Recurring Series

Week in the Life: Monday, November 7, 2022

7:15 a.m.: My gentle Sleep Cycle alarm starts going off. Lila is laying with me in bed, so I wrap an arm around her and snuggle her close to my chest. This is the only time she lets me snuggle her close like this, and I love it so much!

7:30 a.m.: I get up, pee, pull my messy hair back into a pony, and throw on a shirt and cotton shorts. Then, I eat a simple breakfast (string cheese and yogurt) while reading blogs. I start a load of laundry, feed the cats, and tidy up the kitchen.

8:30 a.m.: I sit down at my computer to start my workday. My morning is fairly uneventful. I answer emails, have a check-in via Slack with one of my writers, and spot-check a bunch of website pages that were posted to clients’ websites last week to make sure they’re formatted and linked out correctly.

10:15 a.m.: I take a break to do today’s Wordle (a hard one! It took me 5 tries), transfer the laundry from the washer to the dryer, do my morning skincare routine, and make my bed.

10:45 a.m.: Back to work. I answer a Facetime call from my mom at some point and we make plans for lunch, and also go off on a tangent of looking up tickets for Jim Gaffigan (he’s coming to Tampa in February!).

11:20 a.m.: I stop working, put on real-person clothes, and then pick up my mom for lunch. We have a short-and-sweet lunch date at Chick-Fil-A (our fave!) and I return home to see that my Book of the Month box arrived. Yay! Since it’s my birthday month, I got to pick out a free book and I chose Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.

12:45 p.m.: Back to work! I answer more emails, handle some website posting, and take care of an assignment issue that cropped up (which entails playing around with a few of the writers’ assignments to make sure everything is even).

2:00 p.m.: I start feeling sleepy, so I decide to take a nap on the couch.

3:00 p.m.: Nap is over and I feel very refreshed! I pop a cookie in the microwave to warm it up (20 seconds turns any cookie soft and gooey and delicious!) and then return to my desk where I answer some emails (once I became a manager, keeping up with my inbox became a full-time job!) and continue publishing website content.

4:45 p.m.: I’m at a natural stopping point so I put on my sneakers and head outside for my daily walk. It is gorgeous outside. In the low 80s but with a really nice breeze. It felt divine! During the walk, I leave a video for Mikaela and pick up my mail (two political mailers, a credit card offer, and the weekly junk mailer, bleh).

5:15 p.m.: I need to log a bit more time of work, so I settle in to spend an hour or so working on one of my long-term projects (building out a content library for our writers). It’s one of those big projects that I have to work on in tiny bits, so I try to set aside an hour or two a day to work on it. However, when work gets busy, it’s the first thing to fall off my to-do list. Thankfully, I’m in a slower period of my month so it’s something I can easily tackle. Once I get to a stopping point (for today, at least) in that project, I start looking over the schedule for one of our contractors. I need to make sure she has everything she needs (client notes, content plans, etc.) for her November assignments. I make some notes of what I need to follow up on tomorrow, and then I’m done for the day.

6:40 p.m.: I take a hot bubble bath and it feels so good! I read my book and enjoy the bubbles.

7:00 p.m.: I preheat the oven and while it’s doing its thing, I read some blogs, work on this post, and fold laundry. Can you tell I’m a multitasker? Oops! I also pop my pizza in the oven.

7:30 p.m.: Pizza is done! It’s time to settle on the couch to watch an episode of Love Is Blind. Ooh, the men this season are driving me crazy. Almost all of them are just the epitome of toxic masculinity. Gross.

8:45 p.m.: I sit down to continue working on this post and reading blogs. I take breaks to start my nighttime routine: putting away my laundry, doing my skincare routine, cleaning up the kitchen, and brushing my teeth.

10:15 p.m.: Nighttime routine is done, so it’s finally time to get in bed with my book. While I read, the cats jump on the bed to snuggle with me. Eventually, I close my book and queue up an ASMR video to lull me to sleep.

11:10 p.m.: Lights out!

