Aloha..!!

Hello, hello!

I reckon it's been too long a break from blogging. Maybe you'll see a new post tomorrow.. or perhaps the day after, or after that, or after that...
I know what to write, but don't know how.
More like lazy.
Get behind me, o spirit of laziness. You shall be subdued!

I've missed writing elaborate blog posts, but haven't got around to it just yet because I know I'll take HOURS to perfect it. Being the obsessive perfectionist that I am, I read through my posts thousands of times to ensure every word is spelled correctly and grammatical errors are nowhere in sight (to me, at least... which could point to the fact that I'm actually not a very good grammarist).

Please be patient with me. Believe it or not, I'd love to keep in touch with you! No, this blog is NOT dead yet. It's far from dying; it is IDLE. Ha ha. I don't know what I'm writing anymore because it's past 3 in the morning.

I'll see you guys soon-time on here! Check back soon for updates! :-) X tothe OOO's.

Just kidding. Love you all.


P.S. Someone searched up "softlywhispered is an asian girl". LOOOOLLLLL indeed.

BIGGEST fail ever!!!

Alright, it's my first personal post of 2013 and let me start it with the biggest fail story to ever happen to a blog/website owner: my layout images didn't show up!!!!!! Oh my gosh, how embarrassing! I've been posting my blog everywhere and telling people about it, but no one ever told me that my layout images never showed! I had my suspicions when I decided to check on my blog from a mobile phone and noticed that the layout image had been replaced with a Photobucket error picture saying the image has been removed or something. But because I thought it was a bug or glitch, I ignored it. It was fine when I opened my blog on my laptop. It turned out, though... that I had set my Photobucket account (I upload my layout images here, not directly on Blogger because it messes up the quality) ON PRIVATE!!! Genius me strikes again! I had only realized it LAST NIGHT that both of the internet browsers I use to edit my blog contain a cache memory of my Photobucket account, which gives them the ability to access my pictures, thus allowing me to think that everyone would have the same view. So even if I set my public Photobucket account on private, I was still able to see the pictures because there's cache! Silly silly silly.

AnyHOOT, so here's a new layout I made in a few hours. It's way much simpler than the previous ones because I'm trying out something different with the design. I've been obsessed with flowers, florals, and collages lately, if you haven't already noticed.
If you're curious, here are the thumbnails of my previous blog layouts, in no particular order. I should have known you couldn't see anything! Gosh!!!

This is the one I had up before the current version

ANOTHER ANNOUNCEMENT is that I'm going to start to be more "free speech" on this blog. I know everything I've posted has been very "spiritual and Christian", but I'm slowly trying to break out of my shell in public and write about issues that are more controversial per se. I've been contemplating this for a while, but haven't been ready due to people's comments and their perception of me as a worship leader at church. But I guess I have to take the first step, don't I? I want to keep growing as a person and also as a thinker. I'm going to take a slightly steeper road to finding my identity and I hope the public (my church fellow members and friends) are ready to see me in a different light. Well, it's not as dramatic as it sounds, I promise, but my blog posts are definitely going to be more honest and raw from this time onwards. I won't post too much about my personal life, but I will write more about current issues and lighter controversies (some things are just too complex to discuss in written words). Oh, and I will be posting more beauty/skincare reviews because I want to help those who are going through the same problems as I was with my skin.

Thank you for being the awesome, wonderful readers that you all are. Here is a super old pic of me when I was 10 pounds heavier and my hair was super short. xx

Love always,

How to Save Money

I wrote this a while back and recently re-discovered it in my diary. I hope it helps a slight bit :-).

HOW TO SAVE MONEY
By yours truly

If you want to save money, first you need to create some D-R-A-M-A.

D: Determine
• Only buy what you need, not what you want.
R: Resist (discipline)
• Resist the urge/temptation to make an unnecessary purchase.
A: Ask yourself (reflection)
• Is this an investment? Is it worth the purchase?
M: Measure
• Verify the quality and lasting power; shelf life.
A: Analyze
• Examine your  previous "shopping experiences; what you learned along the way––what you did and should have/not have done.


XO,

June 14, 2012

Image from Flickr, personally edited. No copyright infringement intended.

Dear patient and loyal readers,

I'm sorry for the long and unnotified hiatus. I will be back very soon.


Love,

Private

I'm making this blog private and viewable ONLY to Blogger owners/authors for some time. There seems to have been many spam viewers these days...


