May 2026

Hey friends,

It's June, and super freaking hot here. What's the weather like where you live?

I almost forgot I'm doing a monthly blogging thing. Here's my May recap.

Hubs and I finally used our SG Culture pass. This is a $100 credit per citizen granted by the government as part of last year's 60 years of independence celebration. It's meant to support local arts and heritage. I chose to attend a Batik Painting class at Kamal Arts and hubs tagged along. My daughter wanted to attend as well but the dates weren't suitable for her. The workshop is near my old home where I spent my teenage years until I got married. So much has changed I no longer recognise the area. The batik class was very basic, as expected but very doable, esp for a noob like hubs who has no craft experience. That night I had to soak the fabric in hot water to remove the wax and excess dye, followed by a soak in cold water overnight. The next day, the colours did not look as dark. I was inspired by my experience with batik painting and wanted to do something similar for my quilt but the amount of supplies I need is making me think twice. 

With zero income we're now more careful with spending. We've had slightly over a month to marinate in hub's joblessness situation. By now the shock has worn off and we've made significant adjustments to our lifestyle. There's been some tension at home on and off although I think now we've finally settled on a new norm. 

Hubs asked chatgpt and according to it, it's possible for him to retire right now. But I think even hubs knows it's too early for him to retire. Realistically, if he retires now, we'll have to penny pinch until my annuity kicks in. And that's 3 years away. His annuity is 5 years away. Oh, why can't we be older? Lol. The current job market is bad. Although hubs has applied for jobs, I don't know if anyone wants to hire a 60 year old man. The government keeps promoting stupid AI. There are jobs for people with AI knowhow which hubs doesn't have. There are courses which PAYS you to learn AI but the entry requirements are really steep and honestly, I'm wondering. Are people born in the '60s too dumb to work in today's world? 

Surprisingly, hubs hasn't spent more time on housework. I had thought with nothing on his plate, he'll be cleaning the flat upside down. Nope. Still the same amount of housework from him - loading the dishwasher, unloading the dishwasher and throwing the trash.

I know I said we're careful with spending but hubs and I went to the cinema to watch The King's Warden. Or should I say I went to watch a movie and he tagged along. It's a Korean movie with English subtitles. This is the first time I watch a Korean movie at the cinema. I like both actors so I thought win-win. Plus they won awards and I wanted to see if the movie is worth the hype. It's an okay movie. I cried twice near the end. But to me it's not a great movie. The reason I say it's not a great movie is while watching the movie, I often feel I'm watching scenes from a director's playbook. 

Oh, we gave up Netflix. I often find that I "force" myself to watch Netflix because we have the subscription. We also gave up Apple TV which I didn't even know we had subscribed to. But we're stuck with Disneyplus because it's a yearly subscription. There's nothing to watch on Disneyplus so I won't mourn it when the subscription is up. With less screen time, maybe I'll spend more time on sewing.

I crocheted a pink horse for hubs. It's for his birthday. Both of us are June babies. His birthday is in mid June. I don't think hubs reads my blog so it's safe to post the horse here. Hubs is a fire horse baby and this year is also the year of the fire horse. It hasn't been good. So to counter the fire energy I crocheted a pink horse. May it change his fortune for the better. 

Hubs and daughter went to Bangkok for a short trip. She for a concert and he to tag along. This trip was booked before you know what happened. I didn't go because I was sick of flying. I'm not sure about future overseas trips. We could go to Johor Bahru which doesn't require flying and it's cheap. Honestly at the moment, I'm not in any mood to travel.

I'm currently contemplating making some handmade stuff for sale. I haven't made anything for sale for so many years I'm not sure if it's even worth the effort. So I'll just do a small trial and see what happens. I'm only targeting Singapore as I don't want to deal with shipping overseas. My idea is to make small items for gifting and I'm definitely not going to make bags. I haven't started on anything yet as I'm a great procrastinator.

I made a cat quilt. I used some simple cat appliques which I originally was using on a beige background but I was fickle and settled on the blue fabric. Some of the cat applique don't pop as much on a blue background but I didn't want to waste fabric so I just made do. I also chose to hand quilt after forgetting how sore it made my fingers the last time. It took me forever to quilt everywhere so not doing that again. 

Anyway the 5 cats applique pattern (only applique pattern, no quilt instruction fyi) is now available in my Etsy shop. Currently there's a 40% discount. Link here. If you have an Etsy account, please do me a favour and favourite it or share it. The discount is for 1 week.

Until next time, my internet friends.

April 2026

 

Dear internet strangers and friends,

How was April for you? Me? Oh, I spent the entire month tatting and also I received some life crushing news.

Firstly, it was the same old myof*!#ingfascial pain (MPS). This round, it was the worst pain I've ever had. I say that each time don't I? It was relentless. Every single day. Neck and shoulder. Neck and shoulder. Over and over. Of course I took painkillers. But the pain stays. Seeing how I maaay (touch wood) have some kidney issues, I really wanted to not reach for painkillers so easily. Which is easier said than done but yes, I tried. I needed something to do that requires a lot of attention to keep me occupied so I won't think of the pain and tatting fits the bill. It's quite hard (for me) and you really need to focus. I did some needle tatting (quite new to me) and some shuttle tatting. 

