January 2020

Highlights

☾ We got a whole ass $1 raise at work -- that, on top of tips and opportunities to climb up to higher levels + pay increases.

☾ Dad and brothers birthday. It was a small, jointed occasion but it was very Star Wars filled. And filled with pancit and delicious desserts.

☾ This month was a particularly (and delightfully) sunny and dry month. After December gloom, it was a nice, welcome break to see the beautiful blue skies. It was also deceitful because it was still cold and windy.

☾ Donating and sharing donation links for those affected by the Australian wildfires.

☾ After the holidays, I fell off track of minimalism, but I did a no-buy month to jolt me back into minimalism and its helped financially and clutter-wise.

☾ Pizza party at work and managers bringing us coffee was very much appreciated as well as much needed.

☾ Finally got my car fixed (fingers crossed it lasts this time) and my tires balanced and rotated.

Lowlights

• Waiting forever (a week too long) to finally get my car fixed. Driving to work and back everyday, pouring distilled water in my engine everyday and breaking down on the side of the highway once was dangerous and stressful to say the least. Don't do it, kids.

• Got into my first book slump of the year, but luckily it didn't last long.

• Majority of the parking near my work is restricted (at least until 5pm) by PG&E which makes the already limited parking even harder to find.

• With the pay increase + tips we make, I might make more than Medi-Cal allows to be on their insurance, so I might lose Medi-Cal and thus will have to apply for ACA. More paperwork, yay -said no one ever.

• Mom and I got into an argument that fractured our relationship a bit but we're working through it to build a better, stronger and healthier relationship.

What I Read

   

Poems I Sleep Next To by Shelby Eileen
Scavenge the Stars by Tara Sim
Loveboat, Taipei by Aigail Hing Wen
Rogue Princess by B.R. Myers
The Wolf Queen by Cerece Rennie Murphy
The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically by Peter Singer
Resist: Tales from a Future Worth Fighting Against by Hugh Howey + more
The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin
You Too? by Janet Gurtler + more
The Offerings: A Novel by Michael ByungJu Kim

What I Listened To

  

2020 // Great Good Fine Ok
you should be sad // Halsey
Me & You Together Song // The 1975
Changes // Lauv
me & ur ghost // blackbear
Still Learning // Halsey
Underdog // Alicia Keys
Cut You Off // Selena Gomez
Healing // Camden Cox
Queen // Loren Gray
I HATE EVERYBODY // Halsey
Renegade // Niykee Heaton
Black Swan // BTS
Paranoid // ASHS
Catching Feelings (remix) // Inigo Pascual x Moophs x Ruby Ibarra x Dennis Blaze


[more in my january 2020 playlist post]

Adventures

I worked a lot and was going through personal stuff so unfortunately no adventures this month.
Check back next month for San Francisco adventures.

Posts This Month

Intentions for 2020

Current Makeup Faves

I Tried 5 Online Personality Tests and Here's What I Learned

January 2020 Playlist

January 2020 Gratitude Journal

Looking forward to in February

• My lola (grandma) comes back home from Philippines!

• A coworker says he's going to bring us chocolate on Valentine's Day, so we'll see if he was serious.

• Exploring and getting back into photography and will hopefully share on the blog. Start planning on shifting my blog to a more microblog in the sense of less words and more pictures/images/graphics.

• Volunteering again and rejoin people power movements to canvass and phone bank voters, especially since our local elections are coming up.

♥ How'd the first month of the new year/decade go for you?

Share your recaps in the comments! ♥