Stephany Writes

Categories: Recurring Series

TGIF (v. 68)

The high of my week was having dinner with my former boss! We had such a great time catching up and talking about her new role. She talked about the imposter syndrome she faced for a little while, which was startling for me to hear. She seems so confident! And she is, but I suppose we all struggle with these feelings of inadequacy from time to time. It’s a good reminder that none of us really had it altogether, even when it seems like we do.

The low of my week was another anxiety spiral about my mom. Sigh. Why do I do this to myself? It feels terrible and makes me imagine a worst-case scenario THAT IS NOT HAPPENING. And she has been fine 100% of the time! But when I can’t get ahold of her, my mind always goes to a dark, dark place.

I’m currently reading Summer Romance by Annabel Monaghan and I am loving it. All I want to do is sit down and read it! I also just started Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto on audio.

A Reel I enjoyed was this sweet dachshund “making coffee.” If you are not following this doggo, please do yourself a favor and give him a follow. His videos are delightful. He does very emotional “music videos” to Taylor Swift songs, which make me laugh hysterically. I am always so damn impressed with these animal content creators. How are they so creative?!

A podcast episode I enjoyed was Smutty Romance and the Christian Reader on Faith Adjacent. I have been waiting for this episode. When I was a Christian, reading non-Christian romance always felt like this huge, terrible sin—people having sex before marriage? Blasphemy! I don’t consider it a sin anymore, but it took a long time for me to come to terms with that (and purity culture as a whole). I really enjoyed this episode!

The best money I spent this week was $13 on a moisturizer specifically designed for CPAP users. I mentioned the skin irritation I’ve been dealing with in my post on Monday and I am willing to try everything under the sun to help my poor dry skin. I’ve been slathering Vaseline on the troublesome areas before I put on my mask at night, which does help a little but I still have this terrible cracked spot on my septum that’s driving me crazy. And I’m starting to see some irritation on my face around where the headgear straps sit. Fun times! I’m hoping this moisturizer provides some relief, but I probably fell for some silly marketing ploy. Oh, well!

My plans this weekend include not much! Tonight, I am going out to dinner with my mom and stepdad. Saturday, my only plan is my writing date with Mikaela. And Sunday, it’s a gym date with Mom and football time with the fam! Sunday is also my brother’s birthday so we’ll be celebrating that as well. Yay!

What was the highlight of your week?

Categories: Recurring Series

TGIF (v. 67)

The high of my week was receiving my APAP machine! It arrived yesterday in a great traveling case so I never have to leave home without it. I am writing this post on Thursday evening and tonight will be my first time using it. I will be sure to have a post up in a few weeks about how things are going! For now, I am just glad it is here and this long, four-and-a-half-month-long process to get it is over.

The low of my week was spending a few nights away from my girls. I dog-sat for Chip and Lucy from Friday night – Tuesday morning, which means I had to leave the cats for four straight nights. (When I dog-sit, I stay at my mom’s house because it’s easier. I come home every day to check on the girls.) They were very unhappy with me, even greeting me with, “Look who it is! Mommy Never-Home,” one morning, which was very hurtful.

I’m currently reading The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue, which I am loving so far. I’m only about 50 pages in, but it’s not a long book (under 300 pages) and my goal is to finish it before August is over.

A blog post I enjoyed was You Can Do It! by Kyria. I thought this was such a motivating message for all of us. No, many of us do not have any desire to quit our jobs and road-bike around the world. But I think there are other dreams we have that we just have to be willing to put in the work to do.

To do new things, it takes work. You have to get out of your comfort zone and cede some control to other people, the unknown and life in general. I literally do not know what’s around the next corner most of the time, and this is hard. I am a type A planner, but in this case, I am often going day by day, because (a) you will just disappoint yourself if you have too high of expectations or you try to control every moment and (b) it’s actually part of the fun. 

A podcast episode I enjoyed was The Journey of Currently Reading on, you guessed it, Currently Reading. They just celebrated 300 “big show” episodes and as someone who has been listening to them from the beginning, it was fun to learn more about how they feel about their podcasting journey. It was a great episode!

