Happy December!
Happy Sunday, my jellow beans :) I hope November treated you well! I feel like 2024 passed by so quickly - is this a sign of aging? It still feels like it was just a little while ago that we celebrated 2024, and now we’re wrapping it up, and Christmas is right around the corner.
2024 has been a year that feels mostly smooth sailing - though it has been hard as my husband still remains unemployed. Because of this, I won’t be able to do my usual 25 Days of Christmas Giveaway, but I did want to share some blessings of 2024
The opportunity to walk with my single friends and share testimony of God’s faithfulness through my walk in singleness. I definitely encountered a lot of rotten frogs before I got married, and got hurt a lot, and it was a good reminder that God’s intentions are always good. It sucks to go through hardship, but it was never a burden meant to weigh us down, but train us to be stronger and help carry the burden of those who are going through it.
To spend more time with my sisters-in-law and enjoy hanging out together, learning together, and simply family-ing together. This was something my family never did, and I love being able to start new family traditions with my in-laws.
To have a wonderful wedding client that healed me of the hurts of a previous client. I had been laying low for a year - partly because I got super busy with my new job, but also because I started to doubt myself and feel inadequate. My clients were so sweet, and even without knowing my trauma with my previous client, they and their collective guests reminded me why I do what I do; why I am passionate, and that I am dang good at my job. No event has the same story - wedding or otherwise, and God has given me the talent to let those testimonies shine through managing logistics and flow of event, design, and simply serving those who are there.
Baby season! My friend popped out her first baby, and he is so adorable 🥹 I think it is strange when I think about how in my church environments, everyone seems to get married so young and pop out babies soon after - but in my close circle of friends (within and outside of church), most of us got married relatively recently despite being in our late twenties to mid thirties, and this baby is the first to come! God’s timing, is strange indeed.
It’s been a pretty crazy year, work wise - with our new medical campus opening up, I hosted my first 400+ guest corporate event! I’d always done smaller corporate events up until now, so it was amazing to be able to coordinate something so much larger and have it in my resume.
Despite not having a job, it has allowed for my husband to explore other hobbies, such as sourdough making. I’m not very well versed in sourdough, nor am I too big a fan, but I am a big fan of him, his process, and saving money on warm fresh bread!
My husband has also been able to get more gigs doing sound/AV for events and playing his beloved bass guitars. It’s nice seeing him enjoy what he loves and earn some side hustle money from it :)
My husband having more time means he has time to cook at home - it is so nice to come home after a tiring day to yummy home cooked meals.
I have been officially inducted into UCI Health! That means health insurance at a lower cost with the best health system in OC :D The best part is that paying for health insurance for both my husband and I is less than what he paid for just himself, unemployed.
Going to a PCP physician for the first time since my crazy health scare back in 2020 that cost me my job; I hadn’t been able to afford a viable health insurance since then, and have been coping with going to urgent cares for anything big.
Planning family Christmas! I love that my in-laws are big on spending time together Christmas, and it makes me so excited. I often compare these Christmases to how lonely I felt during the holidays. My dad, despite working hard and until late every night, would always try to take some time off during our Winter Break to do something special, even though our family doesnt celebrate Christmas. When he got sick, there was no more jolly energy at home, and my mom resented the holiday because I came to learn the Truth about Christmas. She hated that I was a Christian, so while everyone seemed to have family plans and went home after Winter Quarter, I remember crying alone in my friend’s apartment in San Diego back in 2013 after Christmas service. Even all my classmates local to Riverside had family to go home to and unwrap presents and celebrate with, but I had no one. Now, Christmases are about my nieces jumping up and about with joy, watching them enjoy glimpses of childhood I never had, and being able to say I have family to celebrate with.
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