Gosh, it’s August once more. I honestly feel like there wasn’t much to remember in July. It was a quiet month (I mean in general, but of course my brain was loud and giving me my daily dose of anxiety). Maybe perimenopause is making me feel all of these! I had a pretty bad breakout after two years of having mostly clear skin, and it was pretty disappointing. It cleared up, thankfully, but seeing the acne marks feels like I’m back to square one.

I just feel like August is the clutch before the year speeds toward the finish line. And I’m not really ready to leave my 30s behind! Oh well, enough of this nonsense.

Life Lately

• It was a good reading month. In my pursuit of reclaiming my attention span, I tried to hyperfocus on my reading. Of course, I kept up with my regular manga/webtoons, but I also picked up books. Two books, to be exact. I started The Will of the Many first, but I wasn’t as into it as I’d hoped, though I’m keen to return to it once I finish the book I’m currently reading: The Serpent and the Wings of Night. I was looking for that Twilight feeling—aka my gateway back into reading books—and who knew I’m still head over heels for vampire lore? Coincidentally, my favorite webtoon read last month is A Lovely Meal, which is also happens to be about vampires too! Anyway, back to the book—it’s been really good, and I’m adamant about writing a full review! And because I feel like my book-reading dry spell is finally starting to wane??? I am—
• Pondering about buying a new e-reader? So I’ve been browsing e-readers, torn between a Kindle and a Kobo. My Kobo, which was gifted to me back in 2013, is still somehow functioning, albeit a little too slow now, and the casing is slowly disintegrating from years of not being used. I’ve been using my backup phone with an e-book reader app installed, but I really want something that won’t distract me. I don’t have any social media apps installed on that phone outside of anime/manga/webtoon apps, but I just want to read books on an actual e-reader. I used to carry my Kobo everywhere with me, so I’m really used to reading on an e-ink screen. So yeah, sad to be broke!
• Redesigning is still on! I’m slowly working through the redesign. Upon closer inspection, there are a lot of parts of the new design that I actually like. Just fine-tuning things here and there, and maybe I’ll finally start coding it. Sadly, I’m an old woman now, and my body isn’t what it used to be. I do want to release it soon, but as you can see, I’m taking my sweet, sweet time.
• Rereading & rewatching all-time faves. I tried to rewatch the Kono Oto Tomare! anime but failed to tolerate it. The good thing that came out of that, though, was that I got in the mood to reread the whole manga, and damn, it still gets me every time. Amyuu-sensei deserves a super high-quality anime that can truly capture the emotional prowess of the manga. After that, I was craving a quality anime, so I ended up marathoning Haikyuu! once again. Time and time again, it proves why it’s one of the best sports anime of all time. Truly the GOAT! 🐐🏐
• I blogged so much! Three posts that I promised to publish last month, and I actually did! If you’ve read this post, I swallowed my words once again and went back to what I do best: yap. Yap endlessly! 😌 So yeah, I have a few more drafts waiting to be published, but of course I’ll schedule them so each post has time to shine. (though hardly anyone reads them, so it doesn’t really matter. That’s just my inner control freak talking!) Yep, no more tl;dr-ing!
• We managed to party. For three years, I think, we weren’t able to attend my niece’s birthday because of bad weather. It wasn’t a simple bad weather, it was super typhoon or super moonsoon kind of bad weather. But finally, the weather was so good that day. The sun was out, the skies were clear. We were joking that the monsoon season gave us a break just so we could celebrate. It was a quiet dinner, but I couldn’t help feeling a little blue about how much she’s grown. She’s 17 now, and she’ll be legal next year. I remember I was still in my early 20s, just started post grad when she was born. Time truly flies so fast!

August Agenda

• Just gonna catch whatever. I don’t have any tasks set in stone for the month other than catching up on my to-do list, like the redesign, updates, and all that. So I’m just hoping to make some kind of progress on everything that’s currently on my plate.
• Reassessing my finances? I bought some of the things I wanted, and now that I’ve finished paying off my phone, I have a little more leeway for spending. All these things I’ve been eyeing: the vacuum, maybe a new printer, and also maybe, just maybe??? a new e-reader?! If my budget weren’t so tight, I’d buy them all at once, but alas, I’m not a millionaire’s daughter, so I’ll just have to make do with what I have. 😮‍💨
• More reading, please! I’m really gung-ho about keeping this reading streak going. It still takes me a while to finish a book, but I promised myself I’d read for an hour/day, and it’s been working marvelously! TSatWoN has managed to capture my interest surprisingly well, and that alone makes me happy! I was also a little more active on Goodreads this month because I want to conquer my Goodreads challenge of five books for the year! So I’m on the hunt for new books to add on my TBR!

And that’s the July lowdown! Happy August, everyone. I pray that we all have a productive and wonderful month ahead! 🌱🦭🍸🥨🌧