July 25, 2026 – I took a lovely afternoon nap, and when I woke up, both girls were on the bed with me. FAMILY NAP TIME! I took this adorable photo of them staring at me. I like to imagine they are staring with love and not with, “We gonna get some treats now?”
July 26, 2026 – Revealing my new bookshelves! Lots of empty cubes right now that will definitely be filled with books in due time, but it was fun to play around with styling them differently. I also added some new bookish prints to the top.
July 27, 2026 – I’m obsessed with this girl. She loves jumping right next to me when I’m reading on the couch and meowing at me for pets.
July 28, 2026 – I had a very tough therapy session where we did a lot of EMDR, and it was nice to have a snoozing cat next to me to pet when I needed to soothe myself.
(Funny story, though. Since my EMDR is virtual, we do it using a website. On the page is a colored ball that moves back and forth across the screen for 20-30 seconds, which I’m tracking with my eyes. For 10 minutes of the EMDR session, Eloise was entranced by this ball, tracking it right along with me. Ha!)
July 29, 2026 – We had a big crowd for trivia on Wednesday night! And my older nephew was the only person in the whole crowd who knew the answer to a basketball question! I don’t quite remember the question, but the answer was Klay Thompson, which Jovy said without any hesitation. We got a shout-out from the host, even! (We still sucked by the end, but we did MUCH better than we usually do!)
July 30, 2026 – My first dose of Humira! The needle was very sharp (so sharp that when I removed the top, I accidentally stabbed the top of my finger and it drew blood immediately), and I was super concerned about making sure I gave myself the dose correctly, considering how expensive just one syringe is. All went well! I only have to do these every other week, and I’ll continue doing my weekly methotrexate injections in the meantime.
July 31, 2026 – A lovely massage to start the weekend! I still have to do the whole massage face-down because I have a buffalo hump thanks to being on steroids, and it makes lying on my back really uncomfortable. But after an hour of lying on my stomach, I’m always super dizzy when I sit up! It takes me a little while to get my bearings.
When was the last time you got a massage?
Stephany, your bookshelves are SO BEAUTIFUL!! Wow, it would be tempting to just sit there staring at them all day! I really love the prints you chose. Your decorating skills are top-notch in my book! How lovely to have a kitty to help with your therapy session. The massage sounds wonderful.
You are so sweet, Michelle! Your comments always light me up. 🙂 Thank you, my dear!
Hi Stephany,
thank you for this post. It made me feel comforted.
Those kittehs are just adorable. And I love your bookshelf, so artsy and tastefully arranged.
I am considering doing EMDR but, truth be told, I’m scared since i heard it brings up some SERIOUS stuff. And I have a BUNCH of serious stuff. Childhood, mainly. Immigrating. New life in a new country when I was very young. Part of me does NOT want to be in any kind of therapy. So much easier to stuff it all down. But then again…
Anywho, loved the episode about public vs private persona.
When I told my mom about how EMDR works, she was like, “That sounds awful. Why would you want to do that?” LOL. It is very hard and heavy and it’s been interesting to understand the kind of emotions and feelings it’s bringing me. But I think it will ultimately be a very good thing for me. It’s something to think about, and I’m happy to answer your questions, but it could be a difficult journey!
STEPHANY THOSE BOOKSHELVES!!! Ahhhh! I could die, they are so pretty. Nice job, friend!
I just wrote a blurb about DNFing The Kiss Quotient and how lovely and gracious you were when I told you. It reminded ME to be lovely and gracious, so thank you, friend! Your kindness was very inspiring. Sometimes (rarely, but it happens) I inexplicably get hurt feelings if someone DNFs a book I love, which is silly – there are so many books for all different tastes! Anyway, you are just lovely, and thank you.
I had a massage…maybe a year ago? I don’t do well with massages. There is something about it that makes me want to slither away. A foot massage with a pedicure is as much as I can handle. There is probably something deeply weird about my phobia of massages, but, meh. More massages for everyone else!
Thank you!
I am not immune to getting my feelings hurt when someone DNFs a book I love, but I’m trying to be less precious about things like that. We are all looking for different things in our reading lives!
What’s crazy is that I don’t love the foot massage when I get a pedicure (I am SO ticklish!) and also during a regular massage. But the rest of it yessss.
Yay! The Humira finally arrived! It’s nice that you only need to take it every other week. I was usually on Enbrel which was a weekly med. I did not love being on 2 injections, though. I eventually went back to oral MTX.
I love that your kitty was participating in EMDR with you!
I don’t mind the injections but I’ve also noticed that I have a lovely array of dots around my belly button now. If I ever get off injections for any reason, maybe I’ll get a tattoo there, ha.
Eloise enjoyed the EMDR session a LOT more than I did!
Consider me shocked to learn that Nicole does not like massages. This world does not spin exactly how I thought it did.
Your bookshelves look great! Your cats, of course, are beautiful. <3
The EMDR sounds super difficult. I’ve never tried it, but I hope it’s helping you to work through things.
The EMDR is helping a lot, even though I keep worrying I’m going to disappoint my therapist. Ha. Makes sense since my overarching self-belief that we uncovered in order to start EMDR is “I am a failure.” lololol
There’s nothing more beautiful than new bookshelves, with lots of space open and waiting for new books. Well, almost nothing the cats always take first place. Speaking of which- I think everyone who does EMDR should have a support cat with them!
To answer your question- I got a massage last week. I can get a free one once a month at work!