coriander in pho

not a food blog

Journaling slump

May 11, 2026 12:11 pm

🎵 "Midnight Love" — Tennishero

🌤️ Hazy
Another post, mostly because it got so great of an itch and I really need to jot this down here.

I have been dabbling in journaling for quite some time (Journaling: How to?), but for the life of me, I can’t seem to find a method that sticks with me. I tried bullet journaling, buying myself Hobonichi Techo, and the likes, and somehow, it feels like things are adding up instead of helping. I wonder if I have been approaching things with a wrong mindset.

You know how things usually are: It’s the end of the year, and folks got so excited. Prepare for new notebook(s)! Get the shiniest pen! Get those washi tapes! I have so many plans for next year and I am so gonna crush it! Watch all Tiktok videos!

It’s the same with me. I was so excited at first, too. Heck, I even drew on it. Then, just in a matter of weeks, things fizzled out. I would blame it on my health that suddenly dropped at the beginning of the year, but you know, excuses excuses.

Honestly, it hurts. Not only because Hobonichi is quite pricey and I hate if it goes to waste, but more so on me looking at myself and asking, “why aren’t you able to keep things up? Isn’t this supposed to be easy as this is essentially a part of self-care, too?”

I finally took a step back and did some brainstorming with myself on what I actually need to manage my life better, especially as a housewife. So, yeah, with my usual dramatic flair, I hereby announce that I decided to stop using Hobonichi and journaling in general. However, I am keeping myself on track by:
- This blog for record-keeping including TILs, bookmarks, Good-To-Knows, and the likes. I’m planning to use this blog for my book-reading tracking, too.
- A notebook for weekly menu at home (cooking and grocery list).
- A notebook for notetaking of any Islamic lessons/courses (I’m subscribing to BayyinahTV).
- I already have my Garmin for tracking my exercise.
- Google Calendar for events and appointments.
- MoneyLover app for financial tracking and bill payment.
This might seem overwhelming for some, considering how things seemed “spread out”, but I found that this is the best method for me right now. I don’t think I could ever have a One for All notebook, as it ended up making me feel overwhelmed. Having things scattered in different places with different purposes did help me, though. Let’s see how it goes. I’m planning to revisit this post after 3 months.
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Mother’s Day brunch

May 11, 2026 10:25 am

🎵 "Ethereal" — Amethystium

🌤️ Sunny

With the risk of being called a “pick me”: I am not one who usually is celebrating Mother’s Day. Without dwelling on details, Mother’s Day has not been an integral part of my life growing up. The whole thing has been… Complicated.

That said, I am now a mother of two, and Rey, the youngest, has always been the champion of Everything Sweet, Nice, and Beautiful in our life. She’s the whimsy in the family, even more so than I do. If you think I’m whimsy, she brings it tenfold (to be fair, we are bad influencers to each other because whenever we go shopping, we always go, “OMG ADEEEEEK, LOOK AT THIS CUTE MUG!” “IBUUUU, THIS DUCK LAMP IS SO CUTE!”) Rey then set her mind that she’s representing all of us and decided that a brunch is an absolute event for Mother’s Day. Hence, the brunch at Kenny Hills Kuala Lumpur.

I had an excellent watermelon lychee salad and a spinach with feta cheese quiche (my favorite.) I always appreciate Kenny Hills’ kitchen team skills in combining and balancing the taste and flavors. I have been increasing my salad game, and I found that watermelon, leafy veggies, lychee, and (air-fried) tempe are actually a good combo!

Ari and the kids tucked in on their delicious meals, too! Wira ordered a Big Breakfast, Ari asked for a plate of Reuben Sandwich, and Rey wanted a plate of pancakes with berry compote and honey.

Also, since we are at Kenny Hills Bakery, there is no chance we would miss their excellent selection of pastries! Ari and the kids settled down on a slice of butter cake, fruit tart, and jalapeno bagel.

Here’s to all the mothers out there. Those who choose to be one, those who had to, those with furbabies, those who actually had the opportunity to step away but then decided to step up and take the role, even though they might be too young or too inexperienced for motherhood. Those who are still waiting to be one. Those who experienced loss and grief. Those who are hopeful. Those who healed, those who are still healing, those who are yet to ask for help. You all are our sisters, our aunties, our dear mothers.

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Warung Soto Lamongan, Kuala Lumpur

May 10, 2026 10:02 am

🎵 "Sunset Lover" — Petit Biscuit

🌤️ Cloudy

We had soto ayam Lamongan for dinner yesterday at a place that Ari has been eyeing for quite some time. His bike buddies have been raving about this place for quite some time, and even though Ari and I usually go to the area for breakfast at Restoran Rose, it was always early in the morning when this place is still closed. Yesterday was a “perfect time” for a bowl of hot soto, as Indonesians usually say: “Soto weather.”

The place is kiiiinda tucked in from the main road. It’s located on the ground floor of a housing complex (People’s Housing Program/PPR) next to some local businesses and laundry.

Lamongan is a regency in East Java province in Indonesia, and one of their championed dish is, yes, soto ayam. Do note that there are different types of soto in Indonesia, from Jakarta’s thick and savory soto Betawi to Lamongan’s light and refreshing soto ayam. When eating soto ayam Lamongan, give it a good squeeze of lime juice to bring out all the flavors.

The kids ordered sate; sate kambing for Rey and sate ayam for Wira, which they polished off in no time.

The rain persisted well into the late evening.

