Contrails: Feb '26, Week 1

The weekend went by way too fast -- I was unwell on Saturday and slept through most of the day, and was out and about the whole of Sunday. 🥺 I don't have much to share for the week because I spent pretty much the whole week doing spring cleaning (I'm not done yet! 🙃). Tried to snap a picture for the main things I did though!

✨ IRL -- Spring cleaning part 1!

One might think that a new house wouldn't have any spring cleaning to do, but they'll be sorely mistaken! I didn't have much stuff to toss out as I had already done that when I moved in about half a year ago. But dust settles on everything even if windows are always kept closed! Plus, there was still some renovation dust stuck in nooks and crannies, so I wanted to clean it all away before the Lunar New Year!

Here's the list of stuff I did (doesn't seem like much when put into a list 🙃):

1. Dusted the house (including walls and power sockets, windows, top of wardrobes and cabinets, and PCs)

2. Vacuumed the curtains, carpets, and floor (with 1 cordless vacuum... I kept needing to stop to recharge it!🥺)

3. Wiped doors and tiled walls all the way up to the ceiling (including cabinet doors). Kitchen walls tend to have grease that accumulates near the ceiling, and bathroom walls sometimes get a little tacky from condensate and dust. Fortunately the state of the walls was still alright, so I didn't need to do any scrubbing! 💖

4. Cleaned and "polished" mirrors -- "polished" because after using a glass cleaner to wipe away dust and any oils, I went in with a microfiber cloth to make sure that it sparkled! :D

5. Dusted, swept, and wiped down the outside of my house. The estate has been flooded with different types of bugs over the past few months depending on the state of the landscaping, so I've always had some kind of insect repellent/ insecticide at my doorway... and lots of dead flies right in front of my door as a result. 💀They look like tiny suicide bombers that rammed into my front door, sniffed the insecticide, and died... 🤔 It always looks like a massacre a week after reapplying, but they just keep coming... 🥺

6. Scrubbed the shower tiles and grout lines, and went over with a little bleach. ✨ Felt terrible after inhaling a little too much of it, but the shower area is now sparkling. 💖

I do most of these things once a month, but wanted to get them all done right before the Lunar New Year. There is a traditional belief that it is taboo to sweep your house or take out trash on New Year's day as you'd be sweeping or throwing away good fortune that you'd have welcomed into your home on New Year's day. It also makes for a great excuse for me to take a break from cleaning to enjoy the festivities. 🤣 So I like to do as much cleaning as possible before the Lunar New Year so that I get to relax in a clean environment for a few days. ✨✨✨

I also decorated my home a little more! ✨ When I was out with my partner looking for decorations, I learned that it is surprisingly difficult to make a horse look cute without it starting to look like a donkey. 🤔 But I had bought a few horse plushies from Bellzi for my partner's birthday earlier this year, so now they're all around the house, asserting dominance over my snake plushies. 🐎🐎🐎🐍🐍🐎🐎🐎

Horsi! Bellzi plushies are little works of art. 🥹💜 My photos don't do them justice. Also, there are others!

✨ Gaming -- FFXIV M12S Phase 2 prog., Sonic Racing during some vacuum-charging breaks, and Disco Elysium!

The reason I haven't shared a single Disco Elysium screenshot is because it's not a very pretty game. 🤣 But I'm still enjoying it! I'm not sure if I would replay the game because there are other games I want to sink my teeth into, but I might come back to try a different character archetype some time later!

FFXIV savage raid progress is slow but at least it's still moving forward! Hopefully with 4 sessions this week, we'll be able to reach the end before the Lunar New Year (next Tuesday), as we will only have 2 sessions that week -- which tends to result in regression. 🙃

Rushed to snap this shot right as the instance timer hit 0 and my static was booted out of the map. 🥺 I wanted to take a nicer picture to "celebrate" clearing M12S Phase 1, but my static wanted to keep going until we timed out. Oh well! Not bad for a hastily taken shot, I think! 🥹💜

In other news, Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties releases this week (12 Feb)!!! I REALLY want to buy and play it on release, but I have raid that day. 🙃 Plus, I still have Disco Elysium... and Pirate Yakuza... and Ratatan early access update... and Solasta II early access on 12 Mar... So maybe I'll get it when it goes on a small discount later in the year? 🥹💔

Cat tax! Unlocked the Cafe setting, so now my game (somewhat) matches my 2026 planner! 💜

✨ Random interesting thing -- Saw a bird in a nest when I was out touching grass 🥹💜

Spotted it under a sheltered overhead bridge! It was clearly very bothered by my intrusive photo-taking though. 💔 Sorry bird. 🥺 On hindsight, wouldn't temperatures fluctuate a lot on this iron beam? 🤔🤔🤔

~💜~

Hopes for this week

♪ Record vocals for the next cover before Lunar New Year feasting destroys my throat. 🤔

☆ Week 6 of 7.4 Savage Raids: See M12S enrage/ clear... Maybe?! 🥺

☆ Vroom vroom Sonic Racing!

☆ Disco a little over the weekend? :)

☆ Lunar New Year preparations: Finish cleaning, do last minute shopping, and make some new year goodies to gift to the family!

☆ Plan for March!

Thank you for reading! 🌙🐰