She wears this pair of ear studs, set in white gold. Simple and understated, a heirloom that has been passed down the generations of the women in her family.
Who is this Singapore Mpm Blogger? Look out for the 2nd post in my series of ‘Portraits of a Singapore Mom Blogger’ this coming week to find out!
“Both my paternal grandparents were locally born but we hearsay our ancestry line moved from Indonesia to Terrenganu to Singapore.
My dad married my mom, who is a true blue teochew! So, I am only a half-bred nonya.”
What is your earliest memory of your heritage?
“I think the most memorable moments learning about my heritage was visiting my paternal relatives during the Chinese New Year. It helped that I was always rooted at my seat and trying to figure out the language, so unlike the younger generation today. It is likely that I picked up my knowledge of basic Malay and a fair bit of ‘peranakan language’ from them. (Peranakans converse in a mixture of English, Malay and Hokkien).
My parents were already rather modernized when they wedded in the 60s. There was, unfortunately, no specific tradition that has been carried forward except for the food. My mum leant peranakan-style cooking from my paternal grandma who taught her the recipes.”
“My grandma was the only nonya whom I knew who faithfully wore her Kebayas at home, as she lived with us till she passed on when I turned 16 years old. It was a pity that we were not very close and there wasn’t any keepsake from her that was handed down, as it was only distributed amongst her daughters.
However, my 2nd brother elder brother, Alvin, who is very much into preserving the peranakan heritage, helped formed and helms ‘The Main Wayang Company’. Which actively promotes the unique Peranakan culture locally and overseas. Do check out some of the music that he has composed and produced.”
“…I do have a few memorabilia presented to me by my brother; a Kam Cheng and some porcelain spoon ornaments which I proudly display in my home. These are things that remind me of my heritage. ”
Of all the things you have learnt from your parents (in terms of tradition and culture), what do you feel was the most valuable?
“I think I like the way I have been shown what is true love and stay humble in life. My mom came from a very well-to-do family before she met my dad, who was working in a factory prior to becoming a teacher. In those days, money was very hard to come by. She chose love and trust (my dad) versus an arranged marriage to a rich businessman’s son. She stood by my dad in good times and in bad. She never once wavered even though she could have had a luxurious life, I honor and respect her for that. ”
So, who is this Singapore Mom Blogger?
It’s Adeline, from The Accidental Mom Blogger. A mom of 2, a jewelry crafter of unique and intricate creations and an extremely competent home-cook.
With Adeline’s winsome girlish charms and lovely dimpled smile, it was not so hard for this inexperienced-amateur-photographer-yours-truly to capture these portrait shots of her.
She may come across as quiet and reserved at first impression. But as I got to know her better this past one year, I have discovered that Adeline has a playful side, yet she can be the dependable big sister of SMB, who has earned herself the nick AOAC – ‘Adeline Oon Ah Che’.
Adeline also has a matriarchal side to her, (matriarchal doesn’t mean wanting to crush people like cockroaches), that is demonstrated by how efficient and capable she is in running her household and single-handedly tending to the needs of her two children.
Want to find out more about the real AOAC? Then do visit her blog at The Accidental Mom Blogger.
So who will be featured next on my next installment of Portraits of a Singapore Mom Blogger? Stay tuned for the continuation of this series in the next few weeks.
When I have a mom who dresses other ladies up for a living and a younger sister who will never wear the same outfit twice to different events, it’s hard not to care about how I look.
I ‘allowed’ myself 6 months of looking like a frumpy mom. Those 6 months included my last trimester of pregnancy, and 3 months post pregnancy. I made the effort to dress and look presentable whenever I had to leave the house, not only to avoid comments from my mom, but it was something I deemed important to my self-esteem.
Most of us tend to use motherhood as a valid excuse not to have the time to dress up or to apply make-up. So when Flo shared with me about her business, Style Essence, I thought “Why not have this as an activity for SMB’s 1st birthday bash?” It will be an enriching and fun session for us to learn some finer points on style and make-up.
We had two separate sessions at Style Essence, one in the day for the SAHMs and WAHMs, and one more in the evening for the FTWMs.
L to R – Trainer Florinda, Samantha, Natasha, Adora and Calla, James and Irene (still looking gorgeous sans makeup)
Flo who was our trainer for both sessions, started with a quick color analysis of our skin tone, to determine if we had ‘warm’ or ‘cool’ undertones.
