Stephany Writes

Categories: Life

Monthly Recap | March 2023

Good Stuff

  • Learning knife skills with Amber – I had such a fun time at Sur La Table’s knife skills class. I’m glad Amber came with me, as it was fun to experience this class with her! I really loved the chef who ran this class; she was so personable and helpful.
  • Launching season 4 of the podcast – Season 4 of the podcast is in progress! I really love these episodes and it was fun to talk through different work stuff with Bri (who I first met at work, so that was extra special).
  • Taking the dogs on shopping sprees for their birthdays – Chip and Lucy are March babies. Chip turned 5 and Lucy turned 2 this year! I decided I wanted to do something fun for them and take them to PetSmart for their own shopping spree. It didn’t quite work out as I had envisioned in my head as Chip just wanted to bark at people and Lucy was so timid that I had to hold her throughout the shopping trip, but ah well. I had fun at least?! Ha!
  • Brunch, boards, and book club – Our book club meeting this month was so much fun! We came up with the idea to all do different types of charcuterie-style boards with brunch items. We had a bread board, a dessert board, a cheese board, a fruit board, a parfait board, and maybe one or two other boards that I’m forgetting. We were all so impressed by everyone’s creativity!
  • Finishing my entryway redo – This was a very simple project, but it’s brought me an immense amount of satisfaction. I love looking at this little area of my home!
  • Fun dates – I love when dating feels fun and romantic and exciting. And that’s what it feels like right now. I’ve been going on lots of great dates with a wonderful woman, and I am hopeful for the future. That’s all I’ll say about it for now. 🙂

Hard Stuff

  • Ellie getting sick – I was really worried I was going to have to schedule an emergency vet appointment last month for Ellie as she had a few days where she vomited twice a day. She’s a frequent vomiter (usually it’s due to eating too fast), so I never get too worried about it, but the amount she was doing it last month was a bit concerning. If she had thrown up once more, I would have scheduled an appointment, but she didn’t and has seemed okay since then. She has her annual wellness check-up soon, so I’ll bring it up then.
  • Sleeping poorly – I slept terribly in March. I’m not sure what was going on here – even taking melatonin wasn’t helping much. But things have seemed to get a little better lately, so hopefully it was just a weird fluke.
  • Feeling blah – When I flipped through my One Line a Day journal to see what sorts of things I wrote about this month, I noticed a lot of entries about just feeling blah. It’s not anxiety or depression… it’s just this feeling of blah. Feeling unmotivated and uninspired. I was able to create some strategies for helping with this blahness: not being on my phone as much, prioritizing walks in the sunshine, etc. It has helped a little.
  • A family member’s diagnosis – One of my family members was diagnosed with cancer this month, and it was devastating news. They have an aggressive treatment plan and we’ll find out soon if it’s working. Please send any prayers, good vibes, and crossed fingers for good news!

Stuff I Recommend

  • Sold a Story – Lisa recommended this podcast to me, and I loved it! It’s about reading instruction in schools and how a lot of reading programs are not helping students learn how to read. The podcast delves into a few different reading programs, discusses the science behind how kids learn how to read, and speaks with parents and educators who have noticed that their kids/students are not learning how to read correctly. It’s super compelling, and you don’t need to be a parent to enjoy the podcast. For me, it made me so grateful that I learned to read “the right way” and that I developed strong reading skills as a result. Reading is such an important part of my identity and part of the reason I love to read is that it’s something that is second nature for me. When kids don’t learn to read correctly, they won’t want to read because it’s too hard and confusing. Anyway, it’s an excellent podcast and I encourage everyone to give it a listen!
  • Old Navy summer clothes – I bought some great summer clothes from Old Navy! I returned most of what I bought but got a few pieces that fit so well, I want to get them in more colors! Here’s what I bought: leopard-print, high-waisted shorts ($27), mid-rise, 5-inch inseam jean shorts ($30), slub-knit tank top ($13 – this hits right at my waist and feels as close to a crop top as I’m willing to get), luxe slub-knit t-shirt ($14), and everywhere slub-knit tanktop ($13).
  • AirPods – Does anyone remember the terrible story about my first set of AirPods? If not, I bought AirPods at the beginning of the pandemic, didn’t get insurance on them, and then right after the one-year warranty expired, one of the buds started getting staticky. To get that bud replaced would be almost the cost of a new set of AirPods. Instead, I bought myself a cheap pair of wireless earbuds and they’ve worked well for me for a few years. Well, now they will barely hold a charge and since my beloved AirPod Pros were on sale for $200, I bought a new pair. I am so happy to have them back in my life! (With insurance this time.)
  • The Fetch app – My mom and I learned about this app while on our Niagara Falls vacation last year, when someone mentioned the app to the server at the restaurant we were at. It’s a simple app: you just take a photo of any receipt you receive and it gives you 25 points. Sometimes, depending on what you bought, you’ll get more points. (For example, my grocery store receipts are often more than 25 points, as certain food items tend to have a “special offer” and get you an extra 75-100 points sometimes.) You can also link your email and Amazon account and you’ll get points for online purchases, too. You can cash in your points for gift cards. In March, I finally had enough points to get a $25 gift card to Barnes & Noble, which you can rest assured I will be putting to good use.

