one too when she is older. she likes to touch mine. and when she saw my blue nail polish on my toes, she went to get her mama's polish and polished her toes too. now i can imagine her style when she grows up!

much love ~ joy!

p.s. as promised, sarah, this is my third tattoo and my most fave so far.. it's a joyful elephant. i had an inspiration to have an elephant tattoo when i rode a elephant for the first time in my life at lanta island.....

Inspiring photos, Joy !

I couldn't decide whether to comment on your post or just...I'll write another post. I was away from the computer Saturday/Sunday am...but did you see where I wished you luck on the other site? :D (think you did) Haha, you are living on the edge, eh? Why sleep the night before a run when you can watch a season of Prison Break instead?! hahaha And you still got a great time, 28 min!

It's nice to see pics of you and your family and your bf and all. It must be cool to have someone to go running with. (Don't you love looking at shiny home accessories? I do....haha) You have a Swensen's !!!!!! Me & my family used to go to Swensen's too!!! for special occasions when I was a kid, for years (back in Louisiana)..... I thought Swensen's had gone out of business. Just because I haven't seen one lately (and you know, of course, if I haven't seen one, it must not exist anymore, hahaha ;D ). That's an awfully cute picture of Py (what a great photo subject she is!) next to the ice cream sundae pic. Nice ice cream sundae picture too...mmm, chocolate ice cream.... and what is that food at the top? It looks like rice pudding with parsley and chili peppers...that looks good.

Nice reflection pictures of yourself, too: there's something very humorous about them that I really like. And I like the way you posted your photos here. Nice collage effect.

We had a cool weekend, but started it off by getting up so early that I was half-asleep and forgot my camera. :( (It wasn't really that early. I'm just lazy!! :D ) While A and his friend worked on some coding project, I visited a lavender farm with Linda (who is A's friend's gf) and she let me use her 2nd camera & even started teaching me how to use her Real Camera, which has interchangeable lenses & such. Now I'll have to nag her to send me copies of the photos from Saturday so I can post for you: lots of rows of purple lavender plants, a small labyrinth made of circular avenues of lavender plants entered through an archway of pink bougainvilla. Bees everywhere drunk on lavender nectar. A giant metal vat full of lavender plants having their essential oils distilled out. Me & Linda both wanted to jump in the vat, although it wasn't really that large. Can you imagine sleeping on a big pile of lavender? or a mattress stuffed with lavender plants?? I hope you like lavender-scent, Joy, or this entire paragraph might be annoying. ; )

Then we spent hours walking around at two different street fairs, one without the guys and one after we dragged them away from their engineering project. One was right next to the ocean, by a beach called, strangely enough, "Ocean Beach." It was great to smell the salty breeze and see a beach that was new to me. After dark we went with the guys to another fair with a lot of rides. There was also an excellent band with a lovely-voiced female lead singer & a cellist. And I got a tattoo at the fair. Unfortunately, it is a fake tattoo which will probably be gone in a few days, airbrushed and hand-painted. But I like it. (If I ever get a real tattoo, it will probably be on my stomach, and definitely not on my arm......(too much trouble thinking about, "Should I hide my tattoo today?" if it's on my arm.....)

Hey, Joy, do you like my tattoo? :D

Much love, & hopefully more pictures soon (here's a new one, the paper version of my favorite plastic-fake tattoo).

Sarah

ps This evil bunny lives in our neighbor's yard. The tree and moon pic is from last week's walk, too.

our funrun

hey sarah!

i was back from fun-run. it went well and it was great. there were quite a lot of people there. my bf managed to get home at 4.30 am and we went out at 5.45 am. we started running at 6.10am. this year, i could make better time, finished at 28.23 am for 4k. my bf arrived before me about 1-2 mins. and after running, they provided us some breakfast. good fun seeing other fellow runners.. and now time to shower and back to bed! will talk to you again soon...

cheers!

joy~

sorry that the photos don't come out so well. i used the smaller one..

it's our ice cream day!!

hey sarah -- how is your weekend going? i went half-way through saturday already and it was great. py was here this morning. her parents dropped her off at my shop and at lunch time we went out for an ice cream at carrefour. i had some random photos to share with you.

i didnt' crave for sweets or something but i craved for time spending with family, so i told my sister that we'd better get some ice cream at swensen and so i would have a chance to take heaps of pictures too.

after ice cream, we went to homepro to buy some accessories for the bathroom in our new house. there are so many shiny things in there and i took loads of pictures too..

tomorrow is funrun day and it's nearly 6 pm now and i'd better move my ass to apply for the run.. talk more soon! have a great weekend!

much love!

joy!

p.s. : call me crazy, last night i watch prison break from 6.30 pm until 6.30 am this morning and tonight will be going to bed around 1 am after the whole season 2 is watched! so wish me luck with my early morning run!!

