Lockdown perks

 I'm darn proud of myself, really.

Over the course of 2020 and this year, I've picked up new skills. Well, random skills, really. Skills nonetheless. Thought of penning them down. Achievements, you know.

• Refreshing VBA skills. This isnt much, though. I'm happy to look at this once in a while, just coz I love Excel, heh. Did an easy template for the previous company before they made me redundant, so I felt great about it. Doing something no one could in that company.
• Knitting. Well, this is no new news. Beanies have been a joy to start and complete. Still amazed at how a ball of strings can tangle together to form fabric, take shape, and fit on my big head beautifully. I loved that I got into this hobby. Currently still knitting a beanie, for Fen. A couple of his beanies have holes/are bitten by Ash/shrank because I threw it in the washing machine.
• Sewing. How crazy. Never would I have thought I'd touch a sewing machine, much less make an entire dress out of it. It was pure fun. Did not enjoy the pinning and cutting, and these take up 70% of the time to make the garment. Pfft.
• Running and cycling. Fen and I are currently trying to get in the habit of running 2x a week, or getting a 10km run. It's just little goals we give ourselves while in lockdown. I'm making the most of lockdown, because it got boring to mope around doing nothing. Not that I really moped about it though! LOL. Just really wanted to make the time matter. We have mapped out the 10km route, have done the cycling around it to confirm. It's now just waiting to make it happen!! Running is not new to us too, but we certainly have gotten quite out of touch. It's just a lotta walking these days.
  And with cycling, we both totally forgot how AWESOME it is to go long distances. We did a 34km one Sunday, and that was so liberating! We told ourselves to go further and set a destination to reach the city when lockdown lifts. Cant wait!!
• Learning Japanese. I literally just got the textbooks last Friday. I've actually got into learning Japanese in 2019, when working as a receptionist. It was a very boring job with a lot of time on hand, and I didnt wanna become stupid, and there are free resources online. I was in and out of it until now (that's 2 years!), because I plateaued at learning Kanji, so decided to pay for this journey to officially and properly grasp the language! Really excited, because I will level up from bilingual to multilingual!!! Woohoo!! I have my last 2 years of learning Hiragana Katakana Kanji to thank for, because I'm familiar with them and can quickly move on to sentence structures and grammer now. We'll see!
• Baking. Lol. Back in SG, I have NEVER nailed baking. Short of burning myself, my creations were always a flop. Always. And now! Baking is one of my ways to relieve stress. We bake and we give to our friends. It was great to hear feedback and perfect a recipe. As usual, I only deal with easy recipes! Burnt basque cheesecake is my top favourite, and everyone loves it =D

That should be about it. I havent been this upbeat in a while, reckon it calls for a celebration eh.

Lockdown

It's another year of persistent lockdowns - certainly not complaining!

Everyday I try to find something to be thankful and grateful for, whether it's a stable job, food in the fridge, heater that works to keep our hands and feet warm in this cold winter season, healthy cats, able body to go running and do workouts..

So the past 2 months, Fen and I have been kickstarting running again, which felt good. I was feeling some pain in my left sole and right heel (wear and tear), so really happy to have them gone after resting for many weeks.

Gyms are closed, so HIIT has become something I'm getting back on. Really dreading the huffs and puffs though! But the aches are SO GOOOOD. I started only able to complete 2 rounds, finally can complete 3 rounds this week. Hopefully 4 - 5 rounds will feel normal soon! I'm such a firm believer that the body works in a 'use it or lose it' logic. So I fear losing the use of my body and the pain that will limit me in my daily life.

I was stress-baking quite a bit in Jun-Jul period, mostly to clear whatever flour is left in the pantry, and now it's back to knitting, mostly because I bought so much yarn last year lol. We've just recently packed the queen room that was piling up with stuff we bought for the move (which we dont know when), disassembled the guest bed, and kept extra kitchen cutlery away (since we cant have guests over in the near future).

At a friend's suggestion, we also bought storage drawers to tidy up the wardrobe. Had left our clothes just piling on the floor for the last 3.5yrs, and now the wardrobe looks better and presentable.

We are clocking 4 years in 1.5 months time. Cant say I'm not disappointed that we still havent found a trusty friend. By trusty friend, I'm benchmarking my lifelong friends in SG. It's a very high expectation, so I guess it's normal I'm still searching. It's extremely rare if we get to meet one true friend anyway.

We changed our connect group last month, and already are thinking of going back to Nane, who's still the best connect leader for us. From her we learnt so much about love, about Jesus, about faith. She's a person I respect a lot, even though she doesnt have all the answers she's got such a good heart. We told her we were leaving because a friend was going to start a connect and needed our support. It looks now like they can handle it without us and we're keen to go back and learn more from Nane.

Fen is still waiting on God's prompt to start his own connect group. Maybe it'll happen, maybe it wont. Till then, we still want to learn and grow in God.

Indo granny passed away in June, Mum managed to get the permit to go back Indo and spend time with granny in her last days. Glad she got back safely and went through her 14-day quarantine without a hitch.

I bought more Le Creuset cooking gear during the EOFY sale, super stoked with using them because I enjoyed using them so much. Also got back on my facial regime after my chin started flaking horrifically this cold winter.

Okay, that's my boring life. I'm sure there was more to it, but I have a writer's block now.