Touching grass

A few things I did out in the wild as we contemplate a big decision.

Photo by Chang Qing on Unsplash

Not a fashion-lens post today, but a life one: I’ve been feeling apprehensive? anxious? hopeful? as of late as my family contemplates a big life move in the next few months. It’s an exciting change but a change nonetheless — one that impacts the status quo we have here already.

We have it pretty good here, but could it be even better? This is the question that my husband and I are faced with, and most likely a lot of young families who hopes of affording what the previous generation had, but have been slowly beaten down by Toronto’s insane housing market, rising inflation, and limited wage growth. The slowdown now experienced by the world feels like the bad hangover of the pandemic — do you remember that time when NFTs/crypto ran rampant, and people were getting rich doing crazy things on the internet? The pandemic truly felt like a fever dream. But it’s been four years since then, and financially, not much has changed for me personally besides things becoming more expensive and life becoming more expensive. This potential move is tied up with a step-up job offer for my husband which would inch us closer to our financial goals.

I understand finances are only one part of the equation of making a choice like this — on the flip side, I think I’m haunted by the possibility of making the wrong choice for my son. Moving him (and me!) away from his extended family is probably what weighs on me the heaviest. Not knowing what the daycare situation will be, not knowing what our housing situation will be, whether I’ll find as a convenient job there as my current remote one: all of these big lifestyle changes for me that are not unwelcome, but different.

It’s a lot to think about. Unfortunately the process is taking a long time and we still don’t really know if it’ll actually happen, which is probably the worst situation to be in. Not being able to plan in the short term has made me feel like such a flake on friend get-togethers and holiday plans (we start early). And the amount of overthinking it’s led to: man oh man, let me out of this maze of what-if’s, please!

While the “big decision” hangs in limbo, I’ve resorted to engaged in some fun escapist activities to keep my mind off of it. Here’s what I’ve been up to in the past few weeks.

Visited Waterloo/Kitchener!

We did our annual trip to the Waterloo/Kitchener area, which always involves three stops: 1. St.Jacob’s Farmers Market, 2. My (and my husband’s) alma mater, and 3. Homestyle Diner, this homey restaurant I discovered in 3rd year, to indulge in their amazing coconut cream pie.

The pies never make it home in one piece.

We usually go in August when it’s peaches and corn season. Luckily there was a nice breeze at the market as it was packed with people to the point it was overwhelming, but I do love browsing the different stalls and seeing the finding produce I’ve never seen before. Our haul included a dozen ears of corn, a bag of cherries, and these small yellow plums, the skins tart as the flesh sweet.

We always also go check out our old university to indulge in some nostalgia (though pushing a stroller around the campus is a giveaway that we’re no longer students!), and see new developments on campus. There’s a LRT station that brings students from campus <=> Kitchener, which I would’ve died for as a student. They’ve also got a Chatime and a rock-climbing gym now, two amenities that feel too premium that it makes me want to be student again. It was exam time so the campus was quiet with a small smattering of students glued to their laptops, tucked away in the corners of buildings. My son had a blast running down the accessibility ramps in the student centre — I apologize to those students!

Collected our first garden harvest!

We’re growing just tomatoes and peppers this year, along with collection of herbs that survived last year’s mild winter. After a rough start to the growing season thanks to an animal (who remains at large) who felled two tomato plants and gnawed the leaves off several others leaving toothpicks in the ground, the tomato harvest is much later than normal with a smaller yield. I’m starting to see some san marzanos starting to appear, which actually is yielding much better than last year!

We have a pretty good shishito pepper yield this year, too, despite the fluctuating temperatures, hungry animals, and our inconsistent watering schedule. I joke with my dad (someone who has one of the greenest thumbs I know) that the only reason that our pepper yield is better than his is because pepper plants do a lot better under stress, and our pepper plants are literally fighting for their lives in our garden.

Sewed a top!

I purchased this sewing pattern on Etsy and proceeded to sew the top within a few days on-and-off with some scrap fabric. I won’t include a picture yet because I’m self-drafting an accompanying skirt that is still WIP.

