How To: Keep roses longer

Receiving flowers is a joy all on its own. There’s a rush of appreciation and for a few precious moments you feel like a princess. You take a thousand photographs in about 300 different angles and then what? They rot, they die, and you forget all about them.

People have always told me to keep my flowers in a vase whenever I receive them, but I’ve never been told exactly how. I remove the wrapper, attempt to untangle the mess of cellotape and cotton the florist cleverly hid beneath coloured tissue paper and cut the stem, put the flowers in water, but yet, they don’t seem to last very long.

After scouring the Internet I found a really informative guide here.

In a nutshell,

1. Wash the vase you’re going to use and fill it up with lukewarm water. Different websites say different things about what to put in the water. Some suggested dissolving one aspirin pill, or even putting a copper coin. This website quotes a few recipes like 1 teaspoon sugar, 1 teaspoon liquid bleach (Clorox), and 2 teaspoons lemon or lime juice mixed in 2 quarts of lukewarm water.

2. Then of course, there’s the obvious stem cutting. When cutting the stems, keep the whole bottom of the stem submerged in water to prevent air bubbles (which will apparently hinder water absorption) and cut it underwater. After that, immediately transfer the flowers to the vase. This is important because roses need a lot of water.

3. Add more water daily to keep the level high. If you can, it's a good idea to change the water every fourth day, replacing the old water with fresh.

According to this method, even slightly wilted roses with bent necks can be revived again! I actually have proof because my formerly flaccid rose stem was a lot firmer once I replaced the water.

What these guides don’t tell you though is what to do once your flowers have wilted completely. Rather than throw them away, how about preserve them by drying? Dried roses have their own charm with their deep maroon petals and withered leaves.

My sister actually taught me how to do this and the dried flowers shown here are hers.

In a hot sunny environment, hang the flowers upside down to keep them upright.

She tied them together with rubber bands and then hung them on a hook by the balcony, but feel free to hang them wherever there’s sun!

Enjoy!

Love Me!!

Sometimes, your friends will do silly things.. Like turn your profile picture into a meme.. because they think you look freaky.

From there, you have a choice to make between two options:

Option #1: Cry

This is an easy choice and the most obvious one because all it involves is staying still, scrunching up your face, and releasing depressing tears due to the mockery at your hard work of posing for the photograph.

Option #2: USE IT.

Although this required skin with the thickness of a rhinoceros’ crusty hide and an internet connection more stable than my mental state, it was the more amusing one..

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN.

Would you.. Could you.. Will you..

Needless to say, I have pretty amusing friends.

There are the loving ones..

Best friend lvl: 100
Blurness lvl: 10000

Awwww, he really really likes it!

There are those who ignore me..


-.-

Those with egos the size of Texas..

Those who comment nonchalantly..

And those who are just plain unimpressed..

 

However your friends may be, no matter, near far, wherever they are, ask them to love you today and see what they say!

Our memories and theirs.

(Warning: extremely cute pictures ahead)

Yepp, pretty good fried chicken!

I’ve always been.. tanned.

NEVER GIVE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That doll is my BFF 4 LYFE.

1996 – 2013.

--

Isn't it interesting how most of our childhood memories don't belong to us? I mean, they're ours in the sense that they're about us, and to a certain extent, replay in our heads like actual memories, but when you think about it, they're often really a product of stories told or pictures taken which somehow swirl together for our brains to greedily plagiarize and make ours.

It is for that reason that I don't trust my early memories. Funny stories have been retold by parents and siblings so often that my own become distorted from the embellishments and reform in my head with details I wouldn't have been able to recall organically. For years, I had memories of my time in the US - memories I thought were my own for they came in spurts and stills of which I thought came with natural memories. It wasn't until recently that I found a box of old photographs with the "memories" I had being actually memories of the time I sifted through those photographs rather than the event itself, which to be honest, left me feeling rather cheated.

But that’s to be understood, of course. How is one at the age of 2 or 3 able to remember things that happened before we could supposedly think for our own?

With Chinese New Year looming and the realization that hey, this is it – the last Chinese New Year we would be celebrating before heading overseas, the last Chinese New Year we would be celebrating with all our relatives before everything changes, I suppose I’ve been giving it a little more thought. I know I seem dramatic because really, there will always be time when we come back, but who knows what could happen in between here and then?

My baby cousins would have grown up and probably wonder who this unfamiliar brown cousin who gushed a little too much was, and probably feel just as I felt when people I was seemingly related to came and told me that they remember me as a baby. And then maybe I’ll tell them stories of themselves when they were very very young, and maybe these stories would mix up in their head to form their own ‘memories’. Maybe they would realize that they do ‘remember’ me, only to find out much later on that it was because of all the pictures we took from years ago.

