Stephany Writes

Categories: Life

10 Things I Loved in June

1) Freelancing. After a freelance slump for a few months, I picked up some writing gigs in June and it was so nice to get back into the swing of things. I enjoyed having a break from freelancing because it allowed me to focus more on my novel and gain back some free time, but it was a hit to my budget. My freelance income solely goes toward debt repayment and savings, so it’s not like I use it for bills or anything like that, but it just feels like I’m able to get ahead a bit more when I have extra income coming in. I’m excited to be working with a new company writing short articles (2-5 a week), and one of my old clients contacted me for some content editing tasks. Hooray!

2) My mom joining my gym. My mom has been very anti-gym, preferring running as her main form of exercise. She hasn’t been able to run lately because the mosquitoes are so bad now. My mom tends to be more prone to getting bit and she has tried everything under the sun to protect herself. She’s just naturally sweet and the mosquitoes flock to her! She decided to join my gym because she just wasn’t working out at the level she wanted to (she’s not a fan of cardio machines, but loves doing exercise classes) on her own. So yay! I’m so happy to have a workout buddy.

3) Getting a massage that didn’t hurt. This is huge for me, guys. I have been a firm believer that massages are just “not for me.” I figured, due to being highly sensitive, my body just couldn’t handle massages – even simple pressure hurt too much. But I was having some neck pain and I decided to get a massage and see if that released some of the tension I was experiencing. I asked the massage therapist for a light, relaxing massage and boy oh boy, did she make me a believer in the therapeutic benefits of massage. She was phenomenal and I felt so loose and relaxed and happy throughout the entire appointment. I was actually upset when our hour was up – usually, I’m watching the clock closely, praying for the hour to be over as quickly as possible. I’m going to try to make massages a quarterly part of my budget because the one I got this month was so beneficial, both physically and mentally.

4) A pool day with friends. Early in the month, a friend sent out an invite to a bunch of girls to come over to her place for a pool day. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t ideal (June was a crazy rainy month!), but it was fun to spend a few hours with my girlfriends, chowing down on guac and chips, teaching them how to use Instagram Stories, and laughing our butts off.

5) Getting tough with customer service. On my trip to Puerto Rico, the face of my Fitbit cracked. I don’t even know how it happened! I just remember looking down at it when I was relaxing by the pool and seeing a huge crack down the middle of the screen. So, I googled and saw that there was a 50/50 chance Fitbit would replace my tracker for free. I took a chance and logged onto their online chat to see about getting my Fitbit replaced. At first, they didn’t want to do anything about my issue, aside from giving me 25% off a new Fitbit (um, no). But I decided to channel my inner customer service badass and got tough with them, explaining that this was my first Fitbit and how unhappy I was that my screen just cracked for no reason and the only thing they wanted to do was give me a slight discount? Well, friends, getting tough worked because, after all of that, Fitbit sent me a brand-new tracker free of charge! I’m not one to ever get tough with customer service reps (tough in a respectful and nice way!) because I’m the opposite of confrontational, but I wasn’t taking no for an answer this time around – and it worked!

6) Going to a baseball game with my nephew. My mom’s work regularly gets tickets to the Rays games, and when she got tickets for a recent game on a Monday night, she asked if I wanted to come with her and my older nephew, J. Of course I said yes! My nephew has suddenly morphed into this serious baseball fan who knows stats and players and trivia. It’s so cool to see my nephew just fall in love with baseball. He thoroughly enjoyed himself at the game and made us stay until the last inning, even though the Rays were losing. I’m not someone who would ever call herself a baseball fan, but watching the game through the eyes of my eight-year-old nephew was pretty darn special.

7) The revamped Stuff Mom Never Told You. I was really sad when Cristen and Caroline announced they were leaving Stuff Mom Never Told You. I honestly thought it was the end of the podcast, but in May, SMNTY came back with new hosts and a new look and feel! I am really, really enjoying Emilie and Bridget’s viewpoints and they’ve talked about some really interesting topics, like Women and Pyramid Schemes and The Resistance Will Be Marketed. If you’ve never listened to SMNTY before, I encourage you to give it a try. It’s such a wonderfully uplifting yet informational podcast.