Are you a multitasker, or do you like doing just one thing at a time?

monday in the life: 2020, 2017, 2016, 2015. and 2014

Categories: Recurring Series

Thank God It’s Sunday (v. 1)

The high of my week was starting a daily walking exercise with my mom. It’s been so fun! Every day, we’re aiming to go for a 15-20 minute walk. No matter what, we have to get this walk done! We do a daily text check-in to keep each other honest. At first, I was planning on combining these daily walks with some Peloton workouts, but then I decided I wanted to keep things as easy as possible for me. That’s how to build a habit, after all. You have to start with the simplest daily step and for me, it’s taking a single loop around my apartment complex once a day. Eventually, I’ll add time to these daily walks and also add in a Peloton strength or spin workout a few times a week, but for now, this is what feels good and feels easy enough to accomplish daily.

The low of my week was FINDING MY PRESCRIPTION SUNGLASSES AFTER I HAD ORDERED NEW ONES. Didn’t everyone tell me this would happen? And it did. My old sunglasses had been hiding on this little ledge that I didn’t know existed behind my gearshift. For a few weeks, I had been hearing this weird knocking sound whenever I made a turn; it just sounded like something was loose and banging from one side of the car to the other when I turned (but I could tell it was in this spot behind the gearshift since that’s where the noise was coming from). I couldn’t figure out what was causing this noise! Was it due to the loose cards I had sitting in the space behind my gear shift? Maybe. I removed the cards… but the noise persisted. Maybe there was something loose in my car door that was causing the noise… but there was nothing there. One day, unable to figure out WHERE this sound was coming from, I stuck my hand behind the little space behind the gearshift, and lo and behold, there was this little ledge I had never known about. On the ledge were my sunglasses. I wasn’t even happy about finding them because my new sunglasses have been ordered and were shipped a few days ago. I was mostly just annoyed at myself. Argh!

One nagging task I crossed off my to-do list this week was nothing. Eeks! I didn’t really get a ton accomplished this week, aside from starting NaBloPoMo! So let’s set some to-dos for this upcoming week: I need to do laundry, clean my bathroom, rehang my world map, and run the Roomba.

I’m currently reading The Smart One by Jennifer Close and The Bodyguard by Katherine Center. The Smart One has been an interesting read; it’s very character-driven, and the characters are wholly unlikable, but I’m enjoying it so far. Katherine Center is a hit-or-miss author for me, but her newest release is working really well for me right now.

A podcast episode I enjoyed was Hallmark Movies Explained on The Popcast. You guyssss. This episode had me dying, mostly at all the super ridiculous plotlines of Hallmark movies (both real and imagined). It is their best work so far.

The best money I spent this week was on booking our last cruise excursion. I’ve been holding off on booking our Jamaica excursion (river tubing). I always like booking through the cruise ship when I can, but the excursion I wanted to do was fully booked by the time we got around the booking our excursions. Ugh! I was able to find the same excursion through other excursion agencies, but kept forgetting to actually book it. On Thursday, I finally decided to book the damn excursion finally and decided to check Royal Caribbean’s website first to see if a few spots had opened up—and they had! Woohoo! I was able to book our excursion through the cruise line, and I’m really excited about it. We’re going to have so much fun. We leave 3 weeks from today!

This weekend, I had a lovely hair appointment on Friday afternoon where I got my highlights touched up and a cute haircut (see above; I joined the curtain bangs trend!). In the evening, I went over to Bri’s to record our last episode of season 2! Woohoo! On Saturday, I attended a celebration of life event for my aunt’s mother who passed away, had a writing date with Mikaela and Eleni, and then spent the rest of the evening watching episodes of Love Is Blind (#guiltypleasure). And today, the plan is to watch football with the fam and make my oh-so-famous oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. (Here’s the recipe I use!)

What was a bright spot of your weekend?

Categories: Recurring Series

Ask Stephany Anything | Round 1

Happy Saturday, friends! And welcome to the first round of questions in Ask Stephany Anything. You can still ask me your burning questions – either comment on this post with your questions or fill out my Google form. For today, I picked out five questions to answer, so let’s dive in:

From Elisabeth: I’m curious if you always had pets growing up. I feel like you’ve probably mentioned this, but I can’t remember.

I did always have pets growing up! When I was in early elementary school, we had a bird named Rachel and also two hamsters. I named my hamster Shadow and he was the sweetest little bebe. I can’t remember what my brother’s hamster was named, but he was a little shit. Every time we tried to take him out of the cage, he would bite us and run away.

When I was in fourth grade, my parents surprised my brother and me with a dog! They kept the whole process a secret from us and then, one afternoon, picked us up early from school to drive to the SPCA to pick her up. WE WERE SHOCKED! She was a beagle-terrier mix named Minnie and I loved her with my whole heart and soul. She died at age 10 from cancer, but she was the best girl ever.

