🎐

Hi guys long time no see!

If I'm gonna be totally honest with you all... I've been too busy filming and editing videos to make time to blog. Look, on it's own that's not a lot but I have a public channel for studying, a private channel for family stuff, and that's on top of language learning and just, exploring the world ya know?

But today I got a text message from another blog writer essentially THREATENING ME to make a post so HERE YOU GO.

This year has been one hell of a ride, on one hand I want to be a bit dramatic and say it's had some of the lowest lows and highest highs.... that's until I remember the late 2010's and then I thank God for my worst days that I'm having now haha.

Where else do I even begin. I suppose I can tell you everything that happened since I've been gone! Yeah let's go out for coffee together and have a little chitchat.

So I'm now level 3 in dreaming spanish, I started Japanese like I said I was going to but my summer plans went DOWN THE DRAIN. Doing a mix of intense Japanese study and ASATT is... yeah no sorry I could not do it. But there are attempts for me to get to doing 8 hour study sessions in a day using pomodoro so I can still take care of the family. What's nice about that plan is that on perfect days I have from 3pm onwards to do whatever I want.

I've been looking into some volunteer positions it might be a good use of my time. As you know I'm already volunteering at home by letter writing but a friend of mine told me there's a program where I can teach older people how to read. That sounds so heartwarming to me and is also a great learning experience. I'll let you know how that progresses!

School is going AMAZING I've been sticking to my class plan and getting really good grades. I'm talking mostly A's and B's for literally one class.

I've been developing more friendships on and offline. I've met SO MANY Spanish-Japanese speakers and you have no idea how much joy it brings me to have people to share my Spanish-Japanese puns with. I've been getting speaking practice in and making MAJOR progress in both. And in real life I've had such amazing experiences with strangers young and old. Sharing music,local businesses, inviting people to gatherings at the park where we talk about life lessons, meeting up with other moms too. It feels like the world is back to how it should be somehow.

I've been GETTING OUT OF THE HOUSE. My husband works a ton in the summer and I've been feeling a lot better physically. I think I mentioned in another post that workouts had to take a backseat because I had lost a ton of weight and was getting super sick. I went to see my doctor because I was super worried something deeper and more serious was going on. Turns out I had REALLY BAD stomach acid, I've had it so long that it did not feel like acid anymore just intense nausea. Which makes sense I did have a lot of that when I was a kid. Once I got that under control I was back to normal again. But anyways, gaining that weight back allowed me to leave the city by myself for the first time. This is a major development because this frees his time from taking me to doctors appointments and also allows me to start meeting with new people. (Language meetups I BEG).

(I'm also totally not gonna be living at this boba icecream place with this new found ability... totally not)

This could also help me out when I need a mentor in the future depending on the path I want to take to become a lactation consultant. And also when I want to volunteer with some mom focused groups and be a voice outside my home town for young moms! If you can't tell I'm pumped haha.

As for video editing I'm having so much fun doing that especially on my private channel where I'm the only viewer. Sometimes I turn my chores list into a grand adventure, sometimes I talk about games I'm playing, and most of the time I'm trying to make things look really pretty.

As for my silly little head as I said, there have been some highs and lows but honestly the lows are literally me being an incredibly sentimental and pushover person. Outside of that though I've started to really enjoy not being such a people pleaser not to sound cringe but.... This has been a slow process. But being selective with the people I spend time with has been a game changer. I don't take things personally anymore because well... I literally don't have the brain-space for it anymore. I've smashed so many words into my head that if someone were to yell at me to my face I'd just start translating it and then I'd triple check my grammar. Which in turn made all of the lows go away. Instead of allowing other people to tell me where I'm gonna be and when. I simply tell them that I'm busy. Or that I don't want to hang out because time is not an apology. I can't believe I was stressing myself over such silly things.

For example....

