Minimalist aspirations

I started getting really frustrated with all the crap in the study today. I’ve been frustrated for a while now, but it seemed to boil over today. I use the study as a dumping ground for anything paper related, so all books, notebooks, receipts, manuals etc get shoved into this room. And, of course, I don’t keep it neat and organised. If i did, I wouldn’t have this issue! 😆

I have different piles everywhere, with no logic to any of the files. And lately, these different piles have started to get really annoying. And when my level of annoyance gets high enough, it spurs me into action 😂 So I have vowed to spend a few hours this weekend to tidy up this damn room.

I also have this minimalist ideal that I have in my head, so I feel like anything less than this is just a poor attempt at keeping this room neat and tidy. We have friends whose house literally looks like no one lives there, as if it’s permanently on the market for sale – and they have two boys under the age of ten! So they’ve given me this unrealistic standard that I constantly try and live up to. I probably can’t achieve their standard, but it’s something that I always aspire to 😊 If they can do it with two boys under the age of ten, then why can’t I?!? 😜

My other problem is that I don’t have good storage solutions for this room, which makes it even harder to tidy up. I started looking at ideas on Pinterest today, but nothing has really stood out for me as a solution that could even potentially work for me 😒

But first things first, I need to purge. Get rid of whatever stuff I don’t need anymore. And I need to be ruthless. I need to summon our friends’ minimalist tendencies 😆 I’m feeling pumped (and frustrated!), so hopefully I will still feel this motivated when the weekend arrives. All the crap around me will probably keep my frustration levels high, so I should still feel the same way by the weekend – if not even more so, as the piles will have continued to annoy me throughout the week! 😂

The loss of a close friendship

Have I mentioned a friend who I am having trouble parting ways with? I think fully parting ways will be impossible, as I have known her for a very long time, so I have moved her from my ‘close friends’ list to just a ‘normal’ friend. And even the latter is stretching it.

I have struggled with this friendship for a long time now, and what finally sealed it for me was when I told her that I’d be in Sydney because my mum was in hospital (this was before the pandemic all started so international travel was still happening) and the only thing she said to me was, “I can’t meet up with you because I’ll be in Melbourne”. Nothing about wishing my mum well or sending her regards. And no follow up about how she was doing afterwards either. I found it quite upsetting that a supposedly close friend of mine didn’t even bother to ask how my mum was doing 😞 She’s fine now, btw, in case you’re wondering 😊🙏

So that was the final straw after years of constantly making snide remarks about me. For years now, I haven’t felt like she supported me in any way. And even with my relatively new YouTube channel, she hasn’t bothered to even watch the videos or show her support in any way, Yeah, sure, she’s not my target audience, but she’s supposed to be one of my close friends, and I would like my close friends to show some interest or support in something that is important to me 😔

So I’m distancing myself from her, not engaging with her on social media as much, if at all, anymore. I think friends should bring each other up and not make you feel like you’re not worth their time, or only talk to you when the friendship is convenient for them.

It’s just really sad because we’ve been friends for so long now. But I guess friendships evolve, and unfortunately, this one has evolved into the loss of one 😔 I guess I can still remember our years of friendship when we did have a good time together, and just accept that we have now both changed and we are no longer the same two people anymore. It’s just a bit sad to have to mourn the loss of what was once a close friendship 😞

The two sick ones

Little Miss gave me another scare today: I thought her infection was back and she was bleeding again 😔 I didn’t want to go through the whole vet thing again. But luckily, I was just overreacting, and she was ok for the rest of the day. I hope she stays this way!🤞

My dad is also doing ok. Apparently he’s not eating, though. He is recorded as being diabetic, and so the nutritionist has been preparing dishes accordingly. Now even though he is diabetic, he usually just throws caution to the wind and eats whatever he likes. So you can understand why he’s not too impressed with being served these bland dishes while he’s in hospital! 🙄 He’s lost 4kg since being in hospital! Such a silly duffer!

One of N’s mates invited us over for dinner, but because I was teaching tonight, I couldn’t go. So I ended up just watching more Bondi Rescue while I waited for him to come home. I’m now up to season five. I’m flying through this show! 😆

And HK recorded 18 new cases today. The numbers are getting lower and lower! 👍 This is so much better than the 100+ daily cases that we were getting just a few weeks ago. Hopefully things can return to normal once again really soon 🤞

This year is just so ugh

I’m still worried about Little Miss. She didn’t quite make it all the way into her litter tray today, so her pee went all over the bathroom floor instead 😔 She has one of those trays that has a cover, and I suspect that she can’t turn comfortably inside at the moment. So I think I have to remove the cover so that she is more comfortable using it. Poor little one 😔

She was no longer drugged out, at least, and has gone back to sleeping for most of the day. She still doesn’t seem to be back to her usual self, though, so I’m still worried about her 😔

A friend of mine also just told me that her aunt passed away last week, and the funeral is tomorrow. But because of the rona, they can only have 35 people at the funeral. But apparently it’s going to be live streamed, so others can tune in.

And my dad has ‘checked in’ at the hospital for his bypass surgery tomorrow. Fingers crossed it all goes well 🤞 I’ll give my mum a call tomorrow to get an update.