8) Finally getting my tattoo. I finally did it! I’ve had people ask me why I decided to do it now, and I have to say that it was due to my friend, M., who made it happen. She just decided we were going to go for our consultation and then made the decision of us getting it done the following weekend. Since I’ve been dragging my feet about getting my tattoo for three years, I needed her to make me do it! The tattoo experience was so much more painful than I was expecting (apparently, I didn’t reach the magical endorphin stage that happens with tattoos – mine only took 15 minutes), but it wasn’t so bad that I’d never get another tattoo again. I’m really happy with my new tat, though, and it feels so perfectly me.

9) A bookish DIY event. Near the end of June, I got together with some of my friends for do-it-yourself book totes! It was the perfect event for me because it didn’t require too much artsy creativity. All I had to do was mix up the paint color I wanted and then just dab it onto the tote through the stencil. All of our bags turned out so perfect and I’d do this event again in a heartbeat.

10) My first dental cleaning in over five years. Look, I’m not proud of this, but it is what it is. I am terrified of the dentist and once two years had passed without a dental cleaning, it was just easier to not go. I didn’t want to be berated about not getting a cleaning (my last two dental hygienists had done that), so even though I’ve been paying for dental insurance for the past five years, I’ve never used it. Finally, though, I got it done. It took less than 30 minutes, it was so easy, and my teeth felt so damn clean afterward. The best part was that nobody even said a word about my lack of dental appointments. (WHEW!) And yes, my next appointment in six months is all scheduled and on the calendar. There’s no reason for me to not get my twice-yearly cleanings done anymore!

What was the best thing that happened to you in June?

Categories: Life

What It Means to Grow Up Poor

It means never staying in the same house or apartment for very long. By the time I was 18, I had moved at least 10 times, maybe more since I can’t really remember life before I was five. Sometimes, we moved because of an eviction notice (perks of having a father with an addiction to gambling) and sometimes, we moved because the rent was raised too much. I never had that family home that seems to prevalent among other people my age. Home was constantly changing.

It means not getting to do all of the fun extracurriculars that other people around me got to do. I remember stuffing down invitations to baton twirling classes (this was a thing in the 90s, I guess) and Girl Scouts deep into my backpack because I knew my parents couldn’t afford it and I didn’t want to make them feel bad. It meant that when I came home from school one day and excitedly exclaimed that I had gotten a part in a play, my mom didn’t react with the same level of excitement. Instead, it was worry about how to afford a costume for the play. While I did cheerleading for a year in elementary school and a year in high school, as well as a year of t-ball, extracurriculars just weren’t something we had the money for.

It means I wasn’t one of the lucky ones who was given a car for her sixteenth birthday. All of my friends got cars, both brand-spankin’-new and older models, but I was the one who constantly had to bum for rides or cross my fingers that my mom would let me borrow her car when I needed it. It felt shameful and embarrassing, and I just wanted to be like every other person in my high school who got to zip off to school and work and dates in their car.

It means college was a privilege, not an expectation. I was the first in my family to go to college, and that in itself was an amazing accomplishment. I was lucky enough to qualify for financial aid as well as a state-funded scholarship program that covered 75% of my tuition and my books, but I still had to take out a few loans to cover the rest of the fees. The majority of my friends don’t have to worry about school loans – their parents paid their way through college. That wasn’t my reality and it isn’t the reality of those of us who grew up poor. There just isn’t extra money to set aside for college.

It means I never learned proper money management techniques, something that has followed me into adulthood. Truthfully, I’ve stopped letting my low-income childhood define how I view money now, but I also can’t deny that I didn’t grow up in a household that taught me how to properly manage my money. I didn’t know anything about emergency savings or 401ks or investments or any of that. I knew more about check advances and loans than I did about good money behaviors. I had to teach myself how to manage money in a responsible way.

It means vacations were not a thing. We took one family vacation to Ohio when I was around eight or nine, which mainly involved us just driving around to my dad’s old hangout spots and seeing family. We took day trips to Disney World from time to time, and twice spent a week at the beach, but that was about it until I graduated from college and my mom and I took our first cruise. Vacations aren’t a thing when you’re barely getting by, which is why it irritates me so much when people talk about travel as if it’s this grand thing everyone should want to do. Or that people prioritize travel over other things and that’s why they travel so often. Travel is a privilege that many people cannot afford, and my family certainly could not when I was growing up.

