So, it’s been another two years and it brings me back here.

Looking back with a good laugh, I got laid off from my job about a week after I made my last post, the 2024 Update. But! We came back from that.

A quick overview:

• 2024 started off super hopeful, got temporarily crushed, then I started a new job in the summer after a birthday trip to LA which led to a slight burnout and I ended the year so drained mentally and physically.
• 2025 we flew off to Korea for a month for our anniversary so I could mentally reset and dissociate from work and it was fantastic, only to get hit with so much grief from a good friend’s passing over the summer (and then later in the year, my godmother’s passing); the second half of the year I came back stronger, focused on my physical and mental health and started to get in shape. Thanks DDR!
• 2026 is the year I’ve been trying to be kinder to myself and allow for more rest and enjoyment of the things I love where I can fit it in, starting with a wedding that we were super involved in (was MOH and helped with a lot of the designs which was so fun).

During my month of unemployment, I ended up writing a super short donut story (we’re talking like 20 sentences or something) to do something other than work on my resume and portfolio.

I was still crushed about losing so much of my progress from my longer story in 2023 when my computer crashed, but I wanted to get back to Twinery and small donut GIF animations again, so I started really small. This was fun and I still have the other short stories in progress, of course, hah.

At the end of 2024, I really got back into tamagotchi after I picked up the Uni model while we were in Chicago for a wedding. I found some of my old ones and then the tama wall behind my computer desk was born. After customizing the faceplate of my Uni to make it Dragon Quest themed, I experimented with fully customizing a shell of an old V5 Connection I got myself in college.

This was fun even though I totally messed up the wire connecting to the speaker, but after glazing and re-assembling, it works (just without sound)! I ended up buying a few more old tamas in bulk to customize and cleaned them up, but they still (unsurprisingly) remain disassembled on my desk surrounded by paint brushes and parts to this day.

I also continued to make time to unplug and knit. With a winter vacation in our books at the beginning of 2025, I learned to crochet and made my husband a Tanjiro (Demon Slayer) themed scarf that he had requested and then knit myself a long super chunky red scarf for some Goblin (도깨비: 쓸쓸하고 찬란하神) feels since I finally watched and finished that in 2024 (only took me 8 years to get to it)! 🥺

Also made a cozy for my hot water pack and started a super wide striped scarf with spring colors (mainly Kanroji-themed from Demon Slayer, again) to use up some old yarn that’s been in the stash forever.

Our visit to Korea (Daegu) was a much needed break and even though I didn’t bring a sketchbook with me, we did go to a restaurant right by our hotel for our anniversary dinner that had stacks of post-its and walls full of notes and drawings by people, so we left our own marks (not all pictured).

A lot of 2025 was filled with “art for myself”, which I mentioned in my last blog update.

And there’s also the part of “art for myself” that was doing things I love (graphic design) for people I love!

Being able to design elegantly nerdy things for our close friends’ wedding was such an honor and joy and it made me have feels all over again for when we were doing this for our wedding, too. Glad I got to use my Cricut and manual sticker machines a bunch again!

I also started thinking about clearing out my inventory. It’s been a handful of years since my Etsy shop has been open, but it’s given me time to think about what I really want to do around my (donut) art and creations.

My husband worked GDC this year and after he came home one night with some art swaps and goodies from other conference associates, I gave him a bunch of the video game themed donut merch I had for him to give away, which I guess were a hit since he came back empty handed!

Similarly, after getting back into the DDR community at the end of 2025, a lot of the local players I connected with were sharing their creative endeavors and I brought up the idea of an art swap. I gave some cards and necklaces away to one of them that graduated this year as a gift, and others were interested in swapping too since they had stickers.

A part of me wants to keep doing the “art for myself” so I can step away from productizing and monetizing what initially was a fun hobby (the donut and felt crafts), but also to reduce how and what I consume. I don’t personally need to mass produce a lot of this physical art unless I feel there’s a purpose or something (like the Donut Discriminate zines I previously made) and I don’t want to keep contributing to waste and endless capitalism, especially when this is a hobby and not a source of income for me.

I also want to be on social media way less (which I’ve been doing and let me tell you, has been great for mental health).

That said, those thoughts have been the push of doing more of the digital stuff: the short Twine stories, little one-post comics, stuff like that where it’s just a creative outlet.

All this stepping away and resting has given me time to enjoy games more too, and with getting back into DDR (which has been good for both my mental and physical help in various ways), I bought myself a birthday present this year: a decent metal DDR pad which is now in our home office for now.

We also went to Fanime for the first time in about 7-8 years and I found this old Chihiro (Spirited Away) shirt I made a long time ago and it still fit! So I wore that to a DDR tournament my brother, husband, and I joined that weekend. I also payed respects to the one and only Natsuko Hirose with my low effort Zenshu cosplay (which an artist in Artist Alley did recognize and honestly, one person to recognize the effort was enough). 😂

Anyway, onto the second half of 2026!