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.