Christmas in October

  • October 18, 2026

We made a purchase today:

After 25 years of wonderful service, we made the decision to retire our previous Christmas tree after we took it down earlier this year. It was therefore time to get a replacement, and that’s what we did today.

The new tree looks similar superficially, but is slightly wider, denser, has many more lights and is easier to put together. It’s also got a remote control and a timer, which our old one certainly didn’t have. Unfortunately it’s also heavier, which will be a problem when it comes time to store it. Assuming we don’t just choose to leave it up all year 🙂

It’s up now, which means the Christmas season has officially begun in our home. The tree has 2000 ‘fairy lights’ with varying levels of brightness. The highest one is possibly a bit too bright!

The above is multicoloured at maximum brightness, which makes the room psychedelic! We’ll usually keep it at a lower setting for normal use.

I usually put the Christmas cards in the tree, so feel free to send them now! Happy Christmas to everyone 🙂

The Rainiest Birthday

  • October 12, 2026

We went to NYC for a few days for KLS’s birthday!

On the first day we went to SoHo where she bought a ring and got her 11th ear piercing.

I was extremely lethargic (since I’d been a little sick) and even fell asleep when I sat on a couch in a store!

The next day we stayed in Manhattan and visited all our usual favourite stores.

It was extremely wet! Almost 5cm of rain fell in NYC yesterday and our shoes and socks got completely drenched.

The rain made the lights very pretty!

We purchased many items, and ate a lot of nice food. Yesterday was her actual birthday, and she had a good day 🙂

That’s a rare photo of me eating something green.

Today we did a bit more shopping (I bought 60 comics and 15 bags of cotton candy) and briefly saw the Columbus Day Parade.

The rain was a memory and it was very hot today. We both got a bit worn out, maybe because we did over 70k steps in three days.

Another successful birthday trip to NYC!

Chinese ‘Goddess Card’ Update

  • October 4, 2026

This arrived yesterday, direct from China:

Here’s what I saw when I opened it:

This was mysterious, since I never ordered a binder like this! After I removed it and explored the rest of the contents, I discovered many things I did buy:

Eight sealed boxes of trading cards and three single packs of A5-sized cards! These are more of the unusual Chinese ‘anime girl’ cards, which I’m still buying after discovering them about a year ago. We still live opening the packs because the cards are so weird and random!

The box also contained eleven free gifts! I’ve learned over the last year that trading card purchases from Chinese stores often come with free gifts, but I was surprised to see so many. They included cards, acrylic stands, badges, stickers and this:

Yes this binder was a free gift! It’s big and bold with a puffy cover beautifully printed front and back with cute art. It came with a big bunch of card storage pages and I’ll use it to store the more exceptional cards I’ve pulled from packs.

This shipment took 18 days to arrive from China (in perfect condition), and cost less than you probably think even including the ~$64 shipping. I was so satisfied I was sure to get right on Amazon and order some more 🙂

  • Posted in Cards
  • Robert