December was packed! So many things happened! I saw so many people as well! It was a fun way to end the year. :)
Shelle, Kyle, and I got our Covid booster shot the first Friday of the month. We were worried about the side effects, but luckily, only Kyle and I felt extra tired the next day for a while. Alec flew back from a work trip that night was planned on coming over the next morning to spend the weekend together, and I didn't want to make him take care of me the whole weekend lol.
The next Friday, Archana, Azeneth, and I volunteered to help make coming back to the office goodie bags at the office with our location team. We were supposed to go back to the office on December 12th before HQ announced that we didn't need to come back in any location for our own safety. We'd circle back and see how things are by end of Jan. But the office will be open if anyone wants to go back to the office, so our location team decided to continue to create these goodie bags and give them to anyone coming in the next week.
Check out all of these bags we worked on! There were three areas that we piled them all on lol.
After that, we decided to get lunch nearby. I went back to Archana's apartment to work and hangout. Because I had a dentist appointment the next morning, I just spent the night at her place catching up, working on updating my resume, and rewatching The Witcher in preparation of season two coming out the next week. I had already made plans to spend the weekend at Alec's house afterwards, so I was super prepared and had my bags already packed lol.
My parents wanted to meet up for lunch a few days before, so it became an Alec meeting the parents dim sum lunch lol. Then, we went Asian grocery shopping after that since it was in the same plaza. Alec needed to get some groceries for when his parents were coming up soon, so mom made me follow him around and help him shop instead of her lol. With her comments about keeping up with him instead, it was pretty funny like my mom felt like I was being irresponsible by abandoning him lol.
The next week, Archana was supposed to come over and spend a week with us since we missed each other. But then she got multiple job interviews and a huge project to work on for her dream job interview, so she decided to stay home and focus on her job search. Spoiler alert: She got the job!!!
Instead, Alec came over Thursday night and spent the whole weekend with us. I found out that I had a PTO day that I didn't use, so I took that Friday off while Shelle and Alec worked remotely from home. Meanwhile, I was a bum for most of the day until I remembered that I needed to update my resume and LinkedIn since I was also job searching. I had Archana, Ebony, and Jack all rip my resume to shreds and had to edit it based on all of their feedback, which made it 100% better.
We had our long-awaited sushi date at Kura Revolving Sushi Bar, which I had been wanting to try out for a long time. It was so good! We ate until we were stuffed.
Then, we walked to the H-Mart in the same plaza to get some groceries before stopping by Meet Fresh for dessert. We've been craving bingsoo for a while now, but couldn't find any place selling it since it's usually only available in the summer, so Meet Fresh's shaved ice and signature series desserts where right up our alley!
We ordered the Icy Grass Jelly Signature along with some other drinks!After that, we were even more full, so we decided to go to the movie theater first at The Battery and walk around the area to digest while waiting for everyone else to arrive. I haven't been around the place for the past two years because of Covid, so it was a surprise to see how much the place has expanded. There's so many more stores available now!
Shelle and Kyle were running late, but we ran into Lance and Sam in the lobby. We decided to go in first, since the tickets are digital, and Shelle and Kyle didn't need to wait on us. This was a nice movie theater! It's new, so the seats were still super nice and comfy, and the menu had a pretty wide range of fancy options like steak and drinks.
Anyway, Spider-Man: No Way Home was so freaking good! I loved it so much! What a great way to end the night of such an eventful day. :D We spent the next day just chilling at home and relaxing because we were so busy the day before lol.
That following Wednesday, I made plans to call Mikey and catch up. We haven't talked since David and I broke up, so I wanted to reconnect and see how things were. I was expecting to talk for three hours and getting so much gossip! I was bursting at the seams with gossip and with no one to share it with immediately lmao. I basically texted Alec that while he was busy with his parents who came up to visit that day. I sent him a list of main topics so that I wouldn't forget anything major, and he texted back that he'd call me later that night lol.
Then a TJ thing happened as well, but I don't want to talk about it because he's starting to annoy me. Basically, I was about to give him a chance with a coffee date last year, but it never happened because stuff came up. By the time he contacted me again, I was already with Alec. Then, he started being weird and pushing boundaries and being disrespectful towards my boyfriend with his questions. Anyway, then my parents called me separately right when he texted me if I would have given him a chance if he was more persistent. So I didn't respond back to him for another hour lol.
Basically, I talked with a lot of people that night.
We all had that Friday off for Christmas, so we headed to pick up Archana on the way home Thursday night. Since she couldn't visit her family in India with all of the Covid scares, she didn't have any Christmas plans. Instead, she got to spend a hilarious Christmas with our family instead. I got to see one of my cousins and her boyfriend who was driving down to visit her family in Florida. They spent the night at our place before heading out early the next morning.
Look at Archana chilling out with our super old Barbie blanket (where did dad keep this so that mom didn't throw it away??) on top of another blanket in the den where we spent the night because we ran out of rooms lol.
The next day, my aunt, uncle, and their sons, who live nearby, came over for dinner. Now that my cousins are in high school and college, we haven't seen them around as much anymore, so it was nice catching up and seeing how entrepreneurial they were being scalpers lol.
We went back home on Christmas day, that Saturday, because Archana had a flight to catch to visit her guru in North Carolina the next day. Since Shelle and Kyle were going to New York to attend her best friend's wedding, I didn't want to be home alone for new years, so I decided to mooch off of Alec for the next week lol.
I made a bunch of plans for the weekend, too. We had a double date with Krista and Erick in Macon, so we could watch the light show downtown and so Krista could see the new guy in person lol. I really appreciate her insight because she notices a lot more things about people than I do. Must be because of her psychology degree and great people reading skills. Luckily, they both approve of him. Lol, we talked for so long at The Rookery that we completely missed the light show! Instead, we just walked around and talked for a while before going home.
The next night, we grabbed dinner with Jessica and her little bro at Iron Age. It was supposed to be a double date the other weekend, but we had to cancel because of the weather. But, we still wanted to meet up to exchange Christmas gifts before she was busy with her Delta flight attendant training at the beginning of January. Apparently, they all have to stay in a hotel during the duration of the training. :o
I used the last of my annual leave to take off the week between Christmas and New Year, but Alec still had work that week. But we still had a lot of fun together hanging out all week and doing food experiments.
Check out the rose tteokbokki and spicy Italian tteokbokki that we made one night!
I was kind of surprised that we didn't clash or get annoyed or tired of each other the whole time. I wonder if it's because we're still in the honeymoon phase, because even hanging out with friends, I'll still need some space for a bit or feel a little irked by something at least once or twice when we hangout or go on trips. It's just how you are as you spend time with people; sometimes there's friction. But I guess he kept me fed and hydrated enough that I wasn't tired and grumpy lol!
I also had a couple of interviews or calls with recruiters looking for candidates for an instructional design position during this week. I was pretty surprised since it was near the end of the year.
New Year's Eve plans to celebrate my mom's birthday was cancelled since Shelle and Kyle had just come back from New York and hadn't tested yet. Instead, I stayed with Alec for another week while they waited to get tested.
Instead, we had a double date with some of Alec's friends and rang in the new year at their apartment. We went to a fancy restaurant called No. 246 for a nice prefix meal Italian dinner. Then, we played card games and watched YouTube videos of other countries who already rang in the new year because they had better light shows/drone shows lol.
Overall, this was an incredibly packed month full of surprises and fun. I couldn't ask for a better way to end the year. :) But man, this was such a long post to write!
