It’s hard to believe it, but the first quarter of the year is behind us. Quarter two for me will involve some travel and hopefully fewer vet appointments for Dutch, ha. March was an interesting month because half of it was wonderful and the other half was not. But April feels like a fresh start and I’m feeling better than I have in a while. I can’t wait to see what this month has in store for me, but before that happens, let’s take a look back on the good moments of March:

1) Celebrating Dutch’s 15th birthday. Dutch turned 15 at the beginning of March, and it was an especially happy birthday because the day before, my mom and I took him in for an ultrasound to diagnose what was causing his high liver levels. We could have been given horrid news, like liver failure, but it turned out to be simple “gallbladder sludge” that will hopefully clear up after a round of meds. For Dutch’s birthday, my mom and I took him to Tijuana Flats and then sang happy birthday to him and let him eat part of a vanilla cupcake. Yes, we are those kind of dog parents.

2) Joining the gym. One of the brightest parts of March for me was finally joining the gym. It’s something I have wanted to do for a few months, and I can’t express enough how it is changing my life. I get to do spin again, which is my favorite way to work out, and I’ve even braved the scary weights area of the gym to do some strength training. (I stick to times when the gym is not as busy, usually Friday evenings and Sunday mornings.) I am so, so happy to be a gym goer!

3) Beauty and the Beast. You guys. YOU GUYS. I cannot get over this movie. I cried when it was over because I was so overcome by how perfect it was. Belle has always been my favorite Disney princess, and the songs were such an integral part of my childhood. I loved seeing them performed live-action on the screen. Emma Watson was perfection, and so was Josh Freaking Gad (love him). It lived up to my every expectation. I can’t wait to own it and watch it again and again and again.

4) Booking a flight to Puerto Rico. So, a lot happened in March and one of those things was that I decided I needed to cancel my trip to NYC. It was going to be a really expensive trip and it was making me anxious. But I still had a flight credit due to a flight I had booked but then couldn’t go on. I figured I was just going to have to eat the cost until a coworker mentioned that she was going to Puerto Rico for her honeymoon and how cheap the flights are. And so I looked it up, liked the price, texted my mom, and booked the tickets! I am way more excited to go to Puerto Rico than I ever was to visit NYC (tropical locales > busy cities). I still want to visit NYC, but I’m also really excited to explore Puerto Rico (and spend lots of time sipping fruity drinks on the beach).

5) S-Town. This was an interesting podcast series, though it was definitely way different than what I was expecting. I listened to the whole thing in three days, and I think it was much better in binge form than if they had released the episodes week by week. I really loved Brian Reed and his melodic voice, as well as the perfectly placed music cues. That reminded me a lot of Serial season one. I also could get enough of John B., though at times, he reminded me way too much of my father (eeks). What I liked most about this podcast was that three coworkers listened to it alongside me, so we had a lot of discussions about it. But it definitely wasn’t a Serial replacement and Sarah needs to release season three sooooooon.

6) A new primary care doctor. I finally, finally, finally found a great primary care doctor. I haven’t had one for well over a year. This doctor is young and very personable and I felt so comfortable talking to her, especially about the anxiety I experience. And she sees patients on Friday afternoons, which means no missing work for a doctor’s appointment (unless I’m legit sick, of course). I found her through ZocDoc, which allowed me to look for doctors in my area that accepted my insurance, as well as book the appointment online. I hate calling to book appointments because I get really tongue twisted and just say yes to any appointment they give me (10am on a Tuesday? I’ll be there!), so this was super convenient for me. (And no, I am not sponsored by them. Just telling you about a cool way to book medical appointments!)

7) Celebrating International Women’s Day with my girlfriends. It was so nice to celebrate International Women’s Day with some of my girlfriends! We met up at a restaurant downtown after work and had the best time catching up. The restaurant was super eclectic with a really diverse menu, but I had a hamburger because I’m so not an adventurous eater! It was a really good time and left me feeling so grateful for the people I have in my life.

8) Fiction writing. I’m not freelancing right now, which is giving me a whole lot more time to work on my fiction novel. I didn’t keep track of how many words I wrote in my novel in March, but I think I’m writing close to 5,000 words a week. It’s been so enjoyable and such a fun way to stretch my creative muscles. 2017 is the year I finally finish writing my novel, I know it!