These are the two books I referred to (the bottom book is needle tatting), some youtube channels and also Craftsy's tatting classes by Marilee Rockley. Originally I was intending to dedicate the whole post to tatting but that has changed because I'm no longer in the mood to blog about tatting.

What changed? 

Ironically, the last week of April I suddenly recovered from the stupid MPS. Like no pain at all. Nothing. Of course another cycle of pain will eventually come but that's for future me to handle. Anyways, I was so happy with myself I even worked on my complicated lace scarf and completed 2 charts. 

Then on 27 of April, I was at a coffee shop having milk tea and chicken wings - a very late lunch. Hubs called me out of the blue and said he wanted to come and meet me. I was very surprised since to my knowledge, he had gone to the office. I waited quite a while for him to show up. Later he said he missed the train stop and had to travel back. I was 3/4 through my meal when he arrived. He was dressed in singlet and shorts like he was going for a run or something. Very confusing. Apparently, he had gone home first and when he saw I wasn't home, decided to come meet me. Oh how romantic, I thought.

So I was in the middle of chewing on a piece of chicken wing when he informed me rather calmly he had lost his job. I almost choked. What? He lost his job? The current designation he's had for the past 4 years + another 14 years with the same company in another role, so a grand total of 18 years. The job that he thought he was going to work at until his retirement in 3 years when he hits 63 or even better 64 as the retirement age was raised recently. All of a sudden I lost my appetite. My stomach knotted up and ... well, none of that is important. What's important is he lost his job. And now I'm losing my freaking mind.

So what happened? Obviously I'm not going into details right? The loss of his income is going to have a huge impact on our lives. Honestly, I was devastated. I asked hubs why he's so calm about it and he said he wanted to be strong for me.

It's been a week since and we've had time to digest the bad news. Hubs is still calm so I think he's in shock. Maybe he'll lose his shit one of these days. I kinda feel hubs is a bit lost. Previously he was always working. Morning, noon and night. Now he has nothing but time.... 

For the moment, hubs says he's retired. I can't blame him. It's a tough economy right now. Plus he's old. Will we be able to cope without his income? Both of us are a few years away from the age when we're able to get monthly payout from our annuity insurance. Hubs has 5 more years while I have 3 more years. My payout is a lot less than his but once we have both payouts, zero income is actually doable. It won't be a luxurious life but we'll definitely not starve. Meanwhile, there are 5 more years to fill. Suddenly I wish we were older.

I've cried a bit a few times. I guess I'm grieving the loss of my previous fabulous life. I know, I'm still only thinking of myself. But I'm not going to cry anymore. Mostly because a few days ago I suddenly lost my hearing in my good ear. Some of you may know I only have one good ear. I went crazy when it happened and all sorts of worst case scenarios went through my head and I started crying. Then hubs reminded me it's probably due to my sinus (yes, this has happened a few times before) and I started sniffling to check my nose. You know what? He was right. I couldn't even tell my nose was blocked. So I took some unblocking nose medication and later, while I was in the shower I suddenly felt my nose unblocking and behold. I could hear! I could hear! So that's why I won't cry anymore because crying can cause my nose to block up and really, I don't need another problem in my life right this moment. So no tears for Jane.

I've started implementing some cutting of costs especially when it comes to food because no money no honey. Maybe I went a bit overboard because hubs reminded me we're not destitute. I did grumble a bit too much once when he indulged in a $2.80 chendol dessert. Lol, I think after working hard for a few decades, the man deserves a $2.80 chendol anytime he wants.

I've gone through our monthly expenses and what a relief we have no mortgage and zero debts. We use public transport and our main costs are food, utilities, insurance, phone, tax, estate maintenance fee and air con maintenance fee. Maybe we don't need to maintain the air con? Other costs that may crop up are replacement of electrical appliances.

I need to keep reminding myself we're not penniless. But as I often don't react well to changes and bad news, I find myself all over the place, feeling very insecure and not sure what to do next.

There's one piece of good news, sort of. I lost weight. I finally went below 60kg. In the past, no matter how I tried I simply never went below 60kg. Just one piece of bad news and the weight went down just like that. And it's been a few days and the weight loss stayed so don't say it's water loss. Hubs too lost a bit of weight. So that's the only good thing that happened. If our weight loss continues, we might both become thin and sexy. So look out world.

Alright, I'll stop writing now. It's been exhausting and traumatic. Hopefully I have something positive to write about in my next post.

By the way, April 2026, you suck.

