1) Psoriatic arthritis – the physical side

I’ve been on prednisone for three days now, and I am amazed at how good I feel. I’m not fully pain-free. My sausage finger is still a little stiff, but the swelling has gone down and I can grip things again! (It’s painful to grip things, but not impossible like it was before.) And my left shoulder hasn’t quite bounced back, although it gets a little less stiff and achy every day. But I can deal with that. Being in chronic pain for five months, I had forgotten what it’s like to do the simplest tasks without pain. Bending down to put on my shoes. Getting out of bed in the morning. Petting my cats. Drying myself off after a shower. Picking up a plate from a cabinet. Standing up. Walking up and down stairs. Putting on a pair of pants. Tying my shoes. All of this was unbearably difficult for so many months. I know there is a long journey ahead of me as I work with my rheumatologist on the right medication, but right now, I am just soaking in these moments where I feel good and like a woman in her late thirties again.

2) Psoriatic arthritis – the emotional side

I don’t think I’ve really come to terms with the emotional side of this diagnosis and what it means to have a chronic autoimmune condition. Last summer, when my index fingers were swollen and hard to use, I was terrified I had rheumatoid arthritis. I didn’t even talk to Lisa about this because I didn’t want to speak any truth to it. At this point, I’m guessing I didn’t have trigger finger but rather a symptom of psoriatic arthritis (and since the pain was cleared up with steroid shots, that’s even more proof). Fast forward to January and I am crossing all of my fingers and toes that I would be diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis. It’s not that I wanted an autoimmune condition; I wanted answers. I wanted to stop feeling so terrible all the time. Nothing about my pain felt normal, especially for someone who is 38 and able-bodied. And while I will likely have to deal with the emotional side of this diagnosis at some point, right now, I am just relieved to have a reason behind my pain. It’s not all in my head. It’s a real condition, and there is treatment for it.

3) Instagram break

On Sunday night, after doomscrolling through my feed right before bed, I decided it was time to delete Instagram from my phone. I needed a break from the news and the opinions of what’s happening and the incredibly vile responses from the leaders of our country. Things feel so bleak and so hopeless right now. A baby almost died because of ICE! How does anyone justify that? How does the pro-life party justify anything that’s happening right now? It makes me sick to my stomach on a daily basis. I miss my cute cat videos and silly memes, but it’s good to be off Instagram right now. I’m going to take February off Instagram and then reevaluate if I want to return.

4) A moment of delight

Who wants a dose of delight? Last night, my mom and I met at a restaurant near her house for dinner and afterwards, we hopped in my car to drive over to Bath & Body Works (which is in the same shopping center) to poke around. Then, we walked over to the grocery store for a few items before hopping back into my car. And then I pulled right out of the shopping center and was halfway to her house when I started laughing hysterically. “Oh my god, I have to drive you back to your car!” Folks, I was ready to take my mom straight home, forgetting that she had driven to dinner herself. After the grocery store, I was supposed to drop her off at her car, not at her house. She started laughing, too, and said, “I was thinking, ‘Oh, I’m going to have to go in [to her house] through the front door but I don’t remember leaving through the front door!'” (She has a garage, so she would have left through the garage tonight!) Sigh. At least it was literally a 1-minute difference in time since she lives so close to this shopping center. And it made us laugh so much!

5) Weekend plans

You guys, it’s going to get cold this weekend! There’s even a slim chance that we could get snow flurries! That would be wild. The high on Sunday is 46 degrees, eeks.

Other than preparing for our Florida snow day, I don’t have too much going on this weekend. Today, I’m planning on tackling some errands and getting some chores done. (How exciting.) Tomorrow, I have a writing date with Mikaela and then a reading date with another friend. And Sunday, I will stay cozy indoors! I realize that a high of 46 for you heartier winter folk means going outside and enjoying the “warmth,” but I am not hearty when it comes to cold temperatures like these!

Tell me a moment of delight from your week! 

Life is heavy, you guys. I feel weird not acknowledging the cold-blooded murder of Renee Good or the completely enraging response by the White House. I feel helpless and sad and scared. I knew life under another Trump regime would be horrifying, but man did I underestimate how dark things would get.

And yet… there is also hope and joy and activism. Protests and fundraisers. And there are silly blog posts to write about my silly privileged life where I can put down my phone and forget about what’s happening. Not everyone gets the chance to do that, and my hope is that this silly blog post delivers a little bit of lightness to you. <3

1) My new morning routine

One of my big goals this year is to figure out my daily routines. I have long struggled with this aspect of full-time remote work, even though it feels like something I should have done to a science by now. This week I finally implemented a new morning routine and I am loving it. I set my alarm for 6 a.m., let it snooze once, and then get up, feed the cats, and make coffee. Then I sit down in my new reading chair in my office and read a book while drinking coffee. Once my cup is empty, I’ll take a shower, make breakfast, and then sit down at the table to eat breakfast and read blogs. Then, it’s time for my morning skincare routine (+ other tasks like emptying the dishwasher, taking my meds, making my bed, dealing with my CPAP machine, etc.). Lastly, I sit down with my planner to write out some to-dos before logging onto work. So far, I am enjoying this morning routine so much! It’s nice to get 20-30 minutes of reading time before my day even begins!

2) Worldle

I haven’t played Worldle (that name is so clunky, ugh) in many years, but I decided to start playing again this year with a very nerdy twist. Worldle is a game where you’re given the outline of a country and have to name what it is. You get six guesses and with every guess, you learn how far away the mystery country is to the country you guessed and its position. For example, yesterday’s answer was Lithuiana and when I guessed Australia (don’t judge me!), it told me the mystery country was 13,553km from Australia and to the west.

And listen, I am terrible at geography so I am terrible at Worldle. I barely ever get the country right unless it’s one of those obvious answers. But I love it because once I find out the country of the day, I open up ChatGPT to ask questions. I ask about the history of the country, the climate, the geography, the culture, what it’s like to live there today, etc. It’s fascinating! I also pull up Google Earth to see where the country is located geographically because my knowledge of where countries are situated is very poor. One of my friends said that Worldle repeats a lot of their answers, but that’s okay! It’ll show me if I’m learning anything from this nerdy project of mine.

3) Bookly

Last year, I used an app called Bookly to track my reading. I wanted to use it for a full year just for shits and giggles. Bookly is an app that tracks how long it takes you to finish books. You can manually enter time or you can use the timer, where you start the timer when you sit down to read and stop the timer when your reading session is over. At the end, you mark down what page you’re on, and then it tells you how long it will take you to finish a book. I also used it to track my audiobook listening hours, which was fascinating!

I wasn’t sure if I was going to keep using Bookly, but once 2026 rolled around, I decided to give it a rest. And OH MY GOD. I had no idea how stressful I had made my reading life! Do you know how satisfying it is to sit down to read and not have to worry about starting a timer? Or listen to an audiobook and not keep track of what time you started listening and what time you stopped? I feel so FREE. I can just read without opening up an app on my phone first! What a concept.

Am I glad I did a full year of book tracking? I guess so? I don’t know what I learned, other than the fact I never want to do it again.

4) Two weeks of feeding training

I spent a lot of time procrastinating about getting my cats’ new microchip feeders set up. I think I got the feeders in early December? And I didn’t set them up until a few days before New Year’s. Oops! My girls eat wet food in the morning (a 3-oz can split between two bowls) and then they free-feed on dry food throughout the rest of the day. And while they are still going to be able to free-feed, they will only be able to eat at the feeder linked to the microchip on their collars. There’s a lid that only opens up when the right cat is at the right feeder. Once the cat leaves, the lid closes.

For the first week, I kept the feeders unplugged and just let them free-feed as normal. I wanted them to get used to the feeders before we moved on to the scary part! Then, last Saturday, I put their collars on and closed the lids, but since Eloise kept taking her collar off, I decided to give her a break from the collar and keep the lids open. Monday morning, I tried again! I tightened up Eloise’s collar and put it on her, and she hasn’t taken it off since then. I closed the lids and they were curious about the opening and closing mechanism, but wouldn’t eat from their bowl. In the evening, I opened the lids and then kept them open for a few days to show them that the feeders were their friends!

(At this point, I also moved Eloise’s feeder so it’s on the opposite side of the hallway. They were only eating from the right feeder when the lid was open, and some Googling led me to believe the problem was the corner location.)

First location 

New location

Thursday, I closed the lids again and they were still a little wary, so I decided to serve them a little bit of Churu in bowls and place the bowls in front of their respective feeders. Eloise went first and as she started chowing down, her feeder lid opened and she was a little perturbed, but not enough to abandon her yum-yums. And then Lila did the same. I figured I’d just keep giving them treats in front of their feeders until they figured out that they didn’t have to be scared of them. But because my girls are geniuses, they figured it out quickly and both started eating from their feeders last night. I think we finally might be on the path to feeder independence. Fingers crossed!

5) Weekend plans

It’s the freakin’ weekend! It’s been a long week, especially getting back into the swing of things after such a long time off work. Tonight, I’m going over to my mom’s to watch the premiere episodes of The Traitors US. (YAYYYY!) Tomorrow, I have book club and then I’ll spend the rest of the day at my mom’s to watch playoff football. And Sunday is a writing date and then more playoff football!