All my Single Ladies...

If all else fails...  :D

Taiwanese woman to marry herself

Chen Wei-yih has posed for a set of photos in a flowing white dress, enlisted a wedding planner and rented a banquet hall for a marriage celebration with 30 friends.

But there is no groom. Chen will marry herself.

Uninspired by the men she's met but facing social pressure to get married, the 30-year-old Taipei office worker will hold the reception next month in honor of just one person.

"Age thirty is a prime period for me. My work and experience are in good shape, but I haven't found a partner, so what can I do?" Chen said.

"It's not that I'm anti-marriage. I just hope that I can express a different idea within the bounds of a tradition."

Her T$50,000 ($5,675) wedding comes after online publicity that has netted 1,800 largely sympathetic comments.

"I think there will be more and more girls like this," said "divagirl," who did not elaborate.

Taiwanese women are marrying later and less often as their economic status advances, fuelling government concerns about a drop in the birth rate and its impact on productivity.

Only 40 percent of women surveyed earlier this year by the education ministry said they imagined married people could live better than singles, local media said.

"I was just hoping that more people would love themselves," said Chen, who will go on a solo honeymoon to Australia.

Chen said her mother had insisted on a groom at first but later jumped aboard the solo marriage plan.

But as Chen cannot officially register a marriage to herself, if she finds a man later she will wed again.

"If I had a steady boyfriend, I wouldn't do this," Chen said. "it would be offensive to him, anyway."

 How Awesome is she!! Now I know, I'm never alone if I'm by myself

Organised procrastination

Along with my compulsive mailbox checking, I am a list writer, and I love it. I even have a little orange book with all my lists + notes in it and it goes everywhere with me, just incase I think of something I need to do, or forget what I'm supposed to be doing :D That Orange book and my pink daily planner/calendar save my life. If I lost either of them, I would be COMPLETELY lost!! Is it bad to be so reliant on paper?

I'm not sure what you think this pic is of, but is probably not what you think :D. The other day at work Tania asked how to spell desperately. Being the visual person I am I had to write it down to figure it out (luckily I had an empty lollie packet from Lillies available). After all those lollies we were sooper speedy and finished all the work so during the down time I did one of those things (not sure what its called..? All I can think of is boggle) where you make words from the word. It was pretty epic and I was doing good until Bronwyn came to check on us. I'm sure she thinks I'm crazy.

Aaand yes, I actually wrote this post while I was supposed to be preparing my Relief Society lesson for Sunday. I posted this post, then un-posted it because I was complaining about my lesson topic and blah blah coz I was so tired and wanted to go to bed. After I got over myself it was actually really fun to prepare and as it turnes out it was my best lesson yet (thats not saying much tho lol). What really helped me was stumbling across some really cool blogs by LDS + other religious women and reading their insight about my topic and other things helped HEAPS!!! 

any way, I wrote this blog, took it off, now I'm putting it back on because thats how I do :D 

The adventures of the Three Amigos

Once upon a time, during the cold, depressing months of NZ winter, a poor + pale + cold girl came up with a plan to get warm. This plan began with scouring Airline/travel websites and digging down the back of the couch for hope, fun and a decent break from being cold. Summer couldn't come soon enough! Little did she know, that her younger and even paler sister was also doing the same. After discovering their similar plans, they made some careful considerations (you want to too? sweet) and some budgeting (I have no money..do you have money..?) and decided to combine their awesome planning powers.

Thus, Kimberley and Tania were going to Fiji :D and after inviting then un-inviting Carl for various reasons, they decided that they really wanted him to come, and he realised that he would miss his sooper cool sisters waay too much. Thus (whats another word for 'Thus'?..'and so'?) we became... The "!THREEEEEE Amigos!"

Short story short

The "!Threee Amigos!" are going to take Fiji by storm!! woop wooopp

Helicopters, Kids and FIJI

Recently a friend of mine posted about her 'life list'. I was incredibly inspired because although we have some of the same aspirations for our life, her list seems soo much cooler then mine lol. If you dont quite know what a life list is, think Bucket list(list of things you want to do before you die), cept this one is a 'list of things I want to do/achieve during my life'. - life list - 

I've been working on my 'life list' since a family home evening a mazillion years ago where mum got us thinking about 50 things we wanted to do in our lifetime. This year I decided I wanted to write it down properly..