I've had quite a few people in recent years (and recently in a group chat) ask me what my aspirations are. I always found it to be an odd question because it's always in relation to me being "just a mom". I know it's not a genuine question and it's meant to be some sort of attack that goes under the radar and makes the other person feel good about themselves. But I think now I'm going to start asking them what their aspirations are. Because the only people asking me that question are people who are only on the internet creating absolutely nothing. Media consumption isn't an aspiration. Your job is just as shallow as you see my motherhood. But at least I have hobbies outside of my dreams as well. A love of learning and the love of helping others is an aspiration.

Responses from my friends on their aspirations (love you guys HAH)

• I strive to be gay and to take 30 breaths a second (we love you being alive bro)
• I strive to be a good friend, a good father, have 37 children (BRO WHAT)
• I'm just here man (mood)

I think I'm doing alright! ....

That covers everything, a one for one retelling and a "deeper" topic I'll leave you to think about. See you again next month?

-As always ILY <3

This definitely wasn’t on my 2025 resolutions list. In fact, I had no language goals whatsoever. But on January 13th, I was feeling too sick to exercise and needed something to make me feel like I was still improving myself.

"Wait, I thought you were learning Japanese?"

If you’re a friend reading this—first of all, hi! And second, you’re totally right. I’ve wanted to learn Japanese for YEARS. I have the Anki graveyards to prove it. The trauma of different counting systems. The embarrassing moments of accidentally saying things I definitely didn’t mean with brand new people. It’s all there.

But the truth is, Japanese takes a long time. Talk to anyone who’s seriously done it—they’ll tell you it’s NOT all fun and games. And for someone like me, who actually wants to take the JLPT N1 someday, this isn’t just a casual hobby. It’s a long-term commitment. I plan on traveling out of state for this test, I’m not going to walk in with the minimum amount of hours and the possibility of failing!

I still want to learn Japanese (and we’ll get into that in another post), but after realizing my husband doesn’t have the time to teach our kids Spanish due to work, I had to rethink my approach. So, I decided to learn Spanish myself. That way, I could speak it with him—and in turn, our kids would start learning alongside me. Learning Spanish is not something you can just do in your sleep. But compared to Japanese? You might as well be learning in your sleep. Japanese can take a bit over half a decade to fully grasp—For English speakers, Spanish typically takes about 1 to 2 years to become proficient.

Enter Dreaming Spanish

Dreaming Spanish is a video platform that offers comprehensible input (CI) that you can’t really find elsewhere. Here’s the thing: Learning Spanish is no small feat, but compared to Japanese? It feels like nothing. While Japanese can take years to fully grasp—some estimates say around 6 years for many learners—Spanish is on the other end of the spectrum. For English speakers, Spanish typically takes about 1 to 2 years to reach a conversational level. That’s a huge difference, and suddenly, learning Spanish felt doable. I could actually see myself having conversations sooner rather than later, and that kind of instant progress was exactly what I needed.

There is a roadmap which estimates the amount of hours it takes to reach a certain level and you watch videos that correspond to the amount of hours you have immersed in the language. There is a huge and wonderful community on reddit full of DS users who are there to help motivate you to keep going too with encouragement and their own personal stories in the form of update posts.

Alongside Dreaming Spanish I also used this program called Anki for quite a bit. It’s commonly used in the medical school community but its second most common usage is actually language learning. There are totally free decks out there where it will give you the most common words in the language for you to memorize using the flashcard system. While some people are Dreaming Spanish purists, I personally love the statistics offered by Anki and personally can attest to its usefulness with learning filler words. I’ve noticed that I feel ahead of the roadmap using Anki. But it’s really up to you what do you want to do. Pablo the creator of DS has his own reasons for not liking the use of flashcards. That’s okay. Everyone journey is going to look different.

“So how much can you possibly learn in 50 hours.”

