June, July & August 2026

Hello lovely people,

I've been missing from my blog for a couple of blog posts. Nothing happened. I was just too lazy to write a post. Also my life is boring so nothing exciting to report really. Just growing older. Every day. Some days I feel as if time stood still but of course time marches on and on.

Growing old is hard. Parts of you keep crumbling and hurting. Hubs does aging rather well. He exercises like a maniac. Like every day. He also started eating yogurt with cereal and nuts for breakfast every day. Yes, he eats lunch and dinner like normal. Anyway, he ended up losing a bunch of weight. I'm jelly but I can't seem to break my bad eating habits and also I don't want to exercise. So my weight loss is very minimal. My weight has hovered between 58 and 60kg back and forth, not getting skinny anytime soon. So don't hold your breath. I have a blood test end of the month. I'm so nervous about the result but I've lessened my salt intake and eaten a wider variety of food so the results should improve right, right?

One thing really nice about being a senior citizen is the lower rates you pay for cinema, transport, supermarket (just once a week), swimming pool and probably more stuff.

Hubs and I watched a few movies - Supergirl, Spiderman and The end of Oak Street. (I found Supergirl irritating, Spiderman was so-so and the dinosaur movie has a super big plot hole). 

Oh, we finally switched our phone plans to senior citizen ones. It's definitely cheaper but for my plan, I discovered my telco had been slapping on a service which I never asked for but I never noticed because it was given for free. After switching to the cheaper plan, suddenly I was charged for the nonsense service. I had it cancelled but the bill doesn't reflect the cancellation. Anyway hubs has to get a refund in future, so yes it's his problem now. The telcos in Sg are bastards for always adding in stuff you don't ask for in your bill. At first they give if for free and it's ON YOU to remember to cancel. Such assholes. I wish the govt will come down harder on them. Like jail the CEOs or make them do community service.

I stopped swimming for a month in July. I forgot why. Probably had some nose/ear issues. I'm back at it again, just once a week is all I can manage. For many months this year I've been doing push ups (the easy way standing up) and pull ups (the easy way) to improve the strength of my arms and shoulders. I thought I was doing great but recently I hurt both my elbows so that has to stop for a while. I'm also going to abandon some housework as well as I'm really scared of triggering my tennis elbow. That is one hellish pain I never want to experience again. I remember I got it treated using shock treatment. Just imagine someone swinging a hammer at your elbow over and over. It cost me 1 grand but it worked.

Oh, I have some updates regarding hubs. After a lot of waiting and much uncertainty, he managed to get into a 3 month course at a polytechnic. It's a career transition programme for unemployed so he only paid $40 gst. Most of the fees are covered by the government while the rest are paid for from his education fund, also gifted by the government. If all goes well, he might be able to draw some training allowance. It's something new to us and there are lots of (invisible) hoops to jump through. Poor bugger. He'll have to attend school for 3 months starting next month. I hope he won't ask me to do his homework.

Making

I did a lot of sewing and tatting. I ended up with a mountain of scraps. 

This is my Black Birds quilt using Black birds applique pattern from my Etsy shop. The background was placed on top of fusible web. After ironing the fabric to adhere to the fusible web, I machine sewed the raw edges. Sometimes I use this method to create a background when I'm too lazy to do piecing.

I made 2 pouches. My daughter has claimed the pink one and I the black one. I intend to use mine to store my in-progress tatting projects.

I did a lot of tatting. These are just the ones I photographed. Have I mentioned before how much I love tatting? I realise I'm not into complex tatting patterns. These are fairly easy. 

I sewed a whole bunch of coasters and a few placemats. 

I've listed some of the coasters on Carousell. None has sold so far. It's not an ideal marketplace because it's more known for preloved goods. But I couldn't find another online marketplace in SG with zero fees. I'm also limiting shipping to Singapore because I can't deal with overseas shipping. I'll add more stuff over the next few weeks. If I don't sell anything it won't break my heart. I had so much fun making the stuff. 

See you in my next post.

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.