A primary teacher (or someone) once said to me that the difference between a dream and a goal is writing it down. So I have written down my dreams in hopes that I will be motivated to get them happening, and I have written down my goals, so that they are no longer dreams.

Some are epic and will take ages to do/be lifechanging, others are simple little goals that will help me on the path to WORLD DOMINATION!!!! :D

-Quit EDS

-Learn Maori

-Shoot a $4000 Wedding

-Have a photo of mine published as a Magazine Cover

-Be published in NatGeo

-Be my own boss Full Time

-Open a Studio

-Read/Study the 4 standard works

-Go to the South Island (Yeyaaaahh, I have officially achieved this one as of June 2010)

-Stay in a 5-Star Resort/Hotel (Will be achieving this one NEXT MONTH :D Bring on Fiji with my bestest friend Tania!! I actually seriously cannot wait!!)

-Secret Service (This is my own little project that I want to turn into a Big project, in short, it is maybe a club or 

group of people or something, called the 'Secret Service' and our goal is to 'Do service, Secretly' :D I cant figure out how to work it tho..

-Compete in Dance Comps (ACHIEVED!!! I have officially competed in 2 comps, but I really want to do Proper competitions, so this is still on my list)

-Visit Ireland

-Run a Marathon

-Buy a Canon 5D Mark II (I would like to thank mum + dad / National bank for the lovely bank loan that made it possible for me to achieve this one :D)

-Be published (Yuss I have done this one. My beautiful soon-to-be cousin-in-law hooked me up with this one. When she worked for a certain 'Fashion Designer' I got to do a photoshoot of a Police officer and it got put in the Magazine :D Suuper exciting, but Im keeping this on my list coz its an ongoing goal)

-Sponsor a Child (I've wanted to do this for ages, and a mean guy even made me cry once because I wanted to Sponsor a Child, but I couldn't afford it and he was Mean aS!! EGG!! Anyway, as soon as I can, I want to sponser some kiddies, and write them letters and visit them and all that good stuff)

-Be married in the Temple

-Have a bunch of kiddies

-Bunji jump from a Helicopter

-Move out (one day...)

-Get a Car (notice I didnt say 'buy' :D who wants to give me a car?)

-Visit the Sacred Grove and other Church Historical Sites

-Relax at a Day Spa/Resort

-Re-take Lifeguard + First Aid Qualification (Achieving this in the first place was probably a turning point in my life, I didn't really know I could do things lol. Turns out, will power (and team work) IS actually awesome!!)

-Pick up a Hitch hiker

-Volunteer at a Soup Kitchen

-Complete another Triathlon

-Street Appeal (as in, collect money for a good cause= this month I am doing this with Canteen and I'm pretty excited!!)

-Cycle to Raglan

-Hike Tongariro Crossing

-Gold Medals in Ballroom and Latin (exams)

-Mission with my Husband

-Business cards

-Photography Website (Ive got my blog half-sorted, and Ive had my domain name for aages, its just hard ok!)

-Have a wedding featured in a Bridal Magazine

-Visit the 3 Sisters

-Punch someone in the face

-Skinny Dip

-Flash someone

-Be a volunteer Paramedic

-Take Cake decorating classes

-Take Belly dancing lessons

-Tough Guy/Girl challenge

-Finish my Personal Progress (hahaha only How-many years late, but I still want to receive my YW Recognition)

:D Thats a longer list then I expected, but its what I have written in my special notebook so far :D Its changed a little bit since I was younger (finish Koromatua, go to CCNZ, get taller, figure out how to use mascara...etc) but the main ones are still the same and I'm looking forward to living my list :D

AAAAnd just because Blog posts are cooler with photos, here is one thing I have completed from my list - Graduate with a Degree&wear Granddads Robe + have suuper awesome friends - 

Epic Photoness

Prepare yourself for a large amount of photographs :D

A couple of weeks ago, Me, Brooke and Katharina went on a little roady out to Port Waikato. It wasn't just for fun (although it was fun), it was for Photography. Fun-tography!! :D

We each had our Cannon 5D Mark II's and plenty of beautiful NZ to satisfy our photographic needs, and boy did Aotearoa turn on THE perfect day!! We had thick fog in the morning, lingering fog later on, then strait up gorgeous blue skys from lunchtime.