Also from Elisabeth: What is your absolute DREAM job (the sky is the limit – you would, in this universe, have all the skills needed to complete said job so if your answer was “be a famous rock singer”, you’d be able to sing/play an instrument already sort of thing).

My dream job has not changed since I was a kid: I would love to be an author. Specifically, I want to write romance novels. It’s been something I’ve wanted to do my whole life but it is really hard to write a novel and most authors don’t make a full-time living from writing. Plus, there’s the whole marketing side of being an author, which feels very overwhelming to think about. But still, if the sky is the limit and I have all of the skills and time and passion to make it happen, I would be a successful romance novelist.

From Lisa: if you could live anywhere in the US, where would you live? Does your answer change for when you are retired?

The only other place I could see myself moving to would be North Carolina (Charlotte or Asheville, specifically). I think the weather there would really suit me, and the pace of life would be similar to what I have in Florida. Mainly, I just want to be able to experience all four seasons without dealing with the drudgery of winter for too long. However, I don’t think I would ever move from where I live right now because this is where my family and friends are, and having that community is extremely important to me. I also live in a very progressive area of Florida, and that matters greatly to me.

Florida tends to be the place where people retire, so I can’t see myself leaving the state for retirement. The real question is what Florida will look like in 30-40 years and how climate change will affect our state. Sea levels are continuing to rise, we continue to break heat records, and hurricanes continue to become more powerful. It’s hard to predict how all of this will impact our state.

From Suzanne: When I first started reading your blog, you had a dog. (Sweet Dutch. I remember him fondly.) How did you go from a dog person to a cat person? Or maybe you were always a cat-and-dog person?

Awww, thank you for remembering my sweet boy. He was the bestest.

I’ve never been anti-cat. It was just that, in my family, we had dogs. I think part of the reason is that my grandma was allergic to cats, but after she died, my cousin adopted two cats and I loved petting them when I came over to visit.

The last couple of years of Dutch’s life were really, really hard. He had to be walked at least every couple of hours because he couldn’t hold his bladder as long as he used to. This meant that someone always had to let him out at lunchtime (I worked five days a week in an office that was 30 minutes away; thankfully, my mom’s office was nearby so she often took care of this for me) and I could rarely make evening plans because I’d need to be home for Dutch’s after-work walk. Nighttime was also extremely difficult for him. He was restless and anxious, and it would take him forever to settle down to sleep. (I’m talking 2+ hours of him whining and moving around in bed.) Eventually, the vet put him on tramadol to help with his nighttime anxiety/restlessness, which definitely helped. Many times, I would come home to find Dutch had made a mess, and then walked all over the mess. So not only did I have to clean up the mess, but I’d also have to bathe him. (This was a sign of his declining cognitive health.) I was happy to take care of Dutch in the last years of his life, but it was a lot to deal with on my own.

I knew I would adopt another pet once Dutch passed because they make life so much sweeter. Even as difficult as it was to deal with Dutch dying, I didn’t regret a single minute I had with him. He made my life a billion times better. At the time, I was still working full-time in an office (with a work-from-home day allowed here and there) and didn’t see that changing anytime soon. I knew having a cat would be so much easier. For one, they are easier for us apartment-dwellers as they don’t need to be walked for every bathroom break. For another, I could leave a cat alone for far longer than I could leave a dog. Having a cat just seemed like the easier option for a single person like me.

What I didn’t expect was to fall head over heels for my girls. I expected to love them, of course, but I honestly thought I had experienced the one true love of my life in Dutch, and didn’t think I could feel that intensely for my cats. After all, aren’t cats aloof and mean? WELL. Ellie and Lila sure showed me. I love those girls with the same level of intensity I loved Dutch. And being aloof and mean? Not them! They have oodles of personality, so much love to give, and the sweetest little faces that make me grateful every day that I get to be their mom.

I am still a dog person. I love my fur-brother and -sister to death. Chip and Lucy are my babies and I would do anything for them. But now, I am also a cat person.

From San: I know you’re very close with your brother, but did you ever want to have a sister?