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Some short updates

May 6, 2026 2:27 pm

🎵 "Schoolgrounds" — Sleepy Fish

🌤️ Humid and rainy
Earlier today, I saw this news on my Threads timeline: Guy finds Google Chrome is quietly installing a 4GB AI model on our devices. I must confess, I am still using Google (Chrome and the likes; especially Chrome) on my laptop and my phone, mostly due to the convenience. That said, I’m already sick of Google shoving its AI to my face every single time I open my phone to check my email and do some web search. Again, I’m all about AI assisting humans in doing their work, especially the dangerous or tedious ones. Stealing, creating stupid deepfakes, cybercrimes, and robbing humans’ creativity? No thanks. In terms of usage, I would use AI only in my own terms, not being shoved and choked every second.

I then decided to look for alternatives. Some folks on the discussion part of the Threads mentioned the Vivaldi browser, so here we are. I installed Vivaldi, put it on my laptop’s dock, and removed Chrome. I am yet to uninstall Chrome, in case there are some things I need (although I kinda doubt it…) but I have imported most of my stuffs from Chrome to Vivaldi. So far, I’m enjoying this browser, mostly because no AI is in sight whenever I’m using their search engine (https://www.startpage.com). Things feel more peaceful and quieter. I’m also thinking of switching my phone’s browser to Vivaldi.

I also did a round of check-ins with some of my posts, and I found that some videos went “missing” on some of my Peachtober posts. It was weird; for some reasons, the Video Block switched to VideoPress Block, and even after the usual deleted-then-added-it-back, it is still using the VideoPress Block. I ended up copy-pasted the correct code and used the Gutenberg’s Code Editor to re-added the video. This one:
```

<figure class="wp-block-video"><video controls src="VIDEO_LINK_FROM_MEDIA_PLAYER"></video></figure>

```
I’m not sure how the video got automatically set as VideoPress’ though. The video link is on my site (the /wp-content area) and I don’t have any active subscriptions with VideoPress.

Editing and updating the Peachtober posts made me feel nostalgic. I haven’t drawn anything for the past 2-3 years. My son, Wira, even asked me, “Why aren’t you drawing anymore?” I told him that drawing has been quite a traumatic experience for me. While the activity and the process itself are fun, I can’t stand having people looking over my shoulder whenever I’m drawing, “which, unfortunately, is what you, your sister, and your dad have always been doing whenever you all see me drawing or doing things,” I told him. I have been loving drawing since I was a little kid, and when I drew things, adults around me always had something to say, and mostly the words were… far from encouraging. Even if they did say something remotely neutral, it was always laced with critiques, be it of anatomy, color combinations, or fantastical creatures. I was 6 years old, for fucks sake.

I know that Ari and the kids never commented on anything — they have been really, really supportive, even! — but it is still quite hard to shake the habit of drawing things quietly and secretly. Perhaps I can restart it now.

Another update: I have been musing on the idea of having some kind of “updates section” on this blog, so I can keep track of things that I have done on this blog; you know, like a documentation section. However, it would mean another weird type of short posts on this blog after “Aside” and “Bookmarks” categories. I wanted to use status.cafe, but it seems like they are having an issue with their email deliverability. Unfortunately, a similar bug report is yet to be replied/attended to, which means that I’m still looking for a microblogging/status update service out there. The last resort would be using one of my WordPress.com sites and displaying the feed on this site, hahah.

I also added custom fields on posts. I’m using the plugin “Advanced Custom Fields” to add custom fields and “Blocks for ACF Fields” to display them in block format so I can add them to the blog templates. I really want to make this blog as personal and customized as possible, hence the custom fields.

Anyway! I am now on episode 8-9 of “Pursuit of Jade”, and finally, we have a micro-expression on Zhang Linghe! 🎉

At least we have Tian Xiwei (I love her so much!) to balance things up. I love this shot of them.

And this ambush scene? The way the scene incorporated Chinese’s shadow puppet shows? YES.
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Finally getting myself a Garmin

May 4, 2026 8:37 pm

After so many months and weeks of hemming and hawing, I finally got myself a Garmin watch.

I have been feeling frustrated with my Apple Watch, mostly because it needs to be charged daily, and I reeeeeeally can’t be bothered by it. I also dislike the whistles and bells that come along with Apple Watch, all the apps and the notifications. I only need an activity tracker that does its job: Tracking. That said, I decided to get myself a Garmin.

Ari and I then went to a Decathlon store, and the Garmin staff there recommended the Garmin Forerunner 165 since my exercise patterns tend to be really light-to-mild level. I also managed to get this watch at a Mother’s Day discount (up to 48%), so it was quite a deal.

So far, I’m quite liking this watch. I love how this watch tells me how to read the data and not take things in face value. For example, my stress level. The app (Garmin Connect) explained that the stress can be bad or good, so I shouldn’t be too worried if it mentions that “I’m having a stressful day”, because in the end, I’m the one who is actually facing the day. The app also provides encouragement in doing routine exercise and movement, which is really cool. The downside, though, is that this watch can’t be detected in the Find My app on my iPhone, which is expected since they share different OS. Also, I wasn’t prepared for the sheer amount of settings. There are Account Settings, then Device Settings, and a whole lot more settings and options in terms of health and body stats. Honestly, this is where Apple shines through with its simplicity.

I wore the Garmin watch last Sunday for a morning walk in Suria KLCC Park with Ari. We had a lovely Sunday, with sunny skies and a quiet breeze. The park was pretty crowded with joggers, families, and tourists, yet it was still quite enjoyable.

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Quick blurbs

I have been stepping away from social media (Threads) little by little recently, starting with registering on Mastodon, and I genuinely enjoy their non-algorithm timeline. You will only see stuff from folks that you follow. That’s it.

I am still around on Threads, though, but I limit myself to 10 minutes only.

Earlier, I tried checking Threads. Trying to see what’s up.

My goodness.

May 10, 2026