So here you go, a small sampling of what I tried to create from God's amazing creation :D

It wouldn't be a proper photography day if I didn't take photos of my feet

Yes this is a self portrait :D

Roady to Palmy

On Saturday I had a Dance Comp in Palmy, which means ROAD TRIP!! Some of the coolest people ever came down with me, Tania, Nakita and Reno, and boy-o-boy was it a lOoonngg day!!

After waking up at 5.30am to get ready, we left Hamilton at 7am and got to the Arena at about 11.45am. The rest of Footworks DanceSport Studio (my Crew), arrived shortly after and we set ourselves up in the stands.

Smell my Footworks

At 1pm, the madness (awesomly FUN madness of course) began. I was dancing in 8 events, 5 of those events had Semi's + Finals, and I also danced 3 Guys through their competitions, which had Semi's and Finals (which they all carved up in!!) I calculated, and I think I danced approx 50 times. The competition didn't finish till after 9pm, and then we had the Awards Ceremony.

Me and William dancing a Waltz (couple 64)

Busting out our Latin ChaCha

Footworks did fleepin awesome!! The guys that I danced through got mostly 1sts and a couple of 2nds, I placed 1st in all but 2 of my events (one I got a 2nd, and the other I didnt place), and the 4 Footworks Competition couples did AWESOME! Nikita and Ben, what can I say..they Won Everything!!!! They got atleast 10 trophies, upgraded in both Ballroom and New Vogue (I cant remember if they upgraded in Latin, but they probably did), which is awesome!! Soo soo wish I could dance like Nikita! And we won our 2 group events yayayaahh!

We finally finished everything at 10 and went to Reno's brothers house down the road to watch the rugby. I was doing fine Energy wise untill we got into the car and I pretty much crashed. I was soo exhausted during the game, that I couldn't sleep and could only think 'my feet hurt so bad, im soo tired, I wanna go home'(and Tania/Nakita thought the exact same thing lol). So the Second that game finished, us girls were Up and out the door, and sleeping in the car.

We got home at 5am-ish, dropped our stuff on the floor and rolled into bed. 24 hrs is a looong freakin time I tell ya, and my poor Roadtrip buddies had to sit and watch me dance for 9hrs (sorry guys), but it was fun times!!

Yes there are only 5 Certificates here, the other 2 were won for Group Events and are up at the Studio with our Trophy :)

Pies are bad, but oooh soo good!!

So Les Mills had a '$21 for 21 Days' promotion and I have been waking up at 5.30am(ish) almost everyday for the last 19 days, to go to the gym and work my tiny little butt off.

Its been pretty fun, and I have felt really healthy + energetic and less hungry for pies (Karaaaazeee). Yesterday(Saturday), I felt soo good after my workout/intense exercise class ('Body Impact'), that Carl managed to talk me into going for a bikeride. I almost died, and it took an hour to complete (sooo tired!!), but it was really fun.

I got Tania to take some photos when we finished, and the egg took some really awesome ones! How dare she be better at photography then me! I am pretty annoyed at her and her awesomeness, so I will only share some of them.

After I was exhausted from being all active and stuff, I managed to reach into my awesome energy reserves and go Rock Climbing at Extreme edge on Greenwood street. It was hecka fun and they even have a whole new section for kids(and big kids) that have skeletons + jungles + kites + Kiwiana + pirate + more theme walls that dont even require a b-lay. Insane I say, but we didnt die, so its all good!

N e Hu, I am nowhere near as sore today as I thought I would be, so the Gym is FANTASTIC!! If only I had enough money to get a membership, I totally would. I guess I just have to go extra hard at my 'Body Pump' (weight class) and 'Body Balance' (Yoga/Pilates) sessions on Monday and Tuesday, coz thats the last days on my Trial :(