YES. I always wanted a sister! In fact, growing up, I would have gladly given up my brother to have a sister. (Sorry, Mark.) My brother and I did not get along at all when we were kids, and I always wished I had a sister I could hang out with when things got rough between us. I was always a little peeved that my mom didn’t try to have a third kid because wouldn’t it have been so nice to have a little sister? Sigh.

Now that I’m older and my brother and I do get along very well, I am glad I have him and also glad that I don’t have another sibling. It’s nice that it’s just the three of us and that I don’t have to share my mom with someone else. 🙂

What is your “sky-is-the-limit dream job”?

Categories: Recurring Series

Everyday Moments | October 2022

1 – Helping my mom with her car-buying process. She bought a 2023 Kia Sportage!

2 – Family day. My favorite! And the weather was so beautiful with temps in the 70s. Ahh.

3 – Lila comforting me when I was crying. She was so sweet! She jumped on the couch, put her paw on my back, and meowed at me. Then she snuggled next to me and let me pet her.

4 – Chauffeuring Mom around! (Her car won’t be delivered until late October.) She needed to go back to the Ford dealership to transfer her tag/title and finish the selling process (she sold her car back to the dealership). Then, in the evening, I took her to a hair appointment she had scheduled.

5 – A mid-day nap that felt so refreshing!

6 – Coworking with Bri so I could help her with certain tasks she can’t do right now, as she is largely immobile with her broken ankle (aka, getting her food, keeping her water cup filled, etc.)

7 – A fun birthday party for my cousin’s daughter where I got to see a lot of family members.

8 – A reading date with Amber and a relaxing pedicure by myself.

9 – A relaxing day at my mom’s, watching football with the fam. I love these days so much!

10 – Sleeping in and being able to slowly ease into my workday. The benefits of having a flexible work life! Yes, it meant I was working a little bit into the evening but it was well worth it to have a calm morning.

11 – Turkey chili for dinner! This is my go-to recipe. I omit the chilies and add cheese and sour cream.

12 – Ellie sitting in an empty Chewy box throughout the day. I love how much she loves an empty box!

13 – Leftovers for lunch AND dinner. Saving money and not having to cook – works for me!

14 – Coworking again with Bri. It means a lot that she reached out to me to help her, as I know it’s not in her nature.

15 – Recording episodes of The Friendship Paradox with Bri. Afterward, Bri’s husband ordered pizza and we watched college football together.

16 – Waking up on the early side for a Sunday so I was able to get some blog work done, run the Roomba, and read for a bit before heading over to my mom’s for the day.

17 – A Sausage Egg McMuffin for breakfast. My favorite breakfast of all time, and I’m not ashamed to say it.

18 – A therapy appointment when I needed it most. I am so, so glad I found this therapist.

19 – A day off work! I got to sleep in, get some stuff done, and just enjoy turning off my email and Slack messages for a day.

20 – Rescuing Mom from an event she wasn’t having fun at (#introvertprobz). She invited me into her house to watch last night’s episode of The Amazing Race and found out Robert was making tacos, so I got to have a delicious meal made for me, too! Wins all around.

21 – An easy workday followed by a wonderful afternoon nap.

22 – Sleeping in and then going on a Target mini-shopping spree (bought earrings, pajamas, and some Christmassy pillows).

23 – Tua is back on the field! And the Dolphins broke their losing streak. I was a bit emotional seeing him back on the field, considering the way he left the game three-and-a-half weeks ago (a truly horrifying concussion response). We didn’t know if he had any brain function or feeling in his limbs when he left the field on a stretcher, which was so scary. (This is when my love for football is so complicated. I love the game so much, but hate how violent it can be.) It was good to see him out there and to see him having fun. If he wants to be out on the field and his family is okay with him being on the field, then that’s all that matters.

24 – A lovely dinner out with Mom. We got to chit-chat a bit about our upcoming cruise, which got me so excited!

25 – Going for a walk outside in the evening. It was glorious outside and felt good to be outside and move my body after a busy workday.

26 – Book club! We went to a fave Mexican place, Eleni was handed around the table, and we had a good chat about our pick this month, which was Lessons in Chemistry.

27 – Ordering in pizza and starting the new season of Nailed It. (Why is it only 4 episodes, though?!)