Quite a bit! I’m on my way to level 3 now currently at 105 hours at the time of writing this portion of the post. But at 50 hours I was able to watch content at my level COMFORTABLY. When you first start out it’s hard to get a lot of time into learning because it’s mentally draining. My brain felt overloaded and I was having a kind of- Tetris effect for Spanish where everything started to sound like Spanish or look like it and it’s all that would occupy my mind. And now with 105 hours under my belt I’m able to ask more efficient questions, engage with content more meaningfully , and even listen to podcasts. I also finished my first ever Spanish chapter book “Diario De Una Dork” and it got easier the longer I sat with the words.

I’ve started changing just about every media I can into Spanish. Minecraft, Phasmophobia, The Sims 2, Genshin impact. And at this level it’s not actually that hard and I am able to read enough to get the point most of the time given the text gives a lot of detail. This makes getting input in fun and just a part of everyday life.

I had no clue I could make progress this quickly, so if you had ever wanted to learn Spanish I’d highly recommend this. It feels a little too good to be true but for once it’s not! When we have a bit more time on our hands the kids will be joining me in the fun more formally with their own accounts. They LOVE DS videos and begs me to watch various things in Spanish now, so I’ll keep you updated on how it goes.

Love, Serenity.

PS: Yes I do actually dream in Spanish sometimes. Yes real Spanish that I had to google translate as soon as I woke up. It tends to happen if I study late at night and pick up a new word. You can dream in two target languages at once as one of those dreams also included Japanese. So have fun guys! My first dream was on 1/23/25, so early but if you spend a lot of time I believe it's bound to happen for you too! <3

My notion setup seems to be a fan favorite post. Which is surprising considering it does not have the bells and whistles of other notion setups. I do have an update on that today and I think you might actually love it.

I found something even better.

I don’t know about you but I’m a bit paranoid writing down my thoughts. Sure, I have my hobo, but I don’t get too deep there if anything its a progress journal and it’s not that interesting. But on the other hand I don’t feel comfortable opening up on the internet either - because of this little thing called internet connectivity.

I think it’s important to give yourself places to be totally unfiltered and honest. But how on earth am I meant to do that when all of my thoughts are just there… on the internet. synced to multiple devices. Call me crazy I don’t care. I cant write a real and honest diary on any online platform. Sue me! While looking through a few privacy focused switches for various online functions I came across Obsidian. It’s this cool thing that basically turns your notepad into it’s own OS. Honestly I don’t think there is anything obsidian can’t do. Seriously, has someone got this thing running DOOM yet?” I know what you’re thinking, why waste all my previous work, why leave such a large community and a platform you’ve been using for years at this point instead of just moving my personal stuff to obsidian?

Well I’m so glad you asked invisible blog reader. The answer to that is Digital minimalism. I won’t go too in depth on this topic today, if I did this post would take a week to read. But to put it plainly I hate having multiple apps for the same thing. The endless notifications, icons on my phone and desktop, never having a clear picture on a project I’m working on. Drives me up the wall.

As for how I’m using obsidian now, I’m so happy to feel comfortable enough to be ambitious without worrying some stray cloud storage employee is making fun of me on their work break. I have a yearly and monthly page to go wild on alongside some fun challenges for myself where I go into great and unrealistic detail about how to finish said challenges. I also use it as a regular note taking app for appointments and now unit studies for homeschooling, alongside an ever-growing list of recipes that I’ve made and loved. I finally feel like I have the perfect homemaking binder for me. The file system also makes total sense to me and I’ve replicated the Russian doll system of my Notion even more efficiently than before.

I’d also like to touch on the Obsidian community. I have to admit, it’s even a bit cooky and over my head even by my standards sometimes. You’ve got people making videos that might as well be in French they make no sense. But somehow its inspiring to see someone be so passionate about this software. It’s a bit of a meme to call obsidian your second brain at this point. Lurk around in the subreddit and you’ll get what I’m talking about. But beyond all of that is the immense creativity and pure practical features that people love about this application.

As you go even deeper you can start to find peoples digital gardens that they've made public with the controversial but in my opinion amazing graph view. I’m honestly considering making one myself. But for now obsidian is my little project for this year. It’s a great excuse to start learning about things like JavaScript outside of my blog.