Bookish Stuff

  • # of books/pages read: 10 books (3,488 pages)
  • Favorite book of the month: The Last Train to Key West by Chanel Cleeton
  • Least favorite book of the month: Our Missing Hearts by Celest Ng
  • Books I abandoned
    • The Forever Girl by Jill Shalvis
    • The Gown by Jennifer Robson
    • Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig
  • Format breakdown: print books (5), e-books (2), and audiobooks (3)
  • Genre breakdown: Romance (3), fiction (3), thriller (2), nonfiction (1), historical fiction (1)
  • Most recent book acquired: Love & Saffron by Kim Fay, True Biz by Sara Novic, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan, and The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall (I had a bookstore gift card and went a bit crazy!)

Goal Stuff

  • Go for a walk every day (15/31) – Oof. It was a bad month for this goal. I think the blahness meant I just didn’t have the energy to go for my walks, even though I am sure they would have made me feel better. Argh.
  • Drink a bottle of water every day (13/31) – Better than last month, and on par with what I managed in January. Can I get to 15 days in April? Let’s find out!
  • Complete 100 Peloton workouts (23/100) – I had a harder time fitting in my Peloton workouts last month since I was trying to complete an insane fitness challenge, too. I’m only 2 workouts behind my goal, though, so hopefully April is the month I catch up!
  • Take a knife skills class – Completed this goal in March!
  • Redo my entryway – Completed this goal in March, too. Look at me go!

What were some of the highlights of March for you?

Categories: Life

Time Logging | March 20-26, 2023

Last year, I spent a week time-logging, which is the practice of categorizing what you’re doing for every hour of your day. Or, in my case, every 15 minutes of my day. It’s incredibly tedious, as you might expect, but I also find it rather fun. So, after time-logging for the third week of March in 2022, I set a calendar reminder to do it again during the third week of March in 2023! Last week, I logged my time and here’s how it all broke down:

The fun part of this exercise is that now I can compare how I spent my time in 2022 and 2023. There were some very interesting patterns that emerged:

What stayed the same

  • Sleep – Last year, I was astonished to find out that I spent more than a third of my week unconscious. Well, friends, this must be how I like to spend my time because I did the same thing in 2023. And actually, my percentage of time sleeping/taking naps increased by 1%! What can I say? I’m a girl that loves her bed.
  • Talking on the phone with my mom – It’s no secret that my mom and I Facetime with each other more than the average person. Last year, I logged 4 hours of time on the phone with my mom and the same held true this year!
  • Work – I’m always surprised by my work percentage. It was not a huge piece of the pie in either year. I’m trying to embrace this rather than worry that I’m doing something wrong. I get my work done and that’s all that matters, right? Becoming a people manager has definitely shifted the way I work and has freed up a lot of my time.
  • Blogging – Last year, I broke up the blogging category differently and only calculated the time spent working on blog posts. This year, I included all things that are part of blogging: responding to comments, working on my blog categorization project, reading blogs, and commenting on blogs. I separated “computer time” for things like reading e-mail newsletters, reading Reddit forums, online shopping, etc. It ended up working out to the same percentage in all, but I’m interested to see how this blogging category changes or stays the same next year.

