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Full with family | Stephanie's October 2026
Happy Fall! November is in full swing and I am still reflecting on how short (and long) October was, all the events in between, and how we’re almost at the end of the year. Let’s get into the recap — Stephanie.
Lifestyle, Lessons, Lows
I wish I had more positive news when it comes to career and health, but despite still going through it in multiple angles of life, October was filled with love from the people around me.
I started the month with one of the final send offs for my grandmother, we had monks visit and a whole ceremony - seeing my mom’s side of the family all come together was heartwarming. We are continuously blessed with good weather and luck during these ritual days.
I also kicked off the month with a much needed catch up with Pearl and Sadie over happy hour and endless lore. I also finally got to check out Equinox with Pearl, and as nice as the gym and cool cold towels are, I think I am sticking to my classpass. It was a nice experience forsure though, and inspired me to weight lift more at gyms vs just cardio. Of course I also had my therapeutic monthly catch ups with Christina W and also a heart-to-heart happy hour with Ashley after she accompanied me on my aritzia mission (more on that later). Wrapped up the month with an impromptu ish movie date to see You can see Everything with Pearl and Sadie (and wow I was convinced in the movie) human feelings and empathy are such a gift, I’ll always believe in that. Even if it means being susceptible to lies.
Admittedly I haven’t been that present with my friends due to everything going on with work and family, I appreciate everyone still making an effort to stay connected even if things are different.
Career-wise had a lot of ups and downs (more downs but I’m trying to be positive). I impromptu ran into a lot of high ranking stakeholders I used to collaborate with in my previous role, they happened to have an offsite in the SF office so I got to meet a lot of them for the first time in person. It was bittersweet forsure - and that will be a theme that continues this month. Where I am happy that they recognized me and was praising our partnership, but I was sad that they were sad that we aren’t partnering together the same way anymore due to the changes in my role. I guess it made me so sad that I ended up having abdominal pain and diarrhea at the office shortly after haha tmi. In the middle of October I ended up having my annual week in SJ where we bring our top customers for days of learning, content, and community building. Bittersweet yet again because I had spun up our first influencer program for a group of these customers and many had either asked me about my new role, shared they missed me, or asked if I got promoted to this new role (lol). All in all it was sweet reuniting / getting to meet these customers I’ve been working with in the past year. I also got to host our first 240+ customer learning session with our product teams, and I am glad I volunteered to do this and owned up to it, even if it was more work, it gave me a sense of meaning in my new not-so-exciting role. As unexciting as work has been lately, this week - the customers, and a trauma-bonding to real friendship with my colleague has made career worthwhile this month.
Relationship-wise this month, I leaned heavily on the support of my partner during this trying month. I appreciate his ways to try to cheer me up, make days more worthwhile, and doing wholesome things together - whether thats visiting nostalgic restaurants from our childhood, revisiting our first kbbq place, binging badly in love, jamming out to T-Pain live, visiting the pumpkin patch, to little surprises and letters. These moments bring little joys, especially with our two kittens Bingo and Miso. This month has been trying as she’s continuously going through health issues and healing even after surgery after surgery. I pray that she’ll be okay every day and we can continue our happy days together.
Family-wise, this month was filled with love. Bringing back the start of the month with the proper sendoff of my grandma, to celebrating my moms birthday. I feel like this month in particular has been birthday’s galore. With my mom’s birthday, my immediate family at home planned a celebration with her - from a SJ buffet to my moms first aritzia jacket heh, it was the sweetest thing ever seeing my aunts (my mom’s sisters) surprise visit and take a 1 hour bus (because my uncle was busy with the car) to deliver a whole feast of my mom’s favorite SJ cake, and tons of home cooked vietnamese food for my mom. We celebrated my mom’s birthday for two weekends which she deserves all the love. Then, we celebrated my grandpas birthday the following week (he uses the lunar calendar so its a different day each year) where we yet again tried a new buffet, and had tons of cake back at home and tons of videos and photos lol. Then the following week mhm (this week) which I’ll share more in the November entry - my aunts surprised attacked me. To say this month was full of family, love, home cooked meals, feasts, and lots and lots of cake - I am truly full of love and physically full lol. More than ever, this month really showed me how much my family values one another, and how much I value them.
My pick of the month: birthday cake
I literally had 3 birthday cakes in october, and 1 in november. An unexpected weekly diet haha. I love the way cakes look more than the taste, and this coffee one from 85 degrees would be my fave of the 3. How lucky am I to never be hungry because of the fullness and love from those around me.
When I look back at my camera roll this month, I feel like I don’t have much - which in some truth yes I wasn’t as social - but when I look back, putting aside the difficulty of career and health, this month every week was quite literally full of love from family. I am lucky and I hope to continue to be. I already feel showered with love a I enter November, and with that I will take on what life throws at me. Happy Fall, November, and chat soon!
Chat in November,
— Stephanie
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