Maybe some of my other cousins would have gotten married, or maybe some of the newlyweds in my family would have gotten kids! Maybe, by then, I would have a boyfriend of 2 years who I could bring back to Taiping for Chinese New Year, and the relatives would gush over how I’ve grown up so much. Or maybe, by the time my sister comes back from the US, she would be engaged or even married *gasps*, and would have to give out her own angpao!

Maybe…

Maybe some of our relatives would have gone and taken in their last breath. Maybe fate would have stripped away some lives a little too early, or maybe relationships may have changed by then and a few family members wouldn’t be around. I know it isn’t auspicious to speak of these possibilities, but with the thought that this could be my last CNY for a few years, I don’t want to come back and regret the opportunities I didn’t take.

Well… sure. Maybe, nothing would change except the ages and hairstyles of everyone. And maybe the years would fly by and I would come back just the same, with my cousins still too young to remember forgetting me, and with the old swing by my grandparents’ house still there to play with, just a little worse for wear.

But, even so… the moments I will have this Chinese New Year are moments I’m going to hold on to. With my broken Hokkien and awful luck, I’ll gamble away those RM1s I get from my angpaos. I’ll wake up early for food in the morning ban san. I’ll hug and kiss my grandparents even if they find it a little strange, and I’ll relish each and every second of this CNY with my family, camwhoring with my siblings and making a ruckus in the car.

And when I look back some day in the future, I won’t have any regrets. And the memories I have of this time?

Well, those memories will be mine.

What happens when you don’t wear your retainers!

This was me in 2009 – incredibly attractive with a smile that BROUGHT EM BOYS TO DA YARD, and damn right, it’s better than yours!

AND BOOM BAM A LA KA ZAM years later, those metal chains equivalent to a chastity belt of today’s age were removed and my teeth had a beautiful reunion with chewing gum and other wonderful non-braces compatible food.

(It sure brought this boy a little too close to da yarddd)

Even the crowds on Sports Day 2011 were rejoicing for instead of reflective metal of an overenthusiastic cheerleader’s teeth glinting in their faces, a metal-free cheer smile greeted them instead.

Thanks to my blog, I found a post of the day I removed my braces.

On the 15th of August, after a grueling three years, I finally was able to remove my braces.

The question many ask me is.. “Did it hurt?”

To be honest, not really. Basically, the dentist clamps something around your braces brackets and they come off just like that. You’d feel this sharp tug on your teeth but it’s nothing major.

After the braces comes off, it’s retainer time.

You’d be fitted with a mold for which your retainers will take after. Basically, you’re supposed to wear your retainers for the rest of your life.

True story: There have been people who after many years of braces-wear, neglect to wear their retainers. Their teeth moved back to how it was prior to wearing braces.

Moral of the story? Wear your retainers.

But, before you start freaking out, after the initial six months of wearing your retainers 24/7, you only have to wear them at night. :D

That was posted on August 17th 2009.

AND WHAT DID I DO?

I didn’t wear my retainers!

On October 8th, 2010.. I posted this picture along with a promise to wear those plastic things.. 

And I did.. For a while.

I really, really did.

Till I went off on another holiday and completely neglected my orthodontic responsibilities for the second time and that went on for many many years, with me occasionally forcing on my retainers every three months or so.

Fast forward to present day and everything looks fine and dandy.

That is.. Until you start to look up close.

Yikes, this is frighteningly close!

As you can see, my bottom row got all messed up again! I really hated smiling with my mouth open (no more cheer faces ) and every time I spoke on camera I would feel extremely self-conscious.

And so, in a split second decision which I made only after the first bracket was put in, I got braces for the second time. It’s only on the bottom row though but it’s enough to amp my nerdiness level up a couple of notches.

Coupled with my eyes’ dust allergy thanks to my trip to China, I now walk around with glasses + braces!

Ah, this takes me back to my late primary school days of braces and spectacles and the appeal of a dead stingray on the side of the street.

BUT, I have no one to blame but myself and will take all of this with determination and strength.. even if this means awful Chinese New Year pictures.. and awful college pictures.. and- and-

Still, I’m so grateful I only really had to get them for my bottom row which remains mostly hidden in certain photographs.

Sorta hidden..

Egad!

I know this post may worry some of you who skip out on retainers for a few days or even a week, but don’t worry because I really went all out and neglected my retainers for months at a time.

 

And after all these years, I still don’t quite know how to end posts properly.

Here, have a baby penguin!