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?

July 18, 2026 – A party for our warrior girl! It was so beautiful to see so many people gathered to celebrate Olive’s remission. She is so loved! (Funny story: Mikaela asked Olive where she wanted to celebrate her remission party and was trying to calculate the cost of a dinner with a bunch of people. And Olive said, “Dunkin Donuts!” Much easier, much cheaper, ha.)

July 19, 2026 – I parked in front of this rainbow house while downtown on Sunday and had to take a picture! If it’s not the epitome of DTSP, I don’t know what is.

July 20, 2026 – Every day after lunch, Eloise can’t get enough of me. I don’t know if it’s because I smell of food or if it’s just become an ingrained part of her routine, but she immediately jumps up on the desk and walks back and forth in front of me, meowing loudly at me for pets. Often, I’ll move my keyboard so it sits on top of this whiteboard so that she can sit right in front of me and get lots and lots of pets from me. Answering emails while petting a soft, purring kitty? Bliss!

July 21, 2026 – There’s not much to say about this picture, other than that I realized late on Tuesday that I hadn’t taken a picture today, so Lila was a (somewhat) willing participant.

July 22, 2026 – Eloise’s loaf positions continue to score a 10/10. Look at this perfection! No tail, no paws, curved back. She’s ready for the Loaf Olympics!

July 23, 2026 – I continue to experiment with planning methods that will work for my brain. This morning, I started watching some planning videos from a creator who has ADHD, and the way she sets up her days in her planner really spoke to me! I don’t think I have ADHD, but I do struggle with executive functioning. What this creator does is set up a schedule in the morning, afternoons, and evenings, rather than doing it all at once. So, this is what I’m playing around with! I want to create a morning schedule when I wake up (my idea is to get up, feed the girls, make coffee, and set my morning schedule), and then once that’s done and I’m ready to start my workday, I’ll create my work schedule for the day (the tasks below the work schedule are things I can do when I need a break), and once I’ve colored in all my work boxes, then I can sit down and think of a handful of things to complete in the evening. The boxes are kinda arbitrary – for work, they equal 15 minutes of work. For the evening tasks, I set them up as “sprints.” For example, the “30 minutes of blogging” task is broken into 10-minute increments. Anyway, this is a long comment for this photo0―more to come as I continue to play around with this planning system!

July 24, 2026 – Oh, you know, just Lila looking like a goddamn supermodel, as always!

July 11, 2026 – It was bougie pedicure day! It was expensive AF, but since I got gel, it should last for 6-8 weeks.

July 12, 2026 – Mom and I took the dogs to a dog bar downtown called Mutts and Martinis. On Sunday mornings, they open the play area for dogs under 30 lbs. Unfortunately, we went on the one day a year when there’s a Boston Terrier meetup, so there was a lot going on, and our little shy babies weren’t too keen on it. They have a quieter section of the play area, so we’re going to try that tomorrow!

July 13, 2026 – I was in a lot of trouble with Lila last week when I didn’t take any photos of this majestic girl for the blog. I promised I would make up for it this week!

July 14, 2026 – Sadly, one of my fitted sheets must be disposed of. I found some tears in it, and I’m not sure where they came from! My best guess: Lila tore up the sheet, knowing her mom would be too lazy to put it in the trash in a timely manner, so she would have a great napping spot for a few days. She is right.

July 15, 2026 – Another Lila photo! But I took this photo to show you guys the sad evidence that my cozy reading chair has gone to the Great Furniture Store in the sky. It kept tearing until I couldn’t sit in it comfortably, so I had my brother help me carry it down to our dumpster. A sad day! (There will be a new reading chair in due time!)

July 16, 2026 – Baby’s first echocardiogram! It was pretty easy. I had to take off everything from the waist up and wear the gown on the bed. Then, the ultrasound tech spent about 30 minutes taking lots of pictures and videos of various parts of my heart, while I lay on my left side with my arm over my head. I got to hear my heartbeat, which was pretty cool. There’s a lot of stuff happening inside these bodies of ours! The craziest part about this day, though, is that when I got home from the doctor, Eloise wouldn’t leave my side for anything! She wanted to be as close to me as possible the whole evening. I’m guessing I came home smelling different or with a different sort of energy that she picked up on? Sweet girl.

July 17, 2026 – A dinner date with Mom! We went to BJ’s, where we, of course, finished off dinner with a pizookie. I did not enjoy this pizookie all that much (it needed 2-3 minutes less in the oven because it was not gooey enough for me!), but my mom enjoyed it, so I’m glad for that!

Have you ever had an echocardiogram?

July 4, 2026 – My Fourth of July plans? Reorganizing my bookshelves. I spent a lot of time pulling books off the shelf, rearranging them, deciding I hated the new look, pulling them off again… It’s been a lot. The bookshelves look a lot better today than they did on Saturday, though. They’re coming along!

July 5, 2026 – Have you ever been sitting on a window ledge, contemplating life, and then the weird woman who lives with you squeals, “OMG YOU ARE SO CUTE DON’T MOVE!” and then shoves a phone in your face? No? Eloise has.

July 6, 2026 – It seems like every quarter, I want to revamp my planning system. I guess this means I just haven’t found the right planning system. Maybe one day I’ll do a post about it. Anyway, I bought this planner via Amazon, and I didn’t realize how big it is! It’s like carrying a Bible around. We’ll see if it sticks.

July 7, 2026 – I had an auntie date at the library with Mikaela and Kim and their kiddos. We mostly played games, and sometimes the kids hung out in the play area without us. My favorite part of the night happened after Olive (age 6) won round after round of a matching game against her sister (age 4), and started cheering, “Let’s have a drumroll for the winner… ME!” I asked Mikaela and Kim, “Is this what I’m like?” (My worst trait is my competitiveness. Book club has banned me from ever playing Phase10 with them.)

July 8, 2026 – I took the day off for my mom’s birthday, and we kicked things off with an epic dolphin tour on Clearwater Beach. We were starting to get despondent about seeing any dolphins when suddenly, there they were! It was a nursing pod with three female dolphins and two baby dolphins, and the babies were so, so, so, so, so cute. No jumping, but they did get pretty close to our boat! (This photo isn’t zoomed in!)

July 9, 2026 – Does anyone else take a cute photo of their pet and then show it to them to get approval? Just me? Hmm.

July 10, 2026 – While we had a family dinner on my mom’s actual birthday, she was really craving a fancy steakhouse dinner, so that’s what we did yesterday! We went to Fleming’s and enjoyed some complimentary champagne, delicious food, and a to-die-for dessert (a gooey brownie). We had a great time!