Heavy rain, light on work

It was pouring for most of today 🌧 I needed to go out and run some errands, otherwise I would’ve just stayed home in this miserable weather. I wore my gum boots, that’s how intense it was today 😆 The rain still managed to get into my boots, though, and my socks were making that lovely ‘squish’, ‘squish’ sound every time I walked. Faaantastic.

Kitty was in a good mood, though. She followed me around everywhere I went, it was so cuuute 🥰 I felt like I had a dog today 😂

I also finished my next YouTube script. I wanted to film it tonight, but I was too tired to do anything, so I’ll have to leave it for another day. Tomorrow, perhaps. I feel like this week hasn’t been the most productive of weeks. And Thursday and Friday are public holidays, so I’m not expecting to be doing much on those days either, so it just feels like it’s going to be a pretty light week. Oh well, we can’t always be productive, I suppose 🤷‍♀️

Compassion all around

Kitty woke me up again a few times last night, so I didn’t feel all that well rested when I got up this morning 😔 Sometimes I can survive the day, and other times I can’t. Today was in that latter group. Plus on top of her waking me up, when I was sleeping, i was having a rather stressful dream too. So it wasn’t the best night’s sleep at all 😔

But I managed to sneak in a nap later in the afternoon today, and now I’m feeling so much better 😅 I’m still tired, though. The nap feels like it has just ‘ caught me up’, if that makes sense. I’m sure I’ll still be able to get to sleep at a decent time tonight.

But because I was running on ‘low battery’ for most of the day, I was being much more compassionate not only to myself, but also towards other people. Everyone is going through 💩 of some sort. Everyone. I don’t know any person who does not have 💩 going on in their lives. It’s just that everyone’s 💩 looks different. I was fully accepting of this today.

So I took it easy on myself today. I would have liked to have done more today, but a ‘low battery’ day is not when you go full steam ahead. It’s when you go into economy mode, try and save your limited battery for the truly essential things. And that’s exactly what I did.

Hopefully I’ll be fully recharged tomorrow, and I can go in with all guns blazing 💪

Movies in the COVID era

We went to the movies for the first time this year, in our current COVID era. Seats seem to be in groups of two here, and then they tape off the next seat, and then there are another two seats together, and so on. So at least N and I could still sit next to each other. I think in some countries, they don’t even allow two people to sit next to each other, so I’m grateful for that 🙏

They have two rules, though, imposed by the HK government: you must wear your mask the entire time you’re in the cinema; and no food and drinks are allowed inside (because you can’t take your mask off). This latter rule was tough because I always have coke and popcorn when I watch a movie. Always. Ever since I was probably 12 when I first started going to the movies with friends. And I have never deviated from this. I may occasionally add something else to this, like an ice-cream, but I always have coke and popcorn. Always. No exceptions. Until the stupid rona changed all that. Sighhh…

We watched Tenet. Have you seen this movie? OMG it makes Inception look like a kid’s movie 😱 I had no idea what was going on 🤣 Anyway, I’m not going to say anything more about the movie in case you want to go and watch it. Let me know what you think of it if you do watch it!

Yum cha and the Apple Watch

We went to our favourite yum cha place today, which has finally reopened. It was busy as, I think all the tables were full 😱 They’ve swapped all their tables to smaller ones, matching the current public gathering maximum of four people. We didn’t have to queue up, though, so it’s still not as busy as it usually is. This yum cha place is popular with tourists, though, and they’re next to non-existent right now, so I think that explains the lack of a queue.

We then went to the Apple store afterwards, I am thinking of buying one of their watches. But I think because of the design of the new watch bands and how they have to measure your wrist to get the right band fit for you, they were asking people to queue up if you wanted to try on one of the watches. The queue was a little long and it was moving veryyy slowwwly, so I decided to just view the watches that were underneath their glass cabinet display. I’m still not 100% convinced yet anyway, so I’m still thinking about it.

Do you have an Apple Watch? What do you think of it? Do you think it’s worth the investment? It’ll be my first watch (so I’m obviously not an early adopter of technology 😂), so I’ve survived without one up until this point. So right now I’m thinking, why bother…

Then again, that’s exactly what I thought of the smartphone back in the 2000s too… 🤣

Books and interrupted routines

I went into the library app to renew my library books, exactly how I’ve been doing it all year 😂 It feels like the libraries here have only been open for about 2-3 months this year – and one of those months was January, before this whole pandemic started! 😱 So they’ve allowed people to continually renew their loans online basically indefinitely, with no overdue fines being imposed, simply because there was no way you could return your books!