Other categories that stayed about the same from 2022 to 2023: morning/nighttime routines, workouts/walks, cleaning, driving/errands, and watching ASMR on YouTube (which is what I do to fall asleep).

Things that changed

  • Phone time – You guys, I spent so much time on my phone this week. I have always had a pretty high screen time average, but this week, as I had to painstakingly enter in “phone time” in these 15-minute increments, I started to really notice how much time I spend on my phone. It ended up being 10.5 hours in total. Eeks!
  • Podcasting – A new category! I spent almost 4 hours working on my podcast this week, between scheduling social media posts with Hootsuite, working on podcast outlines, and recording episodes.
  • TV – I spent more time in front of my TV this week by 2 hours. Most nights, I watch about an hour of TV and then a few more hours on the weekend, but it’s still probably less than other people.
  • Reading – This was a sad realization for me! I spent less time reading this week, but it was a week where I DNF-ed three books in a row, so that was probably bound to happen. I make less time for reading when I’m reading books that aren’t interesting to me!
  • Social – I had a pretty decent week of being social (a date night, book club, time with mom, etc.), but it still wound up being a bit less than this time last year. Although, if I counted the hours I spent with Bri recording podcast episodes (which was categorized under “podcast” and not “social”), it would be about the same.

What I learned

  • I need built-in buffer time between tasks – This is something I mentioned last week and thankfully, yesterday, I had a therapy appointment where I discussed how I tend to spend 10-15 minutes between tasks playing games on my phone. One thing my therapist said that stuck out to me was that I have simply trained my brain to need this buffer time, and I can train it to not need it. I have identified this issue and now I can start thinking about habits I can enforce so that I don’t immediately pick up my phone to play a game when I’m transitioning between tasks. Maybe instead I can pick up 10 things around my apartment to put away or read one chapter of a book. I’ve also moved all of my phone games to the second screen of my phone inside a folder, so hopefully that will help, too.
  • I need routine – One of the biggest things I’ve struggled with since I started working from home is finding a routine that works for me. Is it time blocking? Is it the pomodoro method? Is it putting on real clothes and doing my hair and makeup, even on days when nobody is going to see me? Is it going to a coffee shop? I’m still trying to figure out the right kind of routine, but I do know that it’s something I need because I feel really untethered without one.
  • I need to put my phone away at night – I have this bad habit of settling into bed with my book and my phone, reading one chapter of my book, and then immediately picking up my phone and scrolling through TikTok or Instagram or falling into a research rabbit hole of my latest obsession (one night, I spent 30 minutes reading up on skincare routines). The problem is that I use my phone right before bed to watch ASMR videos. They relax me and help me fall asleep. So I can’t just put my phone in another room. What I would like to do is only use my phone for ASMR once I’m in bed – maybe even put one of those app blockers on my phone that would block the apps I’m most notorious for using at night. That feels extreme, but maybe I need an extreme option until I’m out of the habit of using my phone so much at night.

Doing this time-logging exercise once a year has really helped me better understand where my time is going and what types of activities are sucking the life out of me, like how often I pick up my phone and get sucked into it. I’m excited to repeat this exercise in 2024!

Categories: Life

10 Little Things That Make My Life Better

Last month, San wrote a wonderful post listing out 10 inexpensive things that make her life better, and I was inspired to do the same! Here are some of my favorite little things:

1) Bubble wand curler

Back in 2019, I went to Boston with friends and one friend had a bubble curling wand that she said made curling your hair nearly foolproof while also using hair extensions ri to make it look better. I’ve never had much luck with using traditional curling irons (or even curling wands) so I tried it out on the vacation and I was so impressed with it! It made the cutest curls and even as the day went on and the curls started falling out, my hair still looked cute! Upon returning home, I immediately bought my own and have loved using it ever since. It’s my favorite way to curl my hair – if I want tight curls, I simply loop my hair around the indentations between each “bubble.” For more relaxed curls, I loop my hair loosely around the bubbles. So easy!

2) Squeeze bottle for sour cream

I love sour cream on nachos, tacos, chili, and baked potatoes, but I hate that it usually comes out in globs. I don’t want globs of sour cream! So, I bought this squeeze bottle. I pour the sour cream into the bottle and then I can easily squeeze on the perfect amount of sour cream onto my nachos, tacos, potatoes, etc. A simple pleasure, indeed.

