2022 in Review
Well, my friends. This has been a bit of an exhausting year. I’m currently back in that familiar-to-me upperclassmen frame of mind: “If I can just make it through [x date]…”
2022 has been about traveling for family and friends, working hard, planning our wedding, always running a background process on COVID fears and fresh, fun anxieties. I’m hoping to take a breather after Rahul and I get married early next year (twice!).
Despite being an effortful year, it’s also one where I got to explore new passions and reconnect with old ones…
Highlights
Usual disclaimer: this is the highlight reel. The lowlights are kept private!
- Moving into our new house and getting engaged (Rahul and I have been speed-running life changes the past couple years, it seems)
- Dabbling in gardening and amari
- Getting to be with my family for my niece’s 3rd birthday
- Seeing my friends Saili and Billy get married
- Screaming along with the girlies (masked) at a Phoebe Bridgers show. I’ve now seen all the boygenius ladies live. 🌟
- Learning a bit about SQL
- Floating in the sea in Hawaii
- Attending my first NHL hockey game
- Celebrating Diwali in India
- Launching fun things at Netlify, like support for Azure DevOps as a Git provider, scopes and contextual values for environment variables, and subdomain delegation.
- Continuing to spend quality time with my online writing group
- Rediscovering sketchbooking and my love for art
- Finding a super active art/illustration Discord server, which is currently my virtual home for art
- Discovering the world of fountain pens and getting totally hooked on this hobby! Opening up each day in Diamine’s Inkvent calendar was especially fun this December.
- Finding a new craft social (which requires vax cards and masks!)
Everything-ish I Made
When you add it all up in a list, it feels like quite a bit!
- Doodled some paper bookmarks I promptly left in library books
- Sewed a couple other bookmarks
- Built a snacks review site
- Designed a phone background for myself
- Sewed a wall hanging for my enamel pins
- Dyed some fabric with indigo in a friend’s backyard
- Redesigned my website and actually still like it, for once
- Sewed a sketchbook pouch
- Wrote 26 blog posts on product management, the web, Netlify, and various bits and bobs I’m learning about.
- Finished 1 1/2 sketchbooks and posted some of it on my Instgram
- Finished knitting my fiancé’s scarf right at EOY; I couldn’t even tell you what year I started it.
- Started a tea journal and completed a daily journal
- Started a new abstract / freestyle woven tapestry
Favorite Media
Books
I read 60 books this year, so a bit of a dip from the past couple years. The culprit is likely my new love for artsy YouTube videos around bedtime.
- ⭐️ “The Sentence” — Louise Erdrich
- Cat Kinsella series — Caz Frear. I was looking for a Tana French readalike.
- “Ducks” — Kate Beaton
- “The Only Good Indians” — Stephen Graham Jones
- “Turtles All the Way Down” — John Green
Movies
I watched 34 films this year. Some favorites:
- ⭐️ Everything Everywhere All at Once: the best movie I’ve seen in a long time.
- Encanto
- Glass Onion
- Practical Magic
- Turning Red: second favorite after EEAO
Music
2022 — Tracks playlist on Tidal, which I think I switched to this year. Lots of my favorite sad girls (Phoebe, Julien, and Michelle).
2023 word of the year: Community
I’m still working out if/how I want to do annual goals, but I do know for sure that my theme of the year will be “community”. The pandemic has made me feel more disconnected from my community—both friends and strangers—and it has cost me dearly.
In 2023 I want to chip away at my recent hermetic shell, and spend more time 1) enjoying life in the company of others and 2) supporting those around me.
Hope you have a wonderful 2023!
