First Achievement and Accomplishment in early 2025!

By Somaly,

Namaste wonderful souls and dear readers, 

Since I was ten year old, I saw a friend who raise and grow up in city. she had her journal book and she wrote her stories. I never wrote any things about my stories and childhood memories. it was beginning desire. Then I was 23 year old. I saw a friend from church who share and talked about her journal writing and set some plan her life. this was second time that I felt inspire and have been learning " how to journal my stories, memories, and experiences in my life". I have been using digital journal and hard copy books. I gave up so many time, but I never stop trying and starting my journal every year! 

I started to write my stories, memories, and experiences again since 2024. I use digital journal and blog. It has been improving and developing into habit. I learn to express ideas, thought, and inner voice inside me. when I wrote about my feelings, memories, experiences, and stories, I felt better, release, and let's go the past experiences which no longer benefit in my life. sometimes, it was hard to face the truth that I had made some mistakes, some made wrong choices, and chose to trust the wrong person in my life. Now I decided to forgive myself and others, so we all could be free and move on with our future journey!

I never complaint about what had happed in the past? I saw and acknowledge them as some lessons, maps and guidelines that I was in the right path or I might stay on the wrong path. Thank universe that I learn about my health, goals, desire, goals, plans, and strategies. I never thought that I could reach these answers, align my true purpose in life, and build my dream into reality. when I could recognise and be able understand what strategies work best in me! I start flow and take a small steps every days! 

Since 2025 I enjoyed wrote on my note books, journal books, and calendars. It was a great success! I could wrote a small note each days and I feel that my life have been more organise and well-prepare. 

These are my note books, journal books, and calendars! 

I enjoyed the moment that I use my pencil on books. I learn to listening my inner voice. sometimes I could get the vision and feel the connect between my heart and high-self! I am grateful that I could find a piece of puzzle in my life which I could reach the future answers. I have been build secure and safe base. I feel more resilient, confident, and being myself. I enjoyed and be proud to be myself. I do not allow some negative people and energy affect me! I will respect others as they also respect mine!

These books help me to record different experiences and reflect the whole strategies and plans which work or does not work! I have been writing my life stories, experiences, and memories. I feel secure and safe that my future children could learn and benefit in their life.

Finally, I also feel proud that I could use own ideas and words. It might be not perfect English form or sentence structures. I will be improve and develop the skills. I am glad that ideas flow into the stories. I am going to do my best. I am going to see what my life could achieve and accomplish in the next five year.

Thank you for your previous times to reading and support our writing. 
🌟Thank you for being part of our community. 
🌟 Thank you for your likes, shares, comments, and follows. 
🌟If you feel it might be not resonate and align with your life, please leave my stories and experiences behind. Thank you.
🌟Send a lot of love, hugs, peace, miracles, and blessings to you and your family.
Copyright by So and Jo Stories:
©2025 by So and Jo Stories. All right are reserved

High Five Yourself!

by: Icie

Namaste wonderful souls and dear readers, New year, new reflections, but some things are pretty much the same. 2024 was rife with all kinds of gruelling and enjoyable things that happened in my life. I created this blog with my best friend Somaly to talk about our personal lifestyle choices and the shit that the two of us do in Australia, whether together or with other people.

I've seen things on stage last year: Chicago, Beauty and the Beast, Cirque Du Soleil Luzia, Wicked (for the 2nd time since 2014. This time with my other best friend Danielle.) The Chicago stage play wasn't what I expected (because I saw the movie first) and the Beauty and the Beast Musical wasn't what I expected either (it was updated to look more like the 2017 version instead of the 1991 but with a better dress than Emma Watson's.) Luzia was, for me, Cirque du Soleil's comeback after a bad one (Crystal).

I have been on several museum dates with my loved ones to see things about fairy tales, Lego dinosaurs, Alphonse Mucha, Iris van Herpen, and Ancient Egypt. Though Australia's museums aren't as world renowned as others, we try our best and a trip to the museum is always educational and awe-inspiring.

I also coloured a goddess for the artist Jash Lee. Not just in a Facebook group of sorts, but he approached me to do one for him personally. I wish I could have done better, but I'm an amateur!

I have been to festivals about cats, dogs and the annual Matsuri Brisbane. It's the 3rd time I went to the festival and I enjoy it every year.