Is Obsidian the perfect tool for you? I don’t know. If you’re frustrated with digital clutter and are willing to put in some research and have the time to try something new I’d give it a go. If you’re thinking about it I would start with the subreddit and avoid Youtube videos. Now if you’ll excuse me I am off to manually update my vault. Good riddance cloud storage.

Finally I have healed I can love and I can commit I want to live Ups and downs come and go but my desire to grow won’t decline I will keep healing and growing

-unknown but in my drafts

Quick little warning for some talks of PAST ED’s , suicidal ideation and just loads of severe stress. If you’re not in the mood click off. And it’s my blog so enjoy a walk of text that honestly could sit in a journal somewhere but I’m putting here cause I can. Maybe it can be a source of comfort for people in a similar situation? Feel free to reach out if you need help I’m always glad to help anyone in these horrible circumstances.

Oh yeah and sorry for weird formatting I suck at writing!

It’s been 5 years today since I not only started recovering from my eating disorder but found out I was a mother. I have a lot of complex feelings about this.

It feels like it was just yesterday. I grew up heavily cautious and fearful for just about everything, but my health was a big one. You could imagine how 2020 was starting out for me. I knew it was coming this way. After hearing about Ebola for so many years on the news I just knew it was only a matter of time before something came this way. I have a knack for predicting things like this to the point it freaks me out.

At this same time our car started having issues, we were buying new ones left and right. Honestly I couldn’t tell you where they went, my husband could tell you that. But anyways, about a year before this I had completed a week long almost entirely dry fast, hitting the lowest weight I had ever been before. And my body started to completely shut down after that week. I gained some weight back afterwards obviously but my period was starting to get lighter and lighter. Though I’ve been keeping close track of my cycles since I was 11 years old and all signs pointed to me still being able to ovulate, so I was not freaking out yet. But since to get birth control they would weigh me I got off of it. I did not get pregnant for about an entire year.

So 2020 comes along and I miss my period.

Anyone who’s known me since I was a baby knows that my #1 dream was to become a mother. I would get told off by teachers in school for not having any other wants outside of motherhood. And my biggest fear was to be infertile.

I was planning to get pregnant in 2021. My biggest fear was to be infertile. I had missed a period. And I was only drinking a Diet Coke a day walking to the grocery store because we didn’t have a working car. I hadn’t been on birth control or gotten pregnant in a year and this is my first missed period. So what’s my first conclusion? I’m infertile now. My eating disorder has killed my one chance of being happy in this life. My only solution to this predicament is death.

Looking back at it, it’s so funny honestly. I had started exercising and eating a little more before this happened. What did I expect? I was getting healthier and had only been without a car for a few days. Things were looking up and I was just going through a rough patch due to not having safe foods available.

I started cramping nearly constantly and I thought my period was just a little late. But I believe an entire month went by with it not coming but the cramps staying present. I was at the end of my ropes and while I was looking for a way out of this world I suppose what few brain-cells I hadn’t starved off at that point rubbed together and said hey! Maybe you don’t need to die. Go buy a pregnancy test!

Of course I was pregnant. And despite the statistics. I had the easiest recovery to have ever graced this planet. Sometimes I honestly question if I ever had an ED to begin with. That is until my husband tells me he’s so happy I’m eating even all these years later. Or I’m reminded that I spent 3 years of my life on eating disorder websites. I’m not kidding. I would sleep weigh myself browse forums and then fall right back asleep. I don’t think that’s a normal occurrence.

So now I’m pregnant. But I don’t want to tell anyone yet. I tell my husband. He’s freaking out, I tell my friends, the close ones are happy for me but understandably worried. I decide to take an almost complete step back from school. And that very day I was determined to recover. I set up my prenatal appointments and got very lucky with my doctors who are the best I think in the world when it comes to care of teen mothers. You don’t know the horrors of the care we experience till you go through it yourself.