It means always having outdated cars that embarrassed the hell out of my brother and me. There was the church van my mom drove for a while when she was in between cars. There was the old car my uncle gave us where the windshield wipers had to be operated with pliers and a friend once remarked to me that she thought the car was going to fall apart every time she saw me open the door. There was the car that stalled every thirty seconds when it was in reverse (no joke – my mom, brother, and I uncontrollably laugh when we remember a time it took us at least 10 minutes to reverse from a parking spot one morning). And the car that had to have a bungee cord tying down the front hood because it wouldn’t stay closed. We can laugh at these horrific cars now, but man, were they embarrassing when I was a kid.

It means fights upon fights upon fights. It means nights when I crawled underneath my bed with a pillow, crushing it over my ears to drown out the yells and screams. Finances are what married couples fight about most, and thus, it’s what my parents constantly fought about. In fact, I think that’s all they fought about. (Well, also my dad’s gambling addiction and how much time he spent away from home.) But finances were the crux of every fight, and I grew up fearful every time money was brought up.

It means that I might not have had all of the money to do whatever I wanted, but I did have all the love in the world. I never doubted, not once, that my parents wanted what was best for me and loved me and my brother fiercely. They tried to protect us from their money problems as much as they could. My mom gave up so much so that my brother and I could have a good life. She didn’t even have a room of her own to sleep in for seven or eight years after my parents separated! She would go without whenever my brother or I needed something and tried her damnedest to make sure we were happy.

And we were happy. We may have been poor, but we were happy. I don’t believe in the adage that money cannot buy happiness because hell yes it can, but I also believe that you can be happy even when you’re worrying about money. I had a mom who loved me beyond belief, who cheered me on in everything I did, who was sitting front-row seat with a beaming smile at that play she worried about affording, who didn’t blink an eye when I told her I wanted to change majors when I was nearly done with college. She let me drive her car whenever I needed it and let me live rent-free as I finished my schooling.

Growing up poor was not the path I wanted to take, but it was the path I was given, and I’d like to believe I have done everything to rise above it. I am solidly middle class now, and I can afford to save and take vacations. I still worry about money all the time because of the way I grew up, but it reminds me never to take my life and what I’ve accomplished for granted. I was the first in my family to graduate with a Bachelor’s degree, and that’s a significant accomplishment when you grow up poor. I wasn’t supposed to have these opportunities, but I saw how my parents struggled and I never wanted that for my life. I wanted something different, so I did everything in my power to make it happen.

Categories: Life

My Apartment: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

I moved into my apartment nine months ago now, and I realize I’ve never done any sort of apartment tour. Alas, I won’t be doing that today (I’ll sprinkle some photos throughout this post, but don’t expect anything exciting. I’m no decorator.) But Kate wrote a post last week detailing the good and the bad about her new apartment, and it sparked a blog post idea in me. So, let’s chat about the good, the bad, and the ugly about my apartment.

The Good

It’s small. My apartment is tiny at just 515 square feet. It’s composed of two sections: the front, which features my kitchen and living room, separated by a large kitchen island; and the back, which has my bedroom, bathroom, and walk-in closet. It’s so tiny that I can essentially see my front door when I’m laying in bed. It’s so tiny that I can have a podcast playing on the other side of the apartment and still clearly hear it. But I love the size. I toured this apartment back in 2014 when I was originally looking to move out on my own, and it stuck with me over the next two years. It’s just absolutely perfect for me, as a single lady living with a 10-lb dachshund.

I have my own washer and dryer. You guyssss, I cannot live without a washer and dryer in my apartment. I’ve done it before and there is just nothing more convenient than popping in a load of wash whenever I want to. No schlepping it over to a laundry room and hoping there’s a washer available! This washer and dryer is a bit of a downgrade from my previous two apartments (it’s stackable), but it works for me. I do a few loads every week it seems, between my clothes and throw rugs and Dutch’s blankets and my sheets, so my water bill is never quite my favorite to receive, but the convenience is everything to me.

