min-myinnersoul

All rise and applaud the magnificent Kim Yu-Na. Kim who ? You could be forgiven for asking that if you aren’t into winter sports. But if you have been following the Vancouver Winter Olympics, you cannot , but be mesmerized by the story of the wonderful Kim. Kim Yu-Na is arguably the most famous athlete in South Korea. All of 19 years old, she’s dubbed “Queen Yu-Na” and is a superstar in her country. She was the overwhelming favourite to win the women's figure skating event in the Olympics. A nation’s hopes was riding on her shoulders – South Korea had never won anything in the Winter Olympics apart from speedskating. They are having a great Olympics, winning well beyond their expectations, and their Queen was their brightest hope. But her long time rival Mao Asada of Japan was a formidable threat. And the emotions and the crowd were with Joannie Rochette, the Canadian, who lost her mother only a couple of days before. This is an event where America has traditionally dominated – n

I know that you have all been waiting for this giveaway, so here it is....   A $25 GIFT CARD TO HOBBY LOBBY!!! I know that you all are super pumped. So here's whatcha do... 1. You have to be a follower of Fussy Monkey Business 2. You have to leave a comment.  3. The comment has to refer to this acronym.....F.M.B.G.G. **be creative, make something up, but keep it clean:o)  The winner will be announced on Wednesday March 3rd. You can enter twice. GOOD LUCK!!!!!!! This giveaway is closed.

FEATURE FRIDAY IS HERE!     Thanks to Alainna for sending me these cute boxes. She is expecting her first lil bambino and made these sa-weet storage boxes. She got her idea  here . I am definitely making some of these for my craft room/closet....yes my craft room is a walk in closet with NO windows...however, I am thankful to have a place to be able to shut the door and leave the mess behind;o)

If you have followed the Toyota story, the latest twist of Toyota’s Chairman, Akio Toyoda being called to “depose” before the United States Congressional Committee, shows that the US politicians just don’t get it. “Surely if Congress can be here, so can you," Congressman Darrell Issa of California said in an electronic letter to Toyoda. Separately, he said he would "fully support" subpoenaing Toyoda, which means compelling him to appear. Behave like this and then wonder why the US is disliked so much elsewhere !! To his credit, Toyoda-san chose to appear in person. He was subject to typical bullying and rudeness by pompous Congressmen, who were of course making political capital. Toyoda-san handled it with much grace and typical Japanese politeness. Grace and politeness are alien concepts to US Congressmen. While Toyota is facing huge recalls and much business trouble, the key is that they have done nothing breaking the law. The “outrage” by the US Congress is all abou

  Here's a little color inspiration....Don't these colors just scream SPRING! They also scream "S.R.'s BIRTHDAY PARTY IS NEXT SATURDAY!!!! I can't wait for her party. There are so many cutesy things out there for little girls and their special days. As I said in a previous post, we are doing a butterfly theme for her party. I have been buying little by little over the past two months, and I have found some really cute stuff. I have been trying to figure out what I was going to do as far as table-scapes(yes, it's one of those kind of parties, and yes I am one of those mothers:oP) I was at Ross the other day perusing their Easter stuff and ran across this vinyl table cloth for $4.99   Personally, I really didn't want to go the vinyl route only b/c I like a little "fancy" in my parties, but then I came to my senses and realized that there are going to be 2 & 3 year olds running around like little precious "crazies" in my house. OF COURS

Many of you have seen this chair, but I thought that I would share the story behind it. I am in L-O-V-E with garage sales. I love the thrill of the hunt. Finding a treasure for next to nothing sends me over the top:o) This chair was one of those finds. When I found this chair, we were in the process of deciding whether to build a new house or add on to our existing home. So of course I had to start looking for more furniture...even though we had no idea what we were doing yet;o) Anyway, it was a beautiful Saturday morning, I am out dying to find something and there it was...the chair. I walked past it once, then again, saw the price and said to myself, "Ain't happenin'", then walked past one more time and then asked the seller, "will you take $25 for it?" And of course you know they did b/c now I own the sucka:o) They helped me load it in my van(yes, I own a van and you would too if you knew what was best for you...I haul EVERYTHING in that bad boy) Well we

