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.

February 2026

Hi internet strangers,

As promised, I'm back with another post. This monthly blogging might just work out...

February went by so quickly. You'll probably know it's the Year of the Horse (fyi, Feb 17 2026 to Feb 5 2027) and it's the Fire Horse this round, not that it means anything. The Fire element and Horse zodiac occurs once every 60 years. It's Hub's year. The next time a Fire Horse year comes round, hubs will be 120 years old.

Remember the last time I travelled with my fam to Bangkok, and there was a big fight between my daughter and hubs involving a coffee drink and digging through a rubbish bin and I swore I'll never travel with them again? Well, seems I forgot all about it and we all booked a trip to Japan (Okinawa and Tokyo) to escape Chinese New Year. Lol, I hate Chinese New Year celebrations so much that travelling with family who are constantly arguing didn't seem so bad. 

We were away for about 12 days and we only blew up at one another once. When we returned to Singapore, we were still friends, lol. 

And we did have a small belated reunion dinner + mahjong with hub's fam because hub's mom would move heaven and earth to get her reunion dinner.

Okinawa

We went to Okinawa first via a layover at Fukuoka. From Singapore, we took a SQ flight. Service is usually good although I can't say the same for the seats. Always too little legroom. We didn't take a direct flight to Okinawa because the airline that we were considering - Scoot is miserable for long flights. Anyway, I discovered my body wasn't designed for taking 2 flights within a day. And to make matters worse, the domestic flight from Fukuoka to Okinawa was extremely shitty. It was only around 2 hours but 3/4 of the flight the airplane was rattling and shaking. I honestly thought I was going to die on that flight. I had this strange feeling on the flight - like my entire body disappeared and then reappeared as if I was put back together again. Anyway I've learnt my lesson. I'll never take 2 flights in one day again.

We stayed at Naha City and you see 2 things everywhere - Shisa statues, Shisa merch. Shisa are traditional Okinawan lion-dog statues which comes in a pair with one open mouth and one closed mouth. The stuffed Shisa I bought is open mouth so it wards off evil. If the mouth is closed, it keeps goodness inside. 

I regret both the tongue and the hat

We even ate Shisa pancakes. It wasn't very good. The "official store" selling it was closed and we bought from another one not knowing better.

Another common thing I saw was the hibiscus. Even though hibiscus is also found in Singapore, I couldn't resist buying a fake one from Donki. (it's a hibiscus hair clip)

Hubs and daughter went on a boat humpback whale watching out on the Pacific ocean. I slept in because I was recovering from the 2 flights and also I don't do well on a boat. 

In Naha City, the main transport system is monorail and buses. The monorail is constantly crowded especially when there are tourists likes us with our luggage. The locals must hate us. 

The temperature in Okinawa wasn't low but strangely I felt very cold probably due to the wind. I had to wear Uniqlo's heattech innerwear and my down jacket for god's sake and hubs was wearing short sleeved shirts.

Us doing the Shisa pose

We took a very long bus ride to the aquarium. It felt like a day but it was just a few hours. Aquariums are boring to me but my daughter loves them. At the end of our visit, we accidentally stumbled on a dolphin show. We got to see the entire show and it was really entertaining despite the cold.

Food

While my daughter's goal in Japan was to acquire all her favourite character's and favourite celebrity's merch, I had nothing specific I wanted because I have so much stuff at home already. So me and hubs just tagged along with daughter wherever she wanted to go. One thing I like to do is to enjoy the food and I think I managed to achieve that somewhat.

My first meal at Fukuoka airport was a bit disappointing. The taste was alright. The rice perfect. But there were a few bones in the salmon. The bones made me jittery and lose my appetite.

The first meal at Naha City was burger and fries + ginger ale. The burger was amazing and the fries were amazing. Strangely the cook only gave us a handful of fries. Literally a handful. And the ginger ale had cinnamon in it. So weird. But the food - amazing.

We came across Hands Cafe and we had to eat there as we often go to Hands (the shop). However, food is not their forte. I had curry and much to my surprise there were only tiny bits of meat in it. Like really, really tiny. I did enjoy the side dishes.

The day we went to the aquarium, we had buffet at a restaurant before we entered the aquarium. We were starving and at first the food was really good but after a while, all the food tasted the same.

I ate twice, the same amazing onigiri from a stall at a supermarket. The taste is very simple but the addition of a vegetable in the salmon made it heavenly.

We ate a lot of food in Okinawa but these were the ones I remembered.

Hotel

We stayed at Hotel Azat Naha and it is a basic hotel. I think only green tea and coffee and a few basic stuff were provided. There was a place where you can get water. 

We stayed on the second floor and we had a "river view".

The Okinawan weather was not very kind to my nose. The air was not very dry though. My skin wasn't super affected. No cracks and just the usual amount of dry skin.

After a few days in Okinawa and honestly by then I had grown bored already, we left for Tokyo. Yup, via domestic flight but this round, we got a better plane and the flight was smooth. 

Tokyo

Tokyo was very cold but less windy than Okinawa. My nose got better although my skin felt drier so I had to apply vaseline on weak points on my face throughout the day. Since we had been to Tokyo a few times already, my daughter who's our tour leader decided to go to the less touristy side of Tokyo plus we did 2 day trips out of Tokyo. 

