February 2026 Breakdown

The nice thing about February is that if the entire month’s awful, at least we move on to the next month quicker. The not so nice thing about February is that it’s a short month, so the month just skips on by dilly-dallying. And you may or may not forget that there’s only 28 days in the month 75% of the time, although 75% might be an underestimation.

Let’s just say February was not a great month (personally; we all know the horrors continue to persist in the US); I’ve been feeling quite drained throughout the month, and I was kind of tempted to push this off until April with March’s wrap up (of course, if I absolutely wanted to, I definitely would do it).

I also did some adjusting on my antispam for comments throughout the month since I’ve been seeing an influx of comments to moderate; it was the reason I adjusted to closing the comments section after a year. Although now I’m paranoid that no comments are going through, so if you commented in February somewhere and it just never came up, I probably did something wrong. I promise I don’t hate you.

Anyway, let’s talk about this short month.

February Musings

A little less on the blog posts for February; I have a few drafts I could have finalized and published, but I didn’t have the energy to do so, so they’ll remain in the drive for a little longer.

• [3 Feb] January 2026 Breakdown
• [20 Feb] Girl, Goddess, Queen by Bea Fitzgerald ★★★★

Book Hauls and Reading

February only had one book that I got (swiped the last one from the bookstore): the first volume of the comic version of Heaven Official’s Blessing. I’m trying to limit book purchases so I don’t have to move too many things in the next few months (I try to limit them, too, unless it’s an absolute favorite).

Reading was okay: almost all the novels I read were DNFs, though. 😭 One of them I wanted to DNF, but I ended up pushing through since I was too far along not to finish it.

What I Read:

• Spy x Family Vol. 15 by Tatsuya Endo
• UnOrdinary Vol. 1-3 by uru-chan
• The Pirate and the Porcelain Girl by Emily Riesbeck
• Suns Will Rise (DNF) by Jessica Brody and Joanne Rendell – After nearly a half-decade after reading Between Burning Worlds, I’ve finally finished this series, even if it’s a DNF on the last book (which is a bummer). But sometimes, you just gotta. This finale felt way too drawn out.
• Moriarty the Patriot Vol. 1-2 by Ryōsuke Takeuchi
• To the Stars and Back Vol. 1 by Peglo
• Love Between Fairy and Devil Vol. 1 by Jiu Lu Fei Xiang – I was so excited to see this at the bookstore when I was getting my copy of Dragon Cursed back in January, so I requested the library to look into getting a copy. That didn’t happen, though, but I did get to borrow it through Interlibrary Loan (ILL). I currently have the second volume sitting that I should get started on soon since I can’t renew ILLs.
  • Yes, this is the official English translation of the 2022 Chinese drama!
• Brightly Woven: the Graphic Novel by Alexandra Bracken
• Super Boba Cafe #2: Home Sea Home by Nidhi Chanani
• Art Club by Rashad Doucet
• 39 Clues: The Maze of Bones (graphic novel) adapted by Ethan Young
• The Secret Garden on 81st Street by Ivy Noelle Weir – This was very cute and wholesome; I loved the themes of grief and friendship, and the art was amazing, too.
• The Words by Ashley Jade – This was one I almost wanted to DNF, but I got too far along and decided to just push through it while taking breaks with other books
• Lord Hades’s Ruthless Marriage Vol. 1 – Love the art, love Cerberus, not a huge fan of the other characters.
• Love Medley by Lyssa Fairbanks (DNF) – It honestly pains me to DNF this (especially considering she’s a local author) because I really liked how Fairbanks handles emotional and physical abuse with care here, but the writing was not it for me.

I only watched one movie in February despite my thoughts of wanting to watch the other movies in my collection: the live-action of Lilo & Stitch, which I enjoyed and thought it was a fun little movie, but I honestly prefer the animated version. Loved that they kept some of my favorite scenes, though, like Lilo just lying there on the ground when she was mad at Nani.

As for music, I haven’t really been keeping up with music other than what I come across, so I’m a little surprised I have more than a couple of songs I enjoyed in February.

• growing pains by Monsta X – this one almost made me cry
• Knife by Enhyphen
• Adrenaline by ATEEZ
• Lovepocalypse by ZEROBASEONE
• Save Me by Chung Ha – this one also almost made me cry
• Little Bit Lost by Kang Daniel – I’m also a little bit lost [in life].
• Hmm by Misamo
• Bang Bang by IVE
• Tokyo Drift by One or Eight

And finally, this isn’t exactly media, but it is based on one of my favorite anime, so I’m counting it in this section. 😝 I got a Sailor Moon tarot deck last summer and the artist behind it is doing a second printing but with blue and silver of the exact deck. The Kickstarter campaign recently launched and ends April 17, so if you’ve been eyeballing that deck… 👀

(It’s one of my favorite decks even though I’ve not used it since I typically gravitate to my pocket-sized one because of the size; I’m so happy to see Shannon selling out the first version and doing a second printing. May it be just as successful as the first.)

The Breakdown

A breakdown of what the universe had in store for the month (or longer).

Apparently it’s cool to be Chinese now, considering many are “in a very Chinese time” of their lives, and I just have a lot of feelings about this. I love people are appreciating Chinese culture, food, language, etc. but at the same time, it just feels like in a few months from now we’ll just fade in the background again (maybe we already have and we’ve moved on to the next trend, I don’t know), and I don’t know… that just sits wrong with me when not even a decade ago our elders were getting pushed off the street or killed and we were getting called “kung flu.”

And that’s not to add all the lifetime of sour experiences we’ve had growing up and continuously still receive; like have you ever been called an immigrant even though you were born here? Or get told you don’t belong here (in America) unless you’re black or white (which is incorrect)?

