I don’t wake up to an alarm on Sunday, which is very nice! I wake up around 9:45 and I’m happy that I’m feeling good—no side effects from the shots. My arm isn’t even sore! That’s a win. I snuggle with the girls for a bit and then get up, feed them, and sit down at my laptop to finish up yesterday’s post. It takes me longer than I expected (because I hadn’t written most of it, oops) and I finally finish things up around 10:45. Then, I gather all of my CPAP equipment so I can do my weekly washing (humidifier, mask, gear strip, and hose). I have a big tub that I fill up with warm water and unscented dish soap and let the humidifier, hose, and gear strip soak for 30 minutes. I also have a smaller bowl for my mask, as I soak it in a solution specific to CPAP masks. Once that’s done, I start getting ready for the day (no skincare routine this morning, there’s no time!). Before I leave, I take out all of my CPAP equipment from their little baths and let them air dry (I put my hose over my shower rod so it can drain), insert images into my post and publish it, and then gather up all of my things. I’m out the door by 11:45.

I pick up my mom at her house and we stop at PetSmart to pick up a few things for Cici, my brother’s new dog! We buy some treats and teething toys. I also peek in on the cats available for adoption and my mom tells me to “walk away,” haha. There won’t be a third cat for me, as much as I’d love one! But I think two is a good number for one person.

After PetSmart, we stop by the store to pick up a few items for football, like subs and chips. Then, it’s back home for a day filled with dogs, football, and food!

Honestly, not much happens during the day! These are my days to mostly be a lump on the couch, watching football and being around my favorite people. My older nephew came over this time, which was a nice change! Lately, my brother has been coming alone so we had a full house this afternoon.

I spend the day watching football (the Dolphins play tonight so at least I could watch the games without nerves!), reading my book, playing games on my phone, and chit-chatting with the family. I also add a few items to the Christmas list I have set up for Eloise and Lila. Oh, and of course, I snuggle with the dogs!

My nephew leaves around 6:30 (his mom picks him up) and when she arrives, he asks if we want to come out and see the puppy! OF COURSE WE DO. Cici is so sweet and cuddly – she lets both my mom and me cuddle her and doesn’t make a single sound. I’m completely in love with her.

I leave my mom’s before the 4:00 game ends (since it’s a complete blowout) and arrive home around 7:30. I give the girls some treats, feed them dinner, and then hop into a bubble bath for myself. I read on my Kindle and then continue reading on the couch while I wait for the Sunday Night Football game to start. I finally got some good reading done today, something I haven’t had much time for this past week. Once the game comes on, I eat dinner (the second half of my sub; I ate the first half while I was at my mom’s) and then it’s time to get some stuff done around my apartment.

First, I make my snack packs for the week and separate all of my pills into my day-of-the-week container. I take out the trash, unload the dishwasher, and scoop the litter boxes. I do my skincare routine, brush my teeth, and tidy up the apartment. Finally, I set my schedule and to-dos for the week, catch up on my One-Line-a-Day journal, and make my schedule for Monday. I also work on this post!

I watch the SNF game until the end and then go to bed around midnight.

sunday in the life: 2023, 2022, 2020, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014

My alarm goes off at 7 a.m. and almost immediately, I recognize that I’ve got some serious muscle soreness from yesterday’s workout. Like, did you know everytime you play with your hair, whether you’re flipping it over your shoulder or tucking it behind your ears, you use your triceps? I do now because everytime I try to do anything with my hair, my triceps scream at me. My trapezius muscles are also unhappy with me. I guess yesterday’s workout was a good one!

Once I’m up, I feed the girls and then sit on the couch playing my NYT games. Then, it’s time to get ready for the day. I do my morning skincare routine, tidy the apartment, take my meds, get dressed, and do my hair. I also pack up my backpack for today. Around 8:25, I’m out the door and driving to Starbucks to meet Mikaela for a writing date. When she arrives, we spend the first 10-15 minutes venting about the election. We both needed that for sure.

Then, we get to work. She works on her book and I finish up yesterday’s post, publish it, and start on today’s post. Around 10:45, we stop working and Mikaela reads what she’s written today. As always, it’s incredible! She’s written 71,000 words of her book and she’s close to the end. Eeks!

I leave Starbucks a little after 11 a.m. and take Ruby to the gas station for her first fill-up! (Well, from me, anyway.) What a beautiful milestone.

