HAPPY 31st BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Last Thursday, 6/3/21, I turned 31 years old. It’s kind of funny how the mindset changes as you go through your 20’s. I used to be nervous about turning 30 and then around 28 years old, I started hearing from friends how liberating the 30’s can be and now I actually feel excited to be 31! In honor of my birthday, below are 31 random/not-so-random facts about me:

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1. I’m proud of myself for taking some risks in life and working to make them worth it. I moved to CA and back and learned so much about myself. I got my first TV/Film jobs in Richmond, VA and made some amazing friends. I moved to NY and found a new circle of close friends! After struggling for a year and a half in NY, I finally got a job in my desired field in late 2018.
2. I am an introverted extrovert. I love quality time with my friends/family but I definitely need some alone time to recharge. I prefer a quiet Friday night at home to chill out after work and then spend Saturday night out with friends.
3. Related to number 2 – a big lesson I learned from being in quarantine is the importance of creating a balanced schedule. I had one day in July of last year where I was on ZOOM for 8 full hours. It was all time spent with friends which was great but I was left feeling incredibly exhausted and overwhelmed. After that experience, I have learned that I should have one weekend day where I socialize and the other one should be spent at home catching up on my own stuff and relaxing!
4. I will never have tens of thousands of emails in my inbox.  I always try to get the red notification under 50 most days.
5. I am a Type A person who craves organization and loves a good filing system at work. Although, I am still always running a little bit late in my personal life.
6. I am one of 5 daughters. Each of my sisters is the best gift my parents could have given me. I’m excited to say that as of 8/28/21 I will have seen each of my sisters in person this year which feels like quite a feat to have safely accomplished during the pandemic!
7. I did not wear jeans in middle school because I hated the texture of them. I like to think of myself as being ahead of the curve and wore yoga pants before it was cool (but maybe I was just a dork?). Even now, I only own one pair of jeans which I have worn ONCE since the pandemic began.
8. In a related clothes fact, I am obsessed with joggers. They can be super comfy to chill at home in or dressed up a bit to go out. I got my first pair in September of 2020 and now I have about 10 pairs including a pair of pajama joggers!
9. I still have not gotten my ears pierced (I have a weird thing with earrings and buttons and feel like they seem “dirty or gross. I think I once heard of someone’s ear turning green from an earring and ever since, I have not been interested.)
10. Only two people have ever cut my hair – My mom and the hairstylist from the film Loving that I worked on in VA. I also have never dyed my hair. That may be changing as I am now 31 years old and grays have been popping up.
11. Even after working at Starbucks for nearly 5 years, I can not say I am a coffee purist. I wish I could drink sugarless coffee without milk or cream and enjoy it, but I will always prefer an iced Mocha over anything else. My current order from Starbucks is the iced chocolate shaken espresso with oat milk.
12. I LOVE my bullet journal! I plan to write a blog post later this year to explain how I format mine. A few years ago, I had a weird sense of anxiety arise when I realized I could not remember something that happened a day or two prior. Therefore, I started to write in my planner a brief description of each day. This lead to me discovering bullet journaling. I love being able to go back to read what happened on a random day and being able to remember it in detail because of those brief daily entries.
13. My goal in this decade is to travel to Europe and in particular Italy and Ireland. Pete and I had planned a visit to Italy in May 2020 which was cancelled due to the pandemic. I hope we are able to reschedule it within the next few years!! We had such a fun itinerary planned so I can not wait for us to experience it.
14. My current favorite board game is Ticket to Ride. If you have not played it yet…you are missing out! I am weirdly obsessed with it. Pete and I have had many a game night playing it! My favorite video games are Wheel of Fortune/Jeopardy on Playstation or the classic Super Mario Brothers on Nintendo (this is how you can tell I am not a gamer).
15. I have a hard time getting the recommended water intake most days. Thankfully my sister Beth gave me a water bottle that has hourly water intake goals on it which has helped me a lot and created a bit of a game to make it more fun.
16. I will be running my third (and probably final) marathon on November 7th of this year – the NYC Marathon! I am really excited as well as a little nervous about it. It will be the 50th Anniversary of the race so it’s bound to be an epic one!
17. My favorite work outs include Pure Barre, short runs, and Peloton Bike rides which I started doing more regularly over the past year. I have been lucky to live in an apartment building that had a Peloton in the gym. I have subscribed to Pure Barre Go so I was able to take the classes from home during quarantine. Usually once a week, Pete and I will head to Prospect Park to get in a 1 to 2 mile run.
