Happy New Year to you all~! I hope your start to the new year has gone well. Goodbye 2022, and hello 2023!

The start of 2023

While we started off the new year pretty well with visiting our local shrine on New Year’s Eve to leave an offering of Sake. Then for Hatsumode (first shrine visit of the year) just after midnight. Where we prayed and lit a candle and incense. This is my first time actually properly following the traditional way. I have only ever been to a shrine after midnight in Osaka, when I was travelling with my friends over the winter holidays.

Yet, I still feel like I am under the winter blues. I have only managed to do a quick stretch in the morning on Monday, which really helped me be more focused for the rest of day. Resulting in making a new daily schedule, a quick sketch, and some Japanese studying. Before cleaning the kitchen vent and finishing the dusting. All in time for me to cook dinner, which my little one didn’t really want to eat.

The following day was more into panic cleaning as I got a message from a friend asking if I would home today, to which I replied yes. Then I got to work on the vacuuming, washing, washing up, folding laundry, and closing off the guest room, which is where my desk is. Only for said friend to leave a box on our porch which a message saying something was outside our front door. Although all was not lost, as my BIL and his family came to drop off presents for my LO and I. So I took the opportunity to give them theirs as I wasn’t sure what my family were doing after my husband got home.

Today has been a bit of struggle as my husband and I have not been feeling well, and got very little sleep. Thus, we had a relaxing day at home and got some more laundry done before spending the rest of the day on the sofa.

New Year Means New Bujo

One good think about the new year is that I can finally start to use my new journal! Its great to finally add a bit more colour to my trackers. While some are not updated every day (mostly the sleep and steps, as it involves syncing my watch with my phone via Bluetooth), it is starting to look pretty.

I am definitely happy with my new B5 journal. I feel a lot more at ease with being able to write more for each day than in the limited space I had before. There is still room for improvement, but I am very happy with it so far.

Yesterday, my Notebook Therapy order of 2 stamp collections arrived. I have been waiting since it was shipped on 20th December. Now, after trying a few out in my journal, I noticed that I need to wait longer before doing anything as the ink takes a while to dry. However, now I can be a little more artsy, in an easy way, in my journal.


With that said…

I hope you are all well and are enjoying this short time with your families this season. I hope I can continue to update this blog a little more frequently this year. So I hope to see you again soon.

~Thank you~