I have beautiful wood flooring. I mean, it’s fake wood, but whatever. It’s gorgeous and it’s exactly what I need since I have a senior-aged dog who has tons of accidents. Cleaning up pee from wood floors? Not a prob, Bob! Of course, he does tend to pee in my bedroom, which is carpeted, but I recently learned that a steam vacuum cleans up stains from that like magic. Hooray! Anyway, I love my wood flooring so much. It’s perfect! And if you ever need professional help in keeping your carpets and wood floors spotless, don’t hesitate to contact Lake Charles Cleaners for expert cleaning services.

I’m on the first floor. Since I have to take Dutch out 6+ times a day, being on a first-floor unit was a must. Having to carry him up and down stairs is not my idea of a good time, and it’s just nice to be able to walk right out my front door whenever he has to go out. (It’s especially great when it’s 3AM and he needs to pee, sigh.) Thankfully, I haven’t had any problems with loud upstairs neighbors and I count my lucky stars for that.

The Bad

I can’t use my patio. I have a great view of a pond from my patio, but I never go out there because it’s just not comfortable to sit outside on my patio. It’s unscreened and I know I would spend more time slapping away mosquitoes or freaking out about bees/wasps than enjoying myself.

The appliances drip. My apartment has really old appliances and plumbing, so both my kitchen sink and tub have fickle faucets that have to be screwed tightly in order to keep them from dripping. I’ve had maintenance look at the sink and tub, but whatever they did (or didn’t do?) didn’t fix the problem. I think it’s time to call in a reliable plumbing service like plumbing services in Ontario, CA to properly address these issues. In addition to managing the faucets, I’m troubleshooting water softeners to ensure they are not contributing to the persisting issues in my plumbing. Considering the age and condition of your plumbing, installing a sump pump could help alleviate potential issues with water management and prevent further damage to your apartment. Consulting with plumbers in maui can provide valuable insights and assistance in assessing and addressing any plumbing concerns you may have. So make sure to hire an expert plumber like this plumber in florida.

The apartment gym is terrible. Ugh, this gym, you guys. I haven’t had to belong to an actual gym in years because I’ve had great apartment gyms to go to. The one at my last apartment was phenomenal and even had spin bikes! But this one is tiny and only holds an elliptical, treadmill, recumbent bike, and some free weights. And that would be okay, but the gym doesn’t open until 6AM on the weekdays and 8AM on the weekends. Since I have to be in the shower getting ready for the day at 6AM, that means no morning workouts and I really enjoy working out in the morning much more than I do in the evening. But, hey, this terrible gym forced me to become a member at LA Fitness and now I get to do spin again, so maybe it was for the best.

The Ugly

My cabinets are hideous. They were the first thing I noticed when I walked into my apartment for the first time and I think the first thing I texted to my mom was, “The cabinets are so ugly!” And then I immediately started googling tips on covering up ugly cabinets. I’ve decided to leave them be, mostly because I’m not much of a DIY-decorator person. And now the cabinets don’t really bother me. Don’t get me wrong – I still hate them and I wish there was something I could do to make them prettier, but I just try to pretend they aren’t as hideous as I think they are.

The oven is super old. The refrigerator and dishwasher are both brand new, so the oven sticks out in my kitchen with its off-white color and coil cooktop. I’ve lived in fancy apartments for the last few years that had glass stovetops, so it was a bit of a bummer to have to go back to an old oven with a coil cooktop. And the oven really does not cook well. It gets smoky really easily – even if I’m just roasting veggies! – so I don’t really love using it.

Furthermore, we are also looking for a professional fire watch service like this Fire Watch Company in Tamarac to implement a fire watch as the fire system became impaired.

And there you have it! Truthfully, even though I had a few more “hates” about my apartment, I truly love this little place of mine. Sometimes, I look around and think to myself that everything here is mine and this is my life and I’ve built it all for myself. It feels surreal sometimes. I love my little apartment so very much and I’m proud to call it home.

What is something you love and loathe about your current home?

Categories: Life

10 Things I Loved in May

1) My vacation to Puerto Rico. Spending five days in Puerto Rico was exactly what I needed. My mom and I have taken a vacation together in May every year since I graduated college in 2011. While I missed doing our usual cruise vacation, it was nice to switch things up and actually explore an island we’d stopped on a cruise once. We hiked to a waterfall, rode horses, did a walking tour, explored one of the forts, and relaxed at the beach, so we definitely enjoyed ourselves to the fullest! (But next year, we’re doing a cruise and I’ve already started pricing it out, ha!)

