Recurring Series

Five for Friday (v. 72)

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?

Categories: Recurring Series

A Wednesday Morning Coffee Date

Hey, friends! It’s been a while since we’ve sat down for a little coffee date. I’ll be drinking an iced coffee with a few pumps of vanilla creamer. Mmm! Here’s what I’d want to talk about with you today:

If we were having coffee today, I’d talk about how I took a break from the news for a few weeks. Do you ever hit a breaking point with the news? It’s just one shitty story after another. It’s Republican governors signing anti-mask mandates into law and news of irreversible effects of climate change and horrifying stories from Afghanistan. I just couldn’t take it anymore. At least, I couldn’t take all of the news consumption I do on a daily basis: the podcasts and the e-newsletters and the online threads. It was too much, so I decided to give myself a break from it all for a few weeks. I still received CNN breaking news alerts to stay informed, but I didn’t click on the links and I didn’t spend hours listening to political pundits talk about each news event to death. It’s been good for my mental health to have this break, which I started right before I left for Chicago and will extend until next week most likely. And I highly encourage anyone who’s feeling overwhelmed by the news to take the same break. It’s okay to step away for a bit and gather your bearings.

If we were having coffee today, I might confide about a scary incident that happened with Ellie last week. I left her outside on the patio for two hours! You guys, I felt like the worst cat mom ever and I couldn’t stop crying about it all night. Every time I looked at her, I’d start crying. I went out on the patio for, like, five seconds and I didn’t see her come out there with me, so I closed the door when I went back inside I usually always, always check to make sure both girls are in the apartment before I close the patio door but I didn’t do that this time because I wasn’t out there for very long. Ugh! I gave Ellie three big handfuls of treats and an extra “meaty stick” because I felt so bad. The patio isn’t enclosed and I’m just so grateful that Ellie didn’t jump off the patio or do something else crazy. My brain can’t stop thinking about worst-case scenarios of her running away or falling and hurting herself. But she didn’t. She just sat on the patio and waited for me to open the door. I think I was more traumatized by the event than she was, quite honestly. She’s gotten so many hugs and kisses and extra treats since then. And one day I will forgive myself for doing that to her.

If we were having coffee today, I might complain that it feels like my time is being pulled in so many competing directions. And I really don’t feel like I know how to manage my time well anymore. It feels like finding time to do all of the things I want to do is so much harder these days. There are blogging tasks to get to (writing blog posts and reading my favorite blogs and keeping up with my personal inbox), reading time to prioritize, and workouts to do. There is time I need to spend maintaining a clean home, my finances, and my friendships. There’s a new relationship that’s burgeoning and exciting that I want to invest my time and energy in. There’s my family and all of the space I want to make for them. There’s TV and all of the shows I want to watch (my TBW list grows longer by the minute). Social media has become almost a non-factor in my life these days because I just don’t have the energy for it anymore. And, of course, work takes up a bulk of my day Monday-Friday, leaving me very little time to enjoy my personal pursuits outside of the few hours at night that I get to myself. It just feels like a lot and all of it is a priority to me; these hobbies are critical to my mental health. And then there are the pursuits that I don’t have the bandwidth to even think about (like restarting my novel). Anyone else feel like they’ve just been treading water for a long time?

If we were having coffee today, I’d probably talk about how irritable and oversensitized I’ve been lately. Which hopefully was all because of my period, which I started yesterday. For the past few days, I’ve felt so incredibly irritable. Everything has been bugging me, to the point that hearing people laugh on a podcast made me angry. (At least I was self-aware enough to know that I was being ridiculous?!) I know some of my irritability is due to work stress and feeling so overwhelmed by my workload, but I’m hoping the irritability mostly had to do with PMS and that it’ll go away very soon. I don’t always experience PMS, so it is always a rude awakening when it happens. Ah, hormones.

If we were having coffee today, I’d be happy to share an Olive update. She is now nearly two months post-treatment (she finished treatment on July 10th) and is doing incredibly well. She’s had scans done twice and both have been completely clean—what a relief! Her hair is slowly but surely growing back and she’s regaining her strength. She’s even measuring on track physically and is light-years ahead developmentally. Basically, homegirl is a goddamn warrior and it’s the most amazing thing to witness.

What would you want to talk about during our coffee date?

Categories: Recurring Series

Three Things Thursday (v. 5)

Hi, friends! Happy Thursday. Today, I thought I’d do another Three Things Thursday post, which is becoming one of my favorite series to do. It’s fun to come up with the categories and fill them in! Feel free to steal and do it on your own blog (I certainly did not come up with this idea, haha).