Then, it’s off to Target! I go directly to the pharmacy so I can get my flu and Covid shots. They don’t hurt at all and now we wait and hope I don’t have a reaction. I take my $5 off $20 coupon that Target is giving to everyone who gets their flu shot and then do some shopping. I have a headache and don’t have any ibuprofen with me, so I pick up some Advil (as well as Tylenol so I can start dosing myself as a preventive measure. Does this work? I have no idea, but every since I started doing this, I haven’t had any reactions from the shots.) I meander over to the books section because this is my deal with myself: If I get my flu and Covid shots, I can pick out two books. I’m happy with my choices!

I meander around Target for a little while longer, but I stay far away from the Christmas section because I’m scared of what will happen to me if I do. (Chaos, that’s what.) I pick up a bag of cheddar and caramel popcorn to munch on, and then pay for my things and head out. This could have been a much more dangerous visit to Target so I’ll take what I can get.

I drive to Tampa for my haircut appointment and I eat the popcorn on the way there. I’m also drinking an orange soda. This is my very healthy and balanced lunch, by the way. I’m here for all of your nutritional advice needs.

My hair salon is in the very cute Hyde Park Village, which is one of my favorite areas of Tampa. It’s this cute little spot that has tons of shops and restaurants. After parking, I’m happy to find that the salon is only a five-minute walk away.

My hair appointment goes well! I really like the stylist (we bond over the fact that both of our cars flooded during Helene, sigh) and it feels so good to chop off my split ends. She takes about 4 inches off, which is exactly what I wanted. She also adds some long layers and trims my bangs. I feel lighter and happier after leaving the salon! (Side note: I also noticed a sign on every mirror in the salon that said, “We will not discuss politics. Please respect the privacy of our staff.” Interesting!)

After my hair appointment, I stop into Paper Source to poke around. I was hoping to find a few Christmas gifts, but nothing really caught my eye (well, aside from the tuxedo cat LEGO set that I really want, but I’m not willing to spend $100 on that) so I leave without buying anything. And then I head back home! It has been a busy Saturday already.

Once home, I give the girls some treats for being alone for so long (the travesty!) and then get into comfy clothes and settle down in my bed. I set an alarm and take a wonderful two-hour nap. When I wake up, I see that my brother has texted me: They adopted a dog today! Her name is Cici and she’s a golden retriever and I cannot WAIT to meet her!

I laze around in bed for a while and eventually get up, feed the girls, and leave to go to the grocery store. Nothing exciting to report here! I put things in my cart, pay for the things, and drive home. Easy-peasy.

I put away the food that needs to be refrigerated and then sit on the couch to play some phone games. My mom Facetimesme and we chat for a while, and once I hang up with her, I start making dinner. It’s another homemade nachos night! I eat dinner while watching this week’s episode of The Floor, which is a game show I am currently obsessed with (and not just because Rob Lowe hosts it). When I finish the episode, I Facetime my mom again because I forgot to talk about a few things during our last phone call. We chat for a while and when we hang up, I sit down at my laptop to read/comment on blogs and work on this post. Then, I take a bubble bath, which was very nice! Afterward, I sit down on the couch and start to read my book, but I have been feeling “meh” about it so I decide to abandon it. Onto the next one!

And then I scroll through social media a bit (mostly Reels, and the algorithm has been beautifully curated to show me mostly dachshund videos and cat videos) and then I’m feeling tired so I decide to abandon all semblance of a nighttime routine and go right to bed. Oops.

saturday in the life: 2023, 2022, 2020, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014

I sleep like crap. It takes me a long time to fall asleep and then I just feel like I wake up frequently throughout the night and can’t ever seem to get comfortable. Is it existential dread? My terrible nighttime routine this week? Just a bad night? I don’t know.

My alarm goes off at 5:25 a.m., and I am very unhappy about it. I snuggle with Lila for a few minutes and then get up and get ready for the gym. By 5:45, I’m out the door. Today, I signed up for a 6 a.m. HIIT class and I’m very sad when I arrive and my usual instructor isn’t there. The sub for the class is fine, but I find some of the workout to be repetitive. (In this HIIT class, we have 7 different stations and then in between every station, we do a 60-second cardio round and a 45-second core round. We did so many sit-ups during the core round and the cardio rounds were a bit lackluster. Meh.)