2) Flying for only the second time. Since I’m within driving distance of five major cruise ports and have so many wonderful cities also within driving distance, I haven’t had the opportunity to fly much in my life. My family didn’t have the means to travel when I was a kid; the only vacation we took was to Ohio and my dad drove all 14 hours there. So I was especially excited to fly to Puerto Rico and found the whole experience thrilling. I know, I know, those of you experienced flyers are probably rolling your eyes at me, but I can’t help it! I loved being in the airport, waiting on the ground to ascend into the clouds, the take-off and landing… it all made me so grateful. I’ll actually be flying again later this year when I take a weekend trip to Asheville with some girlfriends, so look at me! Multiple flights in one year. 🙂

3) Finding a new dentist and being cavity free, despite not having had a cleaning in 5+ years. I really hate going to the dentist. I have so much anxiety about it that I haven’t had a proper cleaning in at least five years. Maybe longer. And yet… I pay for dental insurance. I should use it, right? Well, I finally booked a consultation with a new dentist (using ZocDoc – man, I love that site!) and I really loved the dentist I found. The office is just 15 minutes from my work, they do Friday afternoon appointments, and the dentist was super friendly. Plus, I didn’t have any cavities! The reason I finally booked this appointment was because I was having some minor tooth sensitivity whenever I drank cold water, and I was worried I had cavities or some sort of gum disease, but nope. Guys, if you have had a lot of cavities in your life, please don’t think it has anything to do with anything you are or aren’t doing. It has a lot to do with genetics, in my opinion. I take care of my teeth, but I don’t floss daily and sometimes I’m too tired at night to brush them (I’m sorry, this is gross), so it’s alllll genetics for why I didn’t have any cavities after not having a proper dental cleaning in half a decade. I’ll go in for an official cleaning next month, which I’m already nervous about, but I’m glad I finally found a dentist I like and this means I am all caught up with all my medical visits! I have an OB/GYN, a primary doc, a dermatologist, and now a dentist. Woohoo!

4) Mother’s Day brunch. For Mother’s Day, my mom requested brunch and asked me for some recommendations. We ended up at Metro Diner. We had a pretty long wait since everyone and their mother (ha) was celebrating the day, but it was well worth it. I ordered cinnamon raisin pecan French toast that was out of this world. My brother came with my nephews, and my stepdad was in town, so it was nice for all of us to get together and celebrate Mom!

5) Taking a week off social media and reading the news. Last week (starting the 22nd), I decided to take a full week off social media and reading the news. I was starting to feel upset every time I opened up Instagram to see another cute couple photo or scrolled through Twitter to read terrible news stories. I just needed a little break to quiet my mind. So, spur of the moment on Sunday evening, after sending a slew of tweets that I promptly deleted, I removed Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook from my phone. It was the best decision. By Monday afternoon, my mind felt silent for the first time in weeks and it just felt so good to take time away from this need to document my life. I get into this mindset where I think in terms of tweets (as in, how to reframe this thought into 140 characters?!) or in terms of how to Instagram the different moments of my life. I started missing social media by Friday, but it was really nice to just get away and focus on living life off-screen for a bit.

6) Spending a day documenting my life through #lifecaptcha. Erin, someone I’ve known through blogging for a very long time, started this really cool social media experiment called #lifecaptcha. On the 19th of every month, you document your life hour-by-hour. At the 44th minute of every hour, you take a picture and post it to your Instagram. I opted to use Instagram Stories because I didn’t want to clog up my feed with photos and since Instagram doesn’t display photos chronologically anymore, I didn’t want my photos getting out of order. But it was so much fun! I hope I remember to play along again in June.

7) Taking a half-day after a night of miserable sleep. Okay, anyone who is a mother can go right ahead and roll your eyes at me, but indeed I did take a half-sick day after only getting four hours of sleep the night before. First, Dutch didn’t settle down until close to 11:30. There were some extra trips outside and then a lot of him whining and rustling around on the bed. It happens at least a few times a week, so I’m used to it. What I am not used to is waking up at 3:30 to the sound of him peeing on my bed. Isn’t that lovely, huh? I had to get up, strip the bed and immediately put my sheets in the washer. I also had to clean the mattress as best I could. Sigh. And then since I couldn’t exactly sleep on my bed, I was basically up for the day. I felt like a zombie during the morning and I decided I just needed to go home, take a nap, and try to do a little work from home in the evening. Which is exactly what I did and I have no regrets!