Three confessions

I’ve become very lazy with my skincare routine lately. I was doing so well for so many months! But in the last few weeks, I’ve just stopped being so diligent. The good news is, I’m running out of products less frequently!
Whenever I see Eloise and Lila doing something together (sleeping together, playing together, or even when they just give each other that “hey girl” nose bump) it gets me all sappy inside. I did that! I gave them this relationship. I love that they love each other—it makes my heart grow ten sizes.
I am the worst at responding to Instagram comments. Maybe it’s because I don’t spend a ton of time on Instagram? I have a 30-minute time limit that I try my best to adhere to and I turned off push notifications for likes/comments on posts. So I have to manually check for likes/comments, which I forget to do, which means I sometimes don’t see comments until days afterward. Maybe I need to turn on push notifications for comments at least!

Three things I’m doing this weekend

Getting a massage – I haven’t had a massage in over two months and my body needs this.
Attending Olive’s “no more chemo” party – Yayyyy! I can’t wait to celebrate Olive being done with cancer treatment.
Flying to Chicago! – My mom and I leave on Sunday afternoon to spend four days in Chicago. Hopefully, Tropical Storm Fred doesn’t cause any chaos for us!

Three books I recently bought

Three work-related Google searches I made today

I tried to select some of the more, shall we say, interesting Google searches I made today, which is easy to do when I spent the whole day writing about rare medical conditions.

“What do you call the uterus and prostate together?” (I was looking for an overarching term for these organs, but wasn’t sure if the prostate was considered part of the reproductive system. Answer: It is!)
“How does the pelvic floor work” (I wrote a page about pelvic floor disorders and learned a lot about the pelvic floor. I had no idea it did so many things!)
“Are congestion and stuffy nose the same thing” (The answer is yes. Why these two symptoms are often written separately is beyond me!)

Three movies I want to watch soon

Get Out – I’ve wanted to see this movie for so long, but I just never have because scary movies aren’t my thing. Hopefully soon!
The Martian – After I mentioned how much I loved the book The Martian, a bunch of you implored me to watch the movie since it’s a fantastic adaptation. I promise I will!
The Count of Monte Cristo – Since I just finished the book, I want to give the movie a try someday. I don’t know if it’s any good, but it would be fun to see it all come to life on screen.

Three of my most-used apps yesterday

Happy Color (46 minutes)
Overcast (42 minutes)
Marco Polo (35 minutes)

Three things that made me happy this week

Finishing The Count of Monte Cristo – It was so satisfying to finish this book. It was excellent and I can fully understand why so many people cite it as their favorite book of all time.
A brunch and bookstore date – I love it when dating can be fun! We enjoyed brunch (I’ve been obsessed with breakfast burritos lately and I thoroughly enjoyed the one I got on Sunday) and then perused a bookstore. We opted to sit outside for brunch and it was H O T, but we were able to finagle one of the nearby fans to blow right on us, haha. And I was delighted to see how busy my favorite bookstore was on Sunday! Yay!
A red velvet bundt cake – Is there anything better than a mini bundt cake in the middle of the week? I think not!

Three items on my Amazon wish list

Weighted blanket – If you’re someone with anxiety, you’ve likely heard all about the benefits of weighted blankets. I’m probably going to put this on my Christmas list, as it’s something I don’t think I’d ever buy for myself but will be oh-so-happy if someone else did.
Cycling shoes – I’d love to treat myself to cycling shoes for my Peloton rides. My non-Peloton bike can clip in, but right now, I just use the toe cages with regular sneakers. It works for now, but I want to upgrade soon.
Pregnancy pillow – No, I am not pregnant nor do I intend to become pregnant anytime soon (or ever?). However, as a fat person who carries most of her weight in her belly, a pregnancy pillow just seems like something that would make sleeping 1000x better and ensure I’m not placing too much pressure on my lower back.

Three of my favorite TV shows growing up

Growing Pains – Oh man, if there was a way for me to stream this show in all of its late 80s glory, I would. My family loved this show and I was 100% in love with Mike Seaver (weren’t we all?) I think we caught it in reruns and then maybe we used the Netflix DVD program to watch the series start to finish? I can’t be sure.
Home Improvement – Okay, I see now that I have an affinity for shows with a main character who is now a problematic conservative (see: Kirk Cameron, Tim Allen). But man did I love Home Improvement. My brother and I still quote the “I didn’t say hell and damn” line to each other all the time.
Everybody Loves Raymond – God, I loved this show. Was there anything better than the tension between Ray’s wife and his mother? THE BEST.

