Recurring Series

Currently in September

Feeling… in a much more stable mental health space this month. And the funny thing is: I don’t know why! One of the changes I made over the past month was to start taking Lexapro at night, and maybe it’s a placebo effect, but it has made a real difference in my nighttime anxiety. But just like I can’t predict the days when I’ll feel bad, I also can’t predict the days I’ll feel good. For now, I’ve had many, many more good days than bad days this month and I am cherishing that.

Watching… new seasons of Survivor and The Amazing Race, as well as an older season of Masterchef (I’m in the middle of season 10 right now). Right now, reality TV is what my soul needs so that’s what I’m giving it.

Listening to… All-American: Venus and Serena. All American is a podcast series that spends every season focusing on a specific athlete and discussing the ups and downs of their sports career. Season 1 was all about Tiger Woods. I was super excited when they announced that the Williams sisters would be the focus of season 2. It’s been great to get an insight into their careers, as I don’t follow tennis very closely but I’ve always loosely followed what Venus and Serena were up to.

Grateful… that I didn’t break my toe! While it wasn’t fun getting injured on the last day of my vacation, I am grateful that it didn’t affect our plans too much and that the toe started feeling a lot better after a few days of ice and rest. I was in so much pain the first two days after the injury and I was convinced I had broken my toe (especially since it bruised up almost immediately), but I probably just strained a muscle or something during my tumble down the stairs.

Anticipating… recording the rest of season 2 of the podcast and launching it into the world! We still have three episodes of season 2 to record, and the plan is to record those in mid-October. However, everything is a little up in the air at this point as my poor podcast bestie broke her ankle and is having surgery on it this week. We’re taking things day by day, but I’m hoping she’ll be able to record a few weeks post-surgery! Our trailer for season 2 will likely launch on October 11th, so be on the lookout!

Loathing… Florida’s governor. He’s always been a despicable human (remember how he opened bowling alleys and movie theaters back up in May of 2020?). But he hit a new low when he promised a bunch of immigrants who are seeking asylum (a LEGAL process!) jobs and homes and shipped them off to Martha’s Vineyard… where there were no jobs and no homes. The amount of callous disregard for human life (ya know, from the party that believes in a “right to life”) Republicans have is staggering, and I just don’t know what I will do if DeSantis doesn’t lose his governorship this year. I am so sad for these people who were stranded in an unfamiliar place, pawns in a governor’s political scheme, and so grateful for the people in Massachusetts that stepped up. Once again, I’ll say it: You cannot be a Christian, you cannot believe in the teachings of Jesus, teachings of peace, hope, and love to EVERYONE, and be a Republican. There is just no way.

Thinking about… my next apartment. You guys, I am already so, so excited to move next year. I still have more than a year until that will happen! I need to temper myself. But I can’t help looking at apartment listings right now. Most apartments have virtual tours of some of their floor plans and it’s so fun to take a look and imagine myself in these beautiful apartments. My hope is to find a 2-bedroom, 1-bathroom apartment within my price range. It’s a bit harder to find those floor plans because 2 bed/2 baths are much more popular, but I really don’t need a second bathroom (nor do I want to have to keep TWO bathrooms clean). I’m also excited to not have to contend with three flights of stairs every day! I’m hoping to find a first-floor apartment or, at worst, a second-floor apartment. Third-floor apartments are for the birds.

Needing… to decide on our cruise excursions! Okay, so we still have quite a while until the cruise (62 days!) but I’ve been starting to peruse the cruise excursion options at our ports of call (we’ll be stopping in Jamaica, Haiti, and Royal Caribbean’s private island in The Bahamas). So far, we’re thinking about river tubing in Jamaica, doing a “sip and paint” excursion in Haiti, and the Bahamas is a bit up in the air. We’ll be there on my birthday, so I have my eye on a hot air balloon ride, since I’ve never done one.

Buying… hurricane supplies. Ha! As I type up this post over the weekend, Florida is hunkering down for a hurricane. We’ve gotten real lucky this hurricane season, and from the latest hurricane trackers, it appears the Tampa Bay Area will be spared once again from a direct hit. But things were looking a little scary on Friday/early Saturday with the signs pointing to a potential Category 2 hurricane hitting us, so I got prepared! I bought a set of flashlights, bungee cords to tie my patio furniture to my balcony railing, an extra carrier for the cats, and lots and lots of snack foods. At this point, I’m expecting a lot of rain and wind, but nothing too serious. If things change, I’ll likely evacuate to my mom’s house with the cats. I don’t think it will come to that, but I’d always rather be over-prepared for emergencies like this.

Loving… football season (and the way my Dolphins have been playing!), the Fetch app, hurricane snacks, my apartment being decorated for fall, reorganization projects, Olive continuing to have clear scans 14 months post-treatment, breakfast for dinner, and when the cats show off on my Zoom work calls.

