it's been a month since lily passed away... i feel like so much has happened since then. so many exciting things! hana's birthday, our 6th anniversary, our new york trip! things have been #happening at work as well. overall i feel very grateful for everything i've been experiencing, even though it's been so hard to cope with her loss. i don't really know how to explain it. i've just been feeling all over the place. i do think i am at the point where i no longer dwell on the fact that we had to make the decision to put her down, or at least i'm at the point where i can catch myself when i start to doubt the choice that we made. now i am at the point where rationalizing the situation doesn't really give me anything and now i just have to live with the fact that she's physically not here anymore. in some weird way i'm grateful to be able to feel this much pain because that means there so much more love there and i know that it won't go away.
she's still been showing up for us in so many ways. some "signs" are more like things that just remind me of her but there are a lot of instances where i feel like she really wants us to know it's her. i also had a dream of her once when i was in new york. in the dream she looked so sick, sicker than she had ever been... from the look on her face i knew she was trying to tell me that we would've ended up in this situation if i had held on to her longer, that i did make the right choice. i just wish that she had shown me in a less gruesome way but... message received. i try not to ask her to show up in my dreams again because i don't think i deserve it yet, though i can't silence my heart. i know she will in due time. it took over a year for my other dog smoke to show up in my dreams. i can't wait til she does. that's all i can hold on to for now
since her passing i haven't been able to write a normal journal entry, i've been addressing everything to her. i also haven't been able to pick up where i left off with all my small goals like reading and exercise. i do plan on getting back on track this week! i had a rough week last week because i got sick, then got my period, and i was super sad about everything and not having lily, even though technically it should have been easier for me to be sick and sad and not have a dog to worry about...i'd rather be sick and sad and still worry about a dog. i think my screentime shot up to 8 hours a day in those 4 days, so i felt really gross. it's been hard to get into anything and if the wolves lose today i am going to pretend the nba doesn't exist (on the bright side, the wnba season is starting soon) so i am pretty excited.
next month is her birthday, and the week after that is mine. i'm not really sure how i am going to deal with that. i've been dreading it if i am going to be completely honest... which makes me sad. i don't want to be the kind of person who gets sad on their birthday, especially on my 30th!!! i was so excited to hit that milestone with her, so i think that it's going to make me really sad on my birthday. i guess i have a month to try and turn that around, but if i can't then i won't force it. all in all i think i'll be okay...
i don't really know where to go from here and i feel like that's okay? i am not abandoning my goals from the beginning of the year but i am like... just trying to get through everyday for now. if i don't slow down a little bit i'm afraid i'll miss a sign from her, or that my heart and mind won't be still enough to receive anything from her, if that makes sense.
before i get into the rest of the post, i just want to say that i totally forgot to write about the perfumes that i liked in january so here they are:
- over the last 2 years i realized i've been leaning into more floral scents after i tried eau capitale by diptyque and fell in love. and while i still really like that perfume i think i got tired of it after a while so i started ordering samples here and there towards the end of last year. i wanted to try sweeter scents in the winter for some reason (in my mind it felt cozy). i like smelling them in-store or second-hand (on other people lol) but i wouldn't say that i am a gourmand scent-wearer. not for any other reason than i just prefer other styles of fragrance. hana is more of a gourmand person and i love smelling her when she gets home or whenever we're together. maybe i just like to encounter gourmand in that way...on the person i love the most <3 naks. all that to say these are the gourmands that i liked the most from what i've tried
- vietnamese coffee by d'Annam - it smells exactly how you would expect it to. i like that the coffee notes balance out the sweetness of the scent!! i was wearing this on my trip to a rainy SF in december and when i spent a week in vegas during the holidays so i also associate it with a time i did not have to go to work. very cozy. (before you clock me yes this was a fragrance i wore mostly in december but it bled thru into january!!!)
- mallow by sora dora - i didn't expect to like this as much as i did. i don't think it's a scent that i am going to consistently wear but i did have a bit of fun wearing it throughout the holidays. it was probably one of the last scent samples i impulsively added to my cart, but it worked out so well. it is a very sugary scent, but i just loved how powdery it was. it totally made me curious about what other powdery scents are out there.
week of 02/01
every 2-3 months or so my dog lily gets diarrhea and every time it happens i feel like i'm crazy. it happened again on monday. it's seriously my dark place. the same things happen every time:
- she has to go every hour from 10pm to 3am, 1-3 nights in a row
- i have to call out of work the next day because of the sleepless nights
- i feel like shit. i'm not thinking straight. i feel like i'm a bad mom because i get frustrated.