3) Fake plants/flowers

Before I had cats, I loved getting a near-weekly bouquet of flowers at the grocery store. Dogs (or my dog, at least) do not mess with flowers the way cats do. I’d just put the flowers on a counter and he couldn’t get to them. And then I got cats. Who love gnawing on flowers. And who can also jump high on counters. So I had to say goodbye to fresh flowers (there are a few spots in my apartment I could keep them, but it just doesn’t feel worth the effort), and instead embraced fake flowers and plants. TJ Maxx is usually my go-to place for great options at affordable prices and I’ve also been pretty lucky at Target. I love decorating with fake flowers/plants – I think it just adds that perfect little finishing touch to bookshelves and counters.

4) madesmart divided storage containers

I have four of these containers and I could stand to have a few more. I love them. They are pricey ($25 per container) but I love that they can hold so much and the dividers make it easy to keep things organized. I have two under my kitchen sink where I keep cleaning products stocked and two in my bathroom (one under the counter for overflow, and one on the counter where I keep my most-used bathroom items), but these are important for spring cleaning, as there are many spring cleaning benefits so having these products help a lot. The dividers can be removed if you want more room (I removed them for the containers that hold my cleaning products, but let them in for my bathroom containers).

5) Mr. Coffee coffeemaker

You guys can keep your Keurigs and your Nespressos. I bought this Mr. Coffee 12-cup coffeemaker for $20 nearly 7 years ago and it’s still going strong. It may not have all the bells and whistles of new coffeepots, but it does the job I need it to do.

6) Dip-in nail polish remover

I love doing my nails, but taking off nail polish can be a process. I use regular nail polish, nothing fancy, but it still felt like it took so much time to remove it when I was using a cotton ball and nail polish remover bottle. Enter: the dip-in nail polish remover. It makes removing nail polish so much easier! The jar is filled with acetone remover and encircled with soft bristles. I just dip my finger into the jar and rub my nail against the bristles – it just takes a few swipes and I’m good!

7) Plentiful iPhone chargers

There was a time when I had one sole iPhone charger at home, so if my phone was running out of battery, I had to plug it into the charger in my bedroom. Not a huge problem, more of an annoyance that could be easily solved. Now, I keep iPhone chargers everywhere. There’s the one in my bedroom, the one next to my laptop (that usually sits on my dining room table at all times), the one in my living room, the one next to my desk. I hate when I have a low phone battery, and iPhone chargers are so cheap these days that I just have multiple options everywhere around my apartment. If you’re considering buying a new phone, upgrading from an older model to a iPhone 13 Pro Max refurbished allows you to experience improved performance and features without paying full price.

8) Sharpie ultra-fine point markers

When I worked in an office, I had a whole cup filled with colorful Sharpie markers and every week, I would choose a new color to write out my to-do lists. Choosing the new color was one of my greatest delights! Of course, I left the Sharpies at work when we left in March 2020 since I thought we would all be back to normal within a few weeks. I was so happy to be reunited with my Sharpie collection a few months later when we were allowed to come back to the office and pack up our desks! I still love choosing a new color every week. It’s such a small, satisfying joy.

9) Lined Post-It notes

I have been using these lined Post-It notes for years and years. I love that they are the perfect size to create a daily to-do list for work. I typically keep a running to-do list in a notebook and then I draw from that list to create a few daily to-dos every morning. Once everything on the Post-It is done, so is my day. (And the girls love when I crumple up the Post-It and leave it on my desk, so they can bat it around the apartment!)

10) Microfiber hair towel wrap

I think it was Suzanne who originally gave me the inspiration for this. Towel wraps for your hair! Instead of trying to tie my hair up in a towel that will inevitably fall out and frustrate me, these towel wraps are the perfect solution. They have a loop on one end of the wrap and a button at the other, and all I have to do is gather my hair into the wrap, twist the wrap, and then fit the loop around the button. Voila! Perfectly tied-up hair. It’s so comfortable that sometimes I keep my hair wrapped up for hours after my shower, oops.

What are some of your little pleasures?