9) A new windshield. So, randomly one Monday morning, I noticed that a small crack had appeared on my windshield. It started at the top of my windshield in the middle and traveled down. It was small, but I knew I’d need to get it fixed ASAP. Well, being the super adult I am, I kept putting off scheduling the glass repair, and every week, I noticed the crack got a tiny bit longer. It was nearing the driver’s side of the windshield, too, and I knew I had to stop putting it off and get it repaired. Well, it was probably the easiest car repair ever! I just filed a claim using my car insurance’s app and was able to schedule the service right from the app. (Living in the future is amazing.) The glass repair tech came Friday afternoon and within an hour, I had a new windshield! The tech also vacuumed my car and cleaned all of my windows (!). All in all, a supremely pleasant experience. (Made even better that glass repair/replacement is covered under my insurance. First time I’ve ever needed to use my insurance!)

10) My tribe. It’s easy for me to forget that I have a tribe. I didn’t always have a support system to lean on; I spent a lot of my early twenties pretty solitary. But March was a rough month for me and I wrote a vulnerable Instagram post about my struggles, the kind of post where I woke up the next day and desperately wanted to delete it. But in doing so, friends reached out to me and said, “Hey, I’m here.” I didn’t write that post so that my friends would do that. I wrote that post to share my struggle and to let other people who are struggling know it is okay and they will get through this. But the post helped me realize I need to be better about reaching out and that I have a solid support system to get me through the rough times.

What was a good thing that happened in March for you?

Happy last day of February! I can’t believe how fast this month zipped by. I felt very overwhelmed for much of the month, and I’m waiting for a time when my life will slow down and get boring again, but I’m not sure if that’s going to happen! (What happened to my plan-free weekends? Whimper.) In any event, I’m here to talk about the good things that happened in February, right? Here’s what I loved this month:

1) Pops’ successful back surgery. Early in February, Pops had surgery to take care of a bulging disc in his back. He’s been in chronic pain with it for years and he finally decided to do the surgery, even though he’s nearly 76 and there were a lot of warnings about undergoing such a major surgery at his age. But I think it just shows how much more life Pops wants to live; he doesn’t see himself slowing down anytime soon. And, thankfully, the surgery went great and he should be pain-free from here on out!

2) Helping Pops. Before Pops had his back surgery, the surgeon told us he should only need to be in the hospital for two days to recover. Well, that turned out to be a gross underestimate. He wound up staying in the hospital for more than two weeks, eleven of those days in a rehab facility. He was in a ton of pain following his surgery, and it was hard to see my usually strong and fearless Pops in such pain. He was also having trouble walking, due to the pain, but once he got to the rehab facility, things started progressing much faster since he was able to do more physical therapy. (He looked forward to his PT sessions and gladly completed any exercises they asked of him. He’s a badass, my Pops.) I tried to spend as much time as I could with Pops, knowing that he would need his family supporting him more than ever before. He was the one who took care of Grandma during all of her cancer battles – from shuffling her to chemo appointments to cleaning around the house – and I was grateful I was able to give back to him in this small way. At the end of the day, I just wanted him to know that even though Grandma is gone, he’s not alone and we’ll be there for him whenever he needs us.

3) Buying myself fresh flowers. After a brief hiatus from buying fresh flowers, I started doing so again this month just to give my home a little sprucing up. One week, I got myself some orange tulips, and another week, I went for sunflowers. There’s just something so nice about having a vase full of flowers to greet me every time I walk through the door.

4) Getting my taxes done. Taxes are filed and my return was accepted by the IRS! Woohoo! I’m also getting a nice, ole refund, which will be solely used to pay off my credit card. (Christmas + my birthday cruise + vet bills = a hit to my credit card.) I used H&R Block to file my taxes because I wasn’t sure how to appropriately declare freelance earnings (I didn’t make a crazy amount of money freelancing last year, but it was enough that I needed to report it.) I am used to using the free TurboTax system to file my taxes, so paying $275 for H&R Block was… unpleasant… but better to shell out some money and make sure they are done right, you know? Plus, the service I received from H&R Block was outstanding. They were so friendly and accommodating and didn’t make me feel like a total dunce. And look at what my tax specialist wrote on my packet! How sweet!

5) Pod Save America. This podcast is saving my life right now. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s four former Obama staffers who talk about what’s going on in politics and how to stay sane when the world has gone to shit. I have developed a ridiculous crush on Jon Lovett and find their ad spots to be hilarious (“Let’s say you sold your soul to the devil and are having trouble looking yourself in the mirror…”). Give it a listen if you’re having trouble finding hope in Trump’s America.