The best money I spent this week was on Dayquil when I wasn’t feeling great. I don’t know if my virus was just mild overall or if the Dayquil really did the trick, but I was barely sick with this virus! This was my first time taking Dayquil for a long time because I once broke out in hives when I took Nyquil and I’ve been scared to use either medicine ever since. But no weird reactions this time around!

My plans this weekend include a podcast recording date with Bri tonight, a writing date on Saturday morning, game night on Saturday evening, and then the rest of the weekend is entirely plan-less! I’m off work today and don’t go back until Wednesday, so I’m going to have myself a nice little staycation.

What was the highlight of your week? What are your weekend plans?

Categories: Recurring Series

Currently in August

Loving… the reinvigorated Democratic party. Like many people, I was happy when Biden stepped aside and Kamala stepped up. I was even more excited when Kamala chose Tim Walz as her running mate because every thing I read about him just makes me love him more. It’s been amazing to see the groundswell of support for Kamala and Tim and how this has reinvigorated the presidential race and politics as a whole. Things feel hopeful again! I’m going to believe this means good things for November.

Loathing… summer colds. I can’t remember the last time I had a cold (sometime last year, I’m guessing), but I woke up from a nap on Saturday with a sore throat and now I’m downing Dayquil like it’s my job. Thankfully, it hasn’t been too bad. The sore throat went away within a day and now I’m mostly dealing with nasal congestion and an overall blah feeling. I took a Covid test on Monday, which was negative (I’ll re-test today to make doubly sure). I think it’s just one of those run-of-the-mill viruses.

Reading… The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue, which I just started yesterday so I don’t have much to say about it yet. On audio, I’m almost done with His & Hers by Alice Feeny, which has been a wild ride so far. It’s making me feel a bit icky but I also need to know what happens, so I keep listening.

Watching… Master Chef. I just started season 13, which means I only have one more season until I’m all caught up on past seasons. Maybe I’ll go back to Hell’s Kitchen next? That show is a little more stressful, though. Master Chef feels like the nice version of Gordon Ramsey. Of course, what I’m not watching is Suits, which I told myself I needed to watch this month for my TV watching goal. I don’t know why I’m not watching it! I loved the first season and I love drooling over Harvey and Rachel (aka, Meghan Markle) respectively. But there’s just something easy about reality TV. I don’t have to give it too much attention and the stakes feel lower.

Listening to… mostly podcasts and my current audiobook. I am still behind on my goal to listen to one new album every month. I listened to Billie Eilish’s newest release last month and I have Gracie Abram’s The Secret of Us queued up to listen to soon. Any other albums I should listen to?

Anticipating… football season. We’re a little over a week away from the kickoff to the NFL season and I couldn’t be more excited! My family has completed our draft, I’m reading everything I can about my beloved Miami Dolphins prep for the upcoming season, and I have been so pleased to see that our coach is back to being a national treasure. I spend every Sunday at my mom’s house with my brother and nephews, watching the games, and I can’t wait to get back to it!

Thinking about… moving. I am still waiting to hear from my apartment complex if my rent will be increasing this year. (My lease is up November 1st but I have to give a 60-day notice, which will be September 1st.) If my rent does not increase, my plan is to stay put for another year and then live out the next 14 months as if my rent has increased by $400. This way, I can know if moving to a new apartment with more expensive rent is doable for me and it will allow me to save a lot of money in that year (for moving costs, movers, new things for my new apartment, etc.) If my rent does increase, then I will probably move this year. If I’m going to pay more in rent, I’d rather be in an apartment that better meets my needs.

Buying… so many clear bins. I have been feeling very disorganized lately when it comes to my bathroom and I decided to invest in a handful of clear bins (these kind) to get everything in its rightful place. On the left side are bins for first aid, medicine/psoriasis creams, and extra small supplies. In the center are bins for hair stuff (like clips/headbands/etc), all of my hair color supplies, and miscellaneous items. And on the right side are all of my tampons, separated by type (light/regular/super). Is it weird to do an organizing project like this if I’m potentially moving in a few months? Yes. But I can’t be stopped when I get an organizing idea in my head.