I leave the gym around 6:45, place an order at Einstein’s, and am happy when it’s ready to go when I arrive. And then it’s home sweet home! I feed the girls, eat breakfast, finish up yesterday’s post, and then read a few blogs before getting my workday started.

My morning flies by in a flurry of emails, content editing, and Salesforce mumbo-jumbo. I take a few breaks: once to clean and vacuum the kitchen and once to dump out my shredder so I can shred a whole stack of mail and bills and such that have come in over the past few weeks. Oh, and I get a call from my *new* psychiatrist because she needs to reschedule my appointment. She tells me these intake appointments usually take 60-90 minutes but Zocdoc always schedules them for 30 minutes. There’s also a whole bunch of intake paperwork that I must have missed and I need to fill out. We set up a time for the intake appointment next week.

Around 11:15, I order lunch and then schedule an appointment to get my Covid and flu shot. There’s lots of availability so I select a time tomorrow afternoon. (For the past two years, I’ve gotten both shots at the same time and only experience a bit of arm soreness. Let’s hope that’s true for this shot!) While I’m waiting for my food to arrive, I hear a knock at my door. But it’s not my food! It’s my Book of the Month box! I haven’t ordered anything from BOTM in a few months but November is my birthday month, which means I get a free book. So I bought four books this month because I have no chill.

Once my food arrives, I do a bit of work and then wrap up my workday while I’m eating lunch. (I usually work a little longer on Fridays, but this week has been shit and I slept terribly and I just need some rest.)

After lunch, I take a two-hour nap, which was so rejuvenating. I scroll through Slack messages and emails when I get up, but there’s nothing pressing I need to respond to. Yay! I clean up a bit around my apartment, vacuum my living areas, and wipe down my bathroom. I have some friends coming over tonight and there’s nothing like people being in my apartment to inspire me to clean, ha.

Around 2:45, I leave and head to my mom’s house. They are meeting with someone about putting solar panels on their home, and she wanted me to be there to ask questions. (Since my brother and I would get their house in the will, I like to joke that all house upgrades need to be approved by us. For example, when my mom and stepdad got a new fridge recently, I said, “Did Mark (my brother) approve this purchase?” I’m a delight, I know.)

Anyway, the solar panel consultation is a long one but the salesguy is very thorough and helpful, answering all of our questions easily. He’s not super pushy, either, which is much appreciated. Their house is in a good location for solar panels, except for one part of their roof that gets a bit more shade than is advisable (they’d need to cut back a big oak tree that’s in their neighbor’s yard). They schedule a site inspection for tomorrow. Fingers crossed for them! (And for me and my brother, har har har.)

I return home a little after 5 p.m. and sit on the couch, playing on my phone, while I wait for my friends to arrive. I also order Domino’s for dinner – we are obsessed with their hand-tossed pizza and cheesy bread. Yum! Amber and Katie arrive right around 6 p.m. and the pizza is delivered shortly afterward. We eat while chit-chatting and then we get down to business and the real reason they are here: dyeing my hair! My friends did a fabulous job on the color, as always, and once I had rinsed out the dye, we all celebrated with bundtinis! I had a delicious red velvet bundtini that hit the spot.

Afterward, we all headed out to a local bar to get some drinks. Aside from a very drunk man who may have been in a relationship and was trying to pick up my friend, it was a fun night. (Don’t worry – we made it clear we wanted him to leave and he did.) We had two drinks ($11 total with tip!) And my friends also tried to get me to talk to a guy I thought was cute, but I was way too shy to do that. Maybe one day I can be brave enough to chat up someone in a bar, but last night was not that night.

We left the bar a little before 11 and then Katie came back up to my apartment because she needed a few more minutes to loaf before she was ready to drive home. We mostly scrolled on our phones but also talked a bit about chatting up people in bars. The key is to not have any expectations and not care about being rejected. It’s always my worst fear that I’ll start talking to someone and they’ll be like, “Ew, gross, get away from me,” which is not likely to happen (or so my friends tell me). It was an educational night!

Katie left around 11:15 and I Facetimed my mom. We talked for about 20 minutes but I was very tired so I don’t think I was much of a conversationalist! When we hung up, it was quickly to bed for me!

friday in the life: 2023, 2022, 2020, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014