Categories: Recurring Series

TGIF (v. 43)

The high of my week was my beloved Miami Dolphins’ historic win over the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday! I think my heart rate is still trying to recover from that game. The Dolphins played like shit all throughout the first half and I was just hoping they could go into the locker room at halftime, adjust their strategy, and come out strong in the second half. But as anyone who has been a fan of a struggling team knows, I had very little hope of anything good happening. AND YET. They pulled out a win, overcame a 21-point deficit, and made history. Did you know that teams down 21+ points going into the 4th quarter are 0-711? Well, now that stat is 1-711 because the Dolphins pulled out a W. WHAT A FRIGGIN GAME. Can you tell that I am still on a high, five days later?

The low of my week was a dear friend going through a really, really tough time. It’s so hard when a friend who is usually so sunshine-y and supportive goes through shitty circumstance after shitty circumstance, and there’s nothing you can do to help, other than offer love and support. My heart is really heavy because she’s hurting.

An Internet find I loved was this amazing Tik Tok. I love a good hype girl!

One nagging task I crossed off my to-do list this week was calling my insurance company! When I went to pick up my birth control last week at my pharmacy, I found out that I was charged $36 for a three-month supply. What?! Isn’t birth control free? When I called my insurance company, they gave me the weirdest reasoning: Apparently, I can only get a free fill of my birth control twice a year. If I want to continue getting free birth control, I need to use UnitedHealthcare’s mail-order prescription service. ?!!?!? It’s so weird!

A podcast episode I enjoyed was Adnan Is Out on Serial. AHHH! I was so excited when I saw that Serial released a new episode to discuss the news about Adnan being released from prison. Like everyone else in the world, I was obsessed with the first season of Serial and I came away feeling very certain that Adnan Syed was not guilty. Maybe you feel differently and that’s okay. But after everything that came to light in the past few years and the way the investigation was fully botched by the police department and prosecutors, I am very, very glad that Adnan was freed from prison and I hope he can be fully exonerated soon.

The best money I spent this week was on fall decor for my apartment! Everyone on Instagram kept talking about bringing out their fall decor and how excited they were about it, and I realized that while I have plenty of Christmas decor, I don’t have any fall decor. I had to rectify that so I spent a little bit of money this week on fall signage, pumpkins, candles, and more to make my home feel a little more festive. It’s still disgustingly hot outside, but at least I can light a pumpkin candle and pretend it’s fall.

My plans this weekend include a facial this afternoon followed by a long, satisfying nap, a writing date with Mikaela and Eleni on Saturday afternoon, attending my nephew’s birthday party on Sunday afternoon (we’re playing laser tag!), and then hanging at my mom’s later that evening to watch the Big Brother season finale. It should be a good weekend!

What was a highlight of your week?

Categories: Recurring Series

Five for Friday (v. 86)

1) I was a bit surprised to find a paper on my door last week about renewing my lease. I can’t believe I have been in this apartment for two years already! I was also surprised to find out that my rent will be increasing by $300 per month. !!! They have never increased my rent that much and it’s a staggering number. I started looking around at rental prices, though, and even with this massive increase, I will still pay $300+ less than anywhere else for the same amount of space. Ugh. So I’m going to renew my lease for one year and start making plans to move out at the end of that lease (November 2023). I’m just not in the financial place to move (nor in the financial place to see a $800 increase in rent!), but if I have 14 months to prepare, I know I can make it happen. I’m already looking forward to the packing/unpacking process! (Not sarcasm; I genuinely enjoy this process.)

2) My big toe that got injured during my tumble down the stairs on my vacation is healing nicely. It’s still a little sore from time to time, but I can walk normally now and I’ve been able to work out again, although I’m trying to take it easy with low-impact workouts. I’m guessing I just bruised the toe; I thought I had broken it because there was a bruise right above the toenail and that’s usually an indication of a fracture, but I think it just got a bit pummeled in my fall and bruised up. I’m just really glad I didn’t have to go to urgent care! There’s not much that can be done for a broken toe anyway, but I would have gone if I was still in great pain/unable to walk after a week. Hooray for saving a few hundred dollars on an urgent care visit. 🙂

3) I had a big dinner failure this week, when I tried to make a grilled cheese sandwich for the first time ever. Can you believe I’ve never had a grilled cheese sandwich? I didn’t love cheese when I was growing up, so it was never something my mom made for me. And most grilled cheese sandwiches use yellow American cheese, which is my least-favorite cheese. But I decided to attempt an elevated version of this recipe, using sourdough bread, sharp cheddar cheese, and this delicious butter spread, cooked in my air fryer. Unfortunately, my grilled cheese sandwich turned out incredibly burnt and disgusting-looking. AND I picked up an unsliced loaf of sourdough bread at the grocery store this week, and trying to slice it up on my own was way harder than I expected. Womp! It was not a good time. I’m going to attempt to make it again tonight, using pre-sliced sourdough bread and bringing down the cook time in my air fryer by two minutes on each side. Fingers crossed!