Three things I’m looking forward to next week

Meeting Kim for the first time – Immediately after my mom and I decided to visit Chicago, I messaged Kim who is my resident catpert (cat expert) and someone whose blog I’ve followed for many years to see if we could have a meet-up (since she lives near Chicagoland). We’re hopefully going to meet for dinner and I’m so excited to finally see her in person!
Traveling with my mom again – My mom is my favorite travel companion and we haven’t taken a vacation together in almost two years. I’m looking forward to spending lots of one-on-one time with her while we explore a new-to-us city.
Taking the architecture boat tour – I’ve heard nothing but rave reviews from people about Chicago’s famous architecture boat tour and I can’t wait to experience it myself!

What was one of your favorite TV shows growing up? Tell me something that made you happy this week!

Just a quick programming note: This blog will be dormant for the next week as I enjoy my Chicago trip! I’ll be back on Monday, August 23rd for a trip recap! 🙂

Categories: Books, Recurring Series

Five for Friday: The Bookish Edition

Happy Friday, friends! I have a really excellent weekend ahead of me and I’m excited to kick it off with a low-key Friday at home.

For today’s Five for Friday post, I thought I’d make it a themed one: all about some bookish topics that have been floating around in my brain. Let’s dive in:

1) About once a year, I get the itch to trim down my TBR list on Goodreads. Earlier this week, my TBR list had over 375 books on it and it was stressing me out. Honestly, a part of me just wanted to delete every book on that list and start fresh, but I worry that I would regret taking such drastic action. My other thought is to trim down the list to just 100 books, and I’m actively trying to get there (I’m currently at 221 books—not sure how I’m going to remove another 120 books!) I don’t know how everyone uses their Goodreads to-be-read list. For me, it’s an important part of my book selection process, but I feel like all the books I really want to read are getting lost in the 300-odd other books that were cluttering up my TBR. I want to be more intentional about the books I add to my TBR. We’ll see if that’s possible, though. There are so many shiny new releases that I want to read and older books that other people rave about that I want to be sure I get around to someday. The plight of a bookworm!

2) I’ve long identified as someone who reads a lot. I read at least triple of what people in my book club read, and they are very much bookworms like me. When I lamented to them last month that I might only read 8 books in July, they looked at me like I was crazy. (“Is that bad? I don’t think I’ve ever read 8 books in a month! I’m happy if I can get to four.”) I’ve felt a shift happening in my reading life, where I don’t feel as if I have to read at such a frenetic pace anymore. And it’s causing me to have a bit of an identity crisis, to be honest. If I’m not the girl who reads 2-3 books per week, then who am I as a person? Am I really a bookworm if I’m not checking off books left and right? (The answers: I’m still the me I’ve always been and YES OF COURSE DON’T BE RIDICULOUS.)

It’s almost as if I’m at a fork in the road of my readerly life. On one side is allowing myself the space to do what feels good and if reading less is what feels good, then I should do that. On the other side is finding creative ways to add reading time back into my life. And because I’m still very much married to my readerly identity, I’m choosing the latter. Which brings me to my next point.

3) Here’s the thing: Everyone can make time for reading, but not everyone does. And right now, I’m not making time for it as much as I was in the past. So, I got to thinking about how I could make more time for reading and the idea came to me pretty instantaneously: reading days! The idea for reading days is that I’ll pick out 1-2 days per week, based on my schedule, and aim to read for at least 2 hours on that day (any reading I do before bed doesn’t count, since that’s already an ingrained habit). I can split up the reading anyway I want (maybe 30 minutes in the morning, 30 minutes on my lunch break, and an hour when I’m done with work), but I must commit to at least 2 full hours (more if I can fit it in!) I already did a reading day on Wednesday and it was so pleasant. I did a half-hour during a morning work break, 15 minutes during an afternoon work break, and then an hour and fifteen minutes when I finished with work. (And then I got in some extra reading time before bed!) Today will be the second reading day of the week and I am so looking forward to it!

(And that, of course, is the key. If these reading days ever feel like a chore, then I’ll stop doing them. For now, they feel really fun!)

