Loving… the slow packing process. Gosh, I love packing. And I love it because a) I’m only packing up my own stuff and b) it fulfills something deep within my organizing soul. Right now, I’m not packing up much. Every day, I pick a few things to pack away (mostly things on the walls or kitchen items I know I won’t need anytime soon). I’m also going through the difficult process of culling my book collection. It needs to be done and it means there will be room on my shelves for MOAR BOOKS, but it’s a hard process.
Loathing… high electric bills. I just paid $271 for my electric bill in September, which makes me want to throw up. Almost $300 for a 715-square-foot apartment! It’s never been this high, even during the height of summer. Yes, I keep my AC running hard (70 degrees at night, 73 degrees during the day), but even still, this feels excessive. I did some research on my past bills – in July 2024, I actually used more energy (by 154 kWh) but paid almost $10 less. This year, the energy charges have increased by 35% and boy, am I feeling it. I found this thread on the Florida subreddit and it makes me feel less crazy.
Reading… a few books. I’ve picked up Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, which I can tell is just going to make me feel bad about my sleeping habits. Since that’s a dense nonfiction book, I’m putting it down every 50 or so pages for a romance, and right now, I’m reading Any Trope but You by Victoria Lavine. I’ve only read about 30 pages, and I’m not sure if I’m going to stick with it. And on audio, I’m about halfway through Hestia Strikes a Match by Christine Grillo. It’s good, but I’m kinda tired with the narrator. Basically, my reading life is GOING GREAT.
Watching… football. It’s going to be a bad year to be a Dolphins fan. We look embarrassingly bad, and I don’t think our head coach is going to make it very far into the season before he’s axed. I’m trying to figure out what other team I’ll be rooting for this year, since the Dolphins have failed me so spectacularly. Maybe the 49ers, since they’re my brother’s favorite team. Or maybe I’ll go rogue and root for the Eagles. (It is Superman’s favorite team, after all, and I’m still obsessed with him.)
Listening to… Teaching Texas. I feel like someone in this blogging community recommended this podcast to me, but I can’t remember who. It is so good. It’s the story of how textbooks come together, and how a couple with zero experience in education somehow became big players in that world. They had a very specific Christian worldview and wanted things like slavery and the Holocaust whitewashed. What’s wild is that this directly impacted me because these were the textbooks I was learning from as a child! I still remember the day I sat in a college classroom, learning about the truth behind Christopher Columbus, and someone in class raising their hand to say, “Why weren’t we taught this in school?” I think the host of this podcast does a fantastic job of explaining the impact of this kind of rhetoric being infused into textbooks and not letting any of her interview subjects off the hook.
Anticipating… a very busy October. It’s going to be quite the month for me! First, there’s the London trip. My mom and I leave in THIRTEEN DAYS! Yesterday, my mom asked if it was too early to start packing. Ha! We are so excited! And then when I come back from London, I’ll be spending the rest of the month packing and moving! I was able to get my move-in day switched from September 27th to October 8th, which I’m really happy about. We fly back on October 7th, so I’ll be able to get the keys and check out the space the day after I come home. No post-vacation blues for me! And then I’ll do a slow move-in process throughout the month. I’ll probably do the full move-in (furniture and boxes) the last week of October, which will give me two weekends to clean my old apartment before it’s time to turn in the keys.
Thinking about… my budget. I’m having some anxiety about my increased living expenses (the increase will be around $350) and a little bit of, “Who do you think you are to rent a two-bedroom apartment? You are not Ms. Moneybags!” I know I will have to get a bit stricter with my budget, but there are so many easy ways to cut down expenses. (Hello, how about I stop spending $200 a month on takeout?) And honestly, when I think about the pros and cons of staying put, there is only one pro on the list: cheap rent. And while that’s a very important reason to stay put (and the reason I’ve stayed for more years than I planned), it’s not enough for me anymore. I know I can afford these increased living expenses, and it’ll be good for me to follow a stricter budget, I think.
Buying... little things for the new apartment. Mostly the boring purchases, like toilet paper, paper towels, hand soap, etc. It’s the stuff I’ll want to have at my apartment during the slow move-in process. But you better believe I’ve been spending a lot of time looking up coffee tables and nightstands and bathroom decor. I need to be careful (see above!), but I think I can allow myself a few new things.
Grateful… for tiny joys. Things like mini chocolate ice cream cones, Facetiming with my mom, a cat jumping up on my desk and asking for pets, wood wick candles that make my apartment so cozy, pumpkin spice season, time blocking, the Happy Color app, and Marco Polos with Mikaela.
What are you currently anticipating?