8) Buying some new summer clothes at Old Navy. My wardrobe was basically begging for some new summer clothes because I don’t really own tank tops and all of my shorts feel a little too tight to wear comfortably right now. And we’re already hitting 90 degrees here in Florida, so I basically needed some summer clothes in order to walk outside without feeling like dying. Off to Old Navy I went and they were having a 30% off shorts and 40% off tanks sale! I got myself a new pair of jean shorts and three new tanks – all stuff I feel great in. I don’t wear tanks a ton because I don’t like the way my arms look in them, but I’ve decided to say to hell with that and wear them anyway. My comfort > society’s standards for beauty.

9) Healthy lady dates. My friend, B., and I try to get together once a week for a “lady date.” (B. is also my former roomie!) Usually, we end up eating something entirely unhealthy, but B. was the first person I told about my 30×30 challenge and she was completely on board and told me that we’d just have to switch our lady dates from “going to X restaurant and ordering something unhealthy” to healthy lady dates. Two weeks ago, we picked up subs from Publix and went to a local park for a picnic and then a two-mile walk. And last week, she came to my place and we cooked a healthy dinner and dessert. Hooray for healthy lady dates and friends who support your crazy goals!

10) Steam cleaning my carpet. This is so boringly adult, but it has made me so happy. My apartment only has carpet in the bedroom, but after just eight months of living here, it has become really gross thanks to a little senior sausage who has a lot of accidents. There were dark spots all over the bedroom and they seriously stressed me out. I just hated looking at them! So my mom brought over her steam vacuum last weekend and we proceeded to clean the heck out of my carpet. I was skeptical it would work – the stains have been there for months – but it did! There are certain areas that I’ll need to go over again, but it looks so much better. Check out this before and after!

What was a shining moment for you in May?

Categories: Life

10 Things I Loved in April

And it’s May! April was a pretty crazy month – my apartment was fumigated, I got a nasty stomach bug, and it was my first full month on anxiety meds. But throughout all of that, there were a ton of great moments and happiness. I really, really loved April and it was truly a great month for me. Here are the 10 best things about my month:

1. A sleepover at my mom’s. My apartment was fumigated early in the month, so Dutch and I stayed with my mom for a few days. And it was really fun to have a sleepover with her! We made dinner together one night, we watched a lot of TV, and having a helping hand with Dutch was soooo nice. (Mom also got to witness Dutch’s middle-of-the-night restlessness, as he was up from midnight – 2:30AM the first night. Yay.)

2. Breakfast dates with my friend, A., exploring coffee shops around the area. My friend, A., wanted to start exploring all of the different coffee shops around our area and invited me along on her journey. In April, we went to three coffee shops: Banyan Cafe, Mity Nice Cafe, and Bandit Coffee Company. So far, Banyan has my heart for its delicious food and even better coffee. Mity Nice was okay, but Bandit was a little too hipster for my liking. We’ve also had some of our friends join us for the dates. Coffee + good food + girl talk? Perfect!

3. One month on Lexapro. I’ve been on Lexapro, an antidepressant that’s also used for generalized anxiety disorder, for a little over a month now. I’ve been hesitant to seek out meds for my anxiety, not because I think there’s anything wrong with taking meds, but because I thought that maybe my anxiety wasn’t “bad enough” and maybe I was being a drama queen. I also worried that because I wasn’t a nervous wreck every single moment of every single day that it wouldn’t work for me. Well, I finally spoke to a doctor and got a prescription because my anxiety was getting progressively worse and I wanted to see if it would make me feel even a tiny bit better. And yes. YES. This stuff works. I feel more stable and able to handle life. Little things that used to send me into a tailspin no longer do. I don’t feel as if there’s an elephant sitting on my chest anymore. So, three cheers to Lexapro and lessened anxiety symptoms!

