Garden Update!

It’s decided – cucumbers, tomatoes, pepper, strawberries, and moringa(malunggay) are my must haves in my garden. These are the ones I eat.

I will also have more roses, clematis, hibiscus, coneflower, and natives. This fall I plan to transplant 2 roses from the front yard because they don’t get enough sun there, and they are not thriving at all.

Also, I will not buy any “dwarf” plant varieties anymore. Who wants to harvest super tiny eggplants?? I don’t know why they are so tiny.. maybe I need to fertilize them.

Summer 2023

Kicked off the summer vacation with some fun family activities and sewing!

  • Myka’s Hip Hop Dance Recital, which her K teacher attended
  • My work trip
  • Daddy-daughter date
  • Connection Church’s Mega Sports Camp
  • Date night at the gym and Casa Garcia’s
  • San Antonio Riverwalk and Alamo visit

You Goal, Girl!

First Goal: Have a physical activity (walking/ work out/ zumba) every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday for at least 30 mins.

Writing this here so that the universe can keep me accountable. I’ve had this goal every year, for 6 years and I have yet to accomplish it. I am good at achieving my career goals, heck, even financial goals but never my health goal.

But this year, I think I can do it. I need to. Because I will be freaking 40 next year! And the baby who came out of my belly is now in Kindergarten! I need to step up (literally!).

P.S. Credit to the book authors of You Goal Girl for my title. 🙂 I bought this last year (Nov 2021?) and just now started being serious about it. 😀

Monthly Review: July 2022

Social – July was a busy month with birthday parties (almost every weekend!), Myka’s piano and dance lessons, and her piano recital. It was pretty exciting to “go back to normal” and finally see friends we haven’t seen in a very long time. It was also a bit awkward at first because I was still recovering from Covid and still had cough. Our first gathering was after almost 3 weeks since onset of Covid. From what I read online, they say that I wasn’t infectious anymore but the coughs can take a while to heal. I didn’t want to scare my friends off so I tried to control my coughing. But I was a little worried about possibly getting them sick so I put some distance between them and myself. In retrospective, I wish I didn’t feel self conscious about wearing a mask. Note to self: if coughing, wear a mask!

Work – I am learning my new boss’s working style. I like how she gets involved and mentor me. I think I am learning from her about management, requirements gathering (asking lots of questions) and client relationship management. I like learning from others so I am glad she is my new boss.

Career – I’ve been looking at job boards, including those that are internal to the company I’m currently working for. I want to see what is out there and also learning what skills I should acquire. And I’m trying to see how I can get my ROI for the course and certification that I took. I am still seeking clarity on what I really want. I think I really want to grow myself as a manager and learn new technologies along the way. But I also want to have some focus. I’m glad that I’m given the opportunity to take trainings internally so I’m very grateful that my bosses are very supportive of that.

Family- Myka is growing and is more independent. I let her play Roblox and talk to her friend and “ate” (her cousin in the Philippines) through Messenger Kids. Still not a lot of time spent with his husband.

Business – RubMyRib didn’t do well this month. Derek said it set us almost 2 moths back from our target sales. Mostly because of the heat and being closed for 2 weeks when Myka and I had Covid didn’t help either. I think people aren’t going out as much and staying in their homes to enjoy the comfort of the AC.

Health – I started doing Zumba, which is great. I enjoy dancing instead of doing the regular workout, which I find very boring. I am conscious that I am about to turn 40 so I’m trying to be healthier.

Monthly Review: June 2022

Career: June was my “graduation month”. I graduated from my Data Science and Business Analytics course from Great Learning/The University of Texas at Austin. I also completed my video trainings for AWS Solutions Architect Associate.

I felt like I got my life back after getting my weekends free again. Since October 2021 my routine has been, spend a few hours during the week to watch a few training videos and then finish all the training videos for the week, take my quiz on Saturday mornings or finish a project and then have my 2-hour mentored learning sessions on Sundays. It has been exhausting to do this extra “study/research hours” on top of work. Plus, starting April, I also took the trainings for the AWS Solution Architect Associate exam. I finished both with flying colors and I gained confidence so I’m grateful.

Project: The launch of 2 of my projects at work was very successful and I’m proud of the work my team and I have done. It was my very first time to be a “real” project manager for a scrum team so I am very happy with the results. I learned a lot on how to do sprint planning, pivoting when needed, and addressing demo issues and keeping a timeline.

Health: This month was also the time Myka and I had COVID-19 so it was not that great. Luckily I was already done with school work and I was also done with my big projects at work. It also gave me a bit of time to take some mock exams (about 2 hours a day) when I felt capable. I have documented my COVID-19 experience and will work on the post on that some time this week. For me, the worst part was the headaches and then the cough. I only had 2 days where I had fever, thankfully! Right now I still have a bit of a cough but I’m no longer taking cough medicine (I think I got addicted to Nyquil.. and it made it hard for me to get up in the mornings).

Business: Rub My Rib didn’t do so well this month because of the scorching heat and a 2-week closure due to Myka and I having COVID-19. My husband didn’t have it but we wanted to make sure that we don’t get any of our customers sick.

Garden: I didn’t have lots of flowers this year compared to last year. And mostly it’s because of the 100 degree weather this summer. It’s been really bad. We are currently at Stage 2 water shortage so it’s not advisable for us to use the water for the garden. It’s just not justifiable. Anyway, I hope next spring will be a lot better! I will start planting my seedlings by December.

Overall, it was a productive month.

I Passed the AWS Solutions Architect Associate (SAA) Exam!

I woke up at 5am today and the first thing that came to my mind was to check if I got an email about the result. So I reached for my phone and yes, there it was! An email from Credly saying Congratulations you earned a badge! Yayyyy!

https://www.credly.com/badges/40f4d449-9133-429e-abd8-12f1a05db77a/public_url

I feel like I Failed the SAA

Just finished taking AWS SAA and I feel like I failed the exam. I wasn’t 100% sure with 90% of my answers.

There were 65 questions to be answered. I forgot how long, I have to check but I think maybe in 140 minutes. The questions and the options were really long. I had to read them over and over again to make sure I am not missing important keywords. Plus I was distracted. MJ (My dog) kept on trying to get in, the neighbors are mowing or doing whatever that’s generating a very distracting motor noise, and my own head itself was busy buzzing with random thoughts. What if I fail? What will I tell everyone? Oh no, I knew I wasnt ready yet. What if I scheduled it for later? What if I have a mental black out? Etc..etc..

Ugh, I hate that you have to wait for the results. I thought it would be instantaneous. This waiting is killing me. I feel like I failed but I hope I passed. I need to get out of the house and take my mind off of this.