Cheers,

HTML/Photoshop junkie

That's what I [still] am! I am a straight up Photoshop and HTML junkie. Give me those two things and I'll be on my way to what I like to call Geekidise. I literally spent the whole day putting together this 'other' new layout. I know I just had a new one up less than 48 hours ago.. but when I kept going back to it, I realized it was very plain. A few hours later, I found myself scrambling over thousands and thousands of vintage graphics. That's when it hit me: I LOVE VINTAGE GRAPHICS. The inspiration to create a collage-kind-of layout out of vintage images dawned on me when I was browsing through some really awesome Blogger template websites. I immediately installed Adobe Photoshop and the rest was history.

Now that I'm securely equipped with my trusty Adobe Photoshop CS4 and some leftover basic HTML skills from a few years back, you can expect me to be churning out random miscellaneous dood-a-lee dood-a-loo's once in a while (or twice a week, depending on my schedule, really).

For those of you who might be interested in creating your own layouts, please don't hesitate to contact me. I'll be more than delighted to help you :-).

That should be all I have to say at the moment. Maybe I'll do these teeny updates more frequently.
Meanwhile, I'm yet again, still awake at the wee hours of the morning.................. (x,x) => not a mathematical functions figure


Stay healthy, safe, and have a great Sunday,

Update!

I hereby present to you a new layout for this blog! I thought the last one had a little too much touch of pink, so I hope this one compensates. Since I am using "exceptional" fonts, I'd suppose only the more advanced browsers (ie. Chrome, Safari, certain versions of Explorer, and maybe Firefox?) could view this blog as is. Old browser users might have to manage with whatever shows up on their screens. Anyhow, I'm still not sure if that truly is the case.

I will continue my Mission series posts, perhaps later this week because I have an exam coming up on Monday.

Next, with the aim of clearing up some questions and misunderstandings, I'd like to point out that "HTL" stands for Hazel Theresia L. (Hazel, my first name; Theresia, my middle; and L, being the first letter of my last name). If you have been following my blog for a long time, and are a loyal reader, you would have noticed these three letters stamped on some of the quotes I often feature here. Indeed, these quotes were written by yours truly. The reason for this seemingly unnecessary elaboration is to let my readers know that they are my original quotes – originally written and thought out by me. I have observed a few people on their attempts of searching up fragments of my quotes on Google (it shows up on my stats record :-)), only to be directed to this blog. So, there you go.
By no means am I forbidding you from posting my quotes on your personal blog. On the contrary, I am utterly flattered to have my posts be featured on your blog, Twitter, or whatever else. With that said, I thank you for helping me to share and spread the word! :-)

Enough rambling on now, I shall see you all on the 'flip' side, as they call it. Love God, love people.

**And please remember to VOTE on the poll right beside this column =>. I am incredibly curious as to how people ended up on my blog – which, what we all know, is the ultimate middle of nowhere. Thanks!!**

***EDIT: I am 75 more views away from 5,000!!!! I thank every visitor who has visited my blog, be it from a mere click or friendly referral. I will be sure to reward the 5,000th viewer with something very special :-). If you are interested to receive it, drop a comment on my most recent post (at 5,000th view), or on Chatbox, which is located at the side panel of this blog :-). FYI, it won't be anything bizarre like a car, apartment key, or anything else along the lines of monetary reimbursements. Please look forward to it, but I would not suggest you to get your hopes up! *wink*


Cheers,

Gentle reminder

Just wanted to share an inspirational message with my readers.

Image via weheartit

Love always,

Perspective or role play?

Image via Tumblr

From Miss I-Am-Obsessed-With-Hello Kitty,

Sometimes

Sometimes I wonder..
What it would be like to lose the person we love and care about,
Not being able to be with them during their last moments,
To find out the news through someone else,
To realize they are no longer walking, breathing, living on this earth,
To realize they are no more,
To be left alone with so many unfulfilled promises,
To have the last conversation ever with them the night before,
To lose a significant part of what we were,
To cry through endless nights in hopes that they would be revived..
But they won't. They're gone.

Sometimes, just thinking about it makes me go crazy. I don't know how I would manage to survive such a nightmare.

Sometimes I could imagine crying my eyes out if I were to be in a situation like this.

Sometimes it's hard not to think about it.

Sometimes I even wish that God could perhaps make some arrangements and let us be called home together.

Sometimes some of us just aren't that fortunate to have such a privilege.

Sometimes we just have to wait.

Under what disguise?

Earlier today I stumbled upon a newspaper article about the recent shooting of a TTC worker. As a result, police are increasing the number of disguised cops to ride the TTC on a regular basis to ensure the safety of commuters. I thought this article was particularly interesting and it made me contemplate the chances of encountering an undercover cop on my TTC rides.

