Stephany Writes

Categories: About Me

Ask Stephany Anything: A Random Assortment

For today’s Ask Stephany Anything post, I have a hodge-podge of random questions that you guys asked me! I got very wordy in my responses so, in an effort to not make this post exceedingly long, I am saving three questions for a follow-up post next month. So if you don’t see your question answered here, it’s likely in the last batch! 🙂 I really appreciate everyone who sent in a question (or questions!) I had a ton of fun answering them.

Leanne asks:

Hi Stephany! I was wondering what the Covid situation is currently like in your part of the world and what mandates are enforced or need to be followed. The province I live in (Alberta) recently enforced carrying around a vaccination passport which means you have to show proof that you are double vaccinated along with government issued ID to get in any place that is not an essential service. This is in place for those aged 12+ Or you can do a rapid test and use that as your ticket to get in for 48 hours. Is that similar for you? Masks are still required everywhere. 

I live in Florida, which has consistently been terrible at enforcing strict Covid mandates. For example, we only had an official statewide mask mandate for a few weeks in April 2020 and then our stupid governor let it expire. Thankfully, we had county-wide mask mandates for my county and all of the ones surrounding me for most of 2020 (until our stupid governor signed an executive order to get rid of all mask mandates). Essentially, it has been business as usual here in Florida for 2020-2021. (Restaurants and bowling alleys and hair salons opened back up for in-person guests in May of 2020!) There are no vaccination passports required anywhere and most stores/restaurants only recommend wearing masks but do not require them nor enforce wearing them. Masks aren’t required in schools or even some healthcare settings. (Obviously, they are required for hospitals and most doctor’s offices, but when I went to the dentist in October, I was the only person in the waiting room of six people wearing a mask.) In some instances, showing proof of your vaccination status or a negative test (which would need to be the PCR Covid test; rapid tests don’t count) are required to get into some places, like if you’re going to see a show and the performer/group requires it.

Thankfully, Florida is doing okay with Covid these days—we’re one of the lone states in the moderate transmission category and cases/deaths have slowed down. But now that there’s a new crazy variant circling, I’m getting worried again about what’s to come in 2022!

Anyway, all this to say, Alberta > Florida with Covid protocols!

San asks…

I love that you’re so comfortable on your own and we should absolutely normalize this… but, I still want to know: do you have a list of “requirements” for a potential partner? What do you look for in a guy? 

There are certainly qualities I’m looking for in a potential partner. Above all, I want to date someone I feel comfortable around and who is easy to open up to, as that is something I definitely struggle with in all of my relationships (romantic or not). It’s always really amazing to meet someone and want to open up to them. That doesn’t happen frequently! Aside from that, I’m also looking for a few specific qualities in a romantic partner:

  • A sense of humor – I need someone who can make me laugh and who understands my sarcastic nature. Sarcasm and humor are my natural ways to connect with people, so if I don’t have that, it’s hard for me to form a lasting bond with someone.
  • Kindness – As I get older, I find myself more and more drawn to people who are deeply and genuinely kind. I am someone with social anxiety and shyness, so certain situations are really difficult for me. I need someone who is going to understand my needs and make an effort to make me feel comfortable in situations that are deeply uncomfortable for me.
  • Similar political views – Ah, yes. This is a must-have these days. I love talking politics and I could never date someone who either a) doesn’t care about politics or b) has vastly different views than me. It would just be really hard to date someone who is a Trump supporter!
  • A love for cats – I mean, they must love my girls as if they are their own! That’s a non-negotiable.
Nicole asks…
I have a question: if you could go anywhere in the world for a vacation/ trip, where would it be and why? You mentioned Ireland was a bucket list, what other places are on that list? 

Right now, there are three big places on my travel bucket list: Hawaii, Paris, and London. I’d really like to do a Paris/London trip either next year (depending on Covid) or the following year. And Hawaii has always been somewhere I’ve wanted to visit! I’d love to do a really long vacation there (10+ days) at some point in the future. I need to start saving!

Other places I want to visit: Australia, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Iceland, Greece, and dozens of other countries I’m forgetting!

