"Living Each Single Day"

It's interesting to get to know how different people lead their lives. Some are doing well in life, some barely coping and there are also some who lead such unbelievable lives, and the envy of many people who can only dream to have even an inch of what they have. Everyone's motivation in life is different. What works well for one family may not be as such for another one. In social media, people mostly try to show their better side, often curated lives and of course they won't show the behind the scenes where they bust their a** hustling, working from one client to another and through late nights. Even if what they perceived to be vlogging a 'day in their life', which is like a video diary of what they do for that day, they may only choose to show perhaps less than half of what they normally do. During this Christmas season, I actually used to enjoy watching this series on Youtube called Vlogmas, a daily or weekly style of vlogging by people who don...

Talk about 'essentialism'..haha...use the lights sparingly Lately, I watched a video about how the book on Essentialism impacted her life when she read the book in the past but when she went to Korea, it kinda went out the window and she started to buy many many things that caught her fancy. So it made her feel guilty because she spent a lot on things. Her husband, on the other hand, was a more careful spender and tried not to buy a lot in Korea. And he can use the same thing for many months, let's say a pair of shoes, until it had holes and instead of buying a new pair, sent those shoes for repair. Someone I followed on IG, had a posting on her shoes, which was the only pair she had been using for the past 2 years. It started to have a hole that got bigger and bigger and the soles were totally worn off that she often slipped. One day, her friend, whom she had been using as a pillar of support like literally, just had enough of her slipping and sliding especially n...

Happy 1st December! So I try to write as regularly as I can..not online though, but most of the time, it's through my journal. Though I have been writing for many years, on and offline, and starting to get a little more regularly recently, I guess it's just my way of telling my personal life stories, as mundane as some days can be. Why? Because I want to have a sense of purpose in life and to feel human with the various emotions like anger, sadness..fair share of disappointment and happiness. To make this life more meaningful with insights and stories I've learnt and to be more reflective. Currently, I am subscribed to three things. At one point, I kinda think that I am overwhelming myself like as if I don't have enough bills to pay, lol. They are monthly subscriptions to a planner kit, a self care kit and Netflix. For the planner kit, I get quite a generous amount of stickers, papers, a pen and some special things that the company owner and designer had come up with....

Last Thursday, I was sick. But I wasn't terribly sick like I could barely stand or walk, well almost. I don't know why the stomach pains I encounter come on every few months and I don't know if this is out of habit of me not eating for several hours a day, longer if it is after 2pm til it's 7 plus in the evening. It's not some kind of fad diet. I can never do one of those keto diets. It can guarantee weight loss, most def, but it's not something that I feel that the body can sustain once you are off this kind of diet. Same goes with extreme exercise routines, not for the overall well being but to lose weight fast. But it's a good start, especially for many people who have been on poor diets due to lifestyle or eating habits which then cause them physical pain even over simple task like say, walking a certain short distance or climbing up the stairs that result in breathlessness that they just keel over. This stomach ache wasn't as bad as the first on...

I've had a series of bad luck recently when it comes to my side income of making handmade cards and mini photo albums. It's not that I am losing customers but more like, losing money not because of I lack customers but rather, these customers lack empathy over someone's hard work, time and effort.  The often situation is that I would have shown them the pics that the cards or mini albums have been done. These are the explosion boxes that take considerable amount of time and effort to make because within the box, there are 8 panels and also two or four of the panels, will have the pull out tab each. That means, it has this mechanism to pull and a series of 4 mini photos will cascade down. I would have shown the picture but I'm currently too upset to even look up for one, lol. As for the mini album, it's a 6 inches and 10 pages picture album done in the style of scrapbooking with photos and decorations. For each page, I have to creatively design the layout and ...

Two months ago, I was listening in to the mini course about loneliness. It's not that I purposely choose that topic but it was the topic of the month. The objective of the course is to listen, understand and learn how to be closer to God. So the invited speaker would be given the topic and discuss about it in 5 mini courses that were about 10 minutes long each. I lasted like perhaps the first 3 courses? I know the next two is probably just going to tie in with how you can cope with loneliness by talking to God and so on..so I pretty much know the deal.  It got a little dry too so I moved on, lol. But he is right in some ways that people can get lonely in various ways. And if they become lonely through divorce or death of a loved one or any other personal reasons, it can be difficult to cope though over time they can slowly get back into routine because no matter what happens, life goes on. It also takes a lot of mental strength to tell yourself that you have to move on and live...

Yesterday, I went to the Neon Festival at Gardens by the Bay and despite the initial heavy rain, we still went ahead with the plans because it was the last day. There were quite a number of neon lights display such as the one above but the night sky, combined with the rain and slight fog, made it a little harder to take pictures. And also coz I don't have the latest phone that can take great night pics. Fun fact. I'm always a model or two behind like when I change phones, it's usually the earlier model coz they would have lowered the prices to make way for the newer ones. Anyway, just want to share that I am excited that November is coming very soon because finally I can  go for Strong by Zumba! I am in need of some intensive exercise to whip my poor body up, lol. It's been mostly dance fitness made up of K Cardio and Cardio Hip Hop. They do make me sweat especially Cardio Hip Hop like my goodness, she's so lithe and I'm like a baby elephant trying to walk ...