6) Amazon Prime. I signed up for Amazon Prime back in December, but only really used it to order Christmas presents and get that fab, two-day delivery. I didn’t use it again until this month and realized how joyous it is to run out of something I use often, order it through Amazon from the comfort of my home, and have it delivered to me within two days. No more rushing out to Target! It’s well worth the $11 a month. (Plus, free Kindle books! I downloaded 1984 for free last week!)

7) Mini golfing with book club. This year, my book club (which, really, I should just call it “my friends” because we are truly so much more than your average women’s book club) decided to think outside the box when it comes to our meetings and try new things. In February, we met for breakfast at a cute coffee shop down by the beach and then played a game of mini golf. I love mini golfing. It is one of my favorite activities and I don’t do it nearly enough. I ended up tying with my friend L., and came in second place. Woohoo! It was such a fun afternoon with some of my favorite ladies.

8) Dominic’s 2nd birthday party. My little nephew Dominic turned 2 years old this month and we celebrated with a get-together at a local park. The theme was Mickey Mouse, since he’s obsessed with him, and one of my SIL’s friends made this adorable “photobooth” to take pictures with. The bright spot of the party was that Pops was able to come and spend time with the family. It was so nice to see him up and about!

9) Resistance meetings. I’m part of a group of women who are active in the resistance efforts and we had our first meeting since the inauguration early in February. It was a large group of 12 women and as we went around the room introducing ourselves and saying the issue we are most concerned with, it was frightening that we each had a different, huge issue that was scaring us (for me, it was the potential of censorship of the media). We talked about how we can get involved and started writing postcards to our congresspeople. My friend, A., drove me home after the meeting and we spent the 25-minute drive venting about politics, so it was a healing night on all accounts.

10) Lady dates. My former roommate, B., and I have maintained our weekly “lady date night” ritual since our moves back in September. It was definitely a lot easier to coordinate our date nights when we lived together, but we still make it work! This month, we had dinner at one of our favorite South Tampa restaurants, Bella’s Italian Cafe; went for pedicures and then had pizookies at BJ’s Brewhouse; and enjoyed happy hour drinks and disgustingly good burgers at Doc B’s.

Goals for February

I set a few goals in February, my biggest one being not eating pizza for the entire month. While I did end up eating pizza once, it was a celebratory dinner where my mom picked up a pizza for Pops once he was out of the rehab facility. (Pops was not a fan of the food in there, haha!) I ate a few slices with him and don’t consider my pizza fast a fail. Life happens, you know? It’s the only time I ate it and mostly, I felt really good about not eating pizza and don’t even crave it. I’m sure I’ll eat pizza again, but I’m also feeling good about being very selective about when I do eat it. For my other goals, I finally finished updating my “Work With Me” page and added a “Portfolio” page to my blog. I didn’t adhere to my 9:30 bedtime, work out three times a week, or write 10,000 words in my novel. What can I say? Life was crazier than normal in February!

Here’s what I hope to accomplish in March:

• Join a gym. It’s time to finally bite the bullet and join a gym. I am more than ready for this.
• Go to bed at 9:30pm. Seriously, Steph. Do it! You will feel so much better!
• No more Starbucks breakfast. The unhealthy eating habit I’m trying to kick in March will be Starbucks breakfast. (I’m cutting out one unhealthy eating habit per month and seeing how it makes me feel. January was fast food, February was pizza.) Typically, I like to get a Frappuccino and a sausage, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich, and I get this combo 1-2 times a week. (It’s basically an entire day’s worth of calories in one sitting.) I can’t completely cut out Starbucks, since it’s where my writing partner and I meet for our writing dates, but I’m going to make sure I eat breakfast at home beforehand and order a simple iced coffee when I’m there.

What were some of the highlights of February for you?

I don’t know how to cleanly wrap up this first month of 2017. It started out fine, but then you-know-who was inaugurated and everything went to hell. Anxiety and panic attacks and sleepless nights have become the norm for me in the past week, and I’m having to take breaks from social media from time to time for my mental sanity. We knew these four years were going to be a battle, but damn. Anybody else missing Obama (or hell, Bush?!) something fierce?

In any event, my post today is about the positives of January, not the negatives. It’s so easy to get bogged down in negativity, especially now, which is why I want to bring this series back for 2017. I want to force myself to name 10 positive things that happened over my month. It was easy to come up with this list, so I can only hope it remains that way.

Here’s what I loved in January:

1) Participating in the largest protest in U.S. history.