This year is just so ugh 😞

Drinks at our place

95 new cases today. It’s a slight increase, but at least we didn’t crack the 100 mark again. Still too many for my liking, though 😔

One of N’s workmates came over tonight. Since everything closes at 6pm these days (for dining/drinking in, that is), they couldn’t go out for a drink after work, so they decided to bring the drinks back to our place 😂 I was teaching when they arrived, though, and by the time I finished, they had already finished the bottle of wine!

We ordered pizza for dinner, but workmate didn’t hand around, so we had all of it to ourselves 😋 Leftovers for tomorrow, woohoo! Hehe 🍕🍕

Reaching out

I wasn’t feeling all that great today. Mentally, that is. Physically I was fine. I just wasn’t in the right headspace today 😔

I went to Causeway Bay for lunch. I went to one of my favourite cafes, which didn’t disappoint. I have to say that HK does good lunch sets 👍

I actually wanted to go to Muji, but didn’t have much time today as I still had to go to the vet to pick up more meds for Little Miss. We asked for more of the appetite stimulant because she’s been eating so well when we give her this medicine. But the vet said that we shouldn’t give it to her long-term, we should only give it to her if she doesn’t eat on her own. Awww… But she’s eating so well with it!

And then I reached out to a high school friend who has just recently moved to HK! She also lived in SG for a few years, actually. But HK is a totally different kettle of fish, despite both being usually lumped together as financial hubs in Asia. So I’d like to give her a bit of advice from a fellow expat who is still relatively new to the city!

Lazy, convenient

It was a nice, lazy day today 😌 The weather was shite, and the number of new cases has been in the triple digits for 12 consecutive days now, so I was even less inclined to go out today.

I watched a few episodes of the Chinese drama All is Well. I don’t remember if I’ve talked about this drama before, but let’s just say that I was not terribly impressed with the first two episodes when I first started watching it about a week or two ago. I’ll just leave it at that in case you want to watch this show, I don’t want to spoil anything for you! I pretty much told my teacher this, but she suggests that I continue watching because it supposedly gets better. I have now watched five episodes in total, and I’m still not all that impressed. But it was very popular in China when it came out last year, and it’s a relatively good show for working on my listening skills, so I’m persevering. But it better improve soon, otherwise I don’t know if I’ll have the patience to stick it out!

One of N’s workmates likes to bake, and she baked some cakes today and gave us some 🍰 Notwithstanding the fact that HK is so densely packed, expats tend to live close to one another, and so she actually just lives a street down from us, about a 5min walk away. I think four of his colleagues live within a 500m radius from us 😂 Actually, there are 5 (five!) supermarkets within that same radius 😱 I think I will miss this convenience when we move.

Yum! 😋

Not that we’re moving any time soon, don’t jump to conclusions! I’m just sayin’ 😉

Trying CBD

N decided to go and eat out for lunch today – which we can do again, after the all-day ban on dining lasted for a measly 48 hours! On the way back home, I stopped by a cafe and picked up a hot chocolate – and added 10mg of CBD to it 😂 Apparently CBD is legal in HK, hence why this cafe had it on offer to add to one’s coffee (or in my case today, hot chocolate 😊).

I don’t have any of the symptoms that CBD is being touted as helping to alleviate, but I figured it might help to relax me anyway. Not that I felt any different this afternoon / tonight, so I don’t know if one ‘hit’ is enough to see a difference 😆 Although I did record my next YouTube video while I was drinking the hot chocolate, so maybe I’ll be able to see a more relaxed version of me in today’s recording! 😆 And hopefully I get a good night’s sleep tonight as well 🤞

And then in the evening, one of N’s friends came over for dinner. That was nice. We cleaned the house up a bit before she arrived – it’s amazing just how much cleaning I can get done when guests are coming over! We should just pretend that guests are coming over every weekend. The place would be so much cleaner then! 😂

Chillaxing at home

Little Miss appears to be back to normal again, which is great to see 👍 She’s being affectionate again, she’s walking around, and she ate two cans of food last night! 😱The appetite stimulant meds that the vet gave her is definitely working!

And the vet called too just to check to see how’s she’s doing. I really appreciate this follow-up call, it’s a really nice service 😊

Cats are apparently considered ‘senior’ when they’re over 7 years of age. She is sooo much older than that, I don’t even remember what she was like when she was 7! 😆 She’s 18 this year!! And despite her health problems, she is still fighting. She tried to scratch me again this morning because I was bothering her (again 😇). Gotta love her spirit 💪

The cases in HK are now going up by 100+ cases each day now. WTH. We had it under control! 😒 WTH happened?! I wanted to go to Wan Chai today, to go and visit the Wan Chai Computer Centre (again 🤪), But N convinced me not to, and to just minimise my going out during these crazy times. So we stayed home once again. N went out briefly to meet up with a friend to help her out with some stuff, and then he stopped by the supermarket to buy some groceries. But other than that, we were home all day. I just hope all this craziness will disappear soon enough 😔

Making up for yesterday

We went over to a friend’s place for dinner tonight, which was nice. We played this card game called Cards Against Humanity, and apparently there are different versions of the game, each of which are tailored to a specific country’s culture. They had the Aussie version, so that was pretty cool. The game itself was rather inappropriate, but it was still quite fun 😆

And Kitty was also feeling better today too, thankfully. She was up and about much more, so that was nice to see. And she was eating again too, thanks to the appetite enhancer / promoter meds that the vet gave her 😆

So a much better day than yesterday!