1) On Monday morning, I met up with my mom to do a workout at 9Round Fitness, a kickboxing gym. I love the idea behind this gym: There are 9 stations set up with a different workout (a mix of cardio and kickboxing workouts) at each station. Every 3 minutes you switch to the next station until you do the full 9 rounds. There are punching bags and speed bags and other boxing equipment so you can really get out your aggression if you need to! There are no set class times; you just start the first round when you arrive and go from there, which I think is a really interesting concept. We did the beginner workout, which was really hard and had me sore for days! My mom ended up joining the gym, but I’m going to stick to my Peloton workouts for now. Still, it was fun to go and experiment with a different style of workout!

2) I’ve been underwhelmed by Book of the Month’s selections for the past few months. I’ve skipped three of the last four months (and only got a book in August because it was the latest Helen Hoang romance, but it’s not a book I was super invested in buying). They’re doing a lot of popcorn thrillers and literary fiction lately. The popcorn thrillers are fun, but those are books I’d rather just get from the library while most of BOTM’s literary fiction selections are books I’m not interested in reading. What a first-world dilemma, huh?

3) This might be kind of gross, but I’ve had a popcorn hull stuck somewhere in a back molar all week long, ever since I had popcorn for a snack on Monday afternoon. I have been flossing the hell out of my back teeth to try to get it out, but no dice. I always forget about it until I have to eat something and then I can feel the sharp edge cutting into my gums when I bite down on food. I think my mom has a water flosser that I’m going to try to use, otherwise, I’ll have to make an emergency dentist appointment and I really don’t want to do that.

4) This is going to be an odd complaint, considering we’re still in a pandemic and we need to be cautious about opening up our lives. But I’m feeling really sensitive about my lack of a social life. I never had a crazy social life before the pandemic, but I got out more than I’m doing now. The pandemic allowed all of those feelings of social anxiety and FOMO to lay dormant for a while since I didn’t have to worry about what my friends were doing without me. We were all staying home! But now things are changing and it’s hard to open Instagram and see all of these fun pictures of people hanging out while I’m being a sad little hermit at home. I feel like my social anxiety is at an all-time high because I haven’t had to work on my social skills for such a long time. I’m trying to remember to be kind to myself, that Instagram is only a highlight reel, that we’re all still struggling in our own ways, and that it’s okay if my social tolerance is much, much lower than other people’s. I am still a valued person in my friends’ lives, even if I’m not the one going out with them to fun places and events every other week, or the one sending them funny memes every day. But there are times when being kind to myself is really fucking hard and I just want myself to be different: more sociable, more outgoing, more energetic. Less serious and quiet and anxious. Good days and bad days. We all have them.

5) Let’s not end this post on a bummer note because it’s the weekend and I don’t plan on turning on my work computer at all! Today, I have a facial at 2 and then I plan on coming home, taking a nap, and eating pizza for dinner while watching Nailed It. Tomorrow, I have my usual writing date with Mikaela and then the rest of my day to myself. And Sunday is football with the fam day! It should be a good weekend, albeit a slow one.

What are your weekend plans?

1) It’s been a really rough week over here. Maybe a rough few weeks. Work has been insanely stressful. I’m talking, I spend the majority of my workday with my stomach in knots, thinking about how much work I have to do and how far behind I keep falling. It’s a bit demoralizing. The other reason for my hard few weeks is that I’m dealing with the aftereffects of a breakup. Even though it was for the best (I wasn’t getting what I needed out of the relationship and it was becoming increasingly dissatisfying to be with someone who couldn’t make time for me), I am still very sad. I had a lot of hope in this relationship, and I’m just very disappointed in the way things ended.

2) In happier news, my new TV and rug were delivered last week and I am just so very thrilled with both purchases. It’s amazing to not have to use my little laptop to watch TV now and I find myself much more inclined to lounge on the couch and binge TV (which I’ve done a few times since I got it, whoops). The rug is also perfect, though I will probably size up to a 9×12 for my next area rug because I wanted my entire sectional to sit over it and, length-wise, it’s about an inch or two short. But it’s a fun pattern and I love having such a bigger rug space in my living room. I rolled up my old rug and set it to the side while I put down the new rug, intending to give the old rug a good vacuum before donating it to Goodwill, but the cats have decided that it’s their most favorite place to sleep now and I worry they might murder me if I get rid of it. Eeks!

3) I haven’t done a monthly goals post in a while for a few reasons. There was the fact that I wasn’t accomplishing any of my goals. It gets annoying to move your goals from one month to the next over and over again. There was the fact that I didn’t feel super inspired about goal-setting, which happens to me from time to time. When I’m struggling to name even one or two goals I want to accomplish in a given month, it’s time to set goal-setting aside for just a little bit. But now I feel as if I’m ready to bring back those monthly goals, especially considering we’re quickly approaching the last quarter of 2021 (wut). I want to look over the yearly goals I set for myself and figure out which ones I can accomplish by the end of the year, which will guide the monthly goals I set for myself in October, November, and December. And that feels really exciting to think about! I haven’t felt excited by goal-setting in more than a few months, so I’m glad my goal-setting mojo is coming back.

4) Tomorrow, my nephew, J., turns 13! A teenager! That’s so crazy to think about—it’s also crazy to think about the ways my life has shifted dramatically since the day he was born. For example, when he was born, I was doing a teaching internship at an elementary school and was just one semester away from graduating with a degree in education. !! (I am so, so glad I did not stay on that path. I am not cut out to be a teacher, that’s for sure.) I can’t believe he’s just two years away from high school and not long after that, will be driving. What even is time?!

5) My weekend is going to be a bit hectic, as I’m going to spend a good chunk of time working. Ugh. I’m also going to attend J.’s birthday party and have a Saturday evening writing date with Mikaela, which will be a fun change. The Panera we go to has an Ulta right next door and I might pop in after our writing date to look at their makeup. Retail therapy at its finest!

What are your weekend plans?