(Eventually I will replace the Brightroom labels with custom labels.)

Grateful… that I am finally getting an APAP machine. Yesterday, I had an appointment with a sleep clinic to go over all the ins and outs of using these machines. It was a very useful appointment where they showed me the machine I’ll be getting (ResMed AirSense 11) and how to use it and take care of it. There will be a lot more cleaning in my future as some of the parts need a weekly soak/rinse and I need to keep jugs of distilled water on hand to fill up the humidifier on a daily basis. Eeks! The clinician on the phone also let me know that when the results came in from my previous sleep study (the one done in April), I experienced 47.4 apneas every hour. (An apnea is when you stop breathing while sleeping, and you have to have stopped breathing for 10 seconds or more for it to register as an apnea.) I knew my sleep was bad, as I was diagnosed with severe obstructive sleep apnea, but that just meant I stopped breathing at least 30 times a night. To know I was over that threshold by so much is very scary! And now my chronic exhaustion makes even more sense. My poor brain. It’s not going to know what to do with all this extra oxygen it’s going to get at night!

What are you currently anticipating and watching?

Categories: Recurring Series

Five for Friday (v. 106)

1) Mental health update

Sometimes I wish mental health wasn’t fluid. I wish we could just take our medication and do our therapy and things would be stable. Alas, that’s not how the brain works. The last few weeks have been rough mentally. There have been some big changes happening in my life (one being my mentor/biggest cheerleader/fave boss leaving our organization) and it has knocked me for a loop. Thankfully, I had an appointment with my psychiatrist right when things started feeling extra hard and we worked through some strategies. One of the things she suggested was adding an extra medication (Wellbutrin) to my day. I was a little nervous about it because for some reason, Wellbutrin and I don’t mix very well. We tried it last year when I was having a lot of nighttime anxiety but it made me feel very tired and loopy the next day (I took it at night). This time, I tried taking it in the morning and it continued to make me so sleepy. I’m already chronically exhausted thanks to sleep apnea so this was not a winning combination. I stopped taking the meds (I was only a few days in) so now it’s back to the drawing board. I don’t think I’m fully through this depressive episode, but I am crawling my way out of it bit by bit.

2) Back support

I bought a back brace! I never ended up talking with the girl in my HIIT class, but when I was scrolling through Amazon one day to find out what items are FSA eligible, a back brace showed up on the list and I couldn’t purchase it fast enough. It has been a life-changer. I can’t believe I went through so many HIIT classes without this brace because it has helped so much. While I still have twinges of back pain here and there, it’s never as bad as it was before and I can get through a whole class without needing to take a break because of my back. Now, I take a break when things just feel really hard! Ha. It really gives me that extra boost of support my spine needs to be able to lift properly and get through a class without my back hurting. 10/10 recommend!

3) Adventures in at-home hair coloring

I had my own hair coloring night on Monday! A few weeks ago, I purchased all of the supplies I needed: three tubes of hair color (it was buy 2, get 1 free), one bottle of developer, a mixing bowl, a hair coloring brush, a comb with a long handle, clips to separate my hair, a cape, gloves, wipes to get rid of any dye that got on my skin, and a small packet of conditioner that is supposed to help seal in the color. All of that was around $70, which is the most I’ll need to spend coloring my hair. After this, all I’ll need to purchase is the hair color + developer from time to time.

We only used one tube of hair color (and I probably have 2/3 of the bottle of the developer left), which means my next two colors will essentially be free. Well, aside from the cost of my stylists (we pay each other in pizza and cheesy bread).

I was worried at first because when we mixed up one tube of the hair color with the developer, the mixture was BRIGHT ORANGE. Like, sweet potato baby food orange! I even frantically googled the name of the product and color (which was labeled as “cinnamon” in the store) because I was worried I had made a very wrong decision. I know the color changes as time goes on, but it was very worrisome at first. In the end, we marched forward with the hair coloring process. And hey, if I did pick up the wrong shade, at least I can find out if orange hair is a good look for me!