Evelyn’s a ‘warm’ and I think Dominique likely is a ‘warm’ color as well
She shared this tip on how to determine if you are a ‘warm’ or ‘cool’ color; look at the veins on the underside of your wrist. If the veins are more blue / purple, you have cool undertones. If you see green tones, then you are a ‘warm’ undertone. Turned out have both warm and cool undertones, so I will rock any shade 
We learned about how to dress for our body shape before we dived straight into hands-on for our skin.
This is the way we washed our faces with a 3-in-1 cleanser,
L to R – PC, Wacky Liza, Pamela, Adeline and Gila Regina
and applied exfoliating mask on the half of our faces.
L to R; Evelyn, Jenn, Me, Dominique, Rachel, Irene
L to R; Estella, Madeline, Jiahui, Adora, Pamela, Adeline, Regina
After deep cleansing and exfoliating one half of our faces with Marykay’s Botanical Effects Mask, it was time to ‘paint’ our faces!
L to R; Pauline, Pamela, Adeline and Sandra
It’s hard not to feel like the centre of attention when you are in a room full of bloggers pointing their cameras at you, when you are being made-up by the pro.
And the outcome of the workshop? Glamour Mamas!
L to R; PC, Liza, me and Pauline
You know a make-over workshop is successful, when you have Sarah, who hardly ever uses makeup on her face, doing her own makeup and looking this good post make-over.
With an informative session from an engaging trainer, great company from the ladies from SMB, looking fabulous was a great way to celebrate SMB’s 1st Birthday Bash!
From bottom L to R; Natasha, Sarah, Calla, Me, Pauline, Dominique, Trainer Florinda, Rachel, Edlyn, James, Irene, Evelyn, Samantha and Trainer Bernadette
Bottom L to R; Jiahui, Estella, Liza, Pamela, Adora, Trainer Florinda, PC, Madeline, Adeline, Regina, Sandra, Susan and Trainer Bernadette.
Thanks to sponsors Style Essence and dinner by The Shepherd’s pie, in collaboration with SMB’s 1st Birthday Bash 2013.
I get this question quite often from friends who are non bloggers, “Where do you find the time to blog?”
Time is what you make of it.
Blogging has become a significant part of my life, so I make time for it. No doubt, blogging on some days, take more time then I should since I am not very adept at churning out speed articles.
So Why do I blog?
I started the blog as I was in need of an expressive outlet. Just like I am a work in progress, so is my blog. I am constantly learning how to express myself better through my blog, learning how to refine the content. My blog is an extension of my life, so for friends who haven’t met me for some time, I tell them “Go read my blog.” 
Life have changed quite drastically since I started my blog in ’07. I have given birth, was a FTWM, became a SAHM/part time student, then a WAHM. Blogging works together with my camera to document my life, to tell my own stories of precious and fleeting moments through life as a mom of one.
I blog for myself most of all. My son may be one of the key reasons why I started the blog and my blogging journey is still largely inspired by my role as a parent, but it has evolved to a space to document my lifestyle and other creative pursuits.
Blogging has helped me to find my writing voice and is a therapeutic process for me to work through life’s bottlenecks and spills. My post can sometimes start out sounding negative, but as I progress to type in my thoughts, I start to view things from a different perspective and my posts will end off on a positive note, quite different from where I started.
I blog in the hope that maybe, just maybe, a fellow mom, a friend, or a reader who will chance upon my posts will find some encouragement from the experiences I share from my life.
My blog has connected me with other blogging moms whom I would otherwise would not have gotten to know. Blogging used to be a lonely journey, but SMB changed everything for me. Friendships have been forged with fellow blogging moms beyond a mere comment left on each other’s blog, and these are the moms whom I have most meaningful and frequent conversations with these days.
I have found that navigating through the journey of motherhood can be so much enjoyable when you have companions who can walk alongside with you.
How long will I be blogging for? As long as I am a mom I suppose.
My post is just one of 15 stories from 15 Singapore Blogging Moms on why we blog.
Next on the ‘Why Moms Blog’ blog train -
Regina documents her little family as they grow as one, charting everyday mundane events to milestones that will chart the shape of their future. She is enjoying being a wife and mother, two personae that she has never thought of becoming – in the past. She takes pride in being a working class stiff trying to be a first class Mum!