I know that I have been all about some girly stuff here lately, but I do remember that I have a little boy. For all you mom's who need a little inspiration in all things boy, here ya go...This was my son's room in our last house, Over-The-Top Beach Theme...I haven't started on his room in the new house yet, but the wheels have definitely been turning. As soon as S.R.'s birthday party is over, E. is gonna get some love;o) Here are a few pics of his old room..when his mother actually paid him some mind...   The mural was painted by a lady that attended church with us...isn't she "Tha Bomb"??? My mother actually visited a model home and they had this same mural displayed in one of the children's bedrooms. "Tha Bomb" was able to use the picture that my mother gave me and copy it backwards to make the Woody face the right direction in E's room. I'm tellin' ya, she's awesome!     I painted the wave, and I'm not nearly as talente

  All I have to say is THANK YOU Krylon Cherry Red! I truly had forgotten how much fun it was to spray paint furniture. Back in the day, that was my method of choice...how could I forget how much fun it was?!?! Anyway, my inspiration came from  All Things Thrifty , a blog on how to re-purpose shabby furniture and make it fabulous. Thanks to Brooke for pointing me in the right direction!!  I had a serious color issue (or should I say the lack there of?) in a corner of my living room. Too many wood tones...wooden chairs, wooden buffet, wooden floors, and wood toned accessories...So Very Blah! It has been driving me CRAZY for weeks, but I didn't know what to do until I saw the hutch on A.T.T. Here's the before...   A close up   Even closer..YIKES! Can you tell how old this thing is:o)   My mother gave me this piece a few years ago. She was going to trash it just because the thing is falling apart(as you can very well see). I saved it from being disposed of, and didn't do a t

How do you price services which are very exclusive and for which there is no possibility of a real market ? Is there some such thing as a “fair price” or is that concept an oxymoron ? Does public opinion on what constitutes “excessive” have any role to play ? Should pricing have any relation to cost at all ? Not easy questions to answer. Welcome to the world of investment banking. The case that triggers this post is a legal suit filed by JP Morgan on Consolidated Minerals (ignore who they are for the purpose of this issue), in an Australian court. The case relates to the acquisition of Consolidated Minerals, a mining company, by Palmary for A$ 1.3 bn. JP Morgan was Consolidated Minerals' advisor in the acquisition. But the new owner, Palmary has a dispute on what fees must be paid by them to JP Morgan. Palmary believes that JP Morgan’s fees should be A$ 7m. JP Morgan believes it should be A$ 50m. Hence the dispute. Its extremely rare for investment banking fees to be brought to co

Hu nian kuai le; or as they say in Guangdong, Kung hei fat choi. It’s the end of the spring festival holiday in China. After a week of festivities, millions of people are wending their way back to work. Come Monday, and life will be back to the routine. The overwhelming feeling is akin to a schoolgirl having to go back to school after the summer vacation. It is rather a strange feeling being in Guangzhou during this period. It's my third spring festival in China and I still haven’t got over this strangeness. For Guangzhou is half empty at this period as everybody who’s from elsewhere in China goes back home for the new year celebrations. This period sees the largest human migration in the world. Some 200 million people leave their place of work and go home for the festival. As China is full of migrant labour who have come from for work, this number balloons every year. Imagine the challenge of transporting 200 million people in a week. And then a week later transporting them back.

Our anniversary was at the beginning of this month, so a gift was in order. The hubs is a HUGE 'Bama fan. He has his own office in our new home, and has started with the Alabama theme. (It isn't tacky...yet;o)) He has one of those stained glass lamps with a Bama emblem on it(which was very expensive, thank you in-store credit). I plan on buying some hounds tooth fabric and making him some curtains. Anywho, I really wanted to get him an Alabama print for our anniversary.... have you seen how much those puppies cost? Outrageous! So anyway, I thought that I would try to draw something for him, since I used to be a fairly good artist. I have always been able to copy cartoon art, but had never been able to draw living objects. I couldn't ever get the shading right.. I decided I would try to draw an elephant. I wanted the ears to be flared, so I hopped on the internet and typed in Elephant. The first elephant I came to had his ears flared, so boom there ya go, off to the printer