Lisa asks…

I know you are happy where you live, but if you were to live somewhere else, where would you choose?  

I haven’t been to a ton of U.S. cities, but if I were to live somewhere other than Florida, I would probably stick to the south. I need mild winters! But I’d love to live in a place that actually cycled through all four seasons. The two cities I’d most want to live in would either be Savannah, GA, or Asheville, NC. I’ve visited both of those cities and fell completely in love with them! I think I could be happy living in either one of those cities.

If you could live in a different place, where would you live?

Categories: About Me

Q&A Saturday (v. 3)

Hi, friends! It’s time for another Q&A Saturday. This week, I’m answering a set of “Would you rather?” questions posed by my good friend, Kim. She really tried her best to stump me on these! Nicely done, Kim.

Would you rather never be able to drink SODA or COFFEE for the rest of your life? (You have to pick one!)

Wow, this is a tough one because I love both so much! Honestly, it would be great for my health if I was never able to drink soda again, haha, so I’ll pick that one!

Would you rather only be able to read books on a Kindle for the rest of your life, or only be able to read large print books?

Give me a Kindle or give me death. I am not precious about print books. I love having my home filled with books (it’s my design aesthetic, honestly), but I got a Kindle many, many years ago and I love reading on it! Reading a large print book is hard on my eyes (and the books are so big!) that I think I would read less if that’s all I could read.

Would you rather be too hot or too cold? (I think I know the answer, you live in FL lolz)

This is something I think about a lot because whenever the weather is 100+, I dream about being cold. And whenever the weather is, like, under 50 degrees, I dream about being hot. To the surprise of no one, though, I’d probably prefer to be too hot. I’m used to hot weather and it doesn’t really bother me too much. Being cold, though, is so unpleasant for me! I have extremely thin skin, and my teeth will start chattering and I’ll start shivering uncontrollably pretty easily.

Would you rather forget to wear deodorant or forget to brush your teeth?

Kim, you’re killing me with these questions! I think I would rather forget to wear deodorant. Can I admit something here? Are we all friends? Okay, here goes: I don’t actually mind the scent of my own body odor. There are times when I get a whiff of my underarms when I haven’t put on deodorant, and I don’t hate it! I mean, yes I wear deodorant but I just wanted to come clean about that. So, give me stinky underarms over stinky breath, I guess!

Would you rather misspell something or mispronounce something?

Ugh, both are embarrassing! But since I pride myself on my writing and grammar skills, I’d rather mispronounce something.

Would you rather travel to space or the center of the earth? (assuming both are safe)

Take me to space! Man, I would love to ride a rocketship and sail around in space for a while. I don’t know if I’m as interested in what the center of the earth looks like as I am in what our planet looks like from space.

Would you rather only be able to watch your fave TV show for the rest of your life, or never watch it again?

Oh, I definitely would rather never watch The Office again! Can you imagine only watching one show for the rest of your life? I haven’t even seen Ted Lasso yet! And I’d miss the second season of Bridgerton! And what about all of the shows on my to-be-watched list?! I’m sorry, but The Office will have to stay in its vault.

Would you rather let someone else choose a tattoo for you, or let someone else choose a piercing?

Ooh, tough one! Probably a piercing. I can take the piercing out, but a tattoo would be there forever! Plus, a piercing only hurts for a minute—what if they chose a full-back tattoo? I’d be there for dayyyys.

Would you rather use an Android phone or a flip phone?

Ugh. I guess an Android phone.

Would you rather snorgle Eloise or Lila right now?

KIM HOW DARE YOU. Okay, if I had to choose, probably Lila because she is the more snuggly one of my cats. It’s funny because Eloise will let me pick her up but doesn’t like to snuggle. Lila won’t let me pick her up but loves snuggling. I take what I can get!

Would you rather be too hot or too cold?

Categories: About Me

Q&A Saturday: All About Books

Hi friends! Happy Saturday. 🙂 I’ve been loving all of the questions you guys have been sending me for this series, and since I got a handful of questions centered around books, I thought I would answer those today! As a reminder, you can fill out my form with your question (or questions!) or just comment on this post.