4) I always listen to audiobooks on 1.75x speed, although I will sometimes bring it down to 1.5x speed, depending on the narrator or book topic. I know people who listen to audiobooks on 2.5x or 3x speed, which seems crazy to me. I’m kinda skeptical that you can really take in a book’s contents when you’re listening that fast, but I digress. I do not, however, listen to podcasts on faster speeds. For some reason, it just felt wrong to listen to podcasts on faster speeds but I’ve gotten woefully behind on my podcast queue so I decided to try speeding up my podcast speed to help me knock out more podcast episodes in less time. I don’t do this for all podcasts, especially ones that are history-based or educational, but the ones that just have people chatting about everyday life? Hey, why not? I’ve been listening on 1.25-1.5x speed for those (and finally utilizing Overcast’s Smart Speed feature to shorten silences). It’s been great! There are a few podcasts that I think sound better on a faster speed, haha.

5) It will be a busy weekend around here! Today, Gladys (my beloved Kia Soul) has her first doctor’s appointment! Last weekend, I got an alert that her tire pressure was low and while I was able to go to one of those drive-up oil change places to get her tires pumped up quickly, I also decided it was time for a service check. (I’ve been waiting until she needed an oil change, but then I found out that I was supposed to schedule a service check after 6 months, which was in May. Oops.) I’m going to do that this morning, since I can work while I wait. I’m also going to retry my grilled cheese sandwich recipe while I watch a comedy special tonight! Tomorrow, it’s another podcast recording day with Bri! We plan on recording two more episodes of season 2. I also have a writing date with Mikaela in the late afternoon. And Sunday is, of course, football! It was so nice having football Sundays back in my life last week. My brother, my nephew, and I spend all day at my mom’s watching the games, and it’s a delight!

Do you speed up podcasts/audiobooks? What are your weekend plans?

Categories: Recurring Series

Everyday Moments | August 2022

1 – Our podcast finally being available on all of the platforms. It’s so exciting to be able to see our little icon in my podcast player!

2 – Officially launching our podcast into the world with our trailer episode.

3 – A bagel and coffee from Einstein’s. So good! Before the pandemic, my company used to get us Einstein’s Bagels every Friday morning, so it felt like old times.

4 – Hanging up my jewelry organizer. I love it so much!

5 – Lila finally using the cat bed that I bought… months and months ago. I have placed this dang cat bed all over the apartment to see if there was a specific location where they would actually use it. Turns out, plopping it right in front of my TV stand is what did it.

6 – A lovely haircut with a stylist I am quickly coming to adore. She’s just so peppy and immediately puts me in a good mood.

7 – A day date with my mom! We went to get her ears re-pierced, had lunch together, and then went to a furniture store to pick out a mattress for the bed in her guest room. Modern Resale has some amazing deals on high-quality furniture.

8 – Texting with my older nephew about fantasy football. So fun!

9 – Our first full-length podcast episode released today! What a momentous day!

10 – Spending the evening at my mom’s. There were dog snuggles, TV time, and chatting with my mom.

11 – Reading a romance that gave me ALL of the happy feels (Weather Girl).

12 – A venting work call with a colleague. Much needed!

13 – Game night with my mom and my brother—the OGs! It’s hard to believe we’ve been doing these game nights for so many years now.

14 – A visit to Trader Joe’s. It was stupid busy, but I always love picking up new-to-me food options.

15 – Rereading a favorite romance… and finishing it the same day I started it!

16 – A helpful therapy appointment, digging into some of the reasons behind this loneliness I’ve been feeling lately.

17 – Finishing work early and taking a nap on the couch.

18 – Episodes of The Office.

19 – Getting Wordle in 2! Only the second time that’s happened to me.

20 – A coffee/reading date with Amber. The coffee was fantastic!

21 – Sleeping in and spending the morning reading on the couch with Chip and Lucy.

22 – A podcast brainstorming session with Bri, during which Tessie (Bri’s adorable greyhound) curled up next to me.

23 – Voting in the primary and the people I wanted to win doing so!

24 – Going into the office for the day. I got to hug a ton of coworkers I haven’t seen since March 2020!

25 – A really good night of sleep after many restless nights.

26 – A facial that included the most wonderous scalp massage.

27 – Brunch book club and our family’s fantasy football draft. We had fun!

28 – A recording day for the podcast. We started recording episodes for season 2, and I’m excited to release these episodes soon.

29 – A lunch date with Mom. The Chick-Fil-A we go to recently remodeled and one of the sections they remodeled has booths that are SO close together. So close together that we cannot sit there. So we joke that that’s the “skinny section.” We tried sitting there today and we were like, “Nope, that’s the skinny section, remember? Gotta go to the fat section.” Tehehe.

