Hey! Things have been pretty hectic for the past 2-3 weeks, and for most parts, it feels like I’m grasping at straws.
Mid-September, my son complained tummy/abdominal pain. At first, we thought it’s a really mild gastric acid. However, it went really bad and we had to bring him to ER.
The ER doctor, fortunately, noticed red rashes on my son’s legs. He mentioned that the rashes AND the abdominal pain might be related, so he suggested us to ring up our son’s paediatrician first thing first in the morning.
Henoch-Schonlein Purpura (HSP.) Goodness. That name itself is quite a tongue-twister.
With my son, though, it was a severe case. The paediatrician commented that HSP is a rare case and we don’t really know what triggered it.
So it was an… interesting 1-week hospital stay.
There were some nerve-wracking moments when we monitored my son’s progress in the hospital. The recovery went, and still going, excruciatingly slow. With mild cases, it can take 2-4 weeks. Who knows how long it would be with a severe case like my son’s.
“Recovery is still a recovery,” the doctor encouraged all of us. There’s only so much a medicine can handle, and I personally prefer to reduce the medicine dosage — especially the painkillers — and I’m glad the doctor is on board with me.
I really can’t tell much about this disease, Henloch-Schonlein Purpura, other than this is one of autoimmune diseases — so the trigger could be anything. When your body got sick, the immune system on the body reacts. However, the sudden spike of immune system caused this unexpected effect. Blood vein inflammation, abdominal pain, and sometimes vomiting. The only way to avoid that? Not to get sick.
Currently, I feel that we have passed the worst point. The problem we have now is gastric acid and colic. That, and some joint problems and muscle cramps.
Recently, I keep seeing game ads in-between stories whenever I’m checking my friends’ IG Stories. Some of them are pretty familiar to me; such as ‘Homescapes’ (I’m currently playing it.) Another one that I keep seeing it on many social media accounts is ‘Legend of The Phoenix’ (some kind of role-play game based on historical Chinese kingdom) — it seems they have been spending quite amount of money to advertising themselves.
Then I saw this game: ‘YOLO?’ by CacaCat.
The premise is: You are God of Death’s apprentice and your task is to kill the humans (yeah, it’s pretty morbid.) This game reminds me of ‘Dumb Ways to Die’ but instead of avoiding accidents, you are deliberately creating the incidents.
This is a game where you need to interact with the items and manipulate it so it will create some kind of action and reaction which ended up killing the human. If you played ‘Tiny Thief’, you might be familiar with it.
I wish they would bring back Tiny Thief. This is a fun game.
(Memory intensifies)
If you like puzzle games, this is for you.
You can click the items there and use it to create some kind of chain reactions to kill the humans.
And there are special chapters where the humans put revenge on the little demons.
I personally enjoying this game very much as you need to figure out on how to break the puzzles. Sometimes, you even need to break some small puzzles in the game to get some stuffs.
Another similar game that you can try is ‘Find Out — Hidden Objects‘, in case ‘YOLO?’ game might not be your preferences as, uhhh, yeah, the idea of being the bringer of death might be pretty intense for some. This game has several types that you can try. I personally really like the discovery-type. Similar like ‘YOLO?’, you need to interact with the items to find the hidden objects.
You can see the list of items you need to find at the bottom. Some are pretty easy to find, and some might need bit of tweaks (even shaking your phone or viewing it upside-down helps!)
There are levels that you can play; for the newer ones, you will need to wait for a day.
There are other types of hidden objects game, but I’m not really interested on it. However, if it’s your cup of tea, feel free to try it!
Both games are free with in-app purchases, so ads interruptions are expected. I personally don’t mind about it as folks need money to operate and develop the game. If you prefer to have no-ads version, you can always upgrade the app. The developers are adding new levels regularly too (especially for ‘YOLO?’, and you can ask for more levels/suggest more levels on ‘Find Out’) so make sure you check them regularly.
Recently, I’ve been having this issue with my body odor and hair loss — my apologies if this is TMI ? I’m REALLY self-conscious about my body odor, and that’s the reason why you might see me slightly hunched whenever I’m in the crowd (which resulted with bad posture.)