So I went into the app exactly how I’ve been doing so all year, ready to go through the same process again. Only this time, I find out that I can’t renew my books because I’ve already renewed them a bajillion times, and libraries are now open so I can actually go and physically return them 😆

In a way, this was a bit sad, because I was getting so used to the indefinite renewal process and being able to hang on to the same books for months 🤣

But I returned them today and, of course, managed to find new books to borrow 😆 So that part of being able to borrow new books is nice to have back again!

Oh and what was the fiction book that I decided on? And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. I read this yeeears ago when I was still at school 🧒🏻 I don’t remember any of the detail, I just remember that I really liked the book. So let’s see how much I like it this time around as an adult 👩🏻

YouTube and reading goals

I finished another YouTube video today – woohoo! It’s always such a good feeling whenever I finish one. They take foreverrr to make, but it’s so good when I finally get one done 😊 I mentioned the other day (or was it yesterday? The days all just blur into one 😂) that I was thinking of trying to do two videos per week. Errr, not sure if I can do that! I don’t know how people create more than two! Maybe if I had one or two people helping me, yeah sure. And if I was actually making money from the channel and I could actually pay someone to help me, then yeah sure. But even then, I’d probably still want to do the vast majority of the work. But hey, I’ll let you know when I am actually at that stage!

I have only read one fiction book this year 😱 Everything else that I have read has been non-fiction. Maybe I need to add some variety and throw in a fiction book in the mix! 🤪 How about Harry Potter? Or even Game of Thrones? I’ve had that book for aaages now and I still haven’t read past page one 😳 I also have Brave New World and The Handmaid’s Tale. Maybe I just need to read something lighter? Maybe something by Liane Moriarty? I haven’t read any of her stuff in ages.

I’ll let you know tomorrow what I decide 😊

E-cleaning and bloopers

I cleaned up the files on my computer. I was pleasantly surprised as to how organised I have kept them 😆 But now it has come to my attention that I should invest in an external hard drive so that I have a backup of all my files. Yet another technological expense 🙄 And one of those ones that are ultra boring but also ultra important! So how much will one of those babies set me back??

YouTube recommended some bloopers of newsreaders’ or reporters’ families appearing in their live news feed or interview that they were doing 🤣 And it’s much more common this year because everyone’s been working from home, so it has been a good source of bloopers for the audience 😂 I didn’t get back to working on my own YouTube video because I was too busy cacking at all the bloopers! 🤣

I needed the laugh, though, as I wasn’t feeling all that happy happy joy joy today 😔

Cancer and YouTube videos

I wasn’t feeling all that great today. And then we heard that one of N’s mates has been diagnosed with breast cancer 😢 It’s stage 2, and prognosis is good, apparently. But still. She will have chemo and radiotherapy for the next 6 months. Sigh. That sorta put all my trivial complaining into perspective 😔

I then started to think of it would be possible for me to create two YouTube videos each week. I thought I’d give it a try for one month, say the month of October, and then see how I survive through it, if I die from exhaustion or if I actually come out stronger at the end of the month. But then I remembered that October has a few public holidays, so I won’t really have as many days to work on the videos. So I might leave my idea for November 😆

But with regard to today, I think I’m just going to sign out and hope for a happier day tomorrow.

Weather and a rona update

The weather was terrible today. The rain was really heavy, and there was thunder and lighting as well to accompany it. Luckily I didn’t have any plans to go out today.

It’s N’s week to work from home this week, but he went in from lunchtime to go to a colleague’s farewell lunch, and he decided to stay in the office for the rest of the day. I just kept texting him all afternoon about the weather, even though I’m sure he could see it perfectly fine from his office 😂⛈

But despite the crappy weather, I had a relatively productive day 👍 And for a Monday too! 😆

And there were only six new rona cases today too – woohoo! Things are slowly starting to return to normal here in HK. My beloved libraries have reopened, and restaurants can now open until midnight. And the maximum number of people out in a group has been increased from 2 to 4. Signs are pointing in the right direction! 👍

Good work! 👍

I’ve been using all the samples that the cosmetics companies give me whenever I buy their full-sized products. I usually save the samples for when I travel because they’re just the perfect size. But since travel is pretty much not happening this year, and possibly even some or all of next year too, I figured I may as well just use then up now, rather than let them gather dust for at least another year 😔

It’s been great! I’m using up a ton of samples and therefore clearing clutter; and also saving money because I don’t need to buy any of the full-sized products until I finish all the samples 👍 Two birds! 🦅🦅 hehehe

I also drafted up my complaint letter to HSBC, which is great. I can’t believe I managed to draft the letter. I knew that if I didn’t write it up this weekend, it probably would never get written. But here we are. All done. I’ll get N to quickly review it, see if there’s anything that he’d add, and then I’ll send it off tomorrow. Good work, me! ☺️👍