Photo Journal

New Year, New Bagelmania Obsession

January 26, 2021 // Posted in Bread & Pastries, Food I Made, Photo Journal, Recipes

January 26, 2021 | Posted in [post_category]

My last & final semester in my public health program begins TODAY & I’m honestly beside myself. How did this break go by so quickly?! What have I even been doing? This time last year I was still high off my solo-Euro trip to Edinburgh & Paris…you know, doing my whole eat, laugh, eat journey, mask-less without a care in the world. How did 2020 manage to feel like it was 3 years long, but 2021 seems to be going by exponentially faster? Can the person taking earth on a joy ride please slow down? Why are we going so fast, fam? We’re approaching our first pandemic anniversary way too quickly.

Those of us with the luxury & privilege to work safely from home are far too familiar with the flour shortage/PANIK in April 2020. Some of us dabbled in making bread or baking cookies, and some of us gave up on trying to perfect sourdough. If you didn’t go through a bready phase in lockdown, now’s your chance. The pandemic isn’t over yet, y’all! I’ve been stress baking a lot, so here’s hoping my productivity can inspire you to get back in the kitchen & bake! May I introduce you to my latest baking obsession or shall I say, my bagelmania?

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Chasing Waterfalls: An Icelandic Journey

July 30, 2020 // Posted in Gallery, Photo Journal, Travel

July 30, 2020 | Posted in [post_category]

Chasing Waterfalls: An Icelandic Journey

So, cool fun fact: I originally wrote this post last year on 12/25/2019 thinking I would post it within the week, but I guess things got away from me & I forgot about it. Posting it now though. Just half a year later. Here are some quick updates since December 2019.

Got 3 brand new roommates.
Added ads to my blog (I’m sorry), but I figured why not? Might make all of $1.00 off of ads if I’m lucky, but free is free.
I am currently a Product Manager for a small software development company.
I started playing The Sims again since the apocalypse/pandemic/Coronavirus to cope with shelter-in-place mandates.
I started making Sims 4 Let’s Plays for my YouTube channel. My last LPs were made 9 years ago. Holy cow.
Despite COVID-19 ruining everyone’s life, I’m thriving & I know I’m really fortunate to even say that.
Got a new laptop & camera since I turned 30 this year. #TreatYoself

It’s difficult to gauge exactly how meaningful or significant this year will actually be for me when considering one’s lifespan. I don’t know about you, but I’m hoping to live beyond 100, so how character-defining 2019 is unknown. Who really knows if my time in Iceland will matter to me when I’m living my best raisin life, retired in the French Alps or Tuscany? If our reality became similar to the world of the Netflix’s French Original Series Ad Vitam, then nothing that happened to me this year should really matter in the long run. In Ad Vitam, scientists developed a medical breakthrough allowing humans to live indefinitely by a process called “regeneration”. When we can live beyond 150, would a couple of years of hardship really be so unbearable? How much weight would we continue to give our problems? Would we feel less anxious about time passing? Would we take one another for granted even more than we already do?

Even if we won’t see regeneration in our lifetime, we know the average age of life expectancy is increasing. Yet, our human nature permits negativity to frequent our thoughts, filling our minds with anxiety, stress, and toxicity no matter the triviality. No matter how long we live, our time on this little blue dot is limited. Unfortunately for many of us, we haven’t evolved to become emotionally unaffected by hardships that will soon be forgotten. How many times must we tell ourselves, “this too shall pass,” to console ourselves?

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An Ordinary Day with Josh

July 26, 2014 // Posted in DIY / Projects, Drinks I Made, Ma Belle Vie, Photo Journal

July 26, 2014 | Posted in [post_category]

Back in 2009, I started this project called Ma Belle Vie that was an attempt to record my entire day from morning to night in photos. I haven’t set time aside to do the project in 4 years, so this is a reintroduction. You’d be surprised how easily you forget to take pictures from morning to night so I forgot to photograph our night – whoops! Next time, I’ll be sure to be more thorough. Our day wasn’t too out of the ordinary, however it was Josh’s first time at Marukai. You can see how entertained he was being in a Japanese grocery store he’s never been to. I swear there’ll be less domestic photos in the future for this project; something worth capturing. For now, you just get boring housewife photos. To begin my journey through the day, click on the first photo & navigate using the arrows.