Winter/Spring/Summer 2026

My goodness, my quarterly updates have now extended to 3 quarters in one update. 1 week of travel in January and another 3 months of traveling from Feb-Apr certainly threw me off on all my blog updates. Extremely behind on all my backlogs for my trip contents and I'm still not even close to catching up. My weekend unpaid job consists of editing videos, photos, and working on my blog. No idea how I got myself into creating so many versions of the same same but different contents on different platforms - Instagram, Youtube, Blog, Website, Facebook. =.= Been trying to balance consuming content and creating content since I got back in May, all while getting my actual work done, building AI agents for work, and working out. Here's the photo dump on what's been going on in our lives since December 2025 (when we are not traveling).

21 Dec 2025 (Sun): Cookie making with Anna and Steven

25 Dec 2025 (Thurs): Christmas morning with the family at SiL and BiL's place. Lil' Copper is at a fun age where he understands and believes in Santa. He was so excited to show us his Soda Pop presents from Santa...lol!

27 Dec 2025 (Sat): Christmas Party at MiL's

27 Dec 2025 (Sat): Galaxy of Lights with the family at Huntsville Botanical Garden 

22 Dec 2025 - 11 Jan 2026: Moved out of our house for 2.5 weeks while home refresh work was getting done in the house. Thanks MiL for letting us crash at her place over the holidays. Funcle Daniel introduced Mario Kart to lil' Cooper.

22-24 May 2026: After returning from our travels, hubby invited his to come over to our place over the weekend to hangout and play video games.

21-25 June 2026 (Sun-Thurs): GenAI Deep Dive in Tampa

Volunteered to travel to Tampa for GenAI Deep Dive project...officially on the 2026 AI train...lol! Since I no longer have any airline status, I decided to fly with Delta this time around. It's been awhile since I traveled with Delta, the Atlanta airport has been refreshed since my last time here.

Rental car swaps with National. :)

Stayed at the Hyatt Place Tampa Airport/Westshore this time, the same hotel we stayed at in Nov 2025 before our Margaritaville cruise. Got a free Cat 1-4 free night certificate from this stay. 

Spent 4 days learning and exploring the various GenAI tools, and left Tampa knowing how to build agents and build apps with Codex. 

Back in 2020-2021, when I first joined the COE, I discovered that I actually enjoyed building things - spreadsheets, dashboards, figuring out how to make things work better. To the point where I'd happily spend my own time after work learning and experimenting with them. Now, a few years later, I'm doing it again with AI - voluntarily spending my evenings buildings agents and figuring out how they can be useful to more people. The COE has matured, so those opportunities to build from scratch have naturally become fewer, but I found something new that I genuinely enjoy...building things, solving problems, and getting to use my creative side...even in a supposedly 'boring' job.

Co-workers I met in Tampa...majority of them for the first time even though we've known each other for a long time.

Places I 'visited' in Tampa...lol!

Food I ate in Tampa. :P

Wrapped up a fruitful week with a nice team of people.

27 June 2026 (Sat): Watched Toy Story and had dinner at Red Robins with the family.

8 Aug 2026 (Sat): Met up with cousin Luke for a meal when he was in town. 

15 Aug 2026 (Sat): Birthday weekend with the family (my last birthday in my 30s). 

Thanks MiL, SiL, BiL, and nephew for the food, cake, gifts, and laughters.

23-25 Sept 2026 (Wed-Fri): 3D2N CIPS Sector Conference in Nashville

After the last sector conference I attended in 2018, I transferred to the COE in 2019, then Covid happened, and I haven't had the chance to attend a sector conference until this year. This year's CIPS sector conference was held in Nashville. Since Nashville is only 2 hours away, it made more sense for me to drive to Nashville.

Arrived Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center at 1pm. Got a room with a balcony overlooking the garden. 

This hotel is beautiful and is huge!

The first (and last) time I visited this hotel was as a student in 2008 during my exchange in UAH. Fast forward 18 years later, I'm grateful for the opportunity to come back here again - this time for work and in a very different phase of life. How much have changed, how much remained the same.

Went to the conference center to complete the registration, picked up my badge and swag. 

Glad to receive a jacket this time (instead of a water bottle).

One of the few rare occassions where I had to dress up for work...lol!

Finally met a lot of co-workers whom I've been working with since 2019 for the first time.

Spent most of our 3 days hopping around different ballrooms in the convention center.

Ate almost all meals in the hotel, with the exception of one offsite dinner.

Took the shuttle bus into downtown Nashville for our 2nd dinner. 

Our firm booked Luke Comb's Category 10 for this private event. This is a multi-level bar and eatery featuring live band, line-dancing, and a rooftop deck.

The COE crew in Nashville.

Since when did my auditor job scope expand to AI agent creator + content creator? I know self praise is no praise but pretty proud of myself for developing an AI agent, which was published on our firm's Digital Lab. Embraced AI a little too much and accidentally made it to the Top 1% and #1 in the Director group (across the firm) for AI usage...lol!

Getting random unexpected feedback like this makes it feel like it was worth my extra time and effort. A good reminder that a little appreciation goes a long way.

In my C-drama era lately. Started off with Pursuit of Jade (and Zhang Linghe), and the most recent obsession is The Early Spring (and Jing Boran). So good! Gotta stop scrolling through random dramas before I keep adding more to my watch list. 

It's been a year since I started going to the gym in July 2025...and I'm still keeping up one year later. :)

As always, wrapping up this post with my weekly meal prep photo collection...boringly consistent :)

14 & 21 Dec 2025 (Sun): Chicken herbal soup, baked pork tenderloin, pork porridge, baked chicken, yellow rice, rice, stir-fry veggies, brocolli, celery & carrots.