Regina shares her thoughts about parenting and personal experiences as : MummyMoo
This is no good.
This space have been a little too silent for the last 2 months.
Is it a serious case of writer's block which doesn't seem to be letting up,
or the 'photographer' in me has not been taking much photos?
Anyhow, I have come to a conclusion, if there is no exciting news or milestones or moody musing, or anything informative to share, just don't. Also, Kyle and I don't lead very exciting lives at this moment, maybe this space will get alot more updated information in March during the school holidays? Maybe.
Actually the truth is, I spend alot more time in Facebook then being in my wordpress blog account. I seemed to have taken to the real time feed and direct interaction of microblogging through these other social media sites, then taking the time to blog.
Blogging tends to be alot more tedious and it's hard to do a proper post from my mobile phone.
Like what Pauline said recently, social media is like TV (for people with short attention spans), while blogs are like print/newspaper (for people with more time to read or searching for more information).
Facebook is still the network du jour, and is definitely more popular with the females then the males. So then, are you addicted to facebook? I regularly check friends status, update my own, update pics but have less than 400 friends and I don't play games on FB. So phew! I cannot be considered an addict!
But hey. do add me as a friend on FB if u don't mind sharing a wee bit more of your life online with me. Look for me at https://www.facebook.com/rachtll
From pinterest
Blogging can feel quite surreal sometimes. Especially when I look back at my old posts, I realise that it is really no mean feat to have accumulated 4 years of my life stories.
There are many reasons why people blog; some do it for themselves, for a business online, to share an interest or just for their family. I have actually thought about how it would have been if my mom was a blogger. It would have been quite interesting to read about how it was like for my mom at my age and have some of my questions answered about how it was like growing up;
What was she most passionate about at that point?
What were her favorite recipes?
What was it that I used to do that amused or irritated her?
I still could ask her some of these questions now, but I guess it wouldn't be the same.
Lately, I came across a remark on another blog, the blogger mentioned that said that she did not want to post some content, as it would probably be too dull for people to read. I wonder how many of us, especially parent bloggers hesitate to put up something on our blog because it is not entertaining enough
Here are some of my sentiments about why I blog;
I do not blog to amuse or entertain
I do not blog to be someone else we are not
I blog in the hope that my experience will benefit someone else who reads my blog
What is written here on the blog is pretty much what you get. As a mom, in the busyness of daily routines and hiccups, alot of things get forgotten. So when I look at my old posts and pictures, I don't even remember some of them very clearly, but I am glad that I wrote it down on the blog.
Sure, I experience seasons when there is really nothing much to take down, when the same old, same old happens. And there are also moments in time, when I have too much going on and lots to talk about.
So how do I find the time to blog? It's tough to squeeze that time from the regular schedules, but since I value the memories in this space and not want to them lost, I make time.
So here's to 4 years of blogging and cherished memories online!
From pinterest
For those with blogs, how about turning your blog into a book as a memento to keep for your kids? Or you could get your photos printed in a book. I think this is a fabulous way to finally get those pictures printed. I hope you are not like me, who have have tons of soft copies of old photos.
No blog? Start blogging to tell your story. If you don't take it down, it will just get lost in the deep recesses of your brain.
Go ahead and write it down, it will definitely be worth your time.
The tech dummy in me used to worry that one day, the Blogger servers will suddenly die and my 2+ years of entries will just disappear down the internet wormhole (that was before I discovered that I could do backups of my entire website, including the pictures).
This irrational fear is still one of the key motivators for me to migrate my old blogspot site to this new one. Also, the feeling of having a domain of my own didn’t seem all that bad either. So I overcome all odds; my ignorance of web hosting, FTPs, customisation of template (with limited CSS knowledge), spent a couple of days finding out how to manage this online and finally came up with this new site. Also having successfully worked on another site (which will be revealed soon), I was feeling quite confident to do this revamp of my personal blog.
After spending about 3 days mucking around with my new domain in WordPress. I declare that WordPress is far more superior to Blogger. I cleared up all the confusion I was experiencing with WordPress.com and WordPress.org, and settled on the latter for more flexibity and expandability.
Now, I can even offer ‘consultation’ for anyone who have any plans to have their own domain and migrate their blogs. So who needs help for a more organised blog site?