new year's update. and some nice things for this week.

January 13, 2023

so it is a new year. happy new year. another year around the sun. and we’ve been busy with planning for birthdays. thinking about schools. thinking about work. I didn’t know finding a school, especially near to our house is hard. there’s barely any vacancies. but yes we are rather keen on starting school for E this year. He has just turned 4 now. more and more pressure to get him to school and have him socialise with kids. I guess also to have him get used to the school routine. now we are just on our own routine. I am grieving a bit for the future. About the changes. I am not looking forward to not getting to spend much time with E but I know we have to go through this no matter what. I have to brace myself for this change. E is probably going to be ok with all these changes if I am strong for him so I have to be ready. I can feel how hard it it is going to be already. But I guess once we get into a new routine, rhythm things will be alright.

Speaking of routines, I’m thinking I should update my website weekly. If I can keep it up for a month that will be great. Just something nice to do for myself.

1. still can’t get over the light in the morning we get in the new house.

2. Seeing the moon in the morning light.

3. more light pictures, sunrise shining through from our bedroom.

one more thing as usual, I would really like to do is read more. I didn’t manage to read just 12(one book per month) books last year I think. so I want to keep that in mind for this year. read more books.

so till next week, hopefully :)

our days in words (well most of it)

December 18, 2022

I was just looking at the date of when I last updated and I can’t believe it was October. Not disbelief at how I haven’t been updating, I just couldn’t believe how much time has passed since we moved. And I couldn’t comprehend how we were already at the new house in October. It’s very confusing. If I have to sum up 2022, all I can think about is the renovations…or maybe also how hard things have been with a 3 year old :’)

So the past month we’ve just been busy settling and also we got covid. we are still not over that I think. Both physically and mentally, we’re still in the covid haze. It came to us so unexpected, after 2 years of avoiding it. Before that we were occupied with O’s mom visiting and then straight after E got sick and immediately O too and then I got it a few days after. It was hard. We were still reeling from another sickness and now this, it’s been hard. So yes, that was almost 3 weeks ago I think. So I don’t think we were up to anything besides that. Just recovering and constantly worrying.

So I also just realised now that it has been 2 months since we moved. We’ve been settling. Getting sick made us stay home more so we were able to get used to the house more. E seems ok here too. Just that being sick made him a bit more clingy than usual. I feel like we had such a good run of independent play for a while and then after he finds that he can’t play on his own anymore. I kind of miss listening in to him playing(rather loudly) with stories he made up on his own. I hope he will be his usual self soon.

Other than that, yes just trying very hard to work, still feeling grateful that O is still able to work from home so that he can help out whenever things get too much.

Here’s our month(s) in pictures I guess.

1. We have been drinking lots of tea lately. well, I think mostly me :)

2. work table that’s not being used that often.

4. our third and fourth plant :) I’ve been looking for a plant for E to take care of and he suggested cactus so we’ve been looking around and finally found them.

6. these colourful muji pens are really nice to write with.

7. tried out drawing with posca and it’s really nice to draw and colour with it. we even tried colouring on cloth with it and it really works well.

8. me trying to capture the light in the early morning, just before sunrise. I still can’t get over the view here. big windows, big sky, big lights :)

we are already in the middle of December. The coming year seems kind of scary. but there’s always something to look forward to, too in the early days of January. Two birthdays back to back and that will always keep me busy. Scared and busy. haha. well, till next time, m

Things we have been up to lately...

October 27, 2022

We have finally moved! I can hardly believe it but we finally moved. After months of renovation works back and forth with no end in sight, we are finally all moved in. The renovation process took so much time from us, it wasn’t a pleasant experience at all but I’m glad that we are able to be done with it(almost). Moving day was ok but E was down with a really bad cough right on the day we moved. He was already reacting to the dusts from all the packing we were doing a week before the move but on the day itself, he woke up with a really bad cough and on our first day at the new house, it was just hard. First day, he actually managed to sleep through the night(with all the coughing), surprisingly. The first few nights, it was hard for him sleep, but other than that, he got on quite ok. He seems quite at home too, just playing, spending his days like normal which is nice. I guess all the months going back and forth and talking about the new house helped. So I am glad that he feels alright so far with the move. I am still adjusting. Still settling, I miss my old neighbourhood, even though its 10 minutes away. And its also where for the last three years, the three of us, have been exploring so much of and there’s just moments of us there at every turn, it’s still there, and we can still be there but it’s just that feeling that it’s different. now we are exploring our neighbourhood and it’s new and different but still the same, it’s all strange I guess.

now we are settling and sometimes it’s nice.

1. our entryway, I like that we have an entrance now :)

2. This Muji toaster :) got it secondhand kind of, since the person barely used it.

3. completed this Seinfeld lego set, after a year of receiving it.

5. my own work space. I have not drawn for weeks, so hopefully soon now that I have set up the work space.

on other things,

so yes I haven’t drawn for quite a while, nor updated my shop or did anything remotely to do with SatsumaOrange. I did before we moved, did a couple of designs for cards which I uploaded on Cardly. It has been nice to see some increase in card sales over there, so I will probably think of more designs for there. It’s nice for me for now since I don’t have to think about mailing or printing. Just designing. I should probably for now focused on selling in this way more. For a few times I tried to do so on Society6 but I never committed to it but I like the idea of selling cards so yes will try to do more of that.

link to : Cardly
i’m still open to portrait drawings.

and of course, my Etsy shop is still open.

till next time, M