My grief happened when I experienced the loss of my beloved dog Mallows. The sad thing about this was that I didn't see him in his last moments as I was in Australia while he was with my family in the Philippines.

I reconnected with my friends and family after 4 years of separation due to Covid. I finally met my nephew and was so excited when they visited me this time. We explored Brisbane and we took them to our favourite spots.

Then Gio and I explored Sydney and fell in love with Australia even more.

Other things I did was grinded coffee beans with an antique,

did a low cost cosplay of Anya Forger for Halloween,

created art with literal babies (8 months to 19 months) for Christmas which reconnected me to art,

and wasted a lot of time on Infinity Nikki (my game of the year). Did some Dreamlight Valley on the side too. I found out that I am getting too old for stressful games as my work is already too stressful, so I sauntered on to cozy games and never went back.

But what I really want to high five myself about was that I quit my good job for a better paying one. I was happy where I was and the people in the work place were amazing and fun. The work ethic was chill and I have made friends. But I wasn't progressing and I am full of ambition and I know my worth. Also, it was far from where I live.

I looked for a different job were I was placed in a leadership role with better pay as well, only to realise that it was a terrible one. It reminded me of the time I worked in companies that valued profit over the people and we were treated like numbers. I missed my old job and wished I could go back to my old one even if there was an invitation to go back from my previous owner. I cried from the stress every day. So I quit again and found a new one after staying there for just 4 months. Again, I know my worth.

And the new one is amazing! (even if it had lower pay.)

It may sound like I'm anti-work but I have never been prouder or happier that I moved on from them. I was proud that I didn't have to be a martyr to jobs that made me feel stagnant or jobs that are so toxic to its employees. I am proud and giving myself a high five for learning how to move on and treat myself to something better. I have learned not to just say yes to any company that offers me a lot of money because they are traps. Hopefully this new year and new endeavor will be good to me and the people around me but for now, I am giving myself a high five for everything that I've done in 2024. It was a good year, and I hope it's better this year.

Thank you for your previous times to reading and support our writing. 
🌟Thank you for being part of our community. 
🌟 Thank you for your likes, shares, comments, and follows. 
🌟If you feel it might be not resonate and align with your life, please leave my stories and experiences behind. Thank you.
🌟Send a lot of love, hugs, peace, miracles, and blessings to you and your family.
Copyright by So and Jo Stories:
©2025 by So and Jo Stories. All right are reserved

After three months processing grief, I felt better and accept the fact!

 by Somaly

Namaste wonderful souls and dear readers, 

After three processing grief, I felt better and accept the fact! I still miss and cried every time that I think about my beloved mother. my currently emotion and physical health have been improved. I return to doing normal hobbies such as gardening, traveling, colouring, and creating video contents.

I realise that I have to forgive myself for what happens in the past? and it was somethings that I could not control. I keep praying and remembering the beautiful memories with my mother. I hope she could rest in peace. During Christmas and New Year holiday break, my husband and I had a short trip near by.

A couple picnic at Brisbane Botanic Gardens at Mt Coot-tha

My husband lost his young sister last November 2024, we decided to have a quiet Christmas celebration together. we had picnic at Brisbane Botanic Gardens at Mt Coot-tha. It was the best celebration picnic area during the Christmas Day. It was beautiful green and less crowed. there are some people visit there around 9:00 am. We arrived at 7:30 am. we could see turtles, eels, ducks, dragon flies, butterflies, and other wild animals. it was relaxing and peaceful moments. we really enjoyed the day. Brisbane Botanic Gardens has many beautiful areas where we could explored with nature walk and had refresh feelings. our favourite spots are waterlilies pond and home kitchen area( a place where council gardener grown different type vegetables, fruits tree, herbs, flowers, compost, bee hive, and worm farm.)

We live close by to the city, we rarely visit the South Bank and Kangaroo Point Cliffs.

Last Boxing Day, we spend half day walking from the Kangaroo Point Cliffs to the South Bank. Some areas were crowed. families brought their young children played, cycling, and walked their dogs. there are many people enjoyed their holiday break as well. we also enjoyed our walking and sightseeing the beautiful city views. we had fun and enjoyed time. we also could take some Power Nap during our holiday break. the holiday season could bring some new fresh start ideas and let's go for what happens last year? I felt grateful that we could overcome our challenges. we decided to bring more joy and happy moments into our life. Now we relaxed and trust the flow life with universal plans. it was time to let's go the past.

