In the beginning of year 2023, I opened this blog before starting my first day of work after 2 weeks end-of-year holiday and realized that I only wrote ONE post in 2022. I feel that my life was either too packed and busy with agendas in 2022 - or I simply have no motivation to write (yeah I guess it was the later one, wasn't it). What can I say, I'm just an ordinary human who always wish that God gives me more than 24 hours a day.
Since my intention to keep blogging is to have a living memento for me to look back to, I need to force myself to write a recap of 2022 before my motivation vanished. Here we go!
(28 January me: haha it took me almost a month to finish this draft lol)
I lost my mother in 2019, pandemic and what's with 'new normal' that forced us to quickly adapt in 2020, then we lost Junda's mother in 2021. 2022 though, were all about endless blessings. I feel that Allah has been very kind for me & family in 2022, there are still some stormy path here and there, but nothing that me and my family could not navigate.
Home Making
At the end of 2021 we decided to move from the apartment that we've rented for three years to our tiny house. Buying a house and taking a mortgage was a big, big decision for both of us. We spent a lot of time contemplating this decision, and came to the conclusion that the timing is just right. We found a house for sale in the area that we both always imagine growing old at, at a price range that is affordable to us, and at the time when there are need for both of us to expand our life a little bit.
However, the wait was worth it. Once our kitchen finished, we are really happy with the result. Our kitchen is the most favorite part in the home for both of us. We are really grateful of how the house finally become our home; big kitchen, open spaces, proper working spaces, big big window with nice circulation and bunch of light, teeny-tiny backyard that we built ourselves to save budget, and not to mention the color scheme that we carefully selected so that it wouldn't make our eyes tired.
Cats!
One of the major reasons of why we even consider taking a mortgage for a landed house was just because... we'd like to live with cats! Our love to that furry annoying creature could become a single post itself, but well who doesn't love cats?? Really. When we went back home to Medan, we really feel the joy of having that furry company and imagine it will be so nice to have them as a company.
Back in May 2021, Kopi, the black domestic cat in Junda's parents home just gave birth to 4 cute kittens that we named Sapi, Mupi, Pipi, and Topi. Since the day 1, we knew that we'd take Sapi and Mupi with us to our home. They were raised in my in-laws until our home was ready and we literally counting days until we can finally live together with them :')
Mupi & Sapi, 1 month old
They bring joys to our life in a way that we cannot describe. I'm forever grateful to these two clingy and annoying cats and I always pray that they will always feel happy, healthy, and loved :)
New Hobbies
Since pandemic, both of us developed new hobbies. Junda with his coffee brew and various beverages recipe that make our home seems like a small cafe. People always love coming to our house since they could really order hot/cold latte, with or without syrup, sometimes with a scoop of ice cream if the timing is fit. For those who don't fancy coffee, matcha latte or chocolate are also available, haha.
The dedicated beverage station
I grow fond of baking as I learned more and more about it. It started with cookies & various type of shortbread, then I started to try to bake cinnamon roll since Junda likes it very much. Some of our relatives even ordered the cinnamon roll regularly since they found it nice compared to the store-bought ones.
I always curious about sourdough, particularly because it is a healthier version of bread and in line with my eating style, so I joined a sourdough class and learn from a chef - and I'M OBSESSED! Sourdough taught me a combination of patience, time management, inventory, and good calculation since some math is needed to make sure that the fridge is not overloaded. It feels really wonderful to see only flour, water, and salt could produce a very tasty bread. Now I can also switch all conventional recipe that I have to sourdough approach, and my sourdough cinnamon roll now tastes better and not to mention, healthier! I can also make Shokupan & brioche bun and sell it to my friends so they know that bread can be made into healthier (and tastier) version, and some of them (esp those with stomach problem) can really tell the difference. Me & Junda agreed that the best bread is the home-made sourdough bread, we never bought bread from stores anymore.
London
After two years of delay, we finally go through with our London trip in October 2022!
The money that we got from all the refunds from original trip in March 2020 has not been touched at all, so it was relatively easy decision for us to arrange the trips again once UK opens their border for international traveller.
We basically execute the same itineraries with the ones we planned in 2020, with big difference in duration and we ended up spending 3 full weeks in the UK, hence a longer days in London. Our respective company's remote working policy let us spent our last 6 days of our trip working from London.
Back at Kings Cross, where me & Junda first met
As for the trip itself, we started with two days in London, then a roadtrip to Snowdon that has its own series of posts. We then came to London for a quick rendezvouz with Junda's siblings who tagged along with us for this part of trip. Four of us then board a train to Glasgow that should be done in 4 hours, but we spent a full 8 hours instead. I might write a separate post for this. After spending a night in Glasgow, we rented another car for a roadtrip around Scottish Highlands and Isle of Skye for 4 days. We returned the car in Edinburgh and then hopped back into a train to go to London that thankfully only took 4 hours this time. Then we spent the rest of our trip in London, reminiscing our Master's life. It was a strange but fun days. Due to the time difference, we were working remotely from 3 AM and finished by lunchtime, then we can go to the park or coffee shop after work.
Going back to London for both of us didn't really feel like a holiday in the beginning, it was just us went back to our same old routine, familiar surroundings, and habit. The moment we board that Piccadilly Line from Heathrow, everything felt familiar once again, and suddenly the Londoners version of us appeared on the surface. Although, Junda's siblings made it more exciting. Their excitement of seeing and experiencing things they haven't before were contagious. All in all it was a very memorable and exciting trip.
What's next?
When the storm that is 2022 just passed the halfway mark, we spotted an even rougher wind for our 2023. In terms of blogging materials, 2023 can potentially bring way more post counts than any of my previous years, even including the ones when I was in London. But at this point of time, the time window opportunity to write them down seems questionable. I hope everything settles down soon so that we can both have more time to write here.
Lastly, even though it is late, I hope you guys are having a happy new year!
xx,
Mira, Mupi, Sapi, Junda
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