Personal: The Perfect Day

It’s been a long month…

Haha, I shouldn’t have blogged about posting more frequently after all. I was wondering if that would end up jinxing it but at the time I’d felt confident I’d be able to churn out content as I had quite a few posts planned. Alas, I had indeed been overly optimistic. Given the stress of moving, Jacky injuring his foot shortly after (to the extent we headed to the ER with a follow up trip to urgent care) plus a busy period at work all at the same time, I’ve been way too overwhelmed to write.

We still don’t have a dining table and chairs or a proper sofa or living area rug or chairs and half of our previous furniture doesn’t really fit with the space, but we’re working on it. Slowly but surely, we’ll get there :)

On Saturday, we finally had a breather. Jacky had recovered enough to limp around without crutches and we planned to go for a nice stroll downtown followed by a trip to Costco after lunch. We didn’t do our usual family Bible Study in the morning as my parents were out, so we went out for sushi at one of our favourite local restaurants before heading downtown.

The weather had been simply perfect: warm and sunny with a cool breeze. After our walk, we decided to go to a rooftop bar and enjoy the beautiful day (also because it just happened to be perfectly situated between 5 PokéStops and 2 Gyms hahaha). I think it might be the first rooftop bar we’ve ever been to together and we were blessed with what was probably the best seats on the roof.

We had a large corner table that gave us some of the most stunning views in multiple directions. The sun was shining brightly but we were afforded shade from 2 umbrellas, and the drinks we got were exactly what we were looking for. I ordered us some sliders and fries to share as well because why not.

We were limited to 1.5hrs dining time but that was the perfect amount of time. By the time we left, it was already after 6pm and Costco was just not going to happen, but I’d been wanting to watch the new Black Widow movie for a while, and since we were right next to a cinema we figured why not. The timing was perfect: a showing in 10min, with comfy seats in the perfect seating location, on a huge screen.

I realised on our way home that I was expecting a grocery delivery, and for a moment was worried that the groceries may have spoiled from sitting outside in the heat. But it turns out they’d only been delivered shortly before we arrived home – so perfect. The rest of the evening was spent relaxing.

It was just… the perfect day. Honestly the perfect, restful, relaxing day; something I’d desperately needed and was so thankful for. Thanks be to God that everything just worked out so wonderfully. On another note: since moving in, I now love the walls and our new home. God is so good to us.

Muchos love,

Bobbie

Bullet Journal: July Setup

Woah! I actually drew out a proper spread for the first time in forever. Life has been far busier lately with all the moving logistics. You’ve possibly noticed that my posts have become more frequent recently in the sense that I am uploading new posts 2-3x per week, both for my blog and on YouTube. As such, I’ve had to use full weekly spreads to plan and write out my to-do lists.

I thought it would be a good opportunity to do a cover page with a Bible verse as I initially planned but only did once. Jacky and I have finished reading Exodus and we’re currently in the middle of Leviticus. But I just loved the way God revealed Himself and His character to Moses, so I chose those two verses to be the verse of this month as a reminder of who He is. May my heart be drawn to the one true God as He reveals Himself, and not whatever I might have twisted him into in my own sinful heart.

I’ve also had a lot more thoughts racing through my mind that constantly need to be dumped out somewhere, so I brought back my brain dump page. It’s possible I don’t have enough space here… plus I’m really fairly disorganised these days, so if I need to, I’ll create another brain dump page later in the month.

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I Tried Going No-Poo for 18 Days

As the title suggests: I tried to do no-poo for 18 days. That’s no shampooing my hair at all, and if possible not washing for as long as my hair will permit, starting 1st June.

Yep, perhaps I have gone crazy, or perhaps I’ve been newly inspired? Or perhaps I’m just next level lazy. But now that lockdown is easing and I have had my COVID vaccine, what better way to celebrate re-engaging in social life but to… not wash my hair for almost 3 weeks. Lol. (To clarify, I am still showering during this period, just not shampooing my hair. Hygiene is important.)