3 & 10 May 2026 (Sun): Chicken herbal soup, baked pork tenderloin, pork porridge, baked chicken, yellow rice, rice, stir-fry veggies, brocolli & carrots.

17 & 31 May 2026 (Sun): Chicken herbal soup, baked pork tenderloin, meatball pasta, baked chicken, yellow rice, rice, stir-fry veggies, brocolli & carrots.

7 & 14 June 2026 (Sun): Chicken herbal soup, braised pork rice (lu rou fan), baked chicken, rice, stir-fry veggies, brocolli & carrots.

28 June & 5 July 2026 (Sun): Bakuteh with chicken, baked pork tenderloin, potato salad, baked chicken, yellow rice, rice, pasta, mash potatoes, stir-fry veggies, brocolli & carrots.

12 & 19 July 2026 (Sun): Bakuteh with pork ribs, baked pork tenderloin, pork porridge, baked chicken, yellow rice, rice, stir-fry veggies, brocolli & carrots.

26 July & 2 Aug 2026 (Sun): Bakuteh with pork loins, pork porridge with black beans, baked chicken, yellow rice with black beans, rice with black beans, stir-fry veggies, brocolli & carrots.

9 & 16 Aug 2026 (Sun): Chicken herbal soup, tomyum noodles with meatball,  baked chicken, yellow rice with black beans, rice with black beans, stir-fry veggies, brocolli & carrots.

30 Aug & 6 Sept 2026 (Sun): Chicken herbal soup, baked chicken, yellow rice with black beans, rice with black beans, meatball pasta, potato salad, stir-fry veggies, brocolli & carrots.

13 & 20 Sept 2026 (Sun): Chicken herbal soup, tomyum noodles with meatball, baked chicken, yellow rice with black beans, rice with black beans, stir-fry veggies, brocolli & carrots.

Home Refresh - Muji • Japandi • Minimalist

After living in this house for 16 years, we finally decided that it was time to refresh the interior of our home. Not a complete remodeling, but more a refresh to fit our style and lifestyle. For context, hubby bought this house in 2009 (we were just dating at that time and I happened to be there to help with his move before returning to Malaysia) but we haven't really done any renovation to the interior of this house that was built in 1989, so it was about time to get all the old fixtures refreshed. The main part of the project took 2.5 weeks to complete, but took us 6 months to be completely done as we were traveling for 3 months in between.

BEFORE

Downstairs - Living Room, Dining Room, Powder Room

Downstairs - Kitchen, Breakfast Room

Upstairs - Hallway, Bedroom 1, Bedroom 2, Guest Bathroom

Upstairs - Master Room, Master Bathroom, Master Closet

All these old and gold fixtures has to go...lol!

DURING

"Shopping spree" at Lowes, Home Depot, Amazon, Sherwin Williams, and Carpet One for all the things we wanted to replace/refresh in the house. We were pretty efficient getting everything purchased within a week (of course keeping track of everything with a spreadsheet). Too bad we couldn't get new credit cards fast enough to keep up with the outflow. 

 No fancy fixtures, as we know what we need (being in this house for so many years), prioritizing functionality and practicality. 

We've been in this house for 16 years and this was the first time we realized how many different switches, electric outlets, doors, lights, etc. we had. Yes, we had to count all of these, and that explains why a spreadsheet was necessary.

Bought 2 unfinished cabinets, door handles, and a plank of wood from Home Depot for about $300. Thanks to the Home Depot staff for his suggestion of using a plank of wood to add open shelves in the gap between the 2 cabinets.

We chose Sherwin Williams Shoji White (matte) for the walls and Pure White (semi-gloss) for doors and trims. Our contractor overestimated the amount of paint needed so we ended up with 10 gallons of extra paint. Spent a total of $2,485 for the paint, which should have been less than $2K.

Bought our carpet from Carpet One for $2,320. Our upstairs carpet has been there even before hubby moved in in 2008 so it was time to replace it. 

Packed up all our stuffs and moved out for 2.5 weeks while various work was getting done in the house starting 22 Dec 2025. Thanks MIL for letting us crash at her place over the holidays. 

Scope of work for the contractor:

Repaint all walls, trims and doors

Repaint downstairs ceiling

Replace all door knobs & hinges

Replace all door stoppers

Replace all light fixtures

Replace ceiling fans

Replace bathroom exhaust fans

Replace carpets

Replace door weather strips

Install laundry cabinets

All the paint work, laundry cabinet installation and door hardware replacement were done in about 4 days. After the paint work was done, we had the electrician come for 1.5 days to install the light fixtures and ceiling fans, and replace all outlets and switches. Also got the plumber to come check on the toilets to ensure nothing was broken after the paint job.

Final piece of work before we could move back in, carpet installation on 6 Jan 2026. Took a day for the workers to pull out the old carpet and install the new one.

AFTER

By 9 Jan 2026, all work was done in 2.5 weeks and it was time to clean up the house and move everything back. This was actually a good opportunity for us to clean, organize, declutter and get rid of a lot of stuff that we've accumulated over the years. Still a few minor things to do to complete this project, but we had to wait till May to continue working on those.

Downstairs. Pretty impressed with how our laundry cabinets turned out. Decided not to do much to the kitchen and bathrooms coz they were working fine as is. As the saying goes, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Upstairs with fresh new carpets. 

After returning from our cruise in January, we spent the week moving things back and organizing the office/game room.

Few more small additions after returning from our long Asia trip in May - Floor lamp from Target for $54, a shoe bench from Amazon for $155, and a Pax entryway cabinet from IKEA for $410.

 Also picked up photo frames, a tablecloth, curtains, and a dish rack, all from Amazon.

So how much in total did we spend on this project? A total of $38.9K, out of which $5.6K was a sunk cost for the deposit to another contractor who quoted crazy high prices.