This was in the Coolangatta area. we also love to visit these beaches.

We decided to two day trip on 29/12/24 to 30/12/24. It was our second time that we visited some beaches between New South wales and Queensland border. there are some many magnificent and dazzling beaches and places. we spent time in Coolangatta beach, Kira beach, Rainbow Bay beach, Snapper Rocks, Froggy Beach, Flagstaff beach, Hastings Point, and Hastings Point Lookout. There beaches were crowed and busy. We decided to road trip where we could see small farm, cattle farm, sheep form, local towns, and some countryside area. people live simple and peaceful with nature. there are some areas where we could have internet connecting in our phone. we had exciting and also nervous as well. we managed to find our back home. I post some videos on my YouTube Channels if you are interest... Please checked the link below: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCemx-eEKXmaq2A7oDr07JMg .

last year, my husband and I cleaned and decluttered our place. we felt release and happy with our new environment. we selected and adapted our growing season according to the weather conditions. We are looking for better future , healthy lifestyle, and abundance life.

Thank you for your previous times to reading and support our writing.
🌟Thank you for being part of our community.
🌟 Thank you for your likes, shares, comments, and follows.
🌟If you feel it might be not resonate and align with your life, please leave my stories and experiences behind. Thank you.
🌟Send a lot of love, hugs, peace, miracles, and blessings to you and your family.
Copyright by So and Jo Stories:
©2025 by So and Jo Stories. All right are reserved

What can I learn from the loss of my mother?

This picture was before her surgery.

by Somaly
Namaste wonderful souls and dear readers, 

After I graduated from my study, we brought flight on August 2024. We visited them on 17 October 2024. I had two major health appointments between August to October 2024. I only asked my work leaved as my planned.

My mother had type 2 diabetes. she was careful on her diets and took her medication regularly. unfortunately, she got sick on early September 2024.  She got a bumps on the heel of her foot. she visited doctors, took blood test, and ultrasound on our local clinics. They said " Everything is okay".  She got some lumps in her head, one side her leg and hip. It was emergency. My father and siblings send her to some big public hospitals and private clinic. The doctors took blood tests and ultrasound. the private clinic send my mother to one of big Cambodia public hospitals. then She got head surgery " remove lump on her head without doing biopsy". The doctor send my mother home, so she had to waiting results. The doctor prescribed her some medication. It took three weeks to get results. 

I did not realised " my mother illness was serious and critical situation" as I live oversea. I only see her through video callings. I only hope that I could brought her to other hospital. she will be okay.

When I arrived to my hometown, she was in critical condition. I brought her to the same hospital as they already had her file. She spend one day in emergency unite and three day in ICU emergency. Doctors could not help her. She passed on 22/10/24. It was the most difficult moment. I had spent the last few days with my beloved mother. She was my everything and most care person in my life. She loved me unconditionally. I always remember her in my heart. I could not change the outcomes. I learned to accepted the facts and have been dealing with grief, anger, and guilty.  

When I arrived in Australia, and I could not feel the same.  I managed to go work, but I only told some co-workers about my mother's death because I did not want cried at my workplace. I lost my trust with some Cambodia health hospitals and doctors since my mother's death. I thought that if I brought my mother to Thailand or Vietnam hospital sooner, my mother might be stay with us little longer.I felt very lost and blame myself.

I felt safe to cried at home. I cried every-time that I am thinking about my mother.  I could not find the word to describing the grief process from one person to others. My husband sister passed away on 14 November 2024.  I never meet her, but I felt sad and worried about my husband who could not meet and joined his sister funeral. for my experiences, I feel empty and confused with suddenly death events. I felt very tired, intense, sore some part of my body, and lost motivation from October until Early December. I avoided to join party and any happy events. I did isolated myself from my daily round and creative activities. I took time to relaxing, allowed myself to do nothing, and recognised the feelings.

I felt little better since 15/12/24. I started accepting the facts and forgive myself. I talked with my father, siblings, and friends. I returned to doing my garden. I felt release and relaxing after my yoga and acupuncture sessions. I sometimes cried because I miss my mother and worried about my father's health as well. I remember about her beautiful smile, beautiful heart, kind, hard working, strong wills, responsible, and selfless person. I felt blessed to be her daughter. " thank you for being my mother." It was hard without you, but I know you always in my heart and memories. May her rest in peace! I love you.

