1.My time-sucking/procrastinating/doing-this-instead-of-going-to-the-gym habits: going through Instagram multiple times in an hour or flipping through Flipboard.
Favorite Instagram accounts: @airplanedream, @ihavethisthingwithflooors, @yogainspiration, @craftsmithliving, @kwittyb, @chroniclebooks, @cpham, @alice_gao, @jelitodeleon
If we’re not hanging out on Instagram, you can check me out here if you want life coaching wisdom.
2. Favorite words: gossamer, pleasure, delight, OMG!, holy kamote (kamote is Filipino for sweet potato so I’m basically saying “holy sweet potato”)
3. My birthday is in March. To make this month more of a pleasure, I have decided to give myself small rewards every week. My first two rewards are this white shirt from Seek the Uniq and a versatile black dress from the Uniqlo Lemaire collection. I’m still thinking of my last two rewards. I feel like the last one should be a piece of jewellery.
4. Favorite time of the day: dusk. Extraordinarily beautiful light. The end of the day. Time to put aside work for some pleasure and delight. I’m not a morning person yet I start yawning at 10 p.m. so I think dusk is definitely my time.
5. I have a very weird, distinctive and loud laugh. When my friends come back from a bathroom in a restaurant, they always say: “I could hear you laughing from there.”
6. My top five strengths according to Strengths Finder:*
- Deliberative
- Strategic
- Learner
- Responsibility
- Achiever
7. Things** I can’t live without: iced tea (faves are from Cibo and California Pizza Kitchen), my Kindle, dessert, a comfy pair of shorts, my journal
8. While I love to travel, airports and airplanes drive me nuts. This is how I make the experience just a little more delightful:
- I read my Kindle while waiting in line.
- I ALWAYS get a window and exit row seat.
- I bring a travel pillow that buttons around my travel bag—not the most glamorous look, which is probably why I never get upgraded to business class.
- I get about two to three hours of sleep the night before my flight which means I’m knocked out even before the plane takes off.
9. Five things that make my life easy:
- Muji planner, Moleskine notebook, all encased in one Smartfit case
- Waze—the app I cannot live without
- Podcasts—even if Waze shows me the shortest route, traffic is still inescapable in Manila so these keep me sane (my faves: Pomcast, Slow Your Home, Monocle The Entrepreneurs)
- Youtube Kids app—my daughter B used to surf the net on a Safari web browser but I was always terrified about the content she’d see so this gives me some peace (of mind, not peace and quiet)
- VSCO app to edit photos before I share them on Instagram.
10. My happy places all start with B: the beach, the bookstore and anywhere with B (my daughter)