Thankfully, the mixture darkened to what my friends called “barbecue sauce” and the final product turned out amazing. I’m so happy with the color!

4) APAP waiting game

By this time next week, I should finally have my APAP machine. Can you believe it? I took a look at my calendar and this journey started on April 16th. That’s when I had my at-home sleep study and a week later found out I have severe obstructive sleep apnea. It will have been four-and-a-half months of waiting to finally get the help I need! (Meanwhile, a friend of mine who has a mild case of sleep apnea didn’t have to go through this rigamarole. Riddle me that, Batman.) On Tuesday, I have an appointment with the sleep clinic where they will go over the APAP machines available to me (virtually) and show me how they work, and then I’ll pick the machine I want and it will be shipped to me. They said it only takes 1-2 days to get the machine when it’s shipped since they send it from a local facility. Hooray!

5) Weekend plans

It’s going to be quite the weekend because I’m on Chip and Lucy duty! My mom and stepdad are spending a long weekend in Orlando so I’m going to be hanging out with my fur-brother and fur-sister. (I always stay at their house when I’m dog-sitting because the cats and the dogs do not get along, womp.) I don’t have any plans aside from my writing date with Mikaela on Saturday morning so I’m hoping to spend a lot of time reading and floating in the pool.

Have you ever colored your own hair? What are your weekend plans?

Categories: Recurring Series

TGIF (v. 66)

There was a shark at the beach on Saturday!

The high of my week was going to a new HIIT class on Tuesday evening. My mom and I usually go to a different workout class on Tuesday evenings, but our regular trainer wasn’t going to be there so we decided to try this HIIT class instead. It was with a trainer I worked with in one other class, and he was very intense, so I haven’t been too keen on going to his HIIT class. And man, it was hard. The HIIT class we normally go to has 8 stations and we do 3 rounds of one exercise at each station. This one had 6 stations but with 4 rounds of two different exercises at each station (so essentially, 8 rounds in total for each station). There was a point in the workout where I thought I was going to throw up because my heart was beating so fast! I wanted to die during the workout and at the end of my class, my mom and I were like, “So, same time next week?” HA. (Also, the trainer was incredibly nice and accommodating! He wasn’t as intense as I had thought.)

The low of my week was lower back pain. While my sciatica isn’t as bad as it was earlier this year, I am starting to have the pain again. I need to start icing my back again and doing some stretches. I had a lot of pain during my Tuesday evening HIIT class and it really impacted how much of the movements I was able to do. I’ve been thinking about buying a back brace for my HIIT classes to provide a little more support for my back—it would also probably help my form during certain movements. One of the women in my Wednesday evening HIIT class wears one, and I really want to ask her about it (but I’m shyyyy).

I’m currently reading two books. I’m listening to What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall on audio (the narrator is terrible, but I’m powering through). And I just started The Housemaid by Freida McFadden in print!

A Reel I enjoyed was this very funny dog video that my mom sent me. Please enjoy!

A podcast episode I enjoyed was Real Life Homes on The Girl Next Door podcast. I love when Kelsey and Erica talk about the most mundane details of their life, and this one fit the bill as they talked about how they really live in their homes—like, where do they eat their meals and what spaces do they spend the most time in? At the end of the episode, they played a game of “Where do you keep that?” which I loved so much that I took notes so I can do my own version on the blog.

The best money I spent this week was $9 on a new can opener. How exciting! My can opener bit the dust this week and I immediately purchased a new one because that’s a “can’t live without” kitchen tool for me.

My plans this weekend include not much! I have a writing date with Mikaela on Saturday morning and a workout with Mom on Sunday morning, and that’s about it. But it’s also OLYMPICS WEEKEND! I will be spending a lot of time parked on my couch, watching athletes do seemingly impossible feats over and over again.