You want minimalism? Look elsewhere. I love my stuff. This category includes posts about bills and coins, books (including books in languages I can’t read), rocks and minerals, small little bowls, embroidered patches, and animal figurines. Plus whatever turns up on Carousell and catches my eye.
Like, um… 54.
Wait, no, sorry—forgot to count the ones on the front.
…79 total.
Actually, that’s not all, either, because there’s a $5.35 sticker from the bar code machine, which could have been used for the whole amount, no? I mean, you know, I’m just saying.
I guess my in-laws really wanted to use up some stamps that were lying around. Cracks me up! This kind of thing probably also cracks up the postal workers. Possibly not in the same way.
This hefty green rock, which measures approximately 11 inches in length, was a gift for my husband from his parents.
As of January 2018, it serves to anchor the green color scheme in our apartment’s second bathroom.
Edit: Post our 2019 divorce, this rock belongs to my ex-husband. That’s fine; there is other malachite in the world.
We bought this collection of objects (tray and wooden fruit) on our trip to Bali and Lombok, Indonesia.
It occurred to me that each fruit looks like some other object.
The one on the left, which would look like a star in cross-section, is a starfruit. It’s the most familiar of this batch to a North American.
The one that looks like a grenade is a durian. Those are famous for being stinky and prickly.
The scaly fig is a snake fruit (aka Salak). I ate one off a tree while hiking through the woods. It was sticky.
The one at the top is, I think, a rose apple (water apple), and looks like a nose in cross section. This one, however, looks very pear-like and has what look like leaves or a flower at the bottom, which is not typical in my experience. It might also be a pomegranate (delima); that would explain the structure at the bottom but not the pear shape.
The one that looks like a soccer ball is… actually I don’t know. Maybe a sugar apple (custard apple, srikaya)?
We figure we probably overpaid because the guy running the shop gave us the pear-looking-thing for free. I think he also wrote a lower selling price on the receipt and pocketed the difference.
Nevertheless, we love these strange wooden objects. They’re well made, and the detail on the snake fruit, in particular, is amazing.
Edit: Post our 2019 divorce, this collection of objects belongs to my ex-husband. That’s fine; I have other Indonesian wood carvings.
This is Guan Yu. I saw this Guan Yu statue at Just Anthony (a Chinese furniture and antique shop) a few months after arriving in Singapore, though I didn’t know who he was.
I took the photo because I thought it was exceedingly strange for a warrior to be shown in a pose reading a book. Warriors, I thought, were shown on prancing horses, holding swords or spears, or surveying the landscape. They’re not shown reading.
Ah, but you see, he’s a legendary Chinese general, and he’s reading Sun Tzu’s Art of War. That makes sense!
Figurines and statues of Guan Yu are common, since Guan Yu is commonly worshiped as a deity, or at least displayed as a kind of lucky charm. Most of the time, Guan Yu is shown riding his horse like a boss, wielding his special weapon like a boss, or just scowling and holding his very dignified beard, but some of the time, he’s shown seated, reading a book like a boss.
Hats off to you, Guan Yu, for choosing to fight with your brains and not just your brawn.