To be fair, it’s something I have attempted and failed a couple of times in the past, so I don’t have high hopes that it’ll somehow come to fruition this time. In fact, this attempt comes hot off the tail of another failed attempt. I lasted about 4 days before my scalp got so itchy and gross that I had to wash it with water, and a week before I gave up and had to shampoo my hair. Same thing happened at the start of quarantine when I first saw videos about it cropping up on YouTube.

But COVID restrictions are being lifted, I have a much-needed haircut scheduled for 18th June, so figured I may as well try once more as a last hurrah, and will make sure to tip my hairdresser well when the time comes haha.

When I was younger, I only washed my hair every 3-5 days and it was always fine, but at some point in my life it was stigmatised and I was told that I should be washing my hair daily. That never came naturally to me because my hair just… never got that greasy or gross in a day? I did start washing my hair more frequently, and now that I think about it, all it did was make my hair greasier if I didn’t shampoo & condition it every day or two.

Fast forward to these days, there’s a huge No-Poo movement where many, many people claim to have not shampooed their hair for months or years and their hair looks great. All of a sudden I don’t feel bad for not washing my hair as frequently, and if there’s a chance I could wash it even less frequently and have it still be fine, perfect haha.

Naturally, if you’re reading this post, it means that… well, something has happened. Either I gave up, or I succeeded. Either way, there will be photos of potentially very gross-looking hair and scalp so if you’re morbidly curious and not easily disgusted, read on. If you don’t want to read about my full experience and would just like to skip to my key takeaways from this, click here.

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Wellness: An R&R Type Of Weekend

On Saturday Jacky and I went for a hike with Jacky’s colleagues, followed by lunch and boba and some grocery shopping, then on Sunday after church we went over to another friend’s house to help with redecorating, followed by boba and takeout as we had our weekly call with Jacky’s parents. Putting it this way sounds like a rather hectic and busy weekend, but in reality it was rejuvenating and restoring for my soul.

Now that we’re both fully vaccinated and many of our friends are also vaccinated, we’re able to more confidently go outside and hang out with friends. Being out in nature and being in the company of others again felt liberating. I’m an introvert and can typically just stay home alone easily, but after very limited human interaction for such a long period of time, even I was reaching my introversion limit. I can’t imagine how my extroverted friends would have felt during this extended quarantine.

The hike we went on was by a large lake and it was beautiful. I also appreciated that it wasn’t too long and the elevation on the route we took was manageable. I loved being outside to breathe in some fresh air; we were able to take our masks off once we were away from the more heavily trafficked entrance, and taking in some beautiful scenery while getting in some fitness steps was something I appreciated so much. It also helped that the weather was perfect.

The hike path was mostly shaded and there was a gentle breeze the accompanied us throughout. We stopped by a sunny vantage point and enjoyed some warmth as we chatted. I have really missed human interaction!

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Bullet Journal: June Setup

How come we skipped from March to June? Simple: because I’ve been a lazy git.

Okay, that’s not necessarily true. March – May was kind of a blur. Not enough was happening and then too much was happening and it was all a little wild. I tacked on some April notes onto my March spread, despite April being my birthday it was the quietest month for me socially because we were knee-deep in house hunting and I was finishing up my green card application. I already had a few spreads that I was referring to for my green card app and house-hunting did not require me to use a bullet journal, so that was that.

I did actually do a spread for May, but it was such a busy period that I didn’t take a photo of the spread. I really liked the style of it though, so I have mimicked the style in the above June spread :) I realised that I only really use this journal as a to-do list, and I don’t even finish all of those in a full week period, so instead of having a new page per week, I’ve just put the w/c on the left-hand side column whenever a new week begins.

I’ve moved the calendar to the left hand side, because I realised it was unnecessary to write out the ‘MTWTFSS’ twice on the same page. It’s much easier to just have my tasks list under the calendar, where the days of the week are already written at the top.

The only difference between this spread and May’s is that I’ve done a more decorative ‘June’. May’s title was just written at the top right-hand corner, and I had some key calendar dates highlighted with notes next to them. It looked a bit busy but it was helpful for me. I don’t really have any monthly deadlines this month so I’ve forgone that for clean space.

Sometimes, that empty space should just be filled with peace instead of scribbles.

Muchos love,

Bobbie