Year: 2023
The roller blinds were pulled down but sunlight was spilling through the edges of the window. It was warm under the duvet and when I pulled my hand out to check the surface of our quilt, it wasn’t damp. It was a huge upgrade from the humid mornings at our old rental and a deep, […]
Tuesday was settlement day and I can now say that Dylan and I are officially homeowners! Woohoo! It probably felt so fast to our friends but the past two days were actually quite nerve-wrecking. The day before settlement, we received the summary of expected fees from our conveyancer and the bank had told them this: […]
Every dream has an inspiration, and mine was simply ambition and anger: a fiery desire to stay anywhere but the Philippines and an overwhelming sense of loss and frustration over what the Philippines had become. This was fueled by an inter-generational thread of betrayal by the home country. One of things my mum had said […]
This morning I woke up to an email from our broker, saying the bank lender had a question about our loan application: “He has asked to get more clarity around one of your accounts showing Nami and Kino University Funds, can you please provide clarity what is this for and if this is going to […]
I thought the pivotal moment that would make me feel “old” was when my back started hurting doing normal everyday things like moving houses and carrying boxes. I realise now that I was wrong. There’s this rite of passage called “buying a house” which currently feels like the defining moment of adulthood. There are many […]
“Fish onnnnnnn!” Dylan cheers from the backseat of the Nissan Pathfinder. In front of us are our kind-of new friends and we’re on the way to Rye to try some surf fishing. Well, the boys will, anyway. I packed Toni Lodge’s latest book, “I Don’t Need Therapy (and other lies I have told myself)” to […]
I’ve been in Australia a few years now, but it was only last weekend, our first overnight trip to Geelong, that I was able to enjoy riding waves. Just bodysurfing, but I have never done that before and didn’t know I could enjoy it that much! Moments like these remind me why I tell myself, […]
It’s Monday evening and I’m at Middle Brighton with Dylan. He’s fishing, and hadn’t had much luck these days apart from the greedy puffer fish last Saturday at Mornington. But he’s a bit of an old soul and fishing relaxes him, and so here we are. This is our alone time, our date night, and […]
I’ve been having fun looking up wedding venues, in spite of some sleepless nights. This second engagement is very different from my first — where I didn’t even bother planning anything at all. Last time I had a lot of life-milestone requirements, a list of expectations that were left unticked, before I would seriously consider […]