Happy Christmas Eve Eve Eve! 🙂 This will be my last post before Christmas, so I hope everyone has a lovely holiday. I’ll be celebrating with my family. Since most of us have to work the day after Christmas (wah), we’re going to keep it low-key with a small celebration at my mom’s place. I finished my Christmas shopping a while ago and even have all my presents wrapped, so I feel ahead of the game. It should be a lovely Christmassy weekend and I am very much looking forward to it.

Here’s a little TGIF post to guide everyone into the Christmas holiday:

The high of my week was the annual Christmas dinner with my best girls, where we got all fancy and exchanged our Secret Santa gifts. This is our fourth gift-giving exchange and the third time we’ve made a reservation at The Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant where we all stuffed ourselves silly with cheese and chocolate fondue (although we all agreed that all we really wanted was pot after pