Stephany Writes

Categories: Recurring Series

A Wednesday Morning Coffee Date

Hi, friends! It’s been a while, huh? Why don’t we catch up about life over coffee? I’ll be drinking a pumpkin cold brew. Tis the season and all that!

If we were having coffee today… I would start our chat by gushing about London! While it probably won’t go down as one of our favorite trips since my poor mom got food poisoning on our third day and never felt 100% after that, we both agreed we’d love to come back to London someday. My favorite things: the London Eye, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and seeing Wicked at the West End! I also made it to five different bookstores and came home with 10 books. Oops? I am planning on writing lots of blog posts about our trip in November, so stay tuned!

If we were having coffee today… I would gush about my new apartment! The day after I got home from London, I received the keys to my new place. Walking through the empty apartment, thinking about all of the possibilities as I think about how I want to set everything up… it’s so exciting! I’ve been filling up my car with some lighter objects (like clothes, some of my smaller bins, etc) to bring over on my own and working on culling my book collection, so lots of things are happening behind the scenes. Now the question I’m pondering: Do I stick with my official move date (with the movers) of October 30th or do I move it up by a few days? Decisions, decisions!

If we were having coffee today… I’d tell you that I caught some sort of vacation “crud.” Thankfully, it was only a few days of feeling crummy, starting Wednesday evening. By Sunday, I was feeling almost 100%. Mostly, I dealt with a scratchy throat, some congestion/sneezing, and a dry cough. My mom was also feeling pretty crummy on Thursday and was still having the nausea she hadn’t been able to shake since London, so she ended up going to urgent care… only to find out she had Covid! We’re not sure when she got it, as we think it’s unrelated to her illness in London—maybe her immune system was just compromised from the other illness, so being on a 9-hour flight didn’t help? Anyway, I was operating under the impression that I also had Covid until I went and got an at-home test, which was negative. So I must have just had your garden-variety vacation crud while Mom got stuck with the much more severe viral infection. Thanks for taking one for the team, Mom!

If we were having coffee today… I’d admit that my back pain is still a big problem. The muscle relaxers were not the miracle cure I was hoping for so I was in a lot of pain while in London. Thankfully, it wasn’t so much of an issue while we were out and about. It was when we were trying to relax in the hotel room that things devolved greatly. Laying down or sitting worsens the pain, and forget it I wanted to get up from the bed or even turn over for a different sleeping position. Immense pain. My next step is to see a chiropractor and hope they can fix what ails me. The fun never ends!

If we were having coffee today… I’d excitedly announce that I paid off one of my student loans! I officially have less than $1,500 left to pay on my student loans, which is really exciting. While my student loan payments aren’t astronomical (thanks to a $100 monthly student loan reimbursement through my company, it’s only about $100 a month), it will be nice to finally have those damn things paid off. The goal is not to enter my forties with student loan debt!

If we were having coffee today… I’d tell you that I finished beta-reading my friend’s memoir! It was such a great experience to read her memoir from a critical lens so I could offer helpful feedback about pacing, word choice, emotional depth, etc. She’s sent her memoir out to several people to read and everyone is gushing about it because it is so well-written and packs a punch. I can’t wait for the whole world to read it! And if you’d like to get a sampling of what you can expect from my dear friend’s book, please take a moment to read one of her latest essays. It made me tear up while I was helping her edit it, and tear up again when I reread it last night.

If we were having coffee today, what would you want to talk about?

Categories: Recurring Series

TGIF (v. 79)

The high of my week was going to Elizabeth Gilbert’s book event! Her book is getting a lot of buzz (and a lot of criticism). It has been very interesting to take in all of this criticism after going to her book event and hearing her talk about the book and what led her to write it. There was a whole discussion on a Patreon episode of Sarah’s Book Shelves Live that I vehemently disagreed with, but I also haven’t read the book so maybe my opinion will change after I do. But anyway, the book event itself was a wonderful time (it’s the best being surrounded by other bookish people!) and even better, my friend Lynn picked me up and handled the downtown parking situation, which always gives me anxiety. Ha!

The low of my week was back pain. I already talked about this back pain last Friday and on my Wednesday post, so I won’t continue carrying on about it. It hasn’t been fun to deal with, and I’m really glad I went to urgent care on Tuesday and got some muscle relaxers. They have helped so much. I’m still having some weird pain right in my spine (it almost feels like I need someone to crack one of the vertebrae back in place, if that’s even a thing), but it’s not super painful. After my trip, I’ll go see my chiropractor about it because what’s my life without doctor’s appointments?!

I’m currently reading two books. I’m still slowly working my way through Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, which has been fascinating! I’m also nearly finished with Any Trope But You by Victoria Lavine, which will likely be a 3-star romance (unless things go really off the rails at the end).

A Reel I loved was this “will my cats sit on anything?” Reel from one of my favorite cat account. I love that his cats are named Porky Belly and Jim!

A show I watched this week was the premiere of season 49 of Survivor! I really enjoyed the premiere and all of the different personalities. I already have a few favorites picked out, so we’ll see if they continue to be my favorites as the season progresses.

The best money I spent this week was on dinner for my nephew’s birthday yesterday. It was quite an inexpensive dinner, too, because my mom and I opted to split a meal, which was such a great decision.

My plans this weekend include a lot of fun things! Tonight, Bri and I are recording a few podcast episodes. Tomorrow, I have my writing date with Mikaela, and afterward, I’m getting my hair cut and colored! And then Sunday is football with the fam, and we’re going to celebrate my nephew’s birthday again. Yay! Also, after today, I have two full weeks off work, and I don’t even know what I’m going to do with myself. (I mean, aside from a little international travel!)

What was the high of your week?

Programming note: I’ll be taking the next two weeks off my blog, and then I’ll have a pretty light blogging schedule throughout October (maybe one post per week, at most). I’ll be back in full force in November, though, for NaBloPoMo!

Categories: Recurring Series

One Photo Per Hour: Tuesday, September 23, 2025

7:33 a.m.: I’ve been up for a bit, but here’s my first photo of the morning. It’s not very exciting, as it’s my scalp psoriasis shampoo. I should be using this twice a week, but it’s really more like twice a month. The reason I’m so bad about using it regularly is because it needs to sit on my scalp for 15 minutes and I’m not about to stand in a shower for 15 minutes while I wait for this shampoo to do its thing. Usually, I put it on before my shower while I sit on the couch and play games on my phone. Then, I rinse it off in the shower and do my regular shampoo routine. Anyway, I have two psoriasis patches right above each ear on my scalp and they’ve been very dry and flaky recently, so this extra step was necessary this morning.

8:43 a.m.: Ugh, pills. I hate that I take so many pills. And these don’t even include my multivitamin and vitamin C chewables! It’s too much.

9:21 a.m.: I’m at my computer working while Lila looks like she is contemplating the meaning of life. I use this time to go through my emails and make a plan for the day. I also decide to schedule an appointment at an urgent care clinic. My back pain is getting worse and now the pain is traveling down my right arm, which is concerning. I could barely get out of bed today and doing anything that causes me to use my left arm (like reaching for a pen) delivers sharp pain to my upper back. I don’t want to be in this much pain when I’m in London, so hopefully I can get some muscle relaxers and let them work their magic.

10:00 a.m.: (Don’t you love all of the cat hair on my laptop keyboard, ha?!) It’s time for our weekly leadership call, and we got a lot accomplished! I didn’t have to contribute too much in this call, either, so that’s a win/win for me.

11:23 a.m.: I’m all checked in at the urgent care clinic. When I told my mom about the appointment, she asked if I needed her to drive me there. I scoffed like, “Nah, I’m fine. I mean, I can barely walk without intense back pain, but driving should be a cinch!” Luckily, she insisted that she was going to pick me up and drive me to the appointment. I worked on my NYT puzzles while I waited to be called back.

12:23 p.m.: One full hour later, I’m finally in a room. Thankfully, once I get into a room, things go quickly! I talk with an NP about my back pain and she’s pretty certain I strained my trapezius muscle, either from poor posture or a poor sleeping arrangement. (Likely, I strained it from the way I was sleeping and then my poor posture habits just made everything worse.) So she prescribed me a muscle relaxer and told me to try physical therapy if the pain doesn’t get better within a few weeks.

1:02 p.m.: After my visit to urgent care, Mom and I stopped by Chick-Fil-A to pick up lunch. Yassss!

2:15 p.m.: Here’s a cute photo of Eloise as she naps in one of the cat scratchers. I’m editing content and responding to emails at this time, nothing exciting.

3:22 p.m.: Now Eloise is looking pensively at the rain outside, like she’s in a music video about the one who got away. Poor girl. I’m doing boring work things, like making notes for a meeting with my boss and then having said meeting with my boss. It’s a productive meeting, though, and we also chat through some of the tasks I’ll need her to monitor when I’m out of the office for two weeks.

4:50 p.m.: The third cat photo in a row! You’re welcome. I bought the blanket she’s laying on specifically so she could do exactly that on my desk. It means that sometimes when I’m on a meeting, I get to pet her soft belly and there’s nothing more calming than that. I’m trying to finish up some tasks for the day, getting through some editing, clearing out my inbox, and checking on some of my Salesforce dashboards.

5:47 p.m.: I have about 30 minutes left of my audiobook so I decide to finish it while working on a coloring page. I give the book 2 stars – I only kept reading because it talks about a Second Civil War in the year 2023 and it felt very prescient.

6:39 p.m.: I’ve been looking forward to this event for a long time! When I saw Elizabeth Gilbert was coming to Tampa on her book tour, I texted my friend Lynn and asked if she had any plans on this night. I made this her birthday gift, and we both got a signed copy of the book. I honestly had no idea what the book was about and didn’t realize it was a memoir of her wife dying with lots of stuff about addiction and codependency. Not exactly the lighthearted book I usually expect from her!

7:05 p.m.: There she is! She posed for all of us since the moment she came out, everyone had their phones out. So she said we could all take a photo of her and then we had to put our phones away. I like that! She had a wonderful discussion about her book and all of the events that preceded it, read from the first chapter, and then took questions. She was gracious and lovely and kind, and she had so many good nuggets of wisdom about grief and pain and death. It’s a heavy topic, but there is a lightness about her that kept it from being too heavy.

8:30 p.m.: A lovely show with a lovely woman! We had a good time and it was a delight to be out of the theater by 8:30 and home by 9!

9:26 p.m.: It’s back to boring adulting tasks at home. I’m folding laundry and doing my nighttime routine, while also working on this post.

10:50 p.m.: I wish I could have captured my entire setup while I was reading on the couch. I had a heating pad on my back and an ice pack for my IT band because apparently I’m 105 years old now. But at least I got some reading done while taking care of all my troublesome ailments.

11:18 p.m.: You get two pictures for the last hour of my day! Eloise carefully monitored me from the top of the couch while I was doing my heat/ice routine, while Lila snoozed in her hammock on the cat tree.

What’s a boring adulting task you did yesterday?

Categories: Recurring Series

Five for Friday (v. 121)

1) The dachshund meetup

My mom and I took Chip and Lucy to the Tampa Bay Weens meetup last weekend, and I was in heaven! So many adorable little wieners running around! At some point, I plopped myself right on the ground, which was a great decision (because it meant that I got to snuggle so many little doxies that came right into my lap!) and a terrible decision (because a dog peed on me), but eh, it is what it is. (The owner felt so bad, but it’s honestly my fault for SITTING ON THE GROUND OF A DOG PARK WHAT WAS I THINKING.)

Chip had a great time and immediately left us to chase around with the other dogs. He would come back to us from time and time, and then race off to sniff some butts and run around with other dogs. Lucy, though, was our shy little girl. She would not leave our side. If we were standing up, she was sitting on our shoes. If we were sitting down, she was launching herself into our arms. Her tail was tucked alllll the way under her to entire time. Sigh. She is such a crazy, feisty gal at home, but maybe she’s got some of that social anxiety like her sister. 😉

The next meetup is in mid-October and there’s going to be a costume contest. I’m brainstorming some cute couple costume ideas for Chip and Lucy! Superman and Supergirl? Cheerleader and football player? Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion? There are so many good ideas!

2) Back pain

I wasn’t going to write about my back pain because I am so damn tired about writing about my health ailments. But then I read Kae’s post yesterday about all her aches and pains and I have a lot of the same frustrations as her! I’m only 37 and my body has been falling apart all damn year. First, there was the possible diabetes diagnosis but whew, avoided that with some changes to my diet. Then, it was intense carpal tunnel pain, testing for that, and an eventual steroid shot that has helped calm things down massively. Then, it was chronic diarrhea and so many tests to figure out what’s causing it. No IBS or any other serious condition, and everything seems to be back to normal in the GI department, so *shrug*. Then, my joints started hurting and I was diagnosed with trigger finger in both my pointer fingers and got a steroid shot, which seems to have solved the issue.

And now? I’m dealing with back pain and IT band pain. YAY.

The back pain has been very frustrating, and I have had to change the way I sleep (one flat pillow under my head and one pillow under my knees). My back pain hasn’t gotten worse, but it’s still a bit tender, and I have to be careful with some of the workouts I do at HIIT class. It mainly hurts in the middle of my back, near my spine, between my shoulder blades. Dr. AI tells me I’m dealing with facet joint irritation or some kind of muscle strain. Whatever it is, I hope it goes away soon because I’ve got a big trip and a big move on the horizon!

The IT band pain is something I’ve had before. I think it just gets irritated from time to time, probably because I’m always sitting with my legs crossed. It hurts to even lift up my foot to put on socks and shoes, so that’s fun. I need to be better about icing it and stretching it daily, but still, I’m annoyed.

Can my body just BEHAVE for one goddamn month, please?!

3) My anxiety brain

Would you like to know what it’s like to be inside my brain? Last night, I decided to Facetime my mom around 6 p.m. While I knew I was going to call her after we had watched the episode of Big Brother that would air in a few hours, I still wanted to check in and chat. As we were on the phone, Robert asked if she wanted to go to a restaurant for dinner, and she said yes, and we hung up soon afterward.

THEN.

My brain wanted to spiral. “What if the reason you felt the urge to call your mom right at that time is because something is going to happen tonight and that will be the last call you ever have with her?”

Thankfully, I did not let my brain spiral. I did not give any credence to this thought because it’s one I’ve had before, and it never ends up being a true statement. That’s real progress for me, the not-spiraling, because there was a time when I couldn’t get myself out of that thought pattern. Instead, I went about my life (without incessantly checking the Find My Friends app, which I am sometimes wont to do) and all ended up being just fine. Mom had a lovely night out with her husband (and they won a raffle prize!) and we got to chat after the show was over.

4) Blogging in October

I’m trying to decide what to do about blogging in October. I’m noodling between two options:

  • Option 1 – Take a blogging break in October and come back for NaBloPoMo in November. By that time, I’ll be all moved in to my new place and can use November to publish London trip recaps, moving notes, book reviews, etc.
  • Option 2 – Take a shorter blogging break in October (October 1 – October 13) and then post 1-2 blog posts a week: trip recaps, book reviews, and catch-up posts.

I’m leaning towards option 1 because I like the idea of taking the pressure off myself to blog during this hectic time—and it will give me time to work on my trip recaps and have them ready to post in November. But I don’t love the idea of waiting all the way until November to recap London!

I could also be flexible with myself—I can announce a blogging break in October but pop in sporadically throughout the month with posts here and there, maybe just trip recaps and then resume my normal blogging schedule in November.

I’ve been on the fence about doing NaBloPoMo this year. Honestly, my enneagram 9 is coming out because while I love doing NaBloPoMo, I know it’s hard for other people to keep up with all the blog posts. I don’t want to cause undue stress to other people! Sigh. It’s hard being a people pleaser.

5) Weekend plans

I’m looking forward to the weekend! Tonight is book club. We’re going to Top Golf, where I will play terribly but stuff myself silly with food. Tomorrow is a writing date with Mikaela and then some shopping adventures with my mom. And Sunday, all I have on the docket is football with the fam! (And I don’t even have to worry about the Dolphins disappointing me. They already did that last night!)

What should I do about my October blogging schedule? What are you up to this weekend?

Categories: Recurring Series

Currently in September

Loving… the slow packing process. Gosh, I love packing. And I love it because a) I’m only packing up my own stuff and b) it fulfills something deep within my organizing soul. Right now, I’m not packing up much. Every day, I pick a few things to pack away (mostly things on the walls or kitchen items I know I won’t need anytime soon). I’m also going through the difficult process of culling my book collection. It needs to be done and it means there will be room on my shelves for MOAR BOOKS, but it’s a hard process.

Loathing… high electric bills. I just paid $271 for my electric bill in September, which makes me want to throw up. Almost $300 for a 715-square-foot apartment! It’s never been this high, even during the height of summer. Yes, I keep my AC running hard (70 degrees at night, 73 degrees during the day), but even still, this feels excessive. I did some research on my past bills – in July 2024, I actually used more energy (by 154 kWh) but paid almost $10 less. This year, the energy charges have increased by 35% and boy, am I feeling it. I found this thread on the Florida subreddit and it makes me feel less crazy.

Reading… a few books. I’ve picked up Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, which I can tell is just going to make me feel bad about my sleeping habits. Since that’s a dense nonfiction book, I’m putting it down every 50 or so pages for a romance, and right now, I’m reading Any Trope but You by Victoria Lavine. I’ve only read about 30 pages, and I’m not sure if I’m going to stick with it. And on audio, I’m about halfway through Hestia Strikes a Match by Christine Grillo. It’s good, but I’m kinda tired with the narrator. Basically, my reading life is GOING GREAT.

Watching… football. It’s going to be a bad year to be a Dolphins fan. We look embarrassingly bad, and I don’t think our head coach is going to make it very far into the season before he’s axed. I’m trying to figure out what other team I’ll be rooting for this year, since the Dolphins have failed me so spectacularly. Maybe the 49ers, since they’re my brother’s favorite team. Or maybe I’ll go rogue and root for the Eagles. (It is Superman’s favorite team, after all, and I’m still obsessed with him.)

Listening to… Teaching Texas. I feel like someone in this blogging community recommended this podcast to me, but I can’t remember who. It is so good. It’s the story of how textbooks come together, and how a couple with zero experience in education somehow became big players in that world. They had a very specific Christian worldview and wanted things like slavery and the Holocaust whitewashed. What’s wild is that this directly impacted me because these were the textbooks I was learning from as a child! I still remember the day I sat in a college classroom, learning about the truth behind Christopher Columbus, and someone in class raising their hand to say, “Why weren’t we taught this in school?” I think the host of this podcast does a fantastic job of explaining the impact of this kind of rhetoric being infused into textbooks and not letting any of her interview subjects off the hook.

Anticipating… a very busy October. It’s going to be quite the month for me! First, there’s the London trip. My mom and I leave in THIRTEEN DAYS! Yesterday, my mom asked if it was too early to start packing. Ha! We are so excited! And then when I come back from London, I’ll be spending the rest of the month packing and moving! I was able to get my move-in day switched from September 27th to October 8th, which I’m really happy about. We fly back on October 7th, so I’ll be able to get the keys and check out the space the day after I come home. No post-vacation blues for me! And then I’ll do a slow move-in process throughout the month. I’ll probably do the full move-in (furniture and boxes) the last week of October, which will give me two weekends to clean my old apartment before it’s time to turn in the keys.

Thinking about… my budget. I’m having some anxiety about my increased living expenses (the increase will be around $350) and a little bit of, “Who do you think you are to rent a two-bedroom apartment? You are not Ms. Moneybags!” I know I will have to get a bit stricter with my budget, but there are so many easy ways to cut down expenses. (Hello, how about I stop spending $200 a month on takeout?) And honestly, when I think about the pros and cons of staying put, there is only one pro on the list: cheap rent. And while that’s a very important reason to stay put (and the reason I’ve stayed for more years than I planned), it’s not enough for me anymore. I know I can afford these increased living expenses, and it’ll be good for me to follow a stricter budget, I think.

Buying... little things for the new apartment. Mostly the boring purchases, like toilet paper, paper towels, hand soap, etc. It’s the stuff I’ll want to have at my apartment during the slow move-in process. But you better believe I’ve been spending a lot of time looking up coffee tables and nightstands and bathroom decor. I need to be careful (see above!), but I think I can allow myself a few new things.

Grateful… for tiny joys. Things like mini chocolate ice cream cones, Facetiming with my mom, a cat jumping up on my desk and asking for pets, wood wick candles that make my apartment so cozy, pumpkin spice season, time blocking, the Happy Color app, and Marco Polos with Mikaela.

What are you currently anticipating?