Jen asks:

Hi! I love this idea (and your blog!). Here’s my question: what are some of your favorite comfort re-reads? I definitely choose books based on my emotions and I love re-reading old favorites when I’m feeling low. Thanks for a fabulous blog that I absolutely think of as a comfort read! <3

First of all, thank you for such a sweet, lovely comment! It does my heart so good knowing my blog is a source of comfort for people!

I am not a mood reader, which I know is crazy to some people. It definitely feels like most people read based on their moods, and I stick to a very rigid TBR list. There’s just something about that rigid list that brings me comfort, more than just picking books willy-nilly based on how I’m feeling. I mean, of course, I try to make sure I’m not reading too many heavy books in a row and I give myself the flexibility to change up what I want to read, but for the most part, I follow that list to a tee.

But that wasn’t the question, haha. Do you see how easily I can go off on a tangent? Let’s discuss some of my favorite comfort rereads:

  • The Harry Potter series – Problems with JK Rowling aside, the Harry Potter series brings me such comfort and happiness. I reread the series a few years ago, starting the first book after a particularly awful heartbreak and it was truly the only thing that broke me out of my sadness. There’s just something about Harry and Hermione and Ron and Hogwarts and all of the magical elements that just bring me to the best, most cozy place.
  • Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery – I recently reread Anne of Green Gables and I can picture me coming back to this story again and again when I need something super comforting to read. Anne is such a beloved fictional character!
  • The Hating Game by Sally Thorne – I’ve reread this contemporary romance multiple times because it is still, by far, the best romance I have ever read. The characters are fantastic and the plot is so engaging. I reread this book at the beginning of the pandemic when I was feeling really low and it was everything I needed. (And the movie depiction releases in December! I am so excited!!)
  • Suzanne Brockmann’s Troubleshooters series – I found this military suspense series during my first semester of college. I was living on campus, depressed and lonely, and spending all of my time in the campus bookstore. During a perusal of the books, I found one of the books in this series, bought it, and fell completely in love with Suzanne Brockmann’s writing style and these characters. I’ve reread the entire series once and I may be due for another reread soon!

Christa asks…

Do you have an absolute favorite book?

There is not one book that I can definitively claim as my absolute favorite book. I have a lot of books that I consider part of my all-time faves, however, like:

Do you have an all-time favorite book? 

Categories: About Me

Ask Stephany Anything | The Girl Behind the Blog

Happy Saturday, friends! I hope your weekend is off to a lovely start. In today’s inaugural Ask Stephany Anything post, I’m answering a question from NGS:

It’s not a question so much as a request. I’m a relatively new reader and I don’t know a lot of basic things. I feel like a “basic facts” would be useful. How old are your cats? How long have you had them? What do you do for a living? What are your favorite types of books? What do you consider a good date? What’s the best vacation you’ve ever been on? I think I’m nosy, but maybe that’s what you need right now!

This seemed like a great time to introduce everyone to the girl behind the blog. 🙂

Hi, pleased to meet you! My name is Stephany and I’m 33 years old. I live in St. Petersburg, Florida, which is a hop, skip, and a jump away from Tampa. I’ve lived in this area my entire life, which is unusual—there are not too many native Floridians and even fewer people native to the St. Petersburg area. But I love St. Pete with all of my heart and soul and cannot imagine living anywhere else! It’s a more liberal area of Florida with a lively downtown scene, lots of breweries, great restaurants, and tons of museums. St. Pete is considered a “peninsula on a peninsula,” which means we’re surrounded by water on three sides and we have so many incredible beaches—it can get pretty touristy around here!

For my job, I’m part of the content team for a large digital marketing firm. My company is based in Tampa, but we became a fully remote workforce after the pandemic hit. Apparently, most of the people at our company really enjoyed working from home, so my company moved out of our old office and into a smaller one that will function more as a coworking space. I looooooove working from home full-time and I don’t think I could ever go back to being in an office on a regular basis.