One of the largest job creators in the world is, well, you. You don’t need to necessarily work for somebody else – you can work for yourself. Millions do. Entrepreneurship is truly a magic bullet to overcome unemployment. Entrepreneurship is a long and complicated word. It hints at some grandiose big startup ; it doesn’t need to be. The largest number of entrepreneurs run an organization of 1 – themselves. It’s the corner shopkeeper, the street trader, the plumber, the carpenter, the doctor, the taxi driver, who are truly the greatest of entrepreneurs. They don’t moan about unemployment. They don’t demand 6 weeks of holidays a year. They don’t demand travel privileges in first class. They just work hard and earn their own living. Entrepreneurship need not necessarily need huge capital. It doesn’t need breakthrough ideas. It doesn’t need a MBA. It however needs commitment, guts, hard work, luck and some breaks. I’ll tell you the story of an entrepreneur I know. He comes from Bihar, o

Everyone is making these tutu skirts, and they are absolutely too cute. I LOVE the pettiskirts, and have seen several different tutorials for them, but I know myself too well, and I would be ready to throw my machine out the window if I attempted one. So I decided that the tutu skirt would do just fine. I found a video tute on You Tube. These are super simple to make. I made this one while the kids were napping yesterday.  S.R. will be wearing hers for her birthday. I plan on appliqueing a t-shirt I found at Target the other day for $1.50 to match the skirt. I also got her some cute leggings. She isn't really pumped about wearing the tutu, probably b/c it's so stinking bulky, but she looks like a doll in it....so she's wearing it:o) I think I will let her play in it a few times before the party so that she will be used to it. Tell me what ya think...have you guys tried to make one yet? I would love to see your pics. I am thinking about adding some embellishments. I am dying

About a year ago, I made E a Super Man cape. He wouldn't touch it. He didn't like anything on his back or neck...we're just now getting him to wear clothes at home:o) (I say that, and I just saw both of my children run upstairs in their skivvies) Anyway, when little sister started showing some interest in the cape, he began to wear it. You know that little thing called sharing? Well it happens on rare occasions in  this house, so S.R. needed her own cape. All the fabric that I used was on hand. Like the left over fabric from her curtains(yeah, I know, it seems like I have used that fabric in SOOOO MANY projects..I'm trying to get rid of it!) I used another coordinating fabric as well. I used E's cape as the pattern b/c somewhere along the way I lost the other pattern I made. I cut out the emblem using the white fabric, and I embroidered her name on it. That was almost a pain....my machine only embroiders in a 4x4 square and I wanted her name big. Let's just say

Build and they’ll come. Economists hate this phrase. They won’t come; they say. Maybe not to the land of the politician who said "Drill baby, drill" and to whom the title of this post owes apologies to. But in most parts of the world, they will indeed come. Infrastructure development is surely the policy area where most countries have performed poorly in. In developing countries it is because of lack of prioritisation (wasteful subsidies are considered more important) and rampant corruption. In developed countries – it is the NIMBY problem – do it anywhere, but not in my backyard. Everywhere infrastructure has been allowed to dramatically deteriorate (witness America’s airports, Britain’s M25, California’s power cuts, …..) Two stellar exceptions – Britain in the colonies in the early twentieth century and China of today. That a robust infrastructure is fundamental for economic growth is well known. But I argue here for infrastructure building as a great way of creating jobs.

A few weeks back I made an extremely lame attempt to make shams for S.R.'s bed. I had some left over fabric from her curtains, and thought I new what I was doing. I was gettin' all crafty thinking I was going to put a ruffle on it...it turned out terrible. So for that amount of time, I have been trying to tuck and disguise my terrible sewing job...   I had some white fabric lying around, and thought...why not give the shams a try...again...now that I have had ample time to figure out how to really make them. I had some pillows stuffed in a closet that weren't fluffy anymore, so I figured I would just cut open a few and use those to stuff the shams.   I wanted to put her initials on them so that they wouldn't be just plain Jane shams...no offense to any of you Jane's out there;o) Anyway, I went to the computer, found a font that I liked (Elephant), blew it up to like 400 or so. I made the W slightly bigger. I ran out of fusible stabilizer, so I had to use what was on