30 – A really productive work day where I felt like I was doing a million things at once, but I felt really focused and energized all day. Love that!

31 – Having dinner made by Robert! He cooks for my mom on the nights they eat in (they love eating out, hence where I get my love for eating out) and he made us delicious spaghetti with meat sauce.

Categories: Recurring Series

Currently in August

Feeling… very ready for fall. While Florida will maintain its tropical climate for the rest of the year, most likely, I am still so ready for pumpkins, football, fall drinks at Starbucks, and all of the holidays. (If only I could add cooler weather, changing leaves, and wearing scarves to that list! Sigh.) The last four months of the year are my favorite, and while I honestly can’t wrap my mind around the fact that we are closer to the end of 2022 than the beginning, I am so excited for what the next few months will bring!

Watching… the final season of Superstore! I usually don’t like the final seasons of shows (which is why I’ve put off watching the last season of this show for so long), but this one has been pretty good. I like the way they are dealing with Covid on the show—it’s not fully realistic, of course, but for a TV show, it’s alright.

Listening to… my own podcast! We officially launched our bebe into the world in early August and it’s been so fun releasing episodes every week and seeing them download into my feed! I listen to every episode multiple times because first I have to listen to write down the show notes I need to add to our description and then I just like listening to the episode when it downloads to my podcast player. It’s so fun and I feel like Bri and I have a really great rapport with one another. You can probably tell why I love her so much!

Grateful for… the people in my life (and that includes you, dear readers!) I am so grateful for friends I can talk to about my life and feel that they truly listen. I am grateful that I can come to this blog and be honest about my struggles and feel heard. I am grateful that I have friends who have brought me into their families as one of their own. In my loneliest moments, I remember all of the people in my life who love me and want to be there for me. It means the world.

Anticipating… a Labor Day getaway with Amber and Bri! We’re spending Friday-Monday at a fun resort in Kissimmee. The resort has a big pool, a lazy river, and lots of fun things to do. We’re planning on taking a sunset airboat ride and playing a round or two of mini-golf in Downtown Disney, so it should be a really fun time.

Loathing… all of this anxiety I’ve been having lately. The anxiety has been worse than usual and Lisa brought up a really great point in my coffee date post that it may be time to look at my medication. I’ve been on Lexapro since I start taking anti-anxiety medication and I’m on the highest dosage available. I’ve always taken my meds in the morning but I think I might try taking them at night to see if that helps. My anxiety is always much worse at night than in the morning/daytime, so it might be useful to have higher levels of the drug in my system at night. I’ve also been contemplating taking some sort of CBD gummy at night to see if that helps me, but I’m not sure how it would interfere with Lexapro.

Thinking about… some little updates I want to make to my apartment. I want to change up the entryway wall to add a mirror and a new shelf that I could display cute seasonal decor. I also want to finish up my picture wall in my living room (I need about 8 more pictures). I’ve been wanting to commission pet portraits of Dutch, Eloise, and Lila to hang in my room, right above my bed. And there are some changes I’d like to make to my dining area, mostly wall decor like a clock, some cute prints, and maybe some of those floating bookshelves that I’ve been eyeing for a while. But all of this costs money and I am in a spending freeze for the foreseeable future. So all I can do is continue to think about what I want to do for my home, make wish lists, and hope that I can start plugging away at these updates soon.

Needing… new sandals. I was very close to pushing the purchase button on a pair of Vionic flip-flops but the $75 price tag makes me wince. I know they will be worth it, but I am so used to paying $20 or less for flip-flops, and my last pair from Target have lasted for nearly 5 years! But now they are coming apart at the seams, and I know it’s time for me to invest in a better pair of sandals. Right now, I’m wearing my knock-off Birkenstocks that I got from Target a few years ago. I have rarely worn them since I got them because the breaking-in process was a nightmare, but I’m finding them to be really comfortable lately. I’ll probably wear these for now, and invest in two really nice pairs of sandals after my spending freeze is over.

Buying… not a whole lot this month! However, every pay period, I have a $30 allowance where I can spend money on anything I want. I’m really enjoying the process of thinking hard about what I want! Last pay period, I bought earrings, a foundation brush, nail polish, and a pedicure foot mask. This pay period, I bought a necklace, some headbands, and a new lip color. So fun!

Loving… the way Lila has to make an appearance on every Zoom work call I make (but hides under the bed when company comes to the apartment), when I wake up from a nap to see Eloise curled up next to me, voting in Florida’s primary that will hopefully lead to kicking DeSantis and Rubio out of office, a weekend away with my fur-siblings, fantasy football drafts, and podcast recordings with Bri.

What are you currently anticipating?