Categories: Life

My Laundry Habits

I love talking about those little routine parts of our lives that we all do so differently. That’s why I wrote a two-part series on sleep. And have discussed my showering routine. Today, we’re going to talk about laundry.

The way I do laundry is going to be vastly, vastly different from the way other people do laundry because I am a single lady with no kids so I only have to worry about my own laundry. Which is very, very nice! So let’s dig into this topic.

How often I do laundry

In the past, my “tell” for when it was time to do laundry was when I was down to just a few pairs of underwear. But things changed when I moved into my current apartment because of my washer. The basin is so very tiny that I cannot do a regular load of clothes anymore. It was hard for me to gauge when I had enough laundry for a full load (usually, I had too much laundry) so now I use the basin as my laundry basket. Yep! Rather than sticking dirty clothes into a regular laundry basket that I keep in my bedroom or bathroom, everything goes right into the washer. Once the basin is nearly full, I will add in some other items – like my current pajamas, the lounge clothes I’ve been wearing around, etc. – and then pop in a Tide pod and go. Typically, I do one load of laundry every 7-10 days.

Separating laundry

Want to know one of my controversial opinions? I don’t believe in separating laundry by color. White shorts, black shirts, bright pink sports bras? It all goes into one load! And everything washes just fine! I have been doing my laundry this way for years and have never had an issue. So I do not do separate loads for my whites and my darks.

The types of laundry I do

There are five types of laundry I do regularly:

  • Clothes – Like I said above, I do not separate my clothing into whites and darks. I do one full load of clothing every 7-10 days.
  • Towels/washcloths – I do a separate load of towels, washcloths, and reusable cotton rounds. (I use washcloths + cotton rounds twice/daily for my skincare routine.) During this cycle, I will also throw in the hand towel I use in the bathroom, any kitchen towels I’ve been using, the towel wrap I use for my hair after a shower, and sometimes the mopping pad I used when cleaning my floors.
  • Bedding – I wash my pillowcases and fitted sheet.
  • Bras – I have two nice bras that I wash separately from the other clothes, on a delicate cycle.
  • Quilt – My apartment washer/dryer is not big enough to wash my quilt effectively, so I bring it to my mom’s to wash.

My laundry system

Here’s how my laundry process works:

Washing

  • Once I have filled up the washer basin with clothes that need to be washed, I will start a load.
  • After the clothes are done and transferred to the dryer, I’ll either do a load of towels/washcloths or bedding. I usually alternate which one I do. If I’m running low on washcloths, then I do towels/washcloths. If not, I’ll do my bedding. (I’m usually only washing my bedding on a monthly basis. IT SHOULD BE MORE OFTEN. I know that. I just can’t get into the habit of doing so.)
  • If it’s time to wash my bras, I’ll do a delicate cycle for them after my second load of laundry and then let them air dry.

Drying

  • I am particular about what clothes I allow into the dryer. All of my underwear, jeans/pants/shorts, sports bras, bralettes, and socks go into the dryer. For shirts, most get hung up to air dry (even some of my workout shirts if they are on the smaller side). I have a lot of cotton tees that will go in the dryer, especially if they are big on me. I take care of my dryer by hiring dryer vent cleaning services regularly. Dresses are air-dried. (To airdry, I just hang up the shirt/dress on a hanger and hang it on a shelf in my closet. I have wire shelving in my walk-in closet, so it’s easy to hang things from there.)
  • All towels, washcloths, cotton rounds, mopping pads, and bedding goes straight into the dryer.

Folding/Putting Away

I am okay at folding/putting away my laundry in a timely manner. There are some days when the last load will be in the dryer overnight if I’m tired. But usually, I put on a podcast and fold laundry on my kitchen table and it’s not a huge deal. It helps that it’s only my laundry I’m dealing with!

Laundry products I use

I’m not fancy with my laundry and I suppose I could look into more eco-friendly products than what I currently use, but it’s not something I have researched. Currently, I use Tide pods (I get the really big container that usually lasts me 8-10 months). I use the Tide 4-in-1 Ultra Oxi pods for cleaning my clothes and Tide Hygienic Clean Power Pods for towels and bedding. For my bras, I use Woolite Delicates laundry detergent. I buy a small bottle, which lasts a pretty long time for me. I don’t use any sort of dryer sheets or dryer balls in the dryer. My mom swears by them, but I guess I don’t really understand what they do, other than making my clothes smell nice. It doesn’t seem necessary.