I tried some brands, and it usually went pretty great for the first couple of months then womp-womp the next. Then, I saw some IG ads about deodorant creams. These products usually presented as organic, environmentally-friendly, aluminum-free, sustainable product.
I personally have lukewarm feelings about organic and sustainable lifestyle. Please don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the idea (although I feel organic products tend to be really expensive ?) but I don’t think I’m a good suit for the lifestyle. It takes commitment for that, and I feel that I’m way too “sinful” (???? I can’t find the proper word for it) to have organic and sustainable lifestyle (I’m still using plastic bags and cotton pads and tissue paper I’M SO SORRY.)
ANYWAY. So there’s this organic and sustainable lifestyle-store nearby my place: The Hive. They have been around in my area for quite some time, but last Tuesday would be the very first time I entered the store.
You can see lots of jars and bottles there. They sell things in bulk and you can ask the store staff to weigh the products and package it for you — and it’s encouraged for you to bring your own containers for the product. Other than environmentally-friendly products (yep, metal straws and lunchboxes are there,) they also sell food stuffs such as peanuts, legumes, lentils, and even flour. I think they also sell eco-friendly honey and chocolates? I need to check later on.
I’m actually pretty hyped to see almonds on the store. The pre-packaged almonds that usually widely available on minimarkets are the ones with flavors. I’m actually okay with that, but I found myself the salt and the sugar are bit too much (since I changed my eating pattern, I found my tolerance to sugar and salt changed too. More on that on another blog post.) So to find something still “raw”/unseasoned is pretty nifty. I can add the seasonings based on my preferences.
I chatted with the store staff about deodorant and soap bar products. I’ve been curious about soap bars (watching TikTok videos of soap bar makers cutting their soap starting to rub off on you) and so far, I never had any success with comercially-available soap bar. It’s always too dry and makes my skin itchy.
The store staff suggested me to use their organic product; they mentioned that some of the ingredients are coming from Europe but the products are produced locally in Malaysia. Now this, is actually one of my concerns about these organic eco-friendly products. How actually eco-friendly are they? Some brands are boasting how their ingredients are coming from other countries while the country that they are located might have the ingredients available.
(I think I better stop now before it starts another debate.)
So the store staff suggested me this product.
The deodorant cream is not an anti-perspirant, so you can still see sweat. But honestly, for me, that’s normal. I mean, hey, perspiration. We humans need to get rid of excess water and toxins out from our body, not forgetting the fact that it’s our body’s way to cool down our temperature. That’s the whole point of perspiration.
But so far, I’m pretty impressed! My body odor going super weird when I got stressed, and with my line of work, stress is daily-basis. I’ve tried it for 2 days and I’m so happy with the result. The deodorant’s scent is bit peppermint and herbal-y.
Speaking about stress, I also bought this because I’m a sucker for well-being products.
“Concentration and serenity.” Might need to light the candle when I started to go (ノ ゜Д゜)ノ ︵ ┻━┻ during my day.
I also finally caved in — if you know me, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. I’m sold at everything. EVERYTHING — to the shampoo bar.
(The soap is already cut in half. I cut it to make it lasts longer.)
The soap’s name is ‘The Mane Event’ by Kindersoaps. I should admit, one of the reasons why I wanted to try shampoo bar is because of Milanonna.
First time I tried it, my hair feels… Weird. It feels bit sticky/waxy, and I thought it might be because my hair is cleaned differently; and it seems I’m on the right track: Shampoo bars and the transition period.
I’m on my second wash, though, so I still can’t tell the whole differences — but so far, I’ve been liking it. The shampoo bar can be used for body and face too, so being a cheapo, I’m like, “HELL YES.” It didn’t sting the eyes too much either.
What I can see the stark difference, though, is when I use it for my face. It looks really clean, and I don’t feel the dryness/the skin being pulled-feel after my shower.