28 – Talking to Bri about an anxiety spiral I was having (on this day, I was loaning my car to my mom for an event she had to go to for work, so of course, I was convinced she was going to get into an accident and die). She gave me a wonderful pep talk and just talking through the spiral with someone helped SO MUCH. I never want to burden other people with my anxiety spirals and moody episodes because I don’t want to bring them down, but friends have told me time and time again that they WANT me to reach out when I’m feeling like this because they want to be able to help me. This was such a good example of why I need to do that: I felt so much more relaxed after talking to Bri and the anxiety spiral was so minimal afterward that it was basically non-existent.

29 – My mom finally getting her new car! It was supposed to arrive a week ago, but there were all these transportation issues. It is so high-tech and beautiful!

30 – Making Halloween treat bags with Mom to pass out to trick-or-treaters tomorrow. We filled up bags with candy, fun erasers, pencils, notepads, bubbles, and stickers.

31 – Halloween! I went over to my mom’s to pass out our treat bags, although we got barely any kiddos (less than 20, I think). But it was still fun to dress up as a cat, spend time with my mom, and see some really cute kids all dressed up.

Tell me a bright moment of October for you!

Categories: Recurring Series

TGIF (v. 45)

The high of my week was doing my lil bathroom refresh! After many months of acquiring new items for my bathroom, I finally had everything ready to go. I changed out the shower curtain (and the liner, which was very, very gross) and got a new shower curtain rod. I added new pink towels (and they’re the luxurious bath sheets, which are so much bigger than a regular towel and make me feel like a goddess when I’m all wrapped up). I replaced the rugs. It’s a whole bunch of little things, but it makes the bathroom feel different and new.

The low of my week was driving anxiety. I have never really had anxiety about driving. I am a confident driver and have been that way since I started driving at 15. I live in a place where I have to drive everywhere, no matter where I need to go. Lately, though, I’ve been having a lot of anxiety while driving, especially when driving at night. My specific fear is that I will cause a terrible accident (or worse, harm a pedestrian). In my two decades of driving, I have never caused an accident. (#knockonwood) I’d like to think I’m a safe driver, so I really don’t know where this anxiety is coming from. It’s gotten so bad lately that I may schedule an emergency therapy appointment so we can work through this together, and I can hopefully start feeling less anxious about driving.

An Internet find that I loved was this silly Reel that I have shared with way too many people. 🙂

One nagging task I marked off my to-do list this week was mailing off my ballot! It’s been sitting on my kitchen table for way too long, so I finally filled it out and dropped it off yesterday at a dropbox (which was actually at my home library, how convenient!). So glad to have that done, although I have very little faith that Florida will do the right thing and kick DeSantis and Rubio out of office, ugh.

I’m currently reading Everything’s Trash, But It’s Okay by Phoebe Robinson and To Sir Phillip, With Love by Julia Quinn (the fifth Bridgerton book—Eloise’s story!). I am not too far into either of them (about 100 pages), but I’m enjoying both right now.

A podcast episode I enjoyed was Young Black Voters in Atlanta on The Wilderness. I have really enjoyed this season of The Wilderness, which is a Crooked Media podcast that takes a series of focus groups that happen all across the US and tries to figure out what people are looking for in their politicians and how Democrats can better meet the needs of its people. I like this podcast because they speak to a lot of people who are apathetic about politics and voting in general. I have found it fascinating because I am locked in my liberal white bubble where we all hate Trump and Republicans as a whole, but that’s not the case for everyone (obviously, considering how popular he still is, but these aren’t your typical MAGA Republicans who love Trump; they are just looking for someone to shake up the status quo, and Trump certainly does that). Anyway, this episode was particularly enlightening.

The best money I spent this week was on my cruise excursions! We’ll be on a ship in just 30 days! Eeks. We finally decided to book all of our shore excursions (we’re stopping in the Bahamas, Haiti, and Jamaica) and it all feels so real now. We’re going to do a helium balloon ride in the Bahamas, a paint-and-sip excursion in Haiti, and river tubing in Jamaica. I can’t wait!

My plans this weekend include hopefully not feeling too crummy, as I’m getting both my flu shot and my bivalent Covid booster this afternoon. Last time, I started taking Tylenol right after getting my booster and I didn’t have any side effects. I don’t know if that’s why I felt okay, but I’m going to try it again and see what happens. If all goes well, I’ll spend Saturday afternoon with Mikaela and Eleni and enjoy football with the fam on Sunday. If all does not go well, I will be spending the weekend on the couch, watching lots of TV.

What was the best thing you spent money on this week?