As I said thankfully I was lucky in that aspect. But I think socially I got the shortest end of the stick imaginable. Outside of the people that actually knew me. The first thing anyone would say to me when I would tell them I was pregnant was,

“Why didn’t you get an abortion lol."

I spent that entire pregnancy on miscarriage chance calculator. I had my pregnancy care manager on speed dial, I cried when I heard her heartbeat not because of happiness entirely but because I was scared she was dead. I’d be awake late at night panicking that I was panicking because what if that hurts her too! I already had pounds of baby clothes and names picked out from YEARS PRIOR for each gender just waiting to be worn! How could someone so casually say something like that to me? I was clearly grinning ear to ear and was finally getting better.

The world was telling us both to die. And to this day I stand by that. I’ve had so many friends go through similar things and I believe it’s no coincidence. It’s just all part of the plan. So I made my own plan. I'm a sim determined to hit her perma platinum so I can die happy and everyone can suck it!

It comes time to have my little one! Everything goes very smoothly and through all the joy and excitement the only thing I can think of is those words that were said to me.

And you know. You’d think it would only happen once.

Though not to the same extent, mostly because I’d completely changed my social circle to those far more mentally stable than even I was at this point. When I had my son it happened again. A planned pregnancy. It baffles me- or at least it used to.

If you’re in a similar boat. I’d highly recommend getting out of the house and making some normal mom friends. Get yourself out there and make a community. The best place to start is before you need one but now is your second best bet. Don’t isolate yourself like I did! You have NO IDEA the people out there that want to support you emotionally. Reach out to ED recovery specialists, support groups, call a local pregnancy resource center and let them know you have no idea where to look for help ! Your health department! Anything but just putting on a brave face and doing it all alone. I deeply regret even though it’s not entirely my fault just assuming that the entire world was out to get me because of a few bad apples. It’s not all like that. There are people out there that care for you as a single Eating disordered person or as a mom too and love your baby and want you to be supported and loved even if you only need emotional support. Hell I even got some support on ED sites especially when my nutritionist had no idea what I was on about. (Seriously though can anyone become a nutritionist now a days? Don’t tell a pregnant woman to eat only 300 more calories a day when she tells you she’s been eating 600 for many years and only recently started 2000, perhaps refer to a therapist in this case but what do I know.)

Anyways, now it’s 5 years since that day. I’d say it’s my spiritual birthday. I celebrate it like one. There was me before, and there was me after. I had my third little one coming up 8 months ago soon. I can say that my experiences with my first “adult” but still teen pregnancy was already very different. I’m very curious what #4 will bring for me now that I’m in my 20’s. ( NO NOT RIGHT NOW! I'M FOCUSING ON SCHOOL DON’T WORRY!)

So that’s it for the main story but here are some updates on my life in case you came here for that. (Hi friends btw and thanks for the sweet messages ily)

Super secret project is almost 100% done!

Other project is going okay! Staying consistent with most things right now. But taking a week off a portion of it. But it’s okay though consistency over perfection always!

Other than that I’m sleep deprived…… but I’ll see you next time, on my next wall of text!

-love you!

here is my spring bucket list. though i'll touch on a bit of everything in my spring reflection i also have separate posts planned on single subjects.

key
♡ task
♡ completed task
♡ separate blog posts (currently directs to blog)
x separate planned post

for mommy and daddy

♡ start a small garden
♡ go to the bookstore
♡ spring cleaning
♡ bake carrot cake
♡ see the cherry blossoms
♡ press flowers in my hobo
♡ finish a big puzzle
♡ upgrade my pc storage
♡ decorate my room
♡ grab some boba
♡ complete a coding course online
♡ continue to study hard ! x

♡ finish photo todo num/num
♡ try a new workout routine
♡ work on my video project scene numbers/num
♡ volunteer 12 times

for kiddos

♡ do lots of fun paper crafts
♡ finish kids photo todo num/num
♡ play in the rain
♡ make flower crowns
♡ dye eggs
♡ go to a museum
♡ easter egg hunt
♡ make it to most library days
♡ teach my oldest to jump rope
♡ make a fun unit study that covers all subjects
♡ give the toddlers a camera to print at the end of the season

♡ spring reflection here (currently directs to blog)

Why did you make the blog in the first place?