March 2026

Dear friends and strangers,

Nowadays I count myself lucky if I can get through a month without any health issues. I went for my 6 monthly health tests and the results were disappointing. I knew it wouldn't be good because I've been indulging myself a lot not really watching my diet giving myself the excuse of YOLO or why live so long, etc. 1 year ago, my doctor had asked me to modify my diet to lower my cholesterol. He had high hopes I could get off the medication. So I went on a lower dosage of the meds. 6 months later, he said my cholesterol had gone up on account of the lower dosage of meds and me not watching my diet. Last month I had a checkup and again my cholesterol went up, this time even higher so my doctor lost complete faith in me and said I have to go back on the full dosage of the medication. Of course I'm disappointed in myself but what's more worrying this round is for the first time, my report card flagged 2 items - 1. high salt 2. low potassium. The high salt is a surprise because I'm usually careful with salt which means I'm probably consuming way more salt than I'm aware. The low potassium is new but I figure it's due to my low fodmap diet. I have been lazy with portion control of high fodmap food and did a food avoidance instead which is wrong. This is how I ended up with low potassium. To fix this problem, I'm now eating half a banana twice a week. I tried eating one banana and ended up very sick and another time I ate a very ripe half banana and got sick as well. So yes, the stupid banana has to be not too ripe. 

My MPS (myofascial pain syndrome) reared its ugly head a few times in March. My doctor gave me medication to take for the pain but the bastard only gave me 21 tablets. I asked for more but he said the medication wasn't good for me so I have to ration the tablets. I only take it when I feel ready to jump in front of a train. The medication works really well. The first time I took it, I slept for 12 hours. When I woke up, I felt reborn. The second time I took it, I felt I needn't have taken it because I wasn't desperate enough. I didn't sleep for 12 hours though. Now I have 19 tablets to last me for 5 months till my next health check up when I'll ask for another 21 tablets. 

Hubs has his health checkup this month and I'm pretty sure his results will be terrible but somehow his doctor (also my doctor) is less hard on him. 

My daughter too had a health scare and I was really worried about her. We've seen a specialist and she recommended a change in diet. Hopefully it will improve her condition. She too has led a YOLO life.

Making

March was such a long month and it gave me opportunity to complete a lot of stuff. 

I bought a tatting pattern from a blogger I follow. She has this gorgeous tatted necklace and despite my very amateurish tatting skills, I decided it was doable. Lol, I could follow her pattern but clearly my tatting skills are lacking. I made so many errors but of course I just kept going. I'll definitely want to make 2 or 3 more of these necklaces.

I completed this patchwork table runner/topper a while back and finally uploaded the video to youtube. I used a fusible web technique to glue all the fabric together. If you're interested, you can watch the video here.

What do you think of this embroidery project I completed? I've uploaded the video to youtube. You can watch it here. It was inspired by a painting I did. Originally I wanted to use dark blue fabric but amazingly I don't have any dark blue fabric.

This was the inspiration. It's the last gouache painting I did. I didn't see myself improving in gouache so I decided to take a break.

I also did a digital version in Procreate. 

This was the only watercolour painting I did. I seemed to have regressed in my painting. 

Oh, I finally got off my butt and did something about my vague dream of becoming a cartoonist. Not a professional one, just a hobby cartoonist. I have a Skillshare subscription and I watched 3 classes on making comics by Drewscape. I don't know who this teacher is and I got him just by searching comics on Skillshare. But I got so lucky because his lessons are pretty good and I managed to complete all 3 of his classes and below are my projects. I've drawn the comics in pencil which is so hard and my human drawing skills are seriously lacking.

The brief for the first comic: 1. Encounter 2. Interaction 3. Result

*chope - to reserve a seat using personal items, esp tissue paper

The brief for the 2nd comic: 1st level: Problem + want, 2nd level: Try & fail, 3rd level: Solution or none

The brief for the 3rd comic: 2 types of speech bubble, a mundane convo

What I've learnt after I completed these 3 projects is that making comics is harder than hard. 

By the way, if you would like a free month of Skillshare, you can use my link here. You can cancel before the trial ends to avoid being charged. If you pay for subscription, I'll get a free month. Honestly I don't need the free month because Skillshare is pretty cheap already. But if anyone wants to "look see, look see" the classes at Skillshare, you can try it out.

I finally finished my beanie/toque. It has weird mistakes here and there but it's wearable. I used a super long cabled needle to knit it and I really struggled. I tried using magic loop but it's not for me. In the end, I just knitted as if I have the proper length of cable and pull the extra cable out of the way. For the final few rounds at the top, I switched to dpn. Recently my daughter bought a set of interchangeable knitting needles/cables using the money the govt gave the citizens last year. I might try another beanie/toque using her needles.

Currently I have 2 knitting WIP - both are shawls. I've already frogged 2 other shawls as I lost interest so now I'm wondering once again if I should give up on my WIPs. I also tried to pick up fair isle knitting recently. It looks so hard. I don't know if I have enough fingers to do it. I know I tried it before long ago and my project looked like crap.

Lastly, are you guys into gel ink pens? I love Zebra's Sarasa 0.5 gel ink rollerball pens and recently I bought the vintage colours. Aren't the colours gorgeous? I particularly love the last two - orange and grey.

See you in May.