Habits & Health This Month

Habit	Total Days This Month	Best Streak (Days in a Row)
Reading	5	2
Writing	7	3
Art	2	–
Journal	2	–
Exercise	3	–
Social	6	2
PKM	3	–
Coding	11	5

My best habits from last month have tapered off, but I’m not unhappy about that. I wanted to devote some time to coding practice, life planning, room decluttering, and others. I wish I’d coded more often, but I think just under half of the month is pretty good after a break.

To onlookers, my energy-mood-sleep chart may not look like it varied much from the last month. So I’m adding my average values as well:

• Average mood: 4 (out of 10)
• Average energy: 4 (out of 10)
• Average sleep: 8 (out of max 12)

I have this one spike where I logged 12 hours (it may have been more, but I don’t log anything beyond 12). It may sound healthy and normal to have 8 or more hours of sleep, but a lot of these were actually late nights and late risings. Symptoms of mild depression, especially when you look at my average mood/energy.

Thankfully, my sleep-mood cycles improved in the second half of the month — later on, I’ll tell you why.

Books Read & Films Watched This Month

Not featured: The Fast & Furious franchise that my partner and I have been marathoning since December. Not much TV besides that, but I read 3 books this month!

📕The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell

Rating: 🤩

This book made a heavy impact on me, so I wrote a longer review of it on a separate post.

📕Pyrem Down & Branding of a Heretic, Kal S. Davian

Rating: 🤩

These are two free novellas by the same author, my Threads mutual Kal. He has several free standalone books within the same world, Nihilian Effect, and I’m making my way through them this quarter. Since they’re all related, I’ll try to read as many of them as I can before writing a review. So far, I’m a fan of the saga! You can learn about his books on his website.

Project Updates This Month

• I updated my coding portfolio! I changed the layout completely because, although the old design had a lot of my personality, I felt the overlook was amateurish. I’m sure this new look still looks rookie-made, but it’s an improvement from the old one without ripping out too much character.
• I made a web portal for my fiction universe, Makolta. I recently made it viewable on mobile and tablet screens, though there are still some sizing issues on mobile I plan to fix. This is my first full-stack project that I’ve built from scratch instead of following a tutorial.
• I have a new short story idea — still set in Makoltaverse, but exploring the magic themes of the story from a different perspective. I hope to work on that alongside the main book next month.

February Events

First off, special announcement: I’m engaged!

Mid-way into February, I strongly considered not writing a February wrap-up post because there seemed very little to document (or share) about the month. That was very much remedied by a late Valentine trip to Tinipak, one of my favorite spots in the Philippines, and a surprise proposal from the love of my life.

There was, of course, another surprise when we got home because many of our friends were gathered for a small engagement party. In a weekend, my February had gone from “not much going on” to “pivotal core memory.”

The following photoset is from one of my best friends, Alley Garcia.

• Check out Louie’s reel of the proposal and my reel of the nature trip.

This Month, I’m Grateful For…

1. my fiancé!?!
2. my offline and online friends who have squealed, cried, and celebrated for me
3. my family and the disgustingly sweet things they said to Louie when he asked for their blessing
4. the creativity which is always running through my veins, even when I doubt myself
5. my past self, for saving maybe more than a decade’s worth of wedding-related pins and ideas that I now get to sort through

Hope your February was as beloved and hopeful as mine. Let’s catch up again soon!