Social media isn't really my thing. I like to talk to my friends and have a digital scrapbook of sorts on my Instagram. And while I'm making videos now I wanted something I could do when that felt taxing or a little too personal. Blogging has become my little escape where I can relax after being a mom all day. It's like living a double life, nobody would ever guess that I run a blog or really anything else I'm interested in because it doesn't fit a stereotype. I kind of like that!

Why did you choose Bearblog?

I was watching a YouTube video about the old web. Anyone who knows me really well knows that I spent most of my teen years on forums (yes millennials you heard that correctly). I really missed how life felt back then- well the good parts about it at least. I've recently found a new forum to call home not long after making this blog.

I think the big draw for bear is that it's not JUST a blog I am making completely alone. There is community in the discovery system so I don't feel as lonely but it still feels isolated enough for me to feel safe.

Have you blogged on other platforms before?

I have! when I was about 13-14 I had a WordPress blog. It was kind of a bucket-list tracker type of blog and I liked having a blog but just didn't know how to get it to look the way I wanted back then.

Do you write your posts directly in the editor or in another software?

It depends, I do have my notion where I have blog post ideas and drafts but sometimes I just write straight from bearblog.

When do you feel most inspired to write?

When I'm working on my goals. Weather I'm achieving them or not, I like to write about it because I like to look back at my past struggles and see how far I've come.

Do you publish immediately after writing or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?

I use my notion as my drafts page, when I'm ready to post I do so right away.

Your favorite post on your blog?

Probably my most recent one, It took me a hot minute to write because it was hard to articulate my thoughts and still be somewhat coherent. (at least my friends said it was readable LOL)

Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, changing the tag system, etc.?

I'm going to come up with a tag system for sure the nature of my blog is expected to be all over the place in subject matter. I'd love to have a background (but it's coming off blurry at the moment which is why you can't see it). I do plan on changing my banner soon as well as I get some artwork done for it and my youtube channel. And I'd also like to get some social features up and running I think a qna bit on my blog would be really fun!

Okay okay, I admit that the title is a bit confusing. But I promise this is going somewhere.

My last post goes over my thoughts during the start of this year. A cautiously optimistic girl who just managed to survive the holidays and was met with massive whiplash yada yada. It really does keep piling up though (in a good way).

In the middle of the month I was having a bit of a flair up health wise. I really pushed myself to the limit at the end of the year and my body was NOT HAPPY. But on one random night when I wasn’t feeling well I decided to open up an old program on my computer, look up the first thing that showed up when I searched on google “How to learn x” and got to work. No wasted time trying to find the perfect method. Just click and go. It became addicting, the numbers kept going up and I started to get better. It felt like a game where everything I did was XP points and I had a Pokémon in my head just itching to battle and evolve. This started a cascading effect where I felt motivated to do other things so I could spend more time leveling up and got me out of my rut. Even on days I felt bad, I knew that this project was an easy win and even on days where I felt I was not making progress I also knew that it was part of the process and that no time is wasted.

Wake up, Grind XP, Easy gains.

This leaves me with a lot I could write about. But I’ve been toying the idea of making posts about each subject on their own as these things progress. I suppose it’s technically still in the cards. But, I’ve decided to not do it this soon. One of the biggest pieces of advice someone will give you when trying anything new is to simply not tell anyone. You want to avoid the premature dopamine rush that it can cause and you also don’t want any negative feedback right off the back as a complete beginner. I admit some friends know, but it’s largely because if I didn’t tell them, they'd think I hate them because it’s taking up so much of my time.

