.Malaysia: Part One.

I am so thankful my husband writes in a journal
every
single
day.

Thinking back on our two week trip to Malaysia, my head is quickly filled with the many activities and  amazing people we met that I forget when things happened exactly..this is when Adam's journal comes in handy. Instead of writing a post for everyday we were in Malaysia, like I did for our Iceland vacation, I figured I'd simply share two posts with you that contain little writing and lots of pictures--the best kind of posts ;)

Adam and I traveled over 30 hours to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for a two week business trip. It was all business for Adam and all vacation for me! Adam works for a company called Envato as the Site Editor for Aetuts+, an Adobe After Effects training site. The company mission is to help people earn money by selling digital goods and grow in their fields by learning new skills. The founders of Envato organized a company meetup two years ago in Chicago and this year the meetup was in Malaysia. The interesting thing about this company, is people from all over the world (literally) work for it. We met people from England, France, Italy, Malaysia, Australia, Tasmania, Venezuela, Spain, Ireland, Canada as well as representation from the US: Utah, Tennessee, and Nebraska! Spouses were invited on this meetup since many people, like us, had to travel great distances and would be away for two weeks. As you know..I was scared but I did it!

We stayed in Kuala Lumpur, the country's capital, which felt like New York City with palm trees--lots of them! The weather was miserably humid and had sporadic thunderstorm with some of the best lightning bolts I have ever seen. Our hotel, Park Royal, was spectacular and began feeling a bit like home. We were sad to leave it..ahem, sad to leave the amazing rooftop pool and all you can eat buffets. Here are a few pictures of our hotel:

 While Adam did this everyday...(photos provided by Adam's co-worker Jarel Remick)

 I did this with the other wives..

We shared amazing food:

 Unique experiences like the Fish Spa:

(I will never ever do this again, please see pictures for my reason)

 Explored Malaysian temples:

 Found the best shopping markets and malls:

Everyday was truly a blast. There were two wives who were in charge of arranging partner activities, Allison and Haley, and they did a fabulous job. It was all planned very casual and open--it was up to us if we wanted to partake in the daily activity. There were a couple of days when I simply wanted a "me" day and enjoyed sleeping in, taking very long hot showers, and napping poolside while other days I could not wait to hang out with the wonderful ladies. 

It was fantastic.

Adam and the rest of the Envato staff were busy working bees until 5pm most days. When they got off work it felt like the party started as everyone quickly made dinner plans followed by more fun--swimming, bowling, movies, karaoke, archery, shopping, community hang outs, exploring the city at night..

 

Well, I think this post has enough photos to last you a while :) Please know I am trying my best to refrain from actually posting all of my pictures.."trying" being the key word. We were in Malaysia for two weeks so you can imagine how many great photos we came home with..I'll wrap this first post up here--

Stay tuned for the next and final Malaysia post featuring our group activity days, my days off with Adam, and the gorgeous countryside.

Thanks for viewing!

.Day Off FAIL.

Remember me?--I feel like months have past since I've written anything on here. I blame the majority on our two week trip to Malaysia and the rest I blame jet lag. Jet lag is awful, just plain awful. This is the first time I have experienced it and it is something I would like to avoid in the future. Adam and I returned safely home this past Sunday after this crazy adventure:

1 hr drive to Malaysian airport + 8 hr flight to Dubai + 4 hr layover in Dubai + 14 hr flight to JFK + 1 hr drive to NJ + 8 hr drive to VA = I'd like to stay home for a while :)

Our trip was amazing and I plan on blogging about it soon, but not today..definitely not today.

Now to my day off I had yesterday..it was a major fail, all parts of it. I woke up early, thank you jet lag, and decided this would be my day to be creative-crafty-and decorate our house more. I took out my watercolor paints, brushes, and paper and began painting the leaf design that is on my curtains. My intent was to frame the watercolor paintings for our living room wall.

Welp, I forgot about something..I am not a painter. I did my absolute best teaching myself about watercolors as I went and my final result looked good but not great. They honestly looked like a very talented fifth grader painted them. I was a bit discouraged so I walked away from my paints for 2 whole hrs.

During that time I ate breakfast, cleaned the kitchen, and sat down to blog while watching a Netflix movie. About five minutes into me checking facebook/blogs/email, our internet at the house stopped working. This also meant Netflix stopped working and for those of you who don't know, Adam and I do not have cable. So..I was stuck without computer and tv.

I sat to write bills instead but simply did not feel like it, so I didn't. I then walked into our bedroom, which is a complete disaster from our trip, and got so overwhelmed with the amount of work to do in there I closed the door as I walked out.

I then searched through our basement looking at my decorative vases and accessories and brought a few things up. I placed different things in the living room and dining room but could not find the right spot for anything. After 30 minutes of trying to decorate with what I had, I put it all back in the basement.

This is about the time I sat back down to paint and spent another hr attempting my hand at watercolor. The end result was the same..my work was okay and while the colors matched beautifully, the actual art work stunk. In the trash it all went.

I then tried to lay down for a nap but could not rest my heart rate and my thoughts. I was feeling stress and anxiety but did not know why..well, maybe I did. We have so many projects on the house to do and it all costs money and even bigger than that, time. It all would require a lot of time from myself and especially Adam. These thoughts led me to feeling guilty for being in bed wasting time so I got up.

I went back to the basement and collected all of my frames. I emptied them out, took the backs off, and brought them outside. I laid down plastic wrap on the area of the backyard where grass does not grow and spread out the frames. I got my white spray paint and went to town! Light, thin, wispy--these were the words I continued to tell myself. You see, spray paint and I don't get along too well. I am impatient and spray painting takes time. I fought against my inner urge to keep my finger pressing on the nozzle until completely white and I did light and wispy.

An hr later I went outside to paint my second coat and found a complete disaster. The area I set up my little work station was on top/next to a ground covering of brown dirt. My initial thought was its better to have paint spray on that then our pretty green grass. Welp, I forgot about the wind and yesterday was pretty windy. Half of my frames then had lovlely brown dirt stuck to them. Awesome. I picked and cleaned until they were looking pretty good and prepared to spray the second coat. I am not completely sure what happened, either the existing stain/finish on the frames or the dirt caused a weird chemical reaction resulting in cracking and bubbling. They all looked awful. I knew I should have sanded the frames down first, then sprayed them with primer, then painted them but I did not want to do all of those steps.

I should have, the frames ended up in the trash with my watercolor paintings. I was discouraged and not about wasting time or money, but discouraged in my creative sense. I really felt the urge to improve my home and being crafty but I failed. All day long I failed and it sucked.

It left me in a terrible funk all day and even night. And here I am today remembering all of my failures but feeling a bit better. I paid the bills this morning and got some laundry done.

It's a start right? Do you ever have a day like this?