I just celebrated 8 years at my company in August, and it’s really been a wonderful 8 years. I still love what I do, even if it can get stressful at times. (But what job doesn’t?) My primary role is writing. I write short-form (300-ish words) and long-form (500+ words) articles for a variety of clients, mainly in the healthcare and home improvement industries. I also do a ton of editing, mostly because I’m managing the workload of one of our contractors and am responsible for sending her assignments, editing her work, and sending it to clients. I also do project management and content strategy for some of our more specialized accounts. Basically, my days are busy and no day is the same.

Let’s talk about family! My mom is my very best friend and we Facetime with each other multiple times a day. She’s remarried and lives just 10 minutes from me, and I try to see her at least a couple times a week. She has two of the sweetest dachshunds, Chip (3) and Lucy (7 months), and I love them to death. My brother also lives nearby. He’s married to his high school sweetheart and they have two boys: J. is 13 and D. is 6. I’m estranged from my father, a decision I’ve talked about extensively on this blog. It was a decision I made in 2010, and it still hurts knowing he’s not in my life, even though that was the best decision I could have made for myself.

I have a big extended family on my mom’s side. She has five brothers and all but one of her brothers have children. (And many of those children have children of their own!)

Currently, I am single and I live by myself, which I love. While I hope for long-term partnership someday, I am also really happy being alone. Of course, I don’t actually live alone because I have my cats! I adopted Eloise at the end of 2018 and Lila a few months later. They are around the same age and turned 3 in the spring. Both of them are rescues who were living on the streets and having a rough go of it. I’m so glad I’ve been able to give them the cozy home they need! They are my entire world and I don’t know what I would do without them.

My hobbies are pretty varied! I love writing, obviously, and this blog has become the perfect outlet for me. I’d still love to write a novel, but that dream has been put on the backburner for the time being. Of course, reading is probably my biggest hobby and I make time for it every day. I also love NFL football, podcasts, going to museums, Peloton, traveling, reading blogs, and coloring.

I’ll finish by answering some of the questions that were posed to me in this question:

What are your favorite types of books? Romance is probably my favorite genre, and that’s why I usually have a romance book going alongside whatever else I’m reading. Other favorite genres: nonfiction (social justice and memoirs, mainly), thrillers, and women’s fiction.

What do you consider a good date? For me, a good date is less about the place and more about how I feel during it. A good date is when we can talk and talk and talk without running out of things to say. It’s not having awkward pauses. It’s wanting to extend the date, and not run back home to my cats within 20 minutes. It’s that feeling of hopefulness and happiness when it ends, knowing it was something special that only comes around every once in a while. It’s excitement that maybe, just maybe, you have found your person.

What’s the best vacation you’ve ever been on? Gosh, I’d like to say my trip to Ireland because it was such a bucket list vacation, but I was not my best self there and I spend a lot of time regretting how I planned that vacation. So instead, I’ll say it was the second cruise I went on in May 2012. My mom and I booked a six-day cruise where we biked around Key West, swam with sting rays and played with dolphins in Grand Cayman, and discovered our love for zip-lining in Jamaica. It was an incredible six days and we had so much fun!

I’m still looking for questions for Ask Stephany Anything! Comment below with your question or use my handy-dandy form. 

Categories: About Me

So, About That Blog Break

Long time, no chat, eh?

For most of September and October, I was depressed. Depression is something I struggle with, but it’s not something that’s an everyday part of my life. It typically hits me during random periods, and I can usually drag myself out of them within a few days. This time was different. This time lasted many weeks and affected everything: the way I felt about myself, my relationships, my life. My focus at work. My hobbies. I couldn’t go on social media without feeling like everyone was having fun without me, and everyone would be ok if I just fully exited their lives forever. That sounds so dramatic, but it was how I felt at the time. I was in an incredibly dark place and when I am in that place, I don’t feel as if I have purpose anymore.

I tried just pushing through the pain and darkness for weeks, but it wasn’t working. Writing can be cathartic for me and I’m committed to always talking about the hard stuff, but I just wasn’t in a place to really dig into what I was going through. It was all too raw and painful and happening in real-time. I was in a dark place that I didn’t know if I was ever going to get out of. (When I tried to remind myself of the good days and the times when my depression wasn’t such a suffocating force in my life, my brain continually fed me lies. “You weren’t really so happy, were you? Have you ever actually been happy?”)

