A Wintery Coffee Date

It’s been a long time since I posted a life update. Why don’t we have a little coffee date on this chilly Friday morning? I’ll be drinking a peppermint mocha, of course.

If we were having coffee today, we would probably start by talking about the inauguration! And oh, what a beautiful day it was! I basically stopped working from 10am-1pm to watch the event, which I’m sure MANY of us did. It was so great to celebrate this transfer of power. While it was not a peaceful transfer (understatement of the year), the day itself was filled with joy and hope and inspiration. It was so nice to feel that way about our political leaders! Joe and Kamala are not perfect people and they will make lots of mistakes in the coming years, but they are exactly what our country needs right now. They are strong leaders, inspiring people, and will bring some normalcy to the White House. (Imagine! A president who doesn’t make fun of the American people or say derogatory things about every person who disagrees with him!) Of course, like most people, my favorite part of the inauguration was Amanda Gorman reciting her poem. I’ve rewatched it about half a dozen times since Wednesday—she’s such a powerful speaker and brought tears to my eyes with her message of hope and justice. I’m so excited for her and where she goes from here!

If we were having coffee today, I would want to give you an update on Olive, my friend’s baby with cancer. Olive just finished her second round of chemo and while the first round put her in the hospital for a week (some of her blood counts were dangerously low, leaving her at risk for infection, and she wasn’t interested in eating), she’s doing really good right now and is even playing and laughing and talking up a storm. I’m so, so grateful she’s having so many good days in a row. She needed it, and Mikaela most definitely did as well. After the first round of chemo, Olive’s medical team ran some tests and found out her tumor shrank by more than 30%! So that’s positive news indeed, as her oncologist wasn’t sure chemo would work on her type of tumor. And the best news of all is that a surgeon in Boston has agreed to do her surgery! He is one of the top liver specialists in the country and is super confident that he can do the resection without any issues. They’ll relocate to Boston for most of February and then, after the surgery, come back for more chemo. It will be a long, hard year for them but I’m feeling very positive and hopeful that this will be just a minor blip on the amazing, beautiful, inspiring life Olive will lead.

If we were having coffee today, I might spend some time gushing about Bridgerton. You guys, I had no idea I would love this show as much as I did! It was the best show I’ve ever seen, hands down. I had such an insane visceral reaction to Bridgerton, the kind that is hard to explain. It’s just that for the week during which I watched the show and the week or two afterward, it was all I could think about. And I mean, obsessively. If I went more than five minutes not thinking of the show, I considered it a win. Every time I would see a Bridgerton video (like a cast promo video) show up in my Instagram or Facebook feed, I would get these insane butterflies in my stomach. After finishing the show last week, all I wanted to do was restart it from the beginning. But I was also feeling a bit overstimulated from all of my big emotions that I needed a break from my intense, obsessive feelings! While this can be a common occurrence for highly sensitive people (TV shows can affect us at such a different level than they do for other people!), I have yet to have such an experience with a TV show. Was it Rege-Jean Page’s (the actor who played the duke) performance? Was it the great writing? Was it the beautiful sets and costumes? Was it the love story between Daphne and Simon? WHAT CAUSED THESE FEELINGS?! I’m sad that season two isn’t slated for 2022 (*shakes fist*), but damn, if this is what we can expect from Shonda Rhimes partnering with Netflix, I’m excited for what’s to come.

If we were having coffee today, I might tell you that I came really close to booking a November cruise! Oh boy, it was not a good idea to spend some time last week looking at late 2021 cruises. I have missed cruising soooo much and my mom told me that one of her coworkers booked an Alaskan cruise for May, which got my wheels churning. I nearly booked a cruise for the end of November, but stopped myself. Cruise lines are supposed to begin operating again in May (with lots of COVID policies in place, of course!) and I want to see how some of the first cruises go before committing to anything. I want to believe that we will be somewhat back to normal by November (and that my mom and I will have gotten our vaccines by then) but who really knows? I’m going to cross fingers and toes we can somehow safely be on a cruise ship this year!

If we were having coffee today, I might talk about my plans to shift my personal Instagram into a Bookstagram. (Bookstagram = an Instagram all about books!) I follow a lot of Bookstagrammers on my personal feed and I’ve always wanted to dip my toe into this world but felt very intimidated. Plus, thinking of a clever Bookstagram name was difficult! But then I was talking about the Bookstagram world with a friend who is involved in the community, and she told me that my Instagram is basically a Bookstagram since I talk about books so much on there. And it was like a lightbulb went off! Why don’t I just use my personal Instagram as a Bookstagram? I still want to show some lifestyle content (mainly in my Stories) on Instagram, as I think the best Bookstagrammers share a mix of bookish content and life updates, and I think this is a great way to merge my two worlds. I’ll likely change my Instagram name in the future and clean up who I’m following to make room for more Bookstagrammers, but I’m excited to dive even deeper into this world and share even more of my bookish thoughts. (This doesn’t affect anything I’m doing with the blog: this is still primarily a lifestyle blog, with lots of bookish content thrown in.)

And, of course, if we were having coffee today, I’d give you an update on the cats! They are as perfect and precocious as ever. I need to take Lila to the vet soon for some shots and I’m a little worried they’ll comment about her weight. She’s a little on the chunky side with a large primordial pouch that swings from side to side when she runs (which delights me to no end!)—Ellie also has a pouch but it’s not as large as Lila’s. Speaking of Ellie, she’s become a little snuggler lately! Maybe it’s the cold weather, but she now climbs right on my stomach when I’m lying in bed and falls right asleep on me. It’s my FAVORITE thing! Often, I’ll even wake up to find her perched on my stomach or back (depending on my sleeping position). They are the best girls and I am so glad they’re mine!

What would you talk about during our coffee date?!