4. Teaching my nephew how to play Clue. Clue is one of my favorite board games and at a recent Family Game Night, my nephew pulled this game out and asked to play it. When I said it might be too complicated for him, he looked at me and said sweetly, “But you can teach me.” Well, all right then! So, I’ve been trying to teach him how to play the game and it’s been so much fun. He even won a game and was so thrilled! It was adorable. Of course, it’s a little weird to say, “So, there’s been a murder…” to your eight-year-old nephew, but alas, I don’t think I’ve given him any nightmares.

5. An Easter picnic. My mom organized a picnic at a local park with my family for Easter, and it was a ton of fun! We had nearly 20 people, so it was a great turnout. We used to do picnics at this park all the time and it’s one of my more fond memories. Grandma’s presence was definitely missed – with any family gathering, she is – but we enjoyed eating tons of yummy food and catching up with one another. My mom even had an egg hunt for the littles!

6. A great haircut. My hairstylist of nearly 15 years left to pursue a different career path, and I was really, really bummed about it. She was someone who took my hair from dark brown to blonde in one sitting, cut my hair to donate to Locks of Love, and dealt with all my different hair moods. I was worried about getting a new hairstylist because it felt like nobody could make my hair look as good as Hailey did (seriously – every time I went to a different stylist over the past 15 years, it turned out awful!) Well, I had my first haircut with my new stylist, someone Hailey recommended to me, and she did a fantastic job! It is a huge sigh of relief to know that I have another great hairstylist to go to, someone I can trust with my hair. My hair is such a defining feature of me, and if that makes me sound shallow, so be it. But I’m glad to know I don’t have to worry about terrible haircuts anytime soon.

7. Lovett or Leave It. This is the only podcast I listen to the minute it’s downloaded on my podcast app. It’s a game-show-style podcast that talks about what’s going on in the news in a way that doesn’t make you want to cry or throw things (which is basically what I want to do every time I open up Twitter). Jon Lovett, one of the hosts of Pod Save America, is the host of this podcast (hence the name) and brings on three guests to play games like “OK Stop,” in which they watch a news clip and stop it at various times to talk about what’s being said and the “Rant Wheel,” which has various news-worthy topics (everything from Jared Kushner to S-Town) for Jon to rant about. It’s fantastic and makes me laugh and Jon Lovett is everything to me.

8. My mom taking care of me. It’s true what they say, you’re never too old to need your mom. This month, my mom took care of me in myriad ways: letting me stay with her while my apartment was fumigated, bringing me soup and taking me to urgent care when I got sick, and helping me out by lending me her car while mine was in the shop for a day. The thing about being single is that you don’t have that person to help you out when things get hairy. It means you have to rely on the kindness of other people, and while I have plenty of friends who are willing to help me out, there’s truly nothing like family, and knowing I still have my mom to be there for me, even though I’m 29 and independent, is one of the most comforting feelings in the world.

9. A picnic with my work ladies. I am grateful that I have a handful of coworkers that have become good friends of mine, and one such friend recently went to France and came back with wine for us to share. So, last Friday afternoon, we went down to the little beach near where we work and enjoyed wine from France, as well as an assortment of delicious treats, like fruit, Nutella, cheese, crackers, and cookies. I’m not much of a wino, so I can’t tell you if the wine was any good (ha), but what I loved most was just gathering with my friends and enjoying the sunshine, ocean breeze, and conversation.

10. Sportsfest 2017. Sportsfest was incredibly fun and incredibly challenging. I spent the month leading up to the event trying to talk myself into going because I knew it wasn’t really my “scene” (hot beach, loud music, crowds, doing athletic events, etc.), but I also wanted to kick my social anxiety in the teeth and go do something I wouldn’t normally do. Thankfully, two of my close girlfriends were going to the event, so that helped ease my anxiety a bit. And it ended up being so much fun! I don’t think I was very much help due to my lack of athletic ability (my strategy for dodgeball was just “don’t get hit”), but I was an extra body and a good cheerleader. I was there for six hours, walked over 11,000 steps, and even though I meticulously applied sunscreen, got a bit burnt. At the end of the day, my feet and ankles were trashed from walking barefoot in the hot sand for the entire day. But I did it and I showed my social anxiety who is boss and I had fun and I cannot WAIT for Sportsfest 2018.

What are some highlights of April for you?