Even as someone who has grown up with some of the culture, I still get told I’m not Chinese enough by my own mother* whenever I have viewpoints and opinions that don’t fall under what she considers as Chinese. Of course, that isn’t anyone’s fault but my own mother’s, but you can kind of see why I have a lot of mixed feelings about this (I could probably do an entire blog post on it but I frankly do not have the energy to dive into all sides of the argument that people have brought up) considering all this is happening when we’re welcoming in the year of the horse.

*Thus is the life of being multi-ethnic. I’m certainly not Vietnamese enough.

I suppose there are worse things that could’ve trended regarding Chinese culture, but saying that dismisses all the harmful feelings and discrimination growing up, some of which I still experience. Both things can be true.

Anyway, I’ll get off my little soapbox – I hope this provides people a chance for deeper reflection and encourage people to support Asians beyond just picking and choosing certain aspects.

So anyway, back to our regular programming…

Frankly, I’ve not kept track of the things going on in February. I mean, my Palia obsession continued? Admittedly, I’ve been playing less of it in February since I’ve not had much energy, and when I did have energy, I was busy doing other things.

But for most of the month, especially towards the end, I’ve just been struggling with my energy levels. I’m not sure if I just never recovered from being burnt out from work (my last one, not this one) or if I just went straight from work burnout to caretaker burnout (certainly not helped by the constant trauma dumping), but contrary to what my mom says and thinks, I certainly have not been sleeping well regularly.

Most of this month has been focused on trying to secure housing for my mom at an independent senior living place, which was something that had been planned last year, but my car repairs delayed that. Not that it would matter, since she ended up failing the home visit and probably would have failed last year, too. I got blamed for it, though (initially), since I requested to do the home visit first before we let our current landlord know we were moving since it took about two months before I got a response — very reasonable accommodation that was communicated every step of the way with them; totally not the age of the apartment (about 2 decades) or clutter from nearly 3 decades playing a part.

Maybe I’m selfish — I certainly am according to some, as according to my mom — but frankly, my issue isn’t even living with my mom; it’s the regular dose of trauma dumping and emotional/verbal abuse I’m taking. And honestly, I’ve tried, since I know she has her own traumas and mental health isn’t something that’s very normalized in Asian communities. But I’m tired, and I feel like I’m slowly killing myself trying to survive; I will not fight a battle that isn’t making progress.

Anyway, there’s never a dull moment in my therapy sessions. 🙃 (It was a good thing I rescheduled my therapy session, though.)

All that being said, I’m still moving this year, even though I’ll be stuck with the continuous trauma dumping for at least another year. I’m going to be spending the next couple of months decluttering the things that don’t serve me* and packing, so I may post less since I’m doing most of the legwork of the move.

*Not my stationery, though — I think that might actually be the most curated to my current tastes.

Low Buy and Stationery Panning Progress

I think it’s more accurate to rename this section since I think it’ll be fun to see what I use up throughout the year (mostly it’s for my own reference, I guess? Even though I have a spreadsheet… maybe I just want to yap).

Stationery doesn’t have any bottom of the pan that makeup has, but the idea is the same thing.

For a short month, February had more items (45!) used than January’s 43 items, even if it were only two additional items. Miscellaneous items are typically freebie sampler sheets unless they fit into an entirely different category. I debated giving a whole category to freebies, but then decided I’d just put it all under miscellaneous.

• 10 individual stickers given away
• 13 STICKII sheets, 2 given away
• 7 sticker sheets
• 6 writing utensils discarded (they were from ages ago and no longer work as smoothly/skip)
• 3 miscellaneous items, 4 discarded/given away

My February washi tape theme is using samples sent from a couple of friends (and ones I’ve accumulated over the years) since February is the month of love and I believe in celebrating platonic love in the form of friendship. So there’s not a lot of usage since I count a sample after I use it all up rather than how I measure my own collection.

• 25.5 page width
• 42 emotis
• 2 samples from friends used
• 5 samples used, 16 samples given away

As for additions to the collection, I did have a few additions in February, though I’m happy to say I’m doing better at impulse buying and not turning to retail therapy as much as I did last year.

I didn’t keep exact numbers, though, since I didn’t have much energy and was busy handling things for my mom and tracking the additions are secondary compared to usage. I got two spiral notebooks toward the end of the month that I’ve started using right away — I’m mostly using them to journal in long form as a supplement to my Sterling Ink Daily Planner since I have less access to my digital journal these days. I’ve also been experiencing more light headaches recently, and the only change I’ve noticed is I’m brain-dumping less than before, so I think going to good old paper and pen will help. Plus, I get to use some of my washi collection some more, which is a delightful bonus. Maybe I’ll get through a few rolls. I’ll still have the Journey app, though, since sometimes I just want minimal distractions typing away what’s going on in my mind.

Since I got the notebooks, I’m already about almost a sixth through the notebook and I’ve not been experiencing any headaches, so maybe it really was needing a place to clear out my brain. We’ll see by the end of this month if that changes.

I got a few washi tape as well; I mostly wanted a days of the week one but it came in a set rather than individually. I’ll either use the others in the set or give them away to a better home*. I’m about to finish up a roll soon (I expect maybe in the next month or two?), so I’m getting a backup one in the reserves ready to go.

*Maybe I’ll “force” them on my friends through washi samples. 😝 (Okay, I promise I do curate them to their tastes.)

Let’s talk!

So February had a lot going on packed into a short month now that I look back on it! How was your February? Did you also have a moment of whiplash upon realizing there’s only 28 days even if you know it’s just 28 days?