A New Direction, Part 2

12 Nov

The efforts on Ginormous Gnome the second has been coming along fine. My only problem with it was its width – a wee bit skinny. It actually looks fine from the side profile angle but from the front, a tad too thin.

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The nose job was tough!

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Putty added to smoothen the surface throughout

The nose was the biggest challenge for this piece despite it being one piece unlike Ginormous One, which had an add-on. And since the overall body was rather skinny from the front, the big nose had to be shaved down to be proportionate to the body.

A lot of work but at the end, I’m pleased with the result. Once it’s painted up, another excellent Gnome to be displayed with the rest. Or I could give this fella away? Hmm…

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Looking good from the side with gesso applied as base before painting it up!

 

Looks like there may be more giant Gnomes coming up considering I have recently gotten new supplies of wood. Yay!

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In Memory of…

11 Nov

Today would have been official pet number one’s 12th birthday. Sniffle…

It’s been a month since Rooney’s passing. How time flies! There are days when we get home, I find myself looking out for him expecting a patch of fur lying at the garden terrace when I open the front door. But he’s not there….

We have been keeping busy so that we don’t think too much of the loss. The house has been rather quiet sans the barking or the act of talking to a pet who was literally our third child, our baby. To overcome this, I find myself playing music more often than ever on my iPhone XR. Sometimes I would up the volume on Spotify’s choices for me or simply blast my Music’s playlist so that it’s not so quiet. Sigh…

Happy birthday Roo, you’re in a better place but always in our thoughts and hearts.

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A New Direction

8 Nov

After the bout of carving six Citizens not too long ago, I was ready for another big piece. Suddenly carving big pieces is the way to go! This latest attempt at another Ginormous Gnome is again a combination of three Meranti wood, making it the second piece with three glued pieces.

This time there’s no add-ons for depth, learning from the previous piece. Also I am unfazed by the height because I know what to do. And there certainly won’t be any hole in the cap because I sketched the Gnome to be smaller with plenty of room to shape.

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Let the carving begin!

These days I seem to prefer carving big pieces over little Gnomes as it does not aggravate the left wrist because I don’t need to have a dead grip with the left hand. If you must know, carving Citizens is not painful because it’s on soft balsa, not semi-hard Meranti wood.

But I still have to find the right balance with this new direction because at times, the right golf elbow can still be aggravated if I’m at it too long – the repetitive motion on the semi-hard Meranti.

Sometimes if I have a weekend game coming up, I’d carve less to prevent any recurrence of pain. However if the pain persist on game day, I have no choice but to pop painkillers and use Salonpas patches to subdue it.

Perhaps with the new lighter golf set making golf enjoyable again, I can find the middle ground to have satisfaction to enjoy both golf and carving simultaneously without giving up one or the other.

I’ll see how, until then onwards with the new piece!

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Slowly but surely it’s coming along!

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A Timely Change

5 Nov

I changed my golf set recently! It was a decision made after mulling over it for months. Prior to this, I felt I couldn’t improve my game anymore especially with the recurring injuries and change wouldn’t help anyway. Why change when playing better golf was also not at the top of my priority anymore?

Factor in my desire to carve and I was at it constantly, golf was no longer my focus. But constant carving came with a price – aggravated pain on the right elbow whenever I did a little bit more than necessary. And when there’s pain, it affects the golf; and if playing good golf was out of the question with the recurring problem, why bother to change? I was at it in circles for months.

But a good deal came along and I caved.

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My new set… here’s to playing better golf!!!

So I gave up my TaylorMade RBZ irons, Maruman Conductor driver and wedge, Cleveland woods, hybrid and wedge for a lighter pre-owned Srixon XXIO MP900 set to replace them. The only thing I kept was my Scotty Cameron Squareback putter. Less clubs in the bag, 10 instead of 14, this made my approach on the game changed too. But for the better. Also the lesser clubs means a lighter load and we’ve been walking nine-holes carrying our golf sets instead of using the golf trolleys the last three weeks. Very good exercise as I find myself sweating buckets each time.

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The old set, thanks for the good times!

It took me a few games to adjust my swing to the new clubs and know the distances. The new driver however, loses to my previous driver’s performance but that is only because I have had the Conductor for years and have been so in-tuned with its ability. It’s just a matter of time before I am able to master the new driver to maximize its performance. After all, every new piece of equipment will require time to get used to them, some just take longer than others. So I’m not worried.

Overall, all the clubs feel good and even with some nagging pain on the right elbow, I am striking the ball better and further. This means I can still carve but with care of course. A win-win situation nonetheless. I love the new 3-wood as it’s giving me the distance I couldn’t get previously.

It didn’t take me long to master the new Sand wedge for my short game though. With just one club to use for the 50 meter (or less) range instead of the three choices I had previously – the Approach, 52˚ or 56˚ wedges, being indecisive on what to use has suddenly been taken out of the situation, making the approach so much easier. And I must say it has been super accurate, cutting down strokes to get on the green and pretty close to the flagstick. A real confidence booster to come back with better scores. I love it!

And this was evident when I played in my Club’s November Monthly Medal bogey-play tournament over the weekend; I came out tops in the Ladies category! Woo hoo…. however due to the low turn out of just six ladies (a minimum of eight participants was required for the winner to receive a trophy), I was an ‘unofficial’ winner without the showpiece. It’s okay, I’ll take it as is and am glad I made this timely change. I just hope it won’t be a one-time wonder and definitely looking forward to playing better golf from here on.