- i'm convinced she's gonna die
- she ends up being fine on the day i call out of work
- i have to sit with my guilt (from calling out of work - and then i feel stupid for feeling guilty)
- she doesn't poop for the next 3 days (i've gotten better at not freaking out over this...)
- she finally goes and we're in the clear
besides that, work has been pretty busy because i've taken up more responsibility (while being paid the same! i can't complain too much though because technically i put myself in this situation). i will say that i like projects that feel like a break from the day-to-day tasks of my job. they feel like a special arc. i won't speak too much about work on here but there's that...
i have been playing animal crossing like crazy, i want to share my island updates but i think my island looks better without all the snow so i'll wait until it's spring to share. i've just been redecorating my island and moving in new villagers. i bought a pack of blank nfc cards to create my own amiibos, that's how much i've been into it this week. i recently had fang, walker and lolly move in. my og villagers are henry, marshal, judy, stitches, monty, nan, and chevre. i think i have a pretty solid team!!! i don't really care about their personality types to be honest. can't a girl have 3 normal girls on her island anymore or no?!?!
i'm also falling a little bit behind on reading wuthering heights, but i'm confident i'll be able to catch up this weekend - then i'll be on track to finish before/around the time the movie comes out. i'm on chapter 5 of volume II and i am really liking it so far, there are so many themes to explore. i feel like you could just pick one and read it through that lens you'll get a different experience for each one, so i do think it's a book you kinda have to go through more than once. i'm not saying i would do that to be completely honest but there's a version of me who would. every now and then when i'm reading the book an image of margot robbie and jacob elordi flashes in my mind which is truly unfortunate. no shade but i'm just not seeing it for them and this movie. I THINK I'M GONNA DIE IN THIS. HOUSE...
now for the most important event of this week... paul's gotcha day! it's been 8 years since paul has been rescued by hana. we had to go big!!!
hana wanted to take him to the grove yesterday so we could get him a cake and some other treats from the dog bakery (that's the actual name of the place) and just walk around the area and sit on the grass. we rarely take the dogs out to do things like this because it's so overstimulating and paul is an anxious dog. he was pretty chill and seemed to enjoy himself though. initially hana had planned to go to the grove and go to a photobooth place that was closer to the apartment, but as we were walking around the grove we saw a photobooth pop-up that was completely free. what were the chances!!! he looks very concerned in those pictures which is a default setting for him. we pretty much ended the night there.
on day 2 of gotcha day weekend we booked a sniffspot so that lily could come with us. they had so much fun just sniffing and walking around a random person's backyard ;-; and that's literally all they did for 2 hours. it's been almost 8 hours since we got home but they are still dead tired from today (they are getting old ;-;). best $60 ever spent in the history of things that cost $60!!!
paul is such a special dog and i am so lucky that i am one of the -3 people he likes to be with. he's been so sweet to me lately, always wants to be on me or around me, asking for pets. considering i couldn't breathe in his direction just a couple of years ago (that is still the case sometimes) i think we've come a very long way. having him around keeps us grounded. we have roundabout ways of doing simple tasks just to accomodate him but i wouldn't trade it for anything else in the world. i think he's taken a liking to lily too, which has been one of my favorite things to witness over the years. they're not affectionate to each other in the traditional sense, but i think they do find comfort in being around each other. as i'm writing this i'm sitting on the floor while he eats his food. if i get up or move he'll stop eating (paul is the friend that has weird contingencies) so i think i have to end it here. byeeee.
i think i’ve been thinking too hard about how to start my first post. publishing some form of writing on the internet was one of my bingo card goals for 2026, so i think it raises the stakes a little bit. to be fair, i didn’t say it had to be great, it just had to be something.
i feel like people say this every year but it truly felt like january was 3 years long, i don’t really know how to feel now that it’s over. i feel very grateful to have something to look forward to in the next 2 months.
much like everyone else i thought about the goals i wanted to accomplish for the next 12 months. and even though i do this every year something about this year felt different for me. i think rather than focusing on having tangible goals (which i still have and want to accomplish), i think i want to focus on how i feel rather than what i want to have for this year. a big part of that is that i think i pretty much have everything i need. of course, i know things (finances) could be better. and for the most part i am constantly working towards that. however, i think something needs to change in my approach and that there needs to be a shift in the way that i think about these goals.
this month there was a clear effort from me to change my perspective on setbacks. and i’ll be completely honest it’s because i saw a tiktok, i don’t have it saved but basically this person was saying that every time she felt like something set her back she would always ask herself “what is this teaching me?” and i think it has really helped me put things into perspective. i admit i have the tendency to think that the world is against me and asking myself that question has helped me fight that.
that being said, i got a head start on some of my smaller goals for this year. while i do consider these marked off as #finished i will still hold myself accountable to staying consistent about them throughout the year.