; ) situation report

Well, I feel like I haven't much to report, but that's not strictly true. Two weeks ago we drove to Puerto Nuevo in Baja California with Alf's parents and brother and brother's gf J. to eat cheap lobster, and the next weekend visited Santa Barbara wine country for his dad's birthday. His mom enjoyed the first winery.

Maybe I'll also post tales of the family drama. In the end, what is family drama for, if not to provide entertainment to others outside the family, who can only point and laugh? ;D And here is A's dad, brother & brother's gf: another winery, another mirror picture. And a bowl-shaped fountain I liked.

Here are some other random photos I wanted to show you. That first is one of me is what I usually look like and where I am to be found, mostly, these days: at the desk. Sometimes I look less scruffy...man, look at that pasty face! I really need to go play outside in the fresh air. If I find any fresh air in Los Angeles, though, it will merit a post all its own.

Ok, I have not succeeded in obtaining any worthwhile photos of me and Alf hiking, as you requested, but I did get a good pic of him the other day when we were playing around at a craft store (I wanted a big orange fake flower to put in the tiny blue-and-white china bud vase that is velcro-d to the dashboard of my car which currently contains Royal Essence Egyptian essential oil which you can't smell, but I did not end up finding a flower I liked. Instead, Alf found a monkey hat. Aw, isn't he cute?

And last I have a photo [oops, editing and accidentally deleted the cat pic...still getting the hang of eblog editing...I'll have to find it and repost] of one of the many millions of cats who now live at my (future) mother-in-law's house. There are countless generations of cats in my (future) parents-in-law's yard and indeed the whole cul-de-sac now, all descendants of one first small grey cat and, apparently, all fathered by the same big orange tiger-striped cat belonging to another neighbor, because only four out of all those millions of cats were grey; all the rest have been orange. One of the grey cats had six toes on each foot (somebody adopted him). Alf's dad looked it up online and announced that this is what's known as a Hemingway Cat. Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of that cute kitten. But I do have this picture of what to do with an empty CPU box (there are six tiny kittens you can't see behind the mama).

Okay Joy, much love to you, too. Please have a beautiful weekend, yourself......I promise to post again, with some better stories and some pictures of wine country, and not wait so long this time!!! I can't wait to see more pictures of Py and your morning runs! and whatever else you're up to......
: )
Sarah

saturday at home

hey sarah!

this is going to be a long post! i must warn you.. ;]

on saturday morning, i woke up at 6.30 am and got changed to running outfit. i like running along the hilly road in the village when i am at my parents'. but this week, py wanted to join me too. she put on ther running shoes and followed me. how could i run with her tagging along. so, i let her biked and jogged after her.

we left home with dad's 2 dogs, tarn and dam, following us along. we went along the sunshine filled-road slowly. with eddy in one hand, i had to help py balance on her bike and stopped here when she was heading on the roadside.

we stopped by to greet some people we knew along the way and we visited auntie and uncles along the way. i took some pictures of us and flowers at my auntie's garden..

when the sun started to shine stronger and py started to get hungry, we headed back home. when i stop to take some pictures of flowers or trees, she said "i want to take pictures of this and that too, auntie joei". afraid that she would drop eddy, i had to grab the string tight. i couldn't say no when she wanted to take pictures with my big camera. who knows she might use photography as one of her passions when she becomes a teenager. so i had to let her use eddy but i had to stay close to her..

she peeked through the viewfinder as i did but didn't know what it was for and then blindly clicked the shutter.. and this one was taken by her..


after we got home, py had her breakfast and i went to see one of my 9 month-nephew "dome" and brought him to my house to play with py and took some picutres of him and py. he was not so smiley so i had to tease him to smile.

and this is us together, exploring auntie's flower garden.

after breakfast, my sister and i brought py to visit another niece "tienpae". every time when i went to see my parents, i went to see tienpae too. this time, i left it too long from last time. she didn't let me get near her or play with her. but when i held my camera and snapped some photos of her, she looked stright to it and posed a happy face..

i like to bring them out to play in the dewy green grass in the soft morning sunray. the pictures come out nicer and clearer when they are in the sunshine.

(tienpae, her mommy and py)

in this picture, py was trying to hug tienpae but tienpae was heavier and bigger than py (tienpae is younger.), so they fell flat onto the grass. tienpae was stunned for what happened to her but she didn't cry and still held tight a piece of bread in her hand.. we let py play there for a while and then brought her back home when the sun started to beam stronger.. and this is some flowers i took when roaming around the village with py..

i wish you and Alf have a beautiful weekend!

much love!

joy~