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?

1) I’ve been in a bit of a funk this week. I recently weaned off Lexapro (anti-anxiety medication) after four-and-a-half years, which is something I never thought I’d do. It was never part of my mental health journey; I was fine taking Lexapro for the rest of my life if that’s what my brain needed. But my anxiety has stabilized and I decided to wean myself off the medication (with my doctor’s help, of course!) to see how things go. If I end up needing to go back, I’ll go back. I’ve been doing really, really good for the last few months off medication, and then this funk happened. I was worried I was falling into the same mental health crisis that caused me to seek out a Lexapro prescription in the first place. But I don’t think this funk has anything to do with my anxiety disorder. I think it’s mainly because I’ve had way too much alone time the past week. In fact, I haven’t seen a person since Saturday night! Six days without in-person human interaction will make anyone feel a little down. I didn’t plan out my time the way I should have, leaving me with a long stretch of alone time that started feeling very boring and tiring. At least I know what triggered it so that I can make sure I don’t do that in the future.

2) I’ve scheduled my holiday PTO for this year, and I’m so excited! I’m taking off the whole week of Thanksgiving and the Monday afterward (which I’m planning to use as my Day of Stephany), and then I’m also taking off from December 23rd through the rest of the year. I never, ever get to take this much time off over the holidays and I’m looking forward to it, even though I don’t have any plans! It will just be nice to take a break and not have to worry about deadlines and work during my favorite times of the year.

3) I went on a little bit of a home shopping spree this week, buying two things that I’ve had my eye on for a long time. First, I finally purchased a large area rug that will fit under my big sectional. Ever since I moved into this apartment (a year ago!), I’ve had this small 5×7 area rug that fit perfectly in my smaller apartment but looks rather silly in this one. Paired with my sectional, it looks even sillier. I’ve been wanting to get a big 8×10 area rug to tie the room together but have put off the purchase repeatedly because area rugs aren’t cheap, ya know? But somehow I found one for just $100 at Walmart (online, you couldn’t pay me to go into a Walmart before the pandemic) and it should be here this weekend! I may end up splurging for a nice area rug on Ruggable in the future, but I just needed something that would work for me right now, and this fit the bill.

Secondly, I bought a new TV! I have been wanting a new TV for a long, long time and once my Firestick broke, I took it as a sign that it was time to replace it. My current TV has a 32-inch screen and the one I bought is 50 inches, so the difference is going to be pretty incredible! Plus, it’s a smart TV so that will be a fun change. (Actually, I think almost all TVs these days have smart technology—I tried to find one without it and came up empty!) Lately, I’ve been watching TV on my laptop, which has worked fine for the time being, but I’m ready to graduate to a larger screen and to be able to lounge on the couch and watch TV! (I guess I could lounge on the couch and watch TV on my laptop, but it’s just not the same.)

4) Last week, I talked about a terrible night when I left Ellie outside on the patio for two hours. I felt like the most terrible cat mom, but I’ve tried to forgive myself. This weekend, I went out on the patio to read for a little bit and was curious if Ellie would follow me out there or if it would only remind her of her trauma (lol). Well, this girl followed me right out there and couldn’t get enough of being outside! She was rolling around and meowing happily and jumping up on the table. And then, when I went inside, she didn’t want to come in with me! I left the door open and let her play outside for a little while longer. So, the good news is, I have not traumatized her and she’s gonna be okay, I think!

5) I have a pretty solid weekend planned, which is good because I haven’t done anything this week. It’s been a long, boring week around here. Tonight I’m having a date night. Tomorrow is writing with Mikaela and then I may try to coax my mom into joining me at Visionworks so I can look at their glasses (I desperately want new glasses and don’t feel like using Warby Parker again—nothing against them, but I’m looking for something different this time around). And Sunday is the first Football Sunday of the NFL season, wahoooooo! I am so excited to spend all Sunday watching football once again. It’s my favorite. 🙂

What’s the last big purchase you made? What are your weekend plans?