And truthfully, it was also scary to be in this place. It’s scary to have my brain work against me at this level. All I wanted to do was sleep because, at least then, my brain was quiet for a while.

I decided to take time away from my blog. I was trying to write a Friday blog post and I just couldn’t. I couldn’t muster the energy to talk about my life and pretend things were fine when they just weren’t. I deleted the blog post I was working on and told myself I was going to step away from the blog for two weeks. I wasn’t going to make some big to-do about it. I was just going to take the time away, unannounced.

At this time, I also deleted Instagram from my phone (the only social media app I use) because it was starting to feel like an unhealthy place for me to be. I didn’t want to worry about what other people were posting or what I should be posting or how much better people have been at adapting to Instagram’s changing landscape than I have (looking at you, Reels). I regularly take breaks from Instagram and I have a 30-minute daily time limit on it as it is, but I really needed to fully delete the app and step away from it for a couple of weeks for my mental health.

Alongside my depression was my dearest friend, anxiety. As I mentioned in a previous post, my anxiety has been at an all-time low for a really long time—so much so that I weaned myself off Lexapro. But things got really bad in October with my anxiety. I was living in a constant state of high anxiety and obsessive thoughts. I would latch onto one thing (typically, my mom dying) and wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about it no matter how many different tricks I tried. I started having regular panic attacks, something I don’t experience often but became part of my daily existence. I never feel more like a crazy person than when my anxiety is out of control like this.

In the end, I called my doctor and got back on Lexapro. I still remember calling the pharmacy in tears on a Saturday when they hadn’t yet filled the Lexapro prescription and I was so worried I was going to have to wait until Monday to call my doctor back and get this taken care of. (Even though the pharmacy would have given me an emergency three-day dose if I really needed it, I was just worried that something was going to happen to push back the date of restarting Lexapro.) And when the pharmacist confirmed they had my prescription refill request and would be filling it in the hour, I miiiight have burst into tears. I was just so tired of being depressed and sad and anxious all the time, and I wanted to do something that would get the wheels turning in the right direction.

And it did. Perhaps it was a placebo effect (okay, it was definitely a placebo effect), but the day after I restarted Lexapro, I started feeling better. And each day since, I’ve come back to myself little by little. Today, I feel the most myself in a long time and I am so happy to have crawled through that dark place to get here. It was the hardest fucking thing, as anyone who struggles with mental illness knows, but I made it to the other side.

I planned to come back to blogging and social media in two weeks, although I was prepared for my break to last longer if I needed it to. What I didn’t expect was to get bronchitis the weekend before I was set to return.

Aside from my severe reaction to the second Covid vaccine, I haven’t been sick in over two years at this point. Between working from home, wearing masks when I’ve been in public, and not being around people all that often, I’ve been at my most physically healthy. But then my mom got sick with bronchitis (there were a very scary few days in there where we thought she might have Covid) and, of course, I ended up getting sick from her. SIGH. It has not been a fun week over here. Last weekend, I was mostly dealing with chills, fever, and a slight sore throat, but then Monday hit and I was sneezing like crazy, coughing up my lungs, and dealing with intense fatigue. Thankfully, I’m on the mend and mostly just dealing with an irritating cough. Even though I was pretty sure it wasn’t Covid, I still went and got tested (negative!).

And now I’ve written over 900 words about where I’ve been for the last few weeks. I got sweet emails from people checking in on me, which was really nice. Knowing that my absence was felt by other people (especially people I’ve never met IRL!) gives me that sense of purpose that was lacking when I was feeling deeply depressed. I need to bottle up that feeling. <3

But I’m excited to be back, excited to be feeling better (both physically and mentally), and excited to write again. I really missed this space and connecting with you guys and opening my heart. In fact, I missed it so much that I’ve decided to participate in National Blog Posting Month (publishing a blog post every day in November). While not an official challenge anymore, my friend San has carried on the tradition and inspired others to do the same. Get ready to see a lot more of me in your feeds, friends! (One of my goals with this challenge is to do a weekly Q&A post, so I’ve created this form where you can ask any questions you want! Or you can comment on this post or email me with your question if that’s easier for you.)