4) On an episode of Book Talk Etc, the hosts had a really interesting discussion about their reading life and the books they’ve read during the first half of 2021. It got me thinking about my own reading journey in 2021! Most especially, looking back at how I’ve rated books this year. This hasn’t felt like a sensational reading year for me for some reason; I feel like I’ve rated a lot of books 3 stars. In looking at the stats, I’ve rated 35% of my books 3 stars or lower, and 65% were given 4- or 5-star ratings. I don’t know if this is normal for me or not (I’d have to look back at previous years and I don’t feel like doing that right now), but one of the hosts had a similar percentage to me and seemed aghast at her percentage (meanwhile, the other host had only given 18% of her books 3 stars or lower). I know I’m a bit more critical of books than other people, and I don’t want to give a book 4 or 5 stars unless I really liked it and would recommend it. So maybe that’s why? I don’t know but I’m hoping that the second half of 2021 brings me a lot more 4- and 5-star reads.

5) Speaking of the first half of 2021, why don’t we play a fun game of my top three reads of the year so far? This was actually supremely hard to narrow down, so I’m going to give a few honorable mentions:

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler is most definitely my favorite read of the year, and I read it in January. Nothing has come close to knocking it from its top spot!
When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors was sensational. It’s hard read but an important one.
Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds is an incredible story-in-verse about a young boy on his way to avenge his brother’s murder. He gets on an elevator and, at every floor, it stops and someone steps on. Listen to this one on audio—it’s only 90 minutes!

Honorable mentions go to Dear Emmie Blue by Lia Louis, Know My Name by Chanel Miller, and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab.

How many books are on your Goodreads TBR? What’s one of the top reads of 2021 for you?

Categories: Recurring Series

Five for Friday (v. 70)

1) Today I wanted to publish my monthly goals post, but when I looked over my July goals, I realized I have zero, zip, nada to report. I didn’t get a single thing done! (No, my oven still hasn’t been cleaned.) I did, however, meet my workout goal for the third month in a row so that’s awesome! But everything else was an utter fail. So, instead, I’m rolling all of those goals over into August and hoping I can have a better report for you at the end of next month.

2) I’m starting to get really excited about my trip to Chicago! My mom and I fly out on Sunday, August 15th, and will be there until Thursday afternoon. I have spent some time this week making detailed itineraries of our days, and it’s just so much fun to plan a trip again! I booked tickets for us to do the architecture boat tour and we will also visit Navy Pier, Millenium Park, 360 Chicago, the Shedd Aquarium, and Skydeck Chicago. I also want to have my very first Shake Shack experience! I’m trying not to overwhelm us with doing too much, so I’ve planned rest time at the hotel (from 3pm until dinnertime) every day to make sure we don’t wear ourselves out. I tend to want to go, go, go when I’m on vacation but I’m just not the kind of person who can go all day long without resting. I think building in this rest time will be really beneficial for both of us!

3) I’ve been following the progression of the Delta variant very closely, and right now, my county is in the “high” transmission zone, which is not good at all. I’ve started seeing more and more people with masks on at the grocery store and I’m definitely back to masking up. (Yes, I was one of “those people” who went mask-free when the CDC said we could. I’m fully vaccinated.) While there hasn’t been any official mandate for masks in my county, I’m grateful to see so many people doing so anyway. Florida gets a bad rap for the way we handled COVID, and DeSantis fully deserves every criticism lobbed his way, but at least in my little progressive (ish) county of Florida, we’re doing the right thing.

4) I’ve been enjoying the Olympics a lot! (And can you believe that we’re going to have another Olympics to enjoy in just another 6 months?! The Winter Olympics 2022 kick off in February if all goes according to plan!) Of course, I was hoping for a strong showing from Simone Biles, but I’m incredibly proud of her for prioritizing her mental health and withdrawing from the team and individual events. That couldn’t have been an easy decision, knowing the whole world was watching her. I’ve been enjoying the swimming, too, and I can’t wait for the track-and-field events to kick off today! There have been many a late night to watch Olympics coverage, but it’s been so much fun!

5) This weekend is shaping up to be a good one! I’m going to have a low-key night at home tonight which I’m very much looking forward to. Saturday I have a writing date with Mikaela and game night with the fam. And Sunday, I’m doing a brunch-and-bookstore date! (I highly recommend dating a bookworm, yes yes.) We’ve been planning to do a bookstore tour around our city and we’re going to kick things off with brunch at The Library and visiting my favorite local indie. I can’t wait!

Tell me something good that happened to you this week!