That’s the title of the book written by Jack Fingleton, for me the greatest cricket writer who ever lived. Its about the famous post war series, which was Don Bradman’s last series ever, when he led the 1948 Aussies, arguably the greatest test team of all. So a visit to the home of Don Bradman, is a form of pilgrimage to a cricket lover. I was in Adelaide last week and did something which I rarely do in business travel – took an evening off to go to the Adelaide Oval to see Australia play West Indies in a one dayer. The Adelaide Oval is one of prettiest cricket grounds in the world. Not the barbed wire coliseums that you see in India. Not even the huge gargantuan monument that is the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground for the cricket uninitiated). A small pretty ground where you can roll on the grass near the sight screen and watch a lazy day’s cricket. It was a day night match and I could only go after the end of one innings. But then summer evenings are long in Adelaide and it was more li

I hope that you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day. I am really looking forward to mine...Try to stay warm, since everyone I know will be experiencing some form of precipitation....          

Education is key to development – it would be hard to dispute this simplistic truism. But what education ? Primary ? Secondary ? Institutions of high learning ? What ? This post argues for vocational training being the single biggest priority. There is no doubt that universal primary education has to be a basic human right, and a basic human responsibility. But I would place vocational training a shade above even that. For vocational training ensures people have jobs. Ensures that they have a little more wealth. And when they have that they would themselves ensure that their children receive the best primary education they can find, and afford. Both China and India do a lot in the field of vocational training. Training people to be machine operators, welders, plumbers, carpenters, nurses, technicians – there are scores and scores of professions where , with a little training, people, who are otherwise unemployable, can find a job. These don’t need a very high basic education for it to

S.R. is going to be 2 years old in just a few short weeks. I have already been collecting stuff for the big bash. I decided to do a butterfly theme, just because...no real reason, other than I thought it would be sweet:o) I started making tissue paper pom poms today thanks to sweet Martha 's help(and thanks to Deanna for pointing me in the right direction). I dreaded making them, but they were very simple. I have also cut out DOZENS of butterflies to use as decorations. I am going for a very whimsical look, and can't wait. I will definitely post the pics. Here is just a smidgen of what's to come:o)   The pom poms are in the background, and as you can see, there is all sorts of favors, decorations, and fun stuff. I haven't spent over $1 on anything accept the Elefun game(butterfly catching game) and it was $13.88 at Walmart.  Hubs is very proud, since I went completely over board with E's carnival party last year:o) Anyway, besides playing Elefun, there will be a Bu

Ok, I know I said that I was making this baby week, but I had to post this b/c I was so excited about it. Remember the coffee table makeover? The one I got from Goodwill for I think $7.50? Remember the ugly top that used to have glass in it? Well, we FINALLY got it finished and I am so pumped about the results. The Before.....   Blech!  And the After....  Ahhhh! Here's how we got to the after...I have a gallon of black paint that will last me until my children go to college. Used that...2 coats. Went to Lowes and had them cut 4 panes of glass. The openings were 15x15...easy enough. Then over to Hobby Lobby. This was the expensive part. I had them cut out 4 mats with an 8x10 opening. That was $32:o( Wasn't so happy about that one, but I knew that I didn't want to put myself thru the frustration of trying to keep everything even and so I left it to the pros. Taped our sa-weet beach pictures in them...from LAST YEAR!  Next came the glazier points. You should probably put some

Every diaper bag usually comes with a changing pad, so of course I had to make one. It is one of the easiest things to make...ever. I didn't take step-by-step pictures, but this one is so easy that I can just tell you how to make it. Supplies: -Terry cloth towel or soft fabric -Coordinating fabric(with the diaper bag, that is) -Double fold bias tape...the kind that is used for quilt binding -Ribbon How to: I have a changing pad that came with a diaper bag that I own, so I used that as my pattern. If you don't have something like that just lying around, you can use freezer paper as your pattern. The dimensions are 23"x15"(with rounded edges). Lay your pattern on the towel, pin, and cut. Do this with the coordinating fabric as well. Put wrong sides together and baste. This helps prevent any slippage. Now for the bias tape. You will want to place your cut ribbon at one end, overlapping on either side of the pad, and then pin your bias tape all the way around. Stitch. Mak