[1] build my blog/website - what platform are you reading this entry on right now? exactly!! i’ve been working on setting up my website for the past month but i have been playing around with neocities for over a year now. and thanks to zonelets i found a template to build the rest of my site on. (why did that sound like an ad read - it’s not but i think everyone should try out neocities and zonelets annyway). i wanted to build my website from scratch because i didn’t like any of the current platforms (i think i will try substack tho dot dot dot) and i wanted to work on something that was purely for myself and really go through the process of building it from the ground up (well, from the zonelets template up). relearning html and css felt like unlocking my middle school brain, it’s funny/interesting how much of this information i retained from creating my own multiply/myspace/tumblr themes. [bro you’re using up all the nostalgia tweet.png]
[2] publish writing on said website - i think the common theme between this goal and the one above is that i just really wanted to go through a PROCESS lol. a process that i put myself through, and something that i don’t necessarily want to go through but am choosing to go through, if that makes sense. i think some time last year i realized i’m constantly just trying to get things done with no time to reflect or let things sit. i think i’ve missed out on a lot by doing things that way. also i used to love blogging a lot, i don’t think i really shared many of them to anyone i knew, i would just publish something on blogger, wordpress, livejournal, etc. (when i tell you i was on everything). there is something about that that i miss. i used to just do shit!!!
[3] delete twitter - i think i have a couple days before they get deleted #permanently but yeah…i don't have much to say about that.
much to reflect about! but that is between me and my journal at this point. let’s get to the fun stuff!!
books
a sharp endless need by marissa crane - my first read of year! i’m pretty pleased with this pick. crane’s prose is a hit or miss for some based on the reviews i’ve seen but i personally enjoyed it. i think it’s mainly what kept me engaged, which is not a dig at the plot or the characters but ultimately i wanted something different from the story towards the end. heartbreaking in many ways without feeling like trauma porn.the serviceberry by robin wall kimmerer - i listened to the audiobook while i was working around the house but i do want to go back and actually read it. it touched on a lot of the things i already believed in and knew in my heart, just said in a more poignant and optimistic way.
movies
hamnet - unexpectedly moved me (unexpected because i went into it completely blind). i don’t think i would go see it again but it was a lovely experience and i’m very glad i went!no other choice - such a fun movie with a lot of cool shots! i didn’t really care about the commentary the movie was trying to make even though we are no stranger to the horrors of finding a job but at the same time i don’t think it really took away from my enjoyment of the movie.
music
this is going to be my least interesting section because i can actually only listen to one song at a time (maybe the shame i’m feeling about having to write about this right now is going to shame me into listening to more new music but it is what it is for now) all that being said all i listened to this month was stateside by pinkpanthress ft. zara larsson.games
unpacking - i finished this game over a weekend when i was sick. i loved everything about it! my only critique is that i wish it had more levels, but as a story i think it was a good place to end.acnh - i am BACK stronger than ever. to be honest i got sick of the hotel update 4 rooms in so now i’ve just been really busy with redoing my island and the rooms in my house.
sports aka favorite twolves moments
i don’t think i’ve watched a full men’s basketball game since the year started and i honestly probably wont til the playoffs, but i did just want to say that i wish every game was twolfs vs. spurs. i’m obsessed with ant saying he wished it could have just been him and wemby, wemby saying he’d try to block him as much as he can moving forward… I’LL BE THERE… oh and i also really loved that game against the bucks when ant was out because #BabyDeerJoan was hoopinghobbies
playing around with the code of this website has been keeping me busy in a good way. sometimes i wish i didn't have to work so i could just do this for a little bit longer!!! i also started actively reading wuthering heights, taking notes as if i'm going to write a book report on it. both have been really fun and engaging.
the next 2 months are going to be pretty busy for me, there’s lots to celebrate (paul's gotcha day, valentine's day, me and hana's anniversary, hana's birthday, and MORE !!!) and i’m super super grateful. i haven’t really thought about what my short-term goals are for february or how i’m going to approach the long-term ones. i’ll give myself this week to try to figure how all of that is going to work. i am currently reading wuthering heights and i am aiming to finish it before the movie comes out, so i can shit on the film like everyone else!!!