As I took a train home, I began to be more wary of my surroundings; not only for suspicious individuals, but I also took more notice of those people who seemed to be average commuters getting home after a long, tiring day of work. The question of identity then crossed my mind: WHO are these people?

Some of us may be wearing a mask to cover our real selves. What you see isn't always what you get. How truthful are we to the public eye? Do we put up a façade to conceal what's underneath? Everything becomes an intricate enigma. Everything's a mystery. Everybody's a mystery. What goes on in one's mind is not discernible to the person sitting beside him, to take at face value. I don't think that anybody is or should be an open book to anybody. Besides, even if there was an actual dictionary, which could help me translate other people's outward expressions, I wouldn't say I'd be interested to purchase it as a keepsake. Maybe I'd turn a few pages out of meticulous curiosity... but I wouldn't bet on it. I'd like you to keep me guessing.

Pixellin' addiction

Hey guys,

Lately I've been so ADDICTED to making pixels! Here are a couple of new ones I recently made, inspired by the adorable Qoo drink bottles. I first discovered it in Korea about 11 years ago, and it quickly became my favourite childhood drink. If anyone knows whether they are sold in Canada, please let me know! :-)

Disclaimer: The following graphics were made by me, pixel by pixel, using the Paintbrush program on Macbook. If you decide to put them up on your website/layout, please leave me a credit anywhere on your site. Thank you.
© Qoo by Coca Cola

Fuji Apple

Apple flavour

Long gone

Hello my lovely readers,

I apologize for the recurrent long breaks I'm taking. I am very busy with all the things that are going on in my life, hence the lack of time to update my blog/mission trip series. In the meantime, please browse through these awesome websites while I get my gear back on! :-)

Be encouraged and be kind to one another. I hope you all are having a lovely week.

• Annie's Home Page
• Joel and Victoria Osteen
• Max Lucado's Daily Devotionals
• Free Rice Game
• Free Flour Game
• Click to donate a bible

I'll be home for Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL YOU, MY SWEET AND DEAR READERS (who celebrate it)!
May this Christmas bring peace, joy, and warmth to your hearts.

From my snowman gingerbread cookie to yours,
H.

A toast to the end

It's finally over. After months long of perpetrating name-calling and back-stabbing attacks, it has reached an agreeable appeasement. Apologies have been made and history is long gone, six feet under. I just hope that all this will merely be part of a petty past we will never have to recount or recollect. And I hope that we go our separate paths, wishing each other the best possible for whatever may come in our lives.

Forgive, forget, never look back.

Cheers,
to acquaintances.

Just this once

We would do anything for love.
You would do anything
I, for love,
Would.

You simply can't explain the feeling.
It's not that simple.
It's not a feeling.
Not an emotion,
either
At least I don't think so.

How were we last month? 6 months ago? 2 years ago?
We have something distinct to ourselves that no one else can have.

We know who each other is.
You know me, I know you.
KNOW me and you.
And I mean, KNOW.

And that's all that matters. Right? :-)


*Crazilyinlovewithyouasalways*

A walk down the M lane

I  remember when I used to write about the most random things in my life on my blog. Had they been about relationships, friendships, fellowship, hardship, courtship–whatever ships they were. I don't know why I stopped. Do you think I should jump onto the boat and start doing that again? Let me know.

ON ANOTHER NOTE, I am sorry that my posts have been lacking, especially the mission ones. I will soon resume writing and finish up my mission series. Thank you for your patience and understanding, everyone.
xx,

Hazel

I MISS YOU.

"Then maybe it's true that I can't live without you."

Was it worth it?

Love.

Why waste it when it's not reciprocated? It takes two to BE in love. What's the point of having a one-sided relationship? You chose to wait and ended up wasting your time waiting for something that you knew would not come.

Being held onto for several months and then released after another. What were you thinking? What made you think that she deserved your time and effort and attention?

You had your reasons to stay. But frankly, was it worth it? At the finish line, you were left alone after she bid her sweet good bye and took off in an instant. YET, you still clung on to the words she once uttered to you, the things she did, and the memories you had together. Her words deludedly swallowed her actions. And what do memories mean if they aren't mutually shared?

Was it all worth it?

You're right. You should've taken that move much earlier before she did; pack your bags and catch the last bus ride at 2 AM. That way, you could've saved yourself some remorse.

Perhaps you loved her. Perhaps you really loved her. Or maybe, you just didn't know her.

In my own words, you could do better.

Siggy

I now have a signature template! Horrayy!! =D