It’s my birthday today! 😌

I had a lovely dinner yesterday with my parents and they gifted me a little shopping spree after dinner! I got a few sweaters for the upcoming winter season. I wanted today to be a day of relaxing, connecting with family and reflecting on life so far. Thirty one sounds insane to say out-loud. I definitely do not feel “thirty-one”.

The past few weeks I have just been trotting on with work with a few friend meetups in between, my cousin and her family from France also came to visit, which was fun! I went to a few museums (MoMa, Seaport & The American Indian one), the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Time Square, Brooklyn Bridge the regular touristy spots. It was nice to be a tourist in my own city again. I completely forgot about the American Indian museum but that one was a crowd favorite. It felt good to finally host people again after a long time. I got a new bed frame and mattress and everything and set up the small vacant bedroom with everything. The house felt full and active. Halloween I decided on a last minute lets sit together and drink hot chocolate meetup which turned out to be really fun because we all wore costumes that day, I was Cruella de Vil! I also got a lot of trick or treaters way more than I expected! I made little treat bags this year and all of them gone so quickly all of the candy I had was gone by the end of the night.

Now onto my reflections on this past year, it’s definitely a year of a lot of family post-quarantine, I got to connect more this year and it felt really nice to meet with everyone again and catch up. I met up with my Canadian cousins earlier in the year when I went to a wedding and then again here when a few came to visit in the summer from Switzerland, then again in Miami (met my nephew for the first time!) and then my cousin from France came a few few weeks ago. So many of my friends weddings this year as well! So happy for all of them and it gave me possible ideas for my own. I did unfortunately catch COVID-19 on one of the weddings many parties — the one time where im not wearing a mask, I was going for so long without catching it and ended up catching it in September 2022 😬

Got acquired again, this time from a MAMAA (the new “FAANG”). It’s definitely exciting and a little nerve wrecking at the same time with a lot of changes coming in fast. I got to do two events at work to help h.s folk with code which was really cool! I love having an aspect of teaching at work! I also hosted a very last minute in-person “kolam/rangoli” event at work — def not like in previous years but I was happy to do a live event after a long time.

On creative expression, I got back into pour painting and did my first “large piece” which took about 4-5 hours, I was exhausted at the end of it but I love it! I think I’ll stick to smaller canvases moving forward unless I have the time.

I recently also got back to practicing driving! I was so slow trying to finish my 5 hour course because it was online and had the worst system ever! They had sections where you’d complete reading and then had to take a quiz and in between there would be an audio authentication of you saying a phrase and even when it matched up exactly it’d still fail and block you from continuing unless you talked to a customer service rep, I chatted with that rep a minimum of 7 times, it was ridiculous but the agents were extremely kind so kinda weirdly balanced out. I was very happy to just be done with it. I practiced here and there so far whenever I have the time and I feel okay but def. need more practice, the muscle memory def. kicked in.

I am now in my thirties learning more about cars than I ever did in my entire life. I just want one so I can go places without having to take a damn Uber each time. Hoping to be able to get my license by 32! 🤞🏽

Back to today, I had some amazing Vietnamese food for dinner today! I think I’ll do a light workout and watch something on Netflix and turn-in early! So blessed for 31! 🙏🏽