18. I am proud to say I have a little bit of a retirement account that was started during my time at Starbucks. I am hoping over the next year to make even more smart moves to set me up well for later in life.
19. I have made some switches to become more environmentally conscious – I use primarily reusable straws, produce bags, and shopping bags. We have started to compost our food scraps and drop them off on Sundays at the Farmer’s Market near us.
20. I once got a free Venti Mocha Frappuccino from Starbucks for singing “Popular” from Wicked for the barista (this was years before I worked for the company).
21. Not having a car when I moved to NY has caused me to fall in love again with driving since it is rare to be at the wheel now a days. When I visit my family in VA, I drive my mom’s car and it makes me miss my daily car dances and sing alongs.
22. I love my ukulele but rarely make the time to practice it. I know the basic chords for the song “Riptide” by Vance Joy…and that’s kind of all I know about it. I hope to take more time to actually learn it so I can play music with one of my friends some time this year.
23. One of my favorite days of the year happens during the Fall and is what I call “Apple Day!” Usually it occurs in early to mid-October and a group of my friends and I take the Metro North up to Outhouse Orchards. We take the hay ride, walk the corn maze, enjoy some cider donuts, and pick a huge bag of apples that we separate out among us at the end of the day. It is always a really relaxing and peaceful day that gathers several of my good friends together and gets us out of the loud city for a few hours. This year will be my 4th annual organizing the event.
24. I love the change of seasons and each season individually. When I lived in LA, it was fun to have the warmth for a few months but I don’t think I would want to live with that year round. I always look forward to the start of the next time of year and what each one signifies – beach days in the summer, sweaters and cozy days in the fall, quiet snow days in the winter, and the beauty of nature blossoming in the spring.
25. I have grown a lot of self confidence since high school. I remember one morning when I was in 9th grade when I had gotten a new hair cut and decided to wear a new coral sweater to school. I felt so incredibly self conscious of how I looked. On the way to school, I asked my friends several times whether or not I looked ok. Nowadays, I do not care as much about what others think of what I wear. I did feel a little self conscious again when the Buzzfeed article was posted about what millennials do that is uncool and when I heard the word “cheugy” for the first time. Then, I realized both of those things were really goofy to pay any attention to and I didn’t need to worry about being “cool.”
26. I can always rewatch an episode of the Great British Bakeoff in any season and feel immediately calmer. Each baker is so supportive of each other and I have found a lot of inspiration from the recipes people use on the show.
27. I know that one day I will be a really amazing mom. I know this partially because I have never doubted that I wanted to have children but also because I have been called “the mom” in a group several times – when I was in college with my friends and always had everything in my bag that they may need (hand sanitizer, a tissue, lotion, etc) or to my interns each semester for work.
28. One of my favorite jobs at Desus and Mero has been running our intern program. I have found such joy at connecting our interns with staff members that inspire them or seeing a moment in which an intern has discovered a new department or path that they may want to explore. I learn a lot about pop culture (they keep me young! LOL) and I have worked with students from schools all over NY as well as Massachusetts, Virginia, Louisiana, Washington DC, California, and more. When I am old looking back on my career, I think it will be one of the things I am the most proud about.
29. Related to the internship, I love creating networking opportunities for others or connecting people in general. I create a monthly newsletter for my alma mater that has recently been entered into the digital archives of William and Mary’s Swem Library. In the newsletter, I announce job opportunities, college and alumni events, and updates from students, faculty, and alumni who are involved with any part of the entertainment industry. I just finished my 5th year doing it and the community has grown from about 45 people to nearly 120!
30. I am not really a nature person (I find camping kind of dreadful and I have never gone to the bathroom outside…sorry if that’s TMI…lol). However, I do love a good hike, rock climbing/adventure parks, and getting outside. Some of my favorite times with Pete have been on our outdoor adventures such as white water rafting the Colorado River, hiking the Manitou Incline in Colorado Springs, or hiking in Cold Springs, NY.
31. I am an enthusiastic and positive person most of the time. I do not believe in boredom and I am always seeking fun activities to take up my time and bring joy to my life.

There you have it! 31 facts about me! I hope you found it a little bit interesting or learned something about me that you did not know. It was fun to put this list together and I am looking forward to what my 31st year will bring. Along with my full time job, I am also working on a short film, this blog, my monthly W&M newsletter, training for the marathon, moving to a new apartment in early July with Pete, and planning several different activities for the late summer and early fall for my friend’s wedding. With everything going on, I am sure it will fly by and I just hope to be able to appreciate all that I am able to achieve. Thank you to any of you who have read all these facts about me! Let me know if there are any that you can relate to! 🙂 Cheers!