Sundaze 288: We Moved In, and Our Lunar New Year, This Year

Happy Sundaze, my loves!

This weekend’s post comes to you particularly late because… I’ve finally moved! It’s been an exciting, tiring, celebratory week all ‘round, but I couldn’t be happier. Perhaps it’s the sentimental writer girl in me, but I sort of kept waiting for the penny to drop and the big sweeping emotions to wash over me and… they haven’t. Instead, I’m brimming with joy for our shiny new chapter. Okay, maybe I wrote one very sentimental essay for Substack…! In my eyes, this was going to look like the movies, or Pinterest, or Instagram, but the reality is even better: my new Abigail Ahern lamp finally out of storage, The Simpsons on TV ‘for nostalgia’, a cup of tea in my favourite mug from home, and my boyfriend pottering around the house.

Let’s catch up on the week that was…

A busy work week and how I coped

Last year, January was nice and quiet at my day job. I worked on one or two jobs a day – for context, I’ll typically take three or four – and then spent my afternoons tinkering at webinars and training courses. I love expanding my knowledge and building my professional skillset. This year has felt extremely different. Our team is bigger and yet so is the workload. All of the courses I’d planned are just a concept and I’ve had more frazzled days than not-frazzled days. My coping mechanism? Just one task at a time. My master to-do list goes on one page, then I write one task down on my working page until it’s time for another. No multi-tasking. It’s been a breath of fresh air.

Lunar New Year 2025

We celebrated Chinese New Year all week! Of course, this is one of my favourite Chinese holidays. We kick-started with Tết on Sunday (although Tết and Chinese New Year both fall on the same day) with my boyfriend’s family: a delicious home-cooked pot luck feast. It’d been a little while since we’ve gotten together, and it was great to see everyone! Next up, my family enjoyed reunion dinner on Lunar New Year Eve! This is one of the more important parts of the celebration: usually the wider family gets together for a reunion over food. It’s the busiest time for travel across East Asia! Us Chai’s opted for a warming hot pot – perfect for this time of year! Ahead of the new year, we also trimmed our hair, which trims away any bad luck or omens.

Then, on the day of Chinese New Year, we welcomed in the Year of the Snake by wearing new clothes, decorating the house in red, and eating 盆菜 (poon choi) and longevity noodle salad. All in the name of auspicious rituals and ushering in good luck, fortune, health and beyond! Finally, today we popped to a local Cantonese restaurant with my aunties, uncles and cousins for one more big meal. So delicious and such great fun to celebrate together!

Moving-in weekend

After a much-needed day working from home, on Friday I packed up (some of) my things and… moved in with my boyfriend! Since I’m coming from our family home, in theory this should be the easiest move that I do, and I’m fully capitalising on that. I brought two weeks’ clothes, my office essentials, some candles, and lamps with me, and can’t wait to exist in madness until our furniture starts arriving.

We celebrated moving-in night with a Chicken George feast – our favourite local fast food by far! I’m obsessed with their Vegan Chickless Chicken Wrap with Mango sauce. In fact, I’m salivating just thinking about it now! (Thankfully I’m cooking dinner right after I finish this post.) And, we’ve spent the weekend slowly picking up home essentials and new décor. Thank you for all the well wishes!

How I felt about January

January was long, wasn’t it?!

I’ll be honest, I’ve never been a January-hater, but I came close to it this year. Bitterly cold, endless bad news… Yet somehow I managed to make it sweeter with a few things, like girly errand dates, prepping for a move and… not starting new journals, new habit trackers, new challenges. That sounds silly, but not having to grapple with New Years’ pressure really eased off everything already feeling terrible. In hindsight, I made the most of it and had a brilliant reading month, even better writing month, and loved getting to see my friends.

Links I’ve Loved

This is what I’m cooking for dinner tonight. Sooo tasty. (Although I’ve had two consecutive bad experiences with GRUBBY and no longer recommend them, just make this recipe!)
There’s an extra 20% off at DUSK, so I ordered these lamps for our bedroom.
Currently coveting this red cashmere cardigan. Swoon.
Loved reading Sumedha’s thoughtful essay on leaving a job.
Our very own Ria has only gone and joined Substack! Subscribe to her, by my command.
Couldn’t wait to see @thestory.edit’s Instagram post rounding up the new Kindle deals for February!