The issue is though I’d hate for all this hard work to go to “waste”, so while I will not be talking about the actual project itself for the time being. I will tell you about something related to it. I’m going to start actually making progress videos like I’ve been wanting to for years. Yes, that’s the SMALL part of this project. Just the telling of the journey isn’t the hard part. It’s the thousands of hours I will be dedicating to this project that’s the hard part. Don’t worry, the making of these videos are not the project itself, just an additional motivator to continue. I have lots of things I’d like to learn, write, and talk about slightly more publicly than a blog can provide and that is my motivation. Don’t worry though I’ll have blog posts conveying the same info so you don’t need to cringe any more than you already are.

Expect an update on this particular project in about 3 months. I have 4 videos slash blog posts planned for it and I think it will be interesting to hear the results from someone who doesn't have a lot of time find ways to MAKE time and progress.

On another note, a quick update on my other things!

• I’m almost done with my second personal video, things did NOT go as planned but I know it’s going to be one of my favorites down the line for the lesson I’ve learned in living out the story it tells.

• Nothing new on the super long other project thanks to snail mail. I cant really go into much detail on it for privacy reasons but hopefully when it’s done you can be happy for me anyways!

• Pilates took a massive backseat. I’m still exercising but I started to lose so much weight that I was looking really sick. Some dietary changes are in order I’ll go over that next month.

• Hobonichi is as fun as always. I’ve missed a few days but I’m planning on filling those pages with some ideas I saved from Pinterest that normally you would put in a traditional diary or bullet journal so I’m not upset at all. Wii fit is stagnated too, still awaiting an email. Hopefully that will come soon!

• Other than that I have a meeting for high school soon. Since we will have more time before I get pregnant with #4 compared to our last 3 kids I’m hoping I can speedrun my classes. Unfortunately they’ve been taking so long to speak with me I could have finished them by now. But whatever!

Here’s to February!

-serenity

It really feels like the past few months have been a blur.

I'm not sure if anyone can truly comprehend the amount of work that goes into holiday preparation until you are a mom yourself. It's a lot of pressure being responsible for your children's Christmas memories. But it's January now so why am I bringing this up?

Well, I think I expended a lifetimes worth of effort on one season. It's January the 6th now as I write this and it is STILL a blur. It's like running on a hamster wheel trying to catch up with everyday life after being thrown across the planet for the holidays. Shopping, decor, two meals in quick succession with 3 kids no sleep and juggling personal goals and daily chores really take the wind out of you.

I'm optimistic, I had the best birthday ever (I'm 20 now which on one hand feels right and wrong at the same time) after a few weeks of despair I think I finally got over the worst part of all this and I've started to enjoy the present. I'm not sure if any of this will ever feel real but I will have the documentation to prove it. I've decided to really take things one step at a time because I simply cannot make improvements everywhere at the same time and make time to take care of myself.

But here are some things Ive done recently despite it all

I finished my first personal video project on my YouTube channel. I can't wait to see how my skills and style improve and I continue to make other videos.

I've started a huge (long, expensive, exhausting, stressful, but worth it) process I've been wanting to do since I was 15 years old. I'm taking new year new me super literally here.

I'm doing more traditional mat Pilates now (I usually use bands but I can't now because it's THAT hard). I LOVE it. Destroying one leg and then having to balance on it while I'm shaking like it's -5 degrees outside just hits different.

I've started journaling and planning in my hobonichi. I actually got the cousin size this year and I'm really enjoying it. I might get better at drawing too since I'm doodling and not obsessing on how it looks since I am drawing using the same pen I write with.

I started my Wii fit merch collection and reached out to a creator in hopes they can help me preserve the official guidebook I ordered. I'll let you know how that goes I've got lots of fun info on that.

Expect me to come back here with some more things that just really bring me joy. But in the meantime I just wanted to throw my good and bad thoughts into this void and get the ball rolling. If there's anything I want more from this year it's to get my spark back. So here's to 2025

You read the title. What is even going on with my brain?

I spent most of September planning for October. It’s definitely my favorite month of the year. Sure the vibes are great but what really makes it my favorite is the feeling of new beginnings.

