Our Paper Year

We celebrated one year of marriage and Tino's birthday in the past two weeks. The traditional first-year gift is paper. Paper symbolizes how the early years of marriage are fragile yet withstanding. If you handle paper with love and care, that sheet will maintain its written words for a lifetime.

I never believed in soulmates until Tino asked me if he was mine ...and then we got into a very heated discussion lol. Another year to us and to you, my soulmate 😉

Some of my favorite things about Tino:

1. Heart for God. Before we started dating, his own personal relationship was rooted. He served within his own ministries, and I wasn't the reason he attended church. This was an answered prayer and a blessing as we married.

2. Heart of a servant. His service extends to my family and friends. Find him sweeping booths at a craft fair for me and all my small business ladies or setting up chairs at church. He cleans up Chungus' poop around the house☺

3. He lets me pick where we eat and all I have to do is agree we get dessert at the end. He also eats everything and anything, so I can be adventurous with what I cook at home.

4. The way he forgives is inspiring. I never see him hold ill feelings or bias over someone after an argument has been resolved. He's always the first to say hello to ease an awkward situation. It's something I am working on and I find SO challenging, but it looks effortless for him. I know it isn't easy, which makes it even more amazing to me.

5. The best and my favorite ballroom dance partner. You should see how focused he gets doing body rolls hehe.

End of a Decade, Start of an Age

I celebrated turning 30 a few days ago. As I look back on the past decade, I can't help but reminisce. My 20s were so full of adventures reinventing and redefining who I thought I was. Along with celebrating different milestones, they were full of uncertainty and mistakes that shape who I am now. What a blessing it is to step into my 30s more sure of who I am.

The only constant I knew then that is still true today - my God is good, and He is faithful.

I love these pictures taken by my favorite non-photographers. Despite the blurriness, I remember each moment so clearly.

Left: The first picture of Tino and me celebrating buying our DTLA condo taken by Bon. Right: The last picture of me in my DTLA apartment taken by Tino.

Social Reset

Social media took a toll on my psyche this year. My sister and I utilize social media as a platform for our small business. Inevitably we tend to be on it more than we like to engage customers and curate content. We come across supportive strangers from around the world, but we also encounter passive-aggressive actions that had us saying "hmmm" 🌚🌝. We also felt ourselves sinking into this rabbit hole of seeking engagement from followers to validate our art. These were all red flags that lead me to evaluate the extent of my social media fatigue.

Not gonna lie - passive aggression phases me a lot. I can't really help how someone responds to my activity online, but I do have power over how I respond to theirs. I'm also thankful that my sister can talk me out of my thoughts and vice versa. We've found that our intuition of someone's intent is pretty spot-on, so I've been more assertive in protecting my own peace online. I actively take longer breaks and I don't weed through my notifications to see who's paying attention anymore ✌️ Self-reminder: it's ok to take breaks and it's perfectly fine to place appropriate boundaries for yourself on the internet.

Moving Chronicles was a project I did a few months ago and shared on my photography Instagram to spark inspiration because I felt that I was in a creative slump. I challenged myself to find inspiration indoors rather than 'adventuring' out. My goal was to capture shadows during sunset - pleasantly surprised at how colorful it turned out to be!