new year, same me 🙆🏻‍♀️

💌 life in van (the highlights & lowlights)

• christmas in almondsbury with niall’s fam was fun! i stg the village niall’s from reminds me of those fairytale villages that i read about as a kid. it has a church and a pub from the 11th or 12th century as well as a ton of cute stone walls with ivy dangling from it. there were also so many cute cottages along the road. although it was a muddy, i was amazed by how different it was than where i grew up

• our week in italy was amazing - i’ve already requested to niall to live in venice for a few months when we do our big move across the ocean 🌊 

• niall and i started batch cooking last week so it’s been nice not having to cook every single week. this week’s menu? mapo tofu

• started the monthly potluck at our place in lower lonsdale (@dinewithnoos). next one is on feb 4, 2024 @ 6pm pst if anyone wants to come 🤤 🍽️ - you’re all invited xx

• niall & i have started playing animal crossing and now we live in joos world (apparently you can only have one main character on each animal crossing game so niall’s currently an npc on the island)

💘 some gratitudes this month:

• seeing the palatine hill & the remains of all the buildings from forever ago (im ngl some of them held up better than expected)

• finally hiking the entire eagle bluffs hike with eloiza and friends 🦅 (context: we tried hiking it last year and thought we finished the hike but found out later on strava that we only made it half way through)

• late night skiing with noil last week ⛷️ 

• niall and i got a switch over fb marketplace for a decent deal! (we think it was stolen and then resold there though oops)

🚫 some anti-gratitudes this month:

• first day/week back at work was rough 😵 currently am working through the technical part of a proposal when i don’t know anything about technology and what “bandwidth” MS teams requires

  

• had a few rough climbing and running sessions lately - mostly due to lack of having a proper exercise routine this past month so that was rough (i almost cried at base5 because i couldn’t climb a v2)

• crying after a rough meeting where one of my senior managers decided to nitpick every thing i said and was just being rude on the call in general and my demon partner (not niall!) scope creeping every chance she can get 👿 

👩🏻‍💼 corporate girlbossing without girlbossing too hard

• i’m getting more comfortable with the idea of quitting EY this year and being more proactive about it (so if you know anyone hiring…. 👉️👈️)

• i received good feedback the other week from my manager that i still use “i think” and “i guess” a lot, so i’m gonna make a conscious effort to stop saying those phrases in meetings. instead, will start sipping water when i need to think about an answer 🫗

• generally i’ve figured out what i want in my new job. at this point, i don’t really think it’s what i do that matters most but the lifestyle it enables me to have. for me, the role my job will have in my life isn’t to contribute to the world/ let me explore my passions, etc. it’s really just the enable a life that i want to live. currently

  • remote, work from anywhere (i want to be able to just move somewhere random and still be able to work)

  • good work-life balance (aka would like to either a) get paid for OT or b) actually just work 9am until 5pm (+/- one hour))

  • higher salary (how else will i fund outdoor sports & travelling??)

💭 lessons therapy has taught me (thx mabelle 🫶)

• something i want to continue practicing this year (which i might have said in my last newsletter) is to stop limiting myself from opportunities because of pre-conceived judgements

• i’ve been struggling for the past few years with how busy climbing gyms have become, and how difficult it is for me to find “peace” when i’m climbing. when i first started climbing, the gyms i went to were on the quieter end, and i was always able to have part of the gym to myself whenever i went. therefore, the quietness always calmed me down from whatever stress i was facing and it always made me focus and be present.
  
  anyways, the busyness of the climbing gyms have lately minimized my feelings of “peace” and have made me feel quite anxious and uneasy especially when i was on the wall. i quite often felt very uncomfortable with the attention of people when i was on the wall, as well as the loud noises around me.
  
  however, something mabelle opened by eyes up to after i dumped this on her, was that sometimes, the roles hobbies play in our mind are meant to change, and that i should learn to adapt to them. so, while climbing might not be that “peaceful” sport i once perceived it to be, it could now be seen as an opportunity to address the underlying challenges in my life. if i reframe it a bit, climbing can now be a space where i learn to deal with attention on me, find focus in crowded and busier spaces, which is a skill that could be transferrable in a lot of different areas in my life ✨

🥤 sipping joos

• okay so a friend recently told me that love island uk season 5 was superrrrr good. so now i’m watching it to learn more about british culture (& relate to niall)👙 

• been having a big fiji blue month

• still obsessed with the boy & the heron

• animal crossing lofi music is pretty good background noise too

📈 personal stats i want to track