I’m not sure if this will be my entrance to organic, eco-friendly sustainable lifestyle, but if it did, I’m glad that I try some. It’s still a long way, but I hope we can start somewhere. I personally really like the idea of bringing your own shopping bag for grocery shopping and I’ve been doing that for quite some time (shout out to my sister for introducing me to the habit.)
“Hey, I’m alone with my daughter at home and she has been feeling awful for the past two days due to cold. Do you have some kind of dish that you usually whipped out for your kids when they are feeling unwell? I ran out of options.”
I replied.
“Not exactly a comfort food, but I usually put ungodly amount of onions on the dish. I usually make this onion-egg fried rice. You only need rice, egg, and half the nation’s onions stock. Diced the onions whichever you like, heat the oil, put the onions in the oil — add a little bit of salt to let the water out and soften the onions — put the egg, scramble it, then put the rice.”
Anyway! I’ve been feeling quite off for the past week and culminated with annoying cold on last Sunday. Things feel bit better now, but I seriously need to get away from paracetamol for a day. So I made my breakfast with onions.
(And before anyone commented; distributed work. Viva la working from home and having onions for breakfast and wearing my UNIQLO Relaco pants with my feet on the chair while working.)
Not exactly onion-egg fried rice, but onion-egg sandwich.
I scrambled the egg afterwards because that’s how I like it. But to have it sunny-side up would be quite pleasantly aesthetically looking.
Put it on a toast. It’s not the handsomest sandwich on the block, but it’s one of the tastiest. Totally subjective.
Add it up with kaffir lime tea. I guess this is Indonesian-style tea, so you won’t taste the usual sour taste from lime. But you can smell the fragrance from kaffir lime leaves on the tea.
And that was the last teabag! Nooooo. It’s quite hard to find that brand here in Malaysia; and due to this pandemic, I can’t ask my sister to bring it here during her visit.
Anyway! What is your comfort food, and do you have specific recipes for it?
I just realized that I blogged more than journaling on August. Is that a good sign or…?
Anyway! Yeah, a bit late but I just checked my bullet journal book and I found I left a really good chunk of void for August 2020. I’m pretty glad this is bullet journal, though, so I can just start whenever I want. But it made me wonder what happened back on August that made me forgetting about journaling (but IIRC, I started a habit of watching sunrises and sunsets on August to calm my mind?)
(Memory intensifies with WordPress 5.5 launch, and many things afterwards.)
Oh. Yeah. That.
Anyway! About watching sunrises and sunsets. I feel this is pretty neat. Some of you might already familiar on how I call myself: A highly caffeinated anxious hamster. And with my work as an HE, things can go from zero to one hundred in matter of seconds. Plus, we are in the middle of pandemic. I hate it when I got a cold and started to wonder if this is a cold cold or a cold cold.
I’ve been following this Youtuber from South Korea named “seungahne”. Her videos would be what people called as “aesthetic” — slightly minimalist approach (think Kinfolk magazine meets Muji) and lo-fi music background. Totally my jam.
On one of her videos, she mentioned about looking at the sky seven times in a day to calm oneself down. I tried her approach, and even though I didn’t do seven times of sky-watching — I tend to forget things — I found it’s quite helpful for me. In the morning, it helps me to prepare my day. In the afternoon/evening, it helps me to disconnect my mind from my work.
Disconnecting the mind from work affairs is really important for me — and I guess, for you folks who have been working from home lately. The thing about working from home is you can’t detach yourself from work physically. There is no commute from the office to your home; no “down time” for your brain to process that you are approaching home. What kind of process you expect if the furthest distance of your work and your home is two steps away? And for some reason, looking at the sky helps me. Maybe not 100% yet, but we’ll be there.
I wanted to share her videos with you all here. I think she’s super cool and deserves more international subscribers (please turn on/activate CC (closed captioning/subtitle) button for English subtitle.)
Quick blurbs
Saw this site mentioned the other day on Slack: neocities.org.
Scroll down and you will see “Featured Sites”. Never knew it brings back early 2000s, and it makes me so, so happy.
