2024 Wrapped: The Salty Panelo
January 1, 2025
Happy new year, friends!
Last year on this day I rang in New Year’s in the hospital ER, twice, for two separate family emergencies. (Everyone is good now!)
A year and many prayers later — and a conscious decision to step it up as a member of the Eldest Daughter Club — happy to report that it’s been a year of relationship repair and reconnection. ❤️🩹
I needed this.
We all needed this.
This was a year of grounding before flying.
2024 Wrapped
💔 Said the hardest goodbye of our lives to Lady Kia of Vanderbilt, our very good girl of 12 years, a foster chiweenie rescue pup from Tennessee who got us through the pandemic and multiple health crises and traveled with us to Palm Springs, Joshua Tree, Phoenecia, and more. It’s true what they say — who really rescued whom??
🌊 New homeowner alert! Proud owner of “The Salty Panelo” coastal condo on the Chesapeake Bay side of Virginia Beach. Being closer to home, parents, brother, and my niece Jubilee: priceless.
🤸🏻♀️ Full-time Funts on Duty! We are loving the Fun Aunt (FUNT™️) lifestyle and spoiling our nieces and nephews from coast-to-coast.
🥳 Celebrated dad’s 75th birthday and parents’ 20th anniversary with a banquet hall full of family and friends. Gifted my parents their tickets home to the Philippines for their annual winter sabbatical, and they are thriving!
💐 After 20 years, my mother’s sisters finally visited her gravesite, made peace with my father, and brought a pastor to pray for us, bless us, heal us. (It worked)
🏳️🌈 Visited the magical island of Martha’s Vineyard with the rainbowiest crew and furbabies at their cute little small town Pride Parade.
🛥️ EuroBratSummer with Cat in the South of France. Highlights: road tripping to St. Tropez, accidental yacht party in Cannes, Cap 21 beach club, L’Abeille apartments on 4 Rue Bonaparte, Nice, overlooking a rainbow street.
🍕 Napoli, Italia! Marveling the streets of Pompeii, dinner with my Fil-Italian family, grazing pizza and il cuoppo all day long, in awe of the Museo Archeologico, marching in the Naples Pride Parade with a gay pope.
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Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser🏜️ Work trips with enrichment ✨ WNBA championships in Las Vegas; Crumbl cookies in Provo, Utah; Sprouts Farmers Market in Scottsdale, AZ; Wendy’s in Kansas City, MO.
⛳️ First-time: playing pickleball (late bloomer), riding in a driverless Waymo (omg), psychedelic grocery stores at Meow Wolf Vegas, swinging my shots at TopGolf.
✍️ Creative writing quests: Two memoir writing workshops — one with Cheryl Strayed on “the story you have to tell” at the Kripalu Institute in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts; the other, with Melissa Febos, on the power of radical personal narrative. Worked Casey Catherine Moore (highly recommended if you need a writing coach!) to develop my gaysian graphic novel memoir.
👩🏻💻 Showed up in community: Lesbians Who Tech, Women in Innovation, Filipinx Futurism.
🤲 Unexpectedly running into people I’ve had problematic pasts with and handling it with grace. Resolutions in life are rare, but showing up (and not running away) from these moments is another growth milestone.
💜 A year of reconnecting: Lez Do Crew in Swan Lake, NY for 40th birthday fest. SoHo-House-hopping, rooftop pool-dipping, and Japanese speakeasies with the Parsons professors and Let’s Get Weird. Tan & Liz & Frankie-camp at the KOA Virginia Beach. Target practice and go-kart racing in Jon’s backyard. Vintage French cocktails at Pardon Me with Anne, French pre-fixe at with Jenny at Boucherie. Vintage German mailboxes from your best middle school pen pal. Luxe KBBQ wit Lisa. Run-ins with Ofie, planned (Kalye, NYC) and unplanned (Mango, SF). Deb back at Branded. Poolside Facetimes with Alexa Frank and Foxy. Bro beers with Luke & Ben. Extreme pickleballing with Romaya. Emily G’s annual Ginger’s birthday with Carol, Alex, and their young millennial in tow.
Loved seeing all your faces in all those places and looking for more in 2025!
Sayonara, 2024!
You fit so neatly in 21 Instagram squares.
2024 Mixtapes
This year, I was most inspired by your mixtapes. Just masterpieces. Four soundtracks for: 1) striking a pose, 2) groovy growth and vibes, 3) atmospheric river uplifting trance, and 4) spiritual world jazz fusion.
2025 Vision Board
Plot twist for 2025: prepping my pen and my passport to write new stories across time zones — because “what if” is always more interesting than “what is.” 🗺️
Did you know you can make your own Vision Board in less than 5 minutes on your phone? Pinterest Collage (only available on the Pinterest mobile app) comes with pre-cutout stickers and couldn’t be more intuitive to assemble. Type a few words and thoughts become images become reality.
I showed you mine. Show me yours!
2025 Mantra
Another New Year’s ritual: establishing a word/phrase of the year that sets your intention.
For 2025, my mantra is a question. . . What if it all works out?
Everything you want is on the other side of fear.
What’s your Wrapped? Your Mantra?
Wishing you health, happiness, and breakthroughs in 2025! ✌🏽
<3,