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One Problem Resolved

4 Nov

I’m glad to say that the plantar fasciitis that I was experiencing several months back has disappeared. How did I do it? Well, I certainly didn’t walk any less, in fact, I walk more but with an arch support for the shoes. And this helped.

After the problem disappeared, I bought a new pair of Skechers with good memory foam for better support. Being new and spongy, it’s certainly doing its job so the additional arches are not required anymore, at least for this new pair. But I still use them for my golf shoes. And after a round of 18-holes, the feet are fine without issues.

The old pair of Skechers has been quite worn down, maybe that’s why the insole arch support was necessary when the problem came about. And thank goodness the problem is resolved and not escalated further. I have enough challenges as it is with my endometriosis and the golf elbow that has been acting up.

At the end of the day, it’s all about taking care of ourselves, being at this dinosaur age, you just can’t wing it to get by.

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Is That a Nose Dinky?

1 Nov

I didn’t realise Dinky my dinosaur ‘grew’ a nose! From the looks of it, it’s a teeny-weeny scab from a scratch of an insect bite. And because of its strategic placement on Dinky’s face, it can pass off as a nose. Hahahaha…

However, I don’t think it’s a mosquito bite because I don’t remember any itch or even scratching my leg. Or maybe there was and I did… I don’t remember. Dinosaurs can be forgetful.

I just thought it’s funny that my Dinky now has a nose, a glowing red one just like Rudolph! Rather cute, no?

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Garden to Plate, Part 2

29 Oct

The third papaya, weighing a whopping 1740gm, was harvested from the tree whilst it was still semi-green last week. Hubby said best to pluck it and let it sit on the kitchen counter to ripen than leaving it on the tree, exposed to the insects, birds and garden squirrels.

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Over the weekend, I decided to inspect the papaya tree at the side of the house, a spot which I don’t normally go to. Wow. There’s a whole lot of fruits! Looks like we will be having papayas a fair bit in the coming weeks.

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It’s okay, I’m not complaining because papayas are actually very good in terms of its vitamins and nutritional values. This aside, I should visit our garden especially the side more to know what Green Fingers have planted for us to enjoy.

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So Useless Yet So Busybody

28 Oct

As today is a public holiday (yet again, I know), we went out for dinner and drinks last night. But I was so useless with my alcohol intake. How come?

Last week, I was in Langkawi with my high school girlfriends and I was drinking gin and whiskey far more than my usual intake. The next day at dinner, it was champagne, wine and whiskey, mixing drinks all the way. And I was fine, no hangover at all.

By the third night, I had beer, more gin and potent cocktails, yet I was fine. But last night, after two Carlsberg and a mojito, I was woozy. So fast, so useless…

Our regular haunt was rather quiet and the table behind us was talking rather loudly about life, guys and relationships, it perked our attention. We decided to stayed on after our meal…

Truth be told, it wasn’t that we were eavesdropping, she was loud and her constant use of the word ‘like’ caught our attention more than anything else. So the one-sided chatter had both of us cracking up each time ‘like’ was used. But we also learnt that she went to Minnesota for her studies.

Ordering more drinks than what was originally planned, I had a Sex on the Beach cocktail next. We simply had to stay on because of the entertainment behind us and it felt good to laugh so much.

But even without her mentioning Minnesota, we could tell that she was American-educated because every other sentence she uttered had the word ‘like’ in there.

At one point, we were trying to structure out her sentences without that word, it didn’t work nor made any sense. Hubby even tried replacing the word with the ‘like’ symbol using just his hand. Lol… quite a riot and such busybodies we were.

By the time that last cocktail of mine was finished, I was almost finished too, feeling so woozy and being fueled by all that laughter. Hahahaha…

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Garden to Plate

25 Oct

It’s the wet season again but this has not stopped hubby aka Green Fingers from working the garden well. Besides the habanero chilies that are holding up despite the rain, all of a sudden the papayas sprouted too. Or maybe it’s been growing healthily but I never knew considering I hardly venture out to the garden.

The pesticide-free care for the papaya tree has yielded two fruits so far and we ate one already – so sweet I tell you. We await the second fruit to ripen before enjoying it.

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Top: eaten with satisfaction; Bottom: measured, weighed and waiting for it to ripen.Yum!!!

As I write this, the third fruit, by far the biggest one is just a matter of time before it can be harvested. It’s so nice to have a garden to plate from our own efforts, or should I say his effort mostly and none of mine.

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The Chicken and the Eggs

22 Oct

It was apt that when my high school girlfriends and I went off to Langkawi for our girls’ trip, it was themed Celebrating Us. The reasons were obvious but there was a deeper meaning and this was reflected on the logo that I designed for our official tee shirt.

The chicken signified the year we were born – the Year of the Rooster and a golden egg represented a decade. As there are five eggs, obviously we are dinosaurs. Now you know why I always refer to myself as a dinosaur and even have a dinosaur tattoo.

I guess with this chicken and egg approach, it certainly clears the doubts as to which comes first as far as we are concerned. Without the chicken, the eggs would not exist and this trip would not have materialized especially with the significant milestone of five eggs.

 

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‘MGS’ our school is the binding factor for us besides our birthdays

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