The Tiger has Arrived!

It has been a waiting game the past few weeks. We've been waiting for our boxes from Singapore to arrive and clear customs. The mover told us the ship arrived on November 11. Not bad since we arrived on November 4. It took long though to clear customs so we had to wait. 

Watching the movers work always fascinates me. They are really experts in what they do. What we packed for many weeks, just took them a few minutes. I first had the opportunity to have a mover when I moved to Singapore. At that time I just had them pack a box, a mattress and a folding table (they were very bored). 

A few months later I got help from them to pack and move our stuff from our rented place to our first owned home. They finished packing and moving everything in less than a day. They had a lot of time to unpack our things, but we chose not to have our stuff unpacked since we were still waiting for our cabinets to be delivered. That's how good they are. 

For our move home we got help from Asian Tigers. They packed our things last October and the ship sailed two days after. Today, the local team came and finished in less than two hours. I watched them from the second floor and they would look up and wave at me. They were a really friendly crew and I appreciate the help they have provided. 

Thank you Kuya Jessie and your amazing crew!

I'm glad we got help to move our things. We just also had them unpack a few things since we don't have our storage cabinets yet. It will probably take us a few months to finish unpacking and fixing everything, so now we have another messy home! Haha. 

Cheers to a very messy last month! I hope we can make things a bit more decent before Christmas! Now we have to rethink how to celebrate Mom's birthday! 

#Home29 #NewG217 #Xmas23 #StayHome #BeKind   

The Big Transition Month, It's Not Over Yet

Can you believe that it's December already? The year is ending soon and we just survived the biggest transition in our lives. We began November by getting haircuts! I had my long hair chopped off and it felt so good! 

Here's a one second everyday video of how my November went :D

Moving countries is hard! It's not as easy as moving homes. The week before we flew home was hectic. Movers came to pack and box our things. After they took everything, we started packing our things. We soon realized we had more than what we could bring. We had to send a box through LBC (it hasn't arrived yet). It felt like Lucky Plaza magnetized us to come over for one last time, haha. It will be fun to unbox a balikbayan box when it arrives! 

The travel processes went smoothly. We had to follow closely new announcements since it was changing almost everyday. I have friends who have been asking me how we prepared to go home. Since the policies change often I suggest to read through my post here and visit the links I provided. We did not encounter any problems and we were able to stay together during our quarantine*.

After finishing our six-day quarantine, we finally went home and was reunited with Miggy. We stayed home for another four days before we were able to visit my Mom. The rest of the month was spent mostly re-organizing our messy home and preparing for another transition. Yes! It's not yet over! That's what I meant when I said, "Rad changes coming up!"

November was a good month. I'm so happy to be home with family and be in close proximity to friends. The frenzy of eating everything we missed is done! We have switched back to eating healthy meals. My doctor and my seatmate would be happy to know this, haha. 

Now we prepare for two important birthday! My Mom's and Papa Jesus' birthday. Yay! 

*The BOQ has a single person per room policy. More links on this post.

Organized Chaos

I'm taking a bite-sized approach to sorting the decade I've been in Singapore. I started with a shelf and I'm tackling it by row. I tend to put things in cute boxes as I keep them. What happens though is I forget about the items I keep and end up buying new things. That's what I discovered yesterday when I found several small boxes of office supplies. Can you guess how many scissors I have? Hahaha. 

At our old place before we moved.

So I'm going to take this opportunity to collate and reduce our things. I'll probably ban myself also from window online shopping (there's so many kawaii items out there!). I hope to get some headway in clearing out things in the next week since there are people interested to view our place already. 

And the same goes for my mind. I have been working on clearing out unhealthy thoughts. I think I have improved in compartmentalizing and it's now time to flush out the bad stuff. I've been excited about finally getting vaccinated, but tbh I'm scared too. 

I've been processing this fear by getting more information about it's safety for me. I don't have a genetic clotting disorder, my platelets are in order and similar patients did not have issues. The virus can cause myocarditis and clots much, much more than the vaccine. I have to clear out these unhealthy thoughts and tell my body to cooperate. 

Praying that this transition time will go smoothly. 

CB///*Yr2/157 #StuckAtHomeDay/Yr2/180 #NewG290 #Home48 #Xmas101 #StayHome #BeKind 

Sorting Out a Decade

October 2011, moved to SG.

Where do you start sorting 10 years of your life? Our apartment is a huge mess right now because we've started to look through our things. When I moved to Singapore I came with only two suitcases and I only shipped a mattress, a sack of rice and a folding table. 

I was able to keep things the same for five years. I was lucky because my housemate had everything and kept telling me not to buy stuff. Things changed when Miggy and Sweetie moved here. We eventually moved to our own place. That meant I had to make our place into a home. 

"This is just temporary," was a thought that was always at the back of my mind. It reflected also when I had to buy things for the house. It was limiting because it prevented me from doing things I liked to do, i.e. baking. The pandemic though changed things because I wanted to try out new things. Kuya also advised to allot a percentage of your money for self-development (see how I budget my money here). Ahh, that really changed things. 

Started our with just two bags 10 years ago (one was Sweetie's)...

I spent a bit of time sorting three bags of random stuff yesterday. I know Marie Kondo said you should do this last haha. I went through receipts, concert and movie tickets, boarding passes, museum leaflets and a gazillion business cards. All of those reminded me that once upon a time my life wasn't just confined in the four walls of our apartment. Proof of life. 

So yeah, that's the challenge I need to work on for the next few weeks. I have to do it slowly to make sure I don't get sick. I wanted to do more yesterday, but remembered I just had a biopsy. I hope to be able to get rid of stuff I don't need and donate it. We started this with our old devices. Oh boy, sorting out a decade of your life is hard. 

CB///*Yr2/154 #StuckAtHomeDay/Yr2/177 #NewG293 #Home51 #Xmas104 #StayHome #BeKind