And that’s my laundry routine! I’d love to hear about what yours looks like, but please don’t tell me if you’re appalled at how many weeks I go between washing my bedding. I’m a work in progress, okay?!

Categories: Life

What Is a Writing Date?

Tobia asked if I could talk more about my writing dates, which is something I talk about a lot, but I don’t think I’ve ever fully explained it. I thought it was a great idea for a blog post!

I looked through my blog archives to see if I could find out when we started our writing dates. I don’t know when the official start date was, but I do have a blog post from February 2013 where I talked about our writing dates, and I believe that’s the first time I mentioned it. So, we have been doing our writing dates for A FULL DECADE now! That’s crazy to think about.

(And slightly despairing. A full decade of near-weekly writing dates and not a single finished manuscript to speak of. Sigh.)

Our writing dates have gone through a whole lot of changes over these past 10 years. There have been pauses here and there, like when Mikaela had her babies and when Olive was going through cancer treatment. There was a shift from in-person writing dates to Zoom writing dates during the pandemic. We’ve tried many different Starbucks and Paneras, quitting one Starbucks because they kept their store way too cold and quitting another because Mikaela could never connect to their wifi. When we returned to in-person writing dates during the pandemic, we had to shift from Starbucks to Panera since Starbucks was only doing drive-thru and pickup options at that time.

Being flexible has been key for us to keep our writing dates sacred. For a while, we were doing Friday night writing dates and then that changed to Sunday morning and then to Saturday mornings and at some point last year, Mikaela needed Saturday midafternoon writing dates so she could help with naptime at home. Some weekends are busy, though, and we may not be able to meet for a writing date. Or we may have to try to squeeze it into a Friday night during dinnertime at Mikaela’s house.

We value this time together, though, both to have a set aside number of hours to work on our creative projects, and to have time for each other. So we make it a priority.

What do we do during our writing dates? Well, that has changed a lot over the years.

Originally, I was writing a novel, so I would spend my writing dates working on my novel. We’d get settled into our seats, chat for a little bit, and then work silently next to each other writing. At this time, Mikaela was also writing a novel (which she finished and was in the middle of editing when her daughter got sick). So, we would write, sometimes asking a question to the other if we needed feedback on something we just wrote, and then at the end of the writing date, we would read out loud what we wrote during the last hour to one another. This way, we could offer advice or give encouragement.

My problem with writing, however, is that I can never stay with one story. Or I’ll write 10,000 words of a story and suddenly feel like I need to change everything about it. It’s frustrating for Mikaela because she just wants me to write my novel and I am not great about being consistent. She knew something bad was coming when I’d start off a writing date with, “So I was thinking about my novel and…”

A few years ago, I finally came to terms with myself and set my novel-writing goal aside. Maybe one day I will come back to it and finally write that novel that is inside me, but I’m just not in the right headspace for it right now. Instead, I use our writing dates to work on blog posts, tackle my blog categorization project, and outline podcast episodes. Usually, I’ll come to our writing date with a specific idea of what I want to work on. (For example, during our most recent writing date over the weekend, my goal was to finish recategorizing all of my 2011 blog posts.)

Mikaela is working on her own creative project right now, which I won’t get into since she may not want me to talk about it! But we keep ourselves very busy with our own work. We’ll start the writing date by asking each other what we intend to work on and we’ll chit-chat with each other throughout the writing date.

Our writing dates last around 1.5 to 2 hours, and we probably devote half of that time to catching up with each other and the other half to working on our creative projects. Lately, we’ve been going to Panera (we used to have a fave Starbucks where all of the baristas knew our names, but her laptop couldn’t connect to their wifi for some reason). Since we live about 30 minutes from each other, we switch off which Panera we go to (there is one that is less than 10 minutes from her house, and one that is less than 10 minutes from mine).

These writing dates are a great touchpoint for me. I get to have some time with my best friend while also making progress on my creative projects. It’s truly become one of my favorite parts of the weekend, and I am so grateful I have a friend like Mikaela to have these dates with!

Any other questions about my writing dates? I’m happy to answer them!