Best of 2021 | A Month-by-Month Recap

JANUARY

• Insurrectionists stormed the Capitol building during the certification of the 2020 general election results. It was scary and horrifying, and if you still support Republican politics after that, I don’t even know what to say.
• Biden was inaugurated! It was such a beautiful day and I was so relieved that nothing crazy happened.
• Briana and I had a fun lady date in Plant City, visiting a farm where we got to feed cows, play with llamas, and pet horses.
• I injured myself in early January, tripping over a garden hose and taking off a nice little chunk of skin of my big toe. It was so painful!
• Mikaela and Nick found a surgeon to do Olive’s surgery! A true blessing. More great news: Olive had scans done that showed, after two rounds of chemotherapy, her tumor shrank by 30%. Super baby.

FEBRUARY

• Briana and I spent a Saturday in Sarasota to visit the Ringling Museum. I’ve always loved the circus (while acknowledging its problematic elements) and it was really interesting to learn more about the ins and outs of circus life and how it came to be so popular, especially in the early 1900s.
• My youngest nephew Dominic turned 6! We celebrated with a party at a trampoline park where the mask-wearing was… not great. Eh.
• Mikaela, Nick, Olive, and Mikaela’s mom traveled to Boston for Olive’s surgery, which went amazingly well, and she recovered like a boss afterward. She was able to be discharged much sooner than they expected!
• I struggled a bit with my mental health in late January/early February, leading to a month-long blogging break.
• I participated in a fun weekend readathon called #24in48. It challenges you to try to read 24 hours in 48 hours. I read for 15 hours, which was the mini-goal I set for myself.

MARCH

• I bought a spin bike and started my Peloton journey!
• I received some really touching shout-outs from a few colleagues that were read aloud in our employee of the month meeting.
• Briana and I spent a day at the Florida Strawberry Festival where we enjoyed some yummy food, strolled around kitschy boutiques, and reveled in the sunshine.
• Book club returned! We met at a park, separated by blankets and with our own dinners to eat while catching up with one another.
• On the last day of the month, my mom and I traveled to meet with a dachshund breeder and we met the sweetest little puppy who had been born just the day earlier. My mom fell in love immediately and by the time we were back home, she had named her: Lucy.

APRIL

• My mom and I spent Easter with my brother and his wife’s extended family, which was really nice! It was fun to see my nephews running around with their neighborhood friends.
• Amber and I returned to our reading dates, meeting in a local park and spreading out on our blankets. We spent 20 minutes catching up and then 30 or so minutes reading our books in silence. My favorite!
• Briana and I took a trip to a glass museum, which had so many beautiful exhibits. Afterward, we had lunch at a yummy biscuit restaurant downtown.
• Eloise turned 3!
• I got vaccinated! My second shot was on April 29, and I proceeded to spend the next day in a feverish, achy state as my immune system reacted to the new antibodies flooding my body. While it sucked being sick, it was kinda cool to see my immune system at work!

MAY

• We celebrated Mother’s Day with brunch and then visiting Grandma’s gravesite.
• Lila turned 3!
• I found a lump in my left armpit and was terrified for many days that it was cancerous. It was dense and super painful. Thankfully, it was just an infected cyst that responded to antibiotics. Whew.
• Briana and I went kayaking on a beautiful day in late May. I was hoping to do more kayaking this year, but that ended up being the only time I did. Womp.
• On May 25th, Lucy came home! It was so, so exciting to bring this sweet lady home. It was also fun to see how Chip responded to having another puppy in the house. (Mostly, he wasn’t sure what to do with her!)

JUNE

• Amber and I had a really fun bowling date—it was the first time I’d been bowling since wayyy before the pandemic and I missed it. We also had a reading date later in the month, which was much needed.
• Olive joined us for book club right before she started her last round of chemo. She was in great spirits!
• Sara and Natalie got married! Their wedding was so much fun and I danced my little heart out with my family.
• At the end of the month, I had a wonderful first date with a woman and ended the month with butterflies and hope.

JULY

• My company named me employee of the month! It’s super rare for writers to get EOM (I was maybe one of two this entire year… or maybe the only one!) so it’s a real honor when it happens. I was so surprised!
• I went on lots of fun dates: a Fourth of July celebration downtown, a hike in nature, watching the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics, and checking out lots of yummy restaurants downtown.
• I took the afternoon of July 8th off to celebrate my mom’s birthday! We had lunch together, went to a painting place where I painted cute jar, and then got ice cream. The next day, we went out for a big dinner with my stepdad, my brother, and his kids.
• OLIVE FINISHED CANCER TREATMENT!
• I went to a tea party with Briana and her friend who was in town.

AUGUST

• More fun dates: a baseball game, Sunday brunch, a bookstore date, a movie night, and exploring a museum.
• I finished The Count of Monte Cristo!
• Mom and I spent 4 days in Chicago, which was my first vacation since November 2019! We had a lot of fun together and got to meet Kim, a highlight of my year.
• I bought a new area rug and a new TV for my home.
• A depressive episode started creeping in.

SEPTEMBER

• Amber and I had a fun coffee date at Black Crow Coffee downtown.
• My brother turned 35 and my nephew Jovy turned 13. For Jovy’s birthday, we celebrated at a trampoline park and I had a blast jumping around with my mom, my cousin, and my cousin’s daughter.
• I left Eloise outside on the balcony for over two hours one evening and I think the experience scarred me a lot more than it scarred her.
• The NFL season started! WOOP!
• I went through a breakup, which sent me spiraling into a depressive episode.

OCTOBER

• I took an unannounced break from blogging because my depression was so bad, I just didn’t have the energy to write.
• I finally got a prescription for Lexapro, the antidepressant I was on for many years before weaning myself off in the spring/summer. I cried when the pharmacist told me she could fill the script the same day and felt immediate relief after taking my first pill in many months.
• My cousin’s daughter turned 10 (!) and we celebrated with a small, low-key house party that was a lot of fun.
• On Halloween, I dressed up like a cat to pass out candy to the neighborhood kids with my mom.

NOVEMBER

• Chip and Lucy participated in Running of the Wieners! They both did so well!
• I bought a new car! Gladys is a 2022 Kia Soul and she is everything I ever wanted. It is so nice having a new car after driving around in an older car for so long. (It was always so funny to go to car dealerships and be asked what I was looking for in a new car. BLUETOOTH. I JUST WANT BLUETOOTH.)
• My cousin hosted Thanksgiving and she did an amazing job. It was so nice to see family, too!
• I turned 34 at the end of the month and celebrated with my annual Day of Stephany: I got a massage and a pedicure, took a long nap, and went out to dinner with my family.
• I participated in NaBloPoMo, hosted by the lovely San! Writing a blog post every day wasn’t as much of a feat as I imagined, but I’m also very glad to be back down to my 3 posts a week schedule, hehe.

DECEMBER

• I decorated gingerbread houses with some coworkers, and it was so nice to get together with them and vent/gossip about work.
• My friends and I had our first annual brunch and book exchange, which was so much fun! Briana cooked us up a delicious brunch and then we did Blind Date With a Book.
• My mom, brother, nephews, and I baked Christmas cookies together, as is tradition. We had so much fun!
• My mom, my stepdad, and I went out for our annual Fancy Christmas Eve Dinner. I left with a full belly and a full heart.
• I had a lovely Christmas with my family! My stepdad cooked us a delicious meal, we had a grand time opening presents, and I felt so happy and content the entire day.