What can I say about the Women’s March St. Pete that I haven’t already said? It was a historic moment and I’m so glad I was a part of it. And also very glad a local blog friend told me I could ride with her and her family to the event, which is the only reason I was able to go without falling apart from anxiety! (Thank you, April!) It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment decision to go, as we began making plans the day before the march, which is so not my M.O. But I also realized it was important to attend and I knew I wanted to be there, surrounded by other like-minded individuals.

2) Getting my writing published on Thought Catalog – multiple times!

I am so grateful for the opportunity to have my writing published on Thought Catalog. After my original post on social anxiety was published (and received great feedback), some of my other blog posts were featured on the site. It’s really thrilling to have my writing on such a popular website and it’s helping me to truly live out my theme word of the year, expose.

3) Taking long walks.

I haven’t been able to figure out how to fit in more intense workouts with my schedule lately, but what I have been doing is taking a few loops around my apartment community a few times a week. It’s nearly 2 miles when I walk it three times around and it takes me a little less than 40 minutes (I’m a slow walker!). It’s not high intensity exercise and I probably should be doing more for my workouts, but man, I really enjoy just getting out into the fresh air after a day of working inside and taking a long walk while listening to a podcast or audiobook. It’s good for my soul!

4) Bullet journaling.

For Christmas, I received a bullet journal and I’ve been using it to jot down some weekly goals and to-dos, as well as keep track of my finances. I’m probably not using my journal “correctly” and I’m definitely not doing anything fancy with it. It’s mostly just a checklist of to-dos! Who knows if I’ll stick with it, but I’m enjoying it for now!

5) Lunch with Pops.

Earlier in January, I met my mom and grandpa (affectionately called Pops) for lunch at a steakhouse. It was an impromptu decision and I could tell how much it made his day to be asked to go out to lunch. It’s the little things, sometimes, that can make the biggest impact.

6) Putting together my bookshelf.

I bought a small bookshelf from Wal-Mart early in the month and while putting it together was rather frustrating (I am so not the builder type), I managed to get it together and now have a space for some of my books and other knick-knacks. Every time I come into my room and see it, it makes me happy. Yay!

7) Seeing the movies Jackie and Hidden Figures.

Both of the movies I saw this month were about events that happened in the early 1960s, so that’s interesting and a bit timely for what’s going on in the U.S. right now. I cried silently during the entirety of Jackie, which gave a glimpse of what Jackie Kennedy went through in the seconds, hours, days, and weeks after her husband John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I thought the cinematography was brilliant, and that’s not something I usually even notice in films. And Hidden Figures was another fantastic movie. I laughed and cried and felt better about the world after watching that movie. The casting was perfect and I’d rewatch it in a heartbeat.

8) A pedicure and froyo date with my mom.

After the Women’s March, I met up with my mom to get a pedicure (and, oh believe me, it felt sensational after being on my feet all day!) and then have froyo. I talked to her about the march and I’m really grateful that she let me talk about it, even though she isn’t all that interested in politics. It was great to reflect on the march with her.

9) A new laptop.

My faithful Toshiba laptop finally died on me last week. I had settled in for a day working from home, turned on the computer, and after loading for 30 seconds, it shut down. I tried reviving it again and again and again with a slew of tactics, but nothing worked. It meant a) I had to go into the office on a day I was hoping to work from my bed in yoga pants and b) I had to invest in a new computer. I knew this was going to happen sooner or later (the laptop was 5 years old and couldn’t handle Windows updates anymore), and every time I turned it on, I prayed it was still working. I like to say that even my laptop didn’t want to live in this America. 😉 Thankfully, I was able to get a new laptop – and a fancy touchscreen one at that!

10) A proactive dermatologist.

I went in for my annual skin checkup last week. I have a whole bunch of moles all over my body and last year, I had one of them biopsied, which turned out to be benign. This year, the dermatologist seemed concerned about that same mole. Apparently, it had grown back in an odd color and she considered having it biopsied again. (And when I told her my mom had noticed the mole and thought it looked strange, she seemed to make up her mind. Mother’s intuition? Haha.) This time, she did a punch biopsy which takes a much deeper layer of skin than a typical biopsy. It also means stitches! So, yes, I left my dermatologist appointment with stitches in my back. And now my mom has to come over every other day to clean and bandage the site, since it’s in an area I can’t reach. Crazy, huh? I’m just grateful that my dermatologist is proactive and decided to retest the area just to make doubly sure it’s a benign mole. (I’ll find out in another week what the results are.)

What were some of the things you loved in January?