Photo by  Tim Mossholder  from  Pexels One of the things I often grapple with is self love and because I am not of an average Asian female built. It could be genetics like I can never be really thin but it's ok. This is the only body I have so you know, gotta live it with, lol. I have never been those who used to be slim and then over the years, they put on weight because life happens. Then they try to rein themselves in (I suppose that's the evil of Facebook memories..) by going on these crash diet and strict exercise regime to look like those years again. I don't really have such a memory because I've always been on the heavier side. At one time, I did lose a lot of weight but I looked sickly as I also lost my appetite along the way and I didn't have a good relationship with food. Now I can eat better though I am still mindful but it is not because I want to be slimmer but rather thinking about my health in the long run. Like I am not even 40 and yet, I l...

Photo by  burak kostak  from  Pexels At times, I feel that some things are better left unsaid and I told myself many times that especially at work, keep some comments to yourself. Because you will never know if that person you confide in will just blabber to the next person. And then it becomes like some kind of hullabaloo painting you as a baddie. But in actual fact, you're just trying to help. But of course, if one does something that is unkind, it's not likely that they will say they shouldn't have done so. He or she will just turn the table around and make themselves a victim.  At first I was upset. I didn't expect that my colleague would actually quote what I said. Though I didn't regret those words, because I felt that it was unfair to me and my colleague, perhaps I should have word it better. And also, maybe I shouldn't have said out loud my intention because it may get misconstrued.  You know the saying, you can't trust anyone? It rings tru...

My family having a birthday celebration  Last Thursday, I was on course on positive workplace. I just wanted to attend a course as a sort of escape from office work, lol. After that I went for my Cardio Hip Hop class and also a birthday celebration for me and my mum at Swensons. Fun fact. My mum and I share the same birthday month and it’s a mere 3 days apart.  As for the course, it was quite a good course, a little dry, but it’s always the case because they need to also share the theories besides just doing group work. Anyway, during the group work, we were encouraged to share stories but due to limited time, the sharing was done by two people in a group each. My group happened to have some very chatty people but it was good, so I don’t have to talk so much, lol. They were like on autopilot. The trainer looked young but very experienced. Armed with experience and a Master’s degree, he is now doing private practice with half his time doing therapy and anothe...

Let me tell you my story ..lol... I know I wrote with so much enthusiasm in my last post about the drama that I recently started watching at that point of time. Now I am at the 33rd episode where the focus shifted back to 16 years later. I try to watch at least one episode per day or two if I have more time. In between train rides and boring talks, I would read the novel and I finished all of the more than 100 chapters. I actually liked how each character was fleshed out and had a story to tell.  The main protagonist, also the son of a servant, was brought up by his parents' old friend, who was also a sect leader of a well known clan. Though he was a mischievous teenager, he had a strong sense of justice and kept his promise to protecting the weak. At one crucial point, he had to leave behind his step siblings whom he loved dearly, and declared to be not of the sect anymore, as he wanted to protect the Wen clan remnants not involved in the bloody murders of his adopted pa...

I have these strange obsessions sometimes, like at one point I will be sooo much into certain K Pop bands and another time, with this highly popular Taiwanese drama. I would be looking forward to certain days, waiting impatiently for the episodes to be translated to English subs, refreshing like crazy. Oh well. Just when that series ended, I heard of another series that would sure to bring out the obsession again but I tried to watch some episode snippets on youtube, but it didn't stir up any feelings. I just thought the actors were good looking. But there was so much noise on my IG newsfeed about this show and so I thought I would give it another try. Okay, now I am obsessed. See lah. It's a Chinese period drama based on the popular online novel called Mo Dao Zhu Shi or Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation. It's a BL novel but the focus wasn't so much on the romantic aspects because one was quite oblivious and the other one, had a personality that was cold and al...

The day I discover IG filters It's almost mid week to August..argh. I am in the midst of a long weekend, which sadly will come to end by tonight. Just did some cleaning up of my room like throwing many things away because someone is going to come and fix the fibre box or something. So I need to get rid of a lot of junks.  At the same time, I am also catching up on orders. As I am typing this, I was rather cheesed off with one of the buyers but I also try not to lose it and act calmly because I don't think it will solve the matter. Speaking of which, there is no resolve in it as I don't want to trouble myself with posting the item as the person herself is not making any effort to pick up the item even though it has been days including the long weekend. There is always some darn excuse and because of that, I don't want to go to the post office, even though I could, just to make up for her tardiness. But as I always tell myself, life's like that, and there is...