My first child was born in October, it was deep in the pandemic, I was excited and also scared. I’d have my sweet 16th with a 2 month old & I wasn’t sure what was in store for me as I started to be able to do more things with the new privileges 16 year olds get.

I feel like I’m in the exact same spot I was then. Sure I have a lot more wisdom & skills but here I am again with a young baby (and two toddlers), a milestone age & a feeling of not knowing what comes after this.

Honestly the best year of my life in terms of security was at age 16. There was so much clarity I accured in that year. I’ve been trying to chase that confidence ever sense. I’m turning 20 soon, and I know I’ll be having one more child, possibly homeschooling but what else? I’ve toyed with a few ideas but the one I’ve been thinking about the most is becoming a lactation consultant.

As much as I’d love to help moms and babies in the delivery room, I cannot handle the trauma if anything were to happen to anyone. I can’t fill from an empty cup. I think a lactation consultant is a good middle ground. I’ll be going back to school soon with some special plans to hopefully get me out asap after my multi year break.

If I’m honest though it’s a bit dehumanizing to have to fib to be taken seriously in school. Unless you claim you’re gonna make money yourself they’ll just throw out your application and tell you that staying home with your kids isn’t worth their accessibility. I put there vaguely some nursing goals but I’m honestly never planning on doing any intensive schooling. My state can kick rocks for all I care. If they really wanted me to pursue higher education they should have let me skip grades when they had the chance. So it’s on them.

On a less serious note, I did make a fall bucket list and I’ve been ticking off a few things. I’ll do another mini post about it sometime soon. One good thing about getting older is how much more we get out. While we still get looks we’ve been getting much more comfortable going out as a family and couple. It’s everything I could have ever dreamed of and I wish I could tell my past self how great things would get with time.

Today I will ramble about my Minimalist but robust notion system.

My Why

Throughout the years I've always been on the lookout for the perfect app to manage my life (more so my always overworked brain). There have been some close matches but it's never enough.

The past few weeks I've been getting into digital minimalism. Deleting games off my phone & moving those activities to my PC. Using the Minimal Homescreen widget to remove temptations from my phone. The hard part about it all has been my never ending yearning for an all in one solutions for my goals, habits, routines, & various todo's.

I'll be using my notion as a tool with this site allowing me to get things done privately before writing about my experience publicly. Hopefully that will make my posts about my findings high quality and helpful as my writing skills improve.

I refuse to continue searching. Let's finally use Notion.

The Directors room

This is the main page. The inspiration being I am the director of my life.

As you can see it's got a very simple intro & page directory with 4 categories. Goals, Plot Ideas, Todo, & Links.

My goals page are sorted by other sub pages by weekly, monthly & yearly. The overall goals page help my progress in my various sub goals. Within those pages are even more pages (Somehow Russian doll pages just tickle my brain) where I keep track of how I am progressing in hopes of writing about it here later.

That leads us to Plot Ideas. The Plot ideas page is organized into seasons for each year with "main plot points" a corresponding mood board & will possibly have up to 12 "episodes" per year. Kind of a New Year's resolution page better because I can reference my goals page and get into the nitty gritty.

My todo page is incredibly simple. It is organized by importance & urgency. I can also reference to the all knowing goals page but I see myself more using this to remind myself of calls I need to make, the kids appointments & that l need to use the meat in the fridge.

The links page is a master list of different things I need to keep track of for my projects. Before now I’ve been using apple notes but the links are practically useless now because they have zero context. At least with general categories I can get the gist of what I’m looking at.

I hope this inspired you to create a sustainable notion system. It doesn't need to be perfectly aesthetic. You can pick a cute banner if you want to. But what's really important is the function. In my personal experience in the past using the perfect aesthetic board I found on YouTube I was never able to use it for my needs because I didn't understand the systems in place & didn't have the time to learn them either. I'm definitely going to make it look pretty eventually one page at a time.