I broke one of my drill bits last night because I was being stubborn. I need to replace it this weekend when we have the chance to go the mall. We will spend about three days in Makati in two serviced apartments I reserved for the Leni grand rally in Makati, which was eventually cancelled. My reservation was non-refundable. Anyway, we will treat it just like a staycation and I will be working one of those days, plus I needed to cover an event at night. It’s a relief I don’t have to drive back to QC after that.

For some strange reason I woke up early again so I was forced to confront work earlier than usual. I think our stay in Anilao has reset my body clock and now I’m back to Philippine Standard Time. It has been several nights that I get to sleep before 1 am and it has been so lovely so far. I think my body has finally withdrawn from alprazolam.

So I was productive today, editing a number of stories, communicating with sources and doing my usual admin work, writing another story…and yet I haven’t done any of the pending stories I was supposed to publish this week. 🙄 I promise I will publish two tomorrow. And I’m still waiting for a confirmation of an interview schedule…

Because I already scratched my DIY itch yesterday, it’s now the handmade itch’s turn to nag at me. So I restarted the sewing project I had so I will have new set of curtains for the living room downstairs before this month ends.

I’m loving the way my house now is becoming more handmade as the time passes. This is our fourth year staying in this apartment and we still have one year more to go before we transfer permanently, I think, in our new flat in my hometown.

I don’t have mass market art on my walls and I’m making handmade curtains. I’m DIY-ing so many things in this apartment that I feel like this is already mine even though it’s not. I have my say in all of the things here whereas I didn’t have that freedom in the past. Soon I will have my couch reupholstered with a more cat-friendly fabric and I will be making more pillows. I discovered that you can buy pillow fillers from Shopee and you can refill old and saggy pillows–or make new pillows and throw out the old ones. I can make big and fluffy ones if I want to. I either can hand sew again or I buy that Brother sewing machine on my shopping list on Lazada and make my life easier.

I have so many ideas in my head that I want to execute for our new flat, like an outdoor hot tub under the fruit trees. I can buy this galvanized iron tub from FB Marketplace and put it on top of concrete blocks to have a low fire going underneath.

This guy made a hot tub using an old barrel and some blocks.

A brick pizza oven in the garden, a grilling station, and a small workshop or art studio. I’ve also been looking at outdoor furniture with umbrella at Ikea and at Ace Hardware. My girls and their friends can hang out there.

I got the brick oven pizza from this guy as well.

So I weighed things…my job may not be that fabulous right now but it offers me flexibility to pursue life—real life outside work. So far the arrangement is agreeable to me. I just need super fast internet, like what I have right now, then work-life balance is ok.

I have to talk to the Converge people because they still don’t have a line near my new place. I need to attend one face to face event with them so I can sweet-talk them into installing lines there…hahaha!

I’m excited.