Hey! So as we speak, I am in Amsterdam, part of this post having been written on our flight there. Some flight-related wins appear in this post too! 🥳

I’m super excited to be sharing more about our trip over the coming weeks. Nick and I will be spending about a month in Europe, spending a lot of time in Germany (we’re doing Hamburg, Berlin and Munich!), whereas the highlight of our 2016 Europe trip was Italy, because we visited quite a few places there – and Nick proposed to me there as well, haha.

Our full itinerary consists of Amsterdam, Hamburg, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Munich, Colmar, Paris, London and spending a couple of nights in Singapore on the way home. I’ll be posting visual snippets of our travels on Instagram, so if you’re not following me there yet, feel free to connect. Outside of travelling, I post a gym selfie after my workouts, and often post the outfits I wear; I’m also more of a sporadic, long-form caption user, so guaranteed I won’t spam your feed if you’re only here for the travel pics! I’ll also be posting daily summaries and more interesting photos on Twitter, and I tend to post insightful thoughts, amusing happenings, and occasional complaints – I love and have loved Twitter for a while, and I think it’s accurate to say that it’s a smaller, condensed version of my blog with slightly more sass. 😉

Excuse the promotions! 😅 It just occurred to me that I usually share my social media links but never on my blog have I forewarned/introduced the kind of content I post. I know some people are quite deliberate and intentional in how they consume social media.

tiny wins ✨

• I bought ball-back earrings and they were a success (see my last Fashion Friday post) 💎
• delivered a talk at the Girl Geeks meetup – it was well received 😊
• I scanned the “wrong” side of my card holder (the side without the Opal transport card) on the Opal transport card reader and it didn’t bleep me with any card interference
• I admitted I didn’t know something 😅
• ordered a “5 piece chicken tenders box” and got 7 pieces
• delivered a talk about clothes, hehe
• free poke bowl from collecting enough points
• direct quote I sent to my friends: “Sometimes I think about how I only have to buy one bottle of shampoo and conditioner every two years because that’s how little I wash my hair compared to most folks”
• dirty matcha 🍵 was so fucking good 🤯
• after wearing a top I didn’t quite like and forced myself to wear, I got compliments on it
• I bought a wool sweater and it’s so soft and makes me not want to buy cheap sweaters anymore
• I got the wool sweater in a deal with a scarf and socks, and got a big discount
• successfully figured out how to do something at work related to feature flags, after I decided that I’d try instead of waiting for someone else to show me how
• salted caramel popcorn = yum
• I swapped shoes with someone on Carousell and it wasn’t such a bad experience or a rip-off
• someone asked for feedback and I had some constructive feedback to give that wasn’t just “you were good”
• bad news: bought a tonne of new underpants and they were uncomfortable within a few wears but good news: got a pair from Lululemon that were pricey but have been the dream!
• withdrew cardless cash from the ATM for the first time and I was very impressed
• the department store my mum works at were selling discounted Apple products and she got me an orange watch band for only $27
• finished two tins of tea 💪
• Brandon graduated from his Masters degree 🎉
• Nick and I made it to Singapore en route to Amsterdam
• I packed light, by the way
• on the flight from Sydney to Singapore I wrote some of this blog post
• on the flight I also did a lot of work on my talk I’m going to give at DDD by Night at the end of May
• actually slept on the flight from Singapore to Amsterdam
• ate ramen on the flight (more on this later omg 🍜)
• made our way to our hotel and although our room is not ready, we are ready to hit the road! 🤪⚡️🥳👏🖐

my favourite tiny wins 💖

brandon’s graduation

My younger brother Brandon graduated from his Masters degree! He completed a Master of Cyber-Security, Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism. He has certainly continued the tradition of doing degrees with long names. I thought my Bachelor of Arts in Communication (Information and Media) and Master of Interactive Multimedia was enough words for one family. 😂 I’m very proud of him! 🥰👨🏻‍🎓

shoe swap + other thoughts

I wouldn’t say this was my /favourite/ thing to have happened, but it did give me some insight and a new way of thinking. I was using Carousell, looking for a certain brand of clothing, and I spotted a pair of white brogues that someone was selling. I “liked” them, and usually when I like items on Carousell, I am actually rather serious about the item, and I would consider buying it. (I’m aware that some people “like” items willy-nilly.) I suppose the girl selling the shoes saw that I liked them because she messaged me about a pair of black sandals I had listed on my profile and asked if I was interested in doing a swap.

I’d never done a swap on Carousell before and I honestly wasn’t interested at all because I wanted to sell things – I wanted money. 😆 I’m also very picky with what I want, and it’s not very likely that someone selling something I want would want something I am selling, and vice versa. But I thought about it. I hadn’t worn these sandals in almost a year and I didn’t like them. Even if I offered them to the girl for a cheaper price, it may not be a lot of money, or she may really only want to swap, and not spend money. Also, I did actually like the brogues she was selling and I figured it would be better to have a pair of shoes I could try out and somewhat like, instead of just being stuck with a pair of shoes I don’t like.

I thought it was a pretty successful swap – I’d say the shoes we swapped were fairly equal in value, quality and condition. I liked the shoes and I’ve worn them quite a few times. They are classy while having a bit of an edge to them, making outfits a little less girly. I dare say, though, they are similar to the leather brogues I bought in Italy in 2016, in that they are really tough and hard and painful to walk in because they are still stiff and take a lot of wears to soften up. I had planned on taking them on our Europe trip because they were hella cute and different… but they were not comfortable to walk in for long periods of time and I got a foot cramp from them earlier this week. 💀

I did start to think, however, that maybe this girl and other folks who like clothes-swapping are really onto something. You have something you don’t want, someone has something they don’t want, and you do a swap and both parties are happy – and you essentially didn’t have to pay a cent. It seems rather economical, and the “cost” of what you get is determined through the value that someone else puts on something you don’t even want anymore. I should consider it more – but the other reason is that I wanted to get rid of things, not just swap, which is another main reason for not being interested when someone suggests a swap.

really good™ underpants

Ha, OK, I don’t know how much y’all care about underpants, but they are essential and having uncomfortable underwear basically sucks, so if you don’t care that much, you probably should! 😉 I’ve basically had a hard time finding underpants that fit well since gaining weight and gaining muscle in my hips, butt, and legs. Underpants ride up, bunch up in the back, give wedgies, or give cameltoe. So when I tried on a pair of boy short underpants from Lululemon that didn’t budge and hugged my body in the right places, weren’t too thick or uncomfortable, and I tried them under different kinds of clothes and they were still fantastic, of course I was thrilled. 😎

It’s not quite the end of the month but I thought that posting this today would fit best amongst the travel posts I have planned! Any tiny wins during the last few days in April will be bundled into May’s edition. ☺️

tiny wins ✨ is a monthly occurring “monthly review”-type post. It is focused on small achievements throughout the month, although some may be considered “great” achievements. The premise behind tiny wins is that everything should be shared no matter how big or small. The lowercase stylisation is deliberate, and is a nod to the name (lowercase letters being smaller than uppercase or capitalised text).