So far, I’ve done the skirt toile on a thrifted bedsheet and now just jenga-ing the pattern pieces onto the fabric I have left over. it’s a tight fit! I may have to do a few pieces cross grain which, per my reddit searching, is a no-no. Sewing from self-drafted patterns feels like a lesson in patience: the process is essentially 85% cycling through the patterning/sourcing/testing steps, and really only 15% working on the final garment. I’ve built a bigger appreciation of the design process around clothes and I’m taking a bigger note of design details such as unique pleating and seam placements.

(Case in point: I spent a good 15 minutes in bed last night trying to understand how drawstrings work. Are they magic? Is it really just a string in casing? There must be something more to it??)

Bought my first blind box!

Blind boxes are probably the epitome of “treat culture”, hitting the sweet spot of being ~aesthetic~, gacha, and priced just right at the affordable mark of $15USD. Having gone through my own Funko pop phase, I’ve learned my lesson about collecting small pieces of plastic (with about 12 Funkos stored away at my parents’ place in a closet somewhere to show for it).

I mean, I’ll easily admit they’re so nice to look at. And the ASMR-like, serotonin-inducing way they’ve designed the packaging is master class. I’ve resorted to living vicariously though other people: 1) the Ohlico youtube channel who makes weekly blind box unboxing videos, and 2) a friend who enjoys collecting them who sends me pictures of his latest pulls.

I recently met up with said friend and went blind box shopping with him. I came away with two little guys (the Digimon one I bought, while the other was a gift!):

Bender has some new friends.

My friend ended up buying quite a few different ones so it was fun going with him and seeing him get excited about what he pulled.

I was talking about the blind box experience with my husband afterwards and my husband has such a different attitude about blind boxes, and just stuff in general. The way he put it was that he doesn’t develop attachments to material goods, which checks out. I love trinkets and saving notes from friends, I associate memories to clothes and pictures, whereas my husband doesn’t hold onto anything of the sort. Likely my husband’s perspective is the “financially” correct option, and the non-capitalistic one too, but is it so bad to tie memories and associate sentimentality to objects?

I’m digressing but I had fun and I’m reminded of the day when I look at these two little figures staring down at me from my windowsill.

Watched Critical Role’s Downfall!

(Obviously had to include one online thing).

The anticipation I felt for Downfall was like waiting for the next season of your favourite tv show after summer break. I haven’t experienced that feeling in a while as I grow less and less attached to various TV-related IP, but Critical Role is one thing I’ve stuck with for years, having watched them from their early Geek and Sundry days.

The tone was a lot different from what I was expecting. It was serious and a lot slower than I expected, but I feel like that was intentional. The actors were essentially laying down god canon with every action (the task was like asking someone to create a universe’s mythology that would be passed on generation to generation live), so every word and move had to be thoughtful. It didn’t have the levity of Calamity, but with the conclusion of the story stamped in its title, it didn’t want to be.

No spoilers but my two favourite parts were 1) the combat scenario in the last episode, which really highlighted the themes that were trying to hit and 2) the twist! I wasn’t expecting it (even with the clues!) and it didn’t feel forced at all. Brennan Lee Mulligan is a mastermind.

Honorable mention watch: Colin and Samir’s A Brutally Honest Conversation about 100 Thieves. I have a deeply nerdy interest in understanding business models that aren’t obvious (aka internet businesses) so this talk that delved into how Esports and online creators make money was right up my alley. Or how they lose money — with VC funding tightening in the current economic environment and the overall “attention” industry changing, a lot of these internet businesses are struggling with profitability, solvency, relevancy and legacy (see: the Watcher controversy, or read about it here). I came away with from this video having some serious respect for 100T’s streamer turned founder/CEO Matt aka Nadeshot who had to make some tough decisions in the past few months, and it shows.

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Honestly, I can’t believe summer’s already feels like it’s winding down. It doesn’t feel like too long ago that I was pining for sunshine and temperatures that called for an ice-cold glass of lemonade. We went to Costco today and I saw the very first Christmas decorations being posted up — if that isn’t a glaring signal of autumn/winter, I don’t know what is.

I do hope with the changing seasons brings us closer to closure, so we can finally enjoy the rest of the year!