Hotel

Believe it or not, we stayed at Asakusa again. This area is very crowded during the day. Fortunately most of the time, we're somewhere else.

Lol, trying to look sexy

Our hotel was Hotel Gracery Asakusa. It was a bit nicer than the hotel at Okinawa. There were lots of freebies and many types of tea. For water we had to get it from the water dispenser. Our room was on the 13th floor and we did get a view, except it's of another hotel - APA hotel which is directly opposite.

Food

I got lucky I found food I like. I loved the curry soup at CoCo curry house. I love it so much I want to make it myself.

Once we were very tired, cold and needed food. We saw a Hoshino Coffee and got a table. We hadn't realised this particular outlet was a cafe, not a restaurant. Still we made do and I ordered hotdog with fries and a pot of hot tea. The hotdog and fries turned out to be so amazing. Maybe I was very hungry. And the mustard? I'm really not into mustard but suddenly I love mustard. In fact, now I'm thinking I need to buy mustard so I can eat my food with mustard. How have I lived my life all these years without mustard?

One time we were at a mall and I was asked to pick a restaurant. So I went to all the restaurants on the floor and I looked at the menus. I picked Olive House because I wanted to eat Clam Japanese Style Spaghetti. It turned out to be so, so delicious. 

Very small space

Another time we were super tired again and my daughter saw on google 2 possible restaurants. I picked tempura and we went to the restaurant (Tendon Itsuki Ginza) which had a queue as it wasn't open yet. When the restaurant finally opened, we were the last to be let in and after us, there were more people waiting. The restaurant only hires young female staff and it has a tiny space. We all sat at the counter. The tempura was cooked fresh and there's just one cook so there's a bit of waiting time. The food is good. It's just a lot. Way more than my stomach could hold.

We went to a place outside Tokyo called Kawagoe where you can find many characters' merch. The architecture reminds me of Kyoto. It's very touristy and we went from shop to shop trying the food. I had the most amazing grilled prawn for 300 yen. It was so amazing I wanted to cry. It was also ginormous. Yum, yum, yum. How do I get to eat it again, lol.

hubs posed in front of the Singapore Chicken Rice stall

One time we went to Yokohama and we ate at this food court which strangely had Singapore Chicken Rice. It tasted quite good and very close to the taste of Hainanese chicken rice in Singapore.

I love carrot cakes but I'm always scared to order from cafes I've not tried before because there are so many variations of carrot cake and my taste is so specific. After visiting a craft market, we took a short break at Bless Coffee and the carrot cake was really good. Exactly how I like my carrot cake. We had a nice time people watching outside the glass window and also escape the cold.  

My good luck with food was on a roll. Even the tacos at a random cafe were good. Of course not everything we ate was good. Some were ordinary and the only bad food I felt we had were Chinese food at a Chinese restaurant close to Ueno Zoo. It was oily and over flavoured. (hubs chose it, lol)

Craft Markets

We went to 2 craft markets, one was at a shrine. There were a number of handmade stalls and I really enjoyed looking at all the cute handmade stuff. I only bought one thing because I own so much stuff already. I felt so inspired after visiting the markets I wanted to go home and make stuff right away.

Ueno Zoo

Gentaro

Of course we visited Ueno Zoo because my favourite gorilla family in Kyoto Zoo had sent their young Silverback Gentaro to Ueno Zoo to live and also to mate with another young gorilla, Annie from Higashiyama Zoo. Both get a very small outdoor space to roam about and honestly when I saw how small it was real life I wanted to cry. It's smaller than my flat and my flat isn't exactly big. I managed to see Gentaro but there was no sight of Annie. Later I found out that Annie was bitten by Gentaro after both were allowed to be in the same space together. Currently both are in "training" to learn to cohabitate. Looks like it's not going well. In previous training sessions, Gentaro had also attacked Annie. How long will it take before both can live together in peace and get it on? 

Flight Back

Our flight back was via ANA/Japan Air. The legroom was good. We had chosen our seats such that hubs sits in front of me, both aisle seats. My daughter gets the window seat. So there's a stranger between me and my daughter. I know it sounds strange to choose such seats but I often get the worst person on earth sitting in front of me who insists on reclining all the way throughout. The boy between me and my daughter happened to be travelling with the boy sitting in front of my daughter. Throughout the flight, they kept ordering alcohol. They looked like minors but the stewardess kept giving them drinks. After we were up in the air for a while, the boys asked if my husband could swap seats with the middle boy. I was really pissed off with the request and I wanted to explain that we had paid extra to select our seats but in the end I realised I could just say no. Both boys accepted my decision graciously. It was strange that he didn't try to swap seats with the person sitting in front of him.  

Knitting

I didn't finish making anything in February. I did attempt to knit myself a beanie for my trip innocently thinking I could complete it in time. But I had started too late and since the trip is now over it seems pointless to continue. This is the current status of the beanie. Should I continue? I'm not even sure it'll fit me, lol.

Swimming

I was very diligent with my swimming. In fact, the day we came back to Singapore, it was very early in the morning and after a good sleep, I went swimming in the late afternoon. Since then I've been able to go swimming at least once a week. I'd like to go twice a week but the bad weather is a deterrent.

See you in my next post, first week of April?