What can I learn from the loss of my mother?

First,  I learn that healing is from within. I believed that I could deal with my emotions. Until I willing to tried the body psychotherapy for the first time. I learned and understand " how to healing my body, mind, and spirit? and how to released the energy blocked and break the old pattern in my life?". I believe that healing was within my body, mind, and spirit. I need to understand the root cause and be honest with my feelings and body needs. 

Second, I learn that my emotions and mind could created illness without me realise it. I used to compress my feelings, put others' needs above my own needs, and avoid the complex with others. Now I embrace my own powers, needs, and learn to express my voices.

Finally, I learned to enjoyed my time, listening to my body and feelings, forgive myself for making the wrong choices and bad decisions, let's my flow with universe, and let others to be free for who they are.

 Thank you for your previous times to reading and support our writing. 

🌟Thank you for being part of our community. 

🌟 Thank you for your likes, shares, comments, and follows. 

🌟If you feel it might be not resonate and align with your life, please leave my stories and experiences behind. Thank you.

🌟Send a lot of love, hugs, peace, miracles, and blessings to you and your family.

Copyright by So and Jo Stories:

 ©2024 by So and Jo Stories. All right are reserved

Egyptology: Artisans Lecture with Dr. Serena Love

 by: Icie

Brisbane has some interesting stuff in its museums. Recently, the Dutch Museum of National Antiquities (Rijksmueum van Oudheden) partnered with Queensland Museum Kurilpa to showcase Ancient Egyptian Artifacts from Pre-History to the Roman Period. The exhibit is open up to the 17th of August and oh holy hell, I wanted to go so bad!

A ticket costs $30 per person to see the exhibit. I checked the website to see if there were any talks and yes, there were. For 4 Saturdays from the 2nd to the 23rd. I missed the one that was done in the second which was about the mummification and funerary practices, so I booked one for the 9th which was about artisans and brickmakers. Perfect! I learned about some ancient Egyptian art during my art history semester and I wanted to enrich myself with more knowledge. I sent $15 for the lecture (different from the collection ticket) and listened to how ancient artisans did their trade through a PowerPoint presentation while Dr. Serena Love explained each picture, slide, and her own experiences in encountering them.

Please Checked more interesting Pictures in our Tumblr Account: "https://www.tumblr.com/blog/yinandyanglifestyle"

The lecture started at 10:30am and lasted for an hour. I saw people of all ages come to see what's up. Some of them brought their laptops, the others brought pens and paper, others like lazy little me, just brought an old phone.

Dr. Love started the lecture about The Satire of the Trades from the Ancient Egyptian scribe Kheti to his son Pepi. Kheti just wanted his son to follow his footsteps as a scribe, so he described how the laborers and other artisans and tradesmen smelled like fish excrement, always tired, and suffered from violent beatings. But if you're a scribe, you'll be fine because "there is no scribe lacking sustenance". I guess secretaries were well fed at the time.

She started with the coppersmith, what their life was like and how important the whole copper industry was to their civilization. She went onto detail bout copper is pretty much what they used to do a lot of labour from stone cutting (cutting off limestone) to making mirrors. And as people know, that metal is soft. The copper tools get blunt easily so the coppersmiths work tirelessly day and night for centuries before moving onto bronze. Then she showed some pictures of artifacts that were also in the exhibit of some copper and bronze artifacts and their uses.

Did they seriously use copper chisels and shit to cut off granite?!!! Egyptologists think so. They recreated the technique using a copper tool and a small bit of limestone to see if it could be done. Yes. It could. It would take about 20 strikes for a copper tool to cut a chunk of limestone. Imagine doing that to make the pyramids. You will needs millions of slaves to cut all of those limestone with subpar tools. The scale of it was astounding if you think about it. Poor slaves.

The copper industry was also closely related to Egyptian faience. Faience was also related to jewelry making as it was an early attempt to imitate stones, particularly the Lapis Lazuli.

Dr. Love talked about the famous hippo statue "William", how it was so cute and that they all had copies of it as paperweights in their office.

www.metmuseum.org

We moved on to the bricklayer. Our boy Kheti also bashed the bricklayers to Pepi. Don't do it son, they work naked, they knead shit and they only wash once a day. To put it into perspective, clothes were expensive in Ancient Egypt and since the brickmakers put straw and dung in the clay they make. It makes sense, you have something expensive so you gotta protect it. Off with the clothes! Practicality is king.

Dr. Love didn't have any brick artifacts, so she showed us some pictures of the Pyramid of Amenemhat III.

The vintner was next. Kheti told his son to not make wine because they make deliveries and they die on the way more often than any profession. There were no artifacts of these as well, but Dr. Love told us about some grapes that have existed for thousands of years and there's wine from it. yeah right, she didn't want to believe it so she texted a colleague to confirm it and colleague said "yeah that's true". And now she has a bottle of it. She then talked about how some hieratic script came to life and that is because they had to label wine. Ooh... (checks hieratic) Vintage 4200 BC, delicious.

Kheti hated the weavers too. He told his son don't become one, it's a woman's job. They are not allowed to leave the weaver's den and if they want to go out to see sunlight, they have to bribe the guards with food. Going back to the brickmaker, we learned that ancient clothes were expensive and you are rich if you have full body and translucent clothing. The weavers mostly worked with linen and there were weaving tools and techniques that are still used today.

They were not restricted to making clothes. Linen was also used to make cartonnage which is linen or papyrus strips stuck together with plaster or resin, kind of like an old timey papier mache. As we know, this is utterly important.

Here's what inside a cartonnage looks like.

Leathermakers were also dissed. Kheti said the were gross and they chewed their material.

What?Can you imagine chewing on leather day in and out to create sandals? My jaw hurts just thinking about it.

egypt-museum.com

But the leatherworkers came up with this beauty: King Tut's infamous sandals. There were figures there that represented his enemies so King Tut can symbolically step on them every day. I aspire to be that level of petty.

Then there is the scribe. So Kheti told Pepi, "I have placed you on the path of God... Honor your father and mother who have placed you on the path of the living." In short, since time immemorial, parents have pushed their kids to follow in their footsteps. Dr. Serena Love explained that being a scribe in ancient times was a trade that was passed down through scribe families and that only about 5% of the population were functionally literate.

There were scribes who were called copyists. They only copied what they saw and was given to them by the functional literates. Dr. Love also talked about the two types of writing the Ancient Egyptians had: hieroglyphics and hieratic. Hieroglyphics were used for religious text and hieratic was used for everyday things. The process of making the papyrus was also shown with some artifacts to show us what they look like. Unfortunately, because of time, decay, and the material itself, some papyrus writings have been destroyed, broken, are in bits but some of them were also well preserved because of the arid conditions in the desert.

Papyrus artworks are still available today with current artists making their works based on ancient artworks.

What Kheti didn't talk about was glassmaking. This was after his time and according to Dr. Love, the glassmaking industry virtually appeared overnight in Ancient Egypt because of the artisans who were captured by Thutmose II. The artifacts she showed us looked so big in the presentation, like your average vase big, but in actuality they were so small. They looked like they can only hold about 15ml of perfume. The way that they did it in ancient times with subpar tools is again, amazing, but I pity the poor artisans and their hard labor.

Because of the love that was given to making glass, it was considered as an artificial semi-precious stone and were given as presents by the rich to the rich. Interesting to note is the patterns on the glass which were made by dragging a thin stick on bands of color vertically up or down in an alternating pattern, a technique that chocolatiers still use today.

It has enriched my knowledge of what I know about Ancient Egyptian artisans from my art history class. My old college class focused on the patterns, their significance, the types of furniture and the rooms that can be found in a theoretical Egyptian palace. We did not know anything about artisans and what their life was like. The lecture definitely put things into perspective and I learned to empathise with the ancient artisans. I know how hard traditional art can be while using subpar tools as a challenge. It must have been so terrible doing those grand things every day and get beaten for it if the quality of your work was not up to standards.

At the end of the lecture, I was able to learn 2 old timey words: "ba" meaning soul and "ka" meaning spirit. I also became familiar with the hieroglyph for scribe.

🌟 Thank you for your previous times to reading and support our writing. 

🌟Thank you for being part of our community. 

🌟 Thank you for your likes, shares, comments, and follows. 

🌟If you feel it might be not resonate and align with your life, please leave my stories and experiences behind. Thank you.

🌟Send a lot of love, hugs, peace, miracles, and blessings to you and your family.

Copyright by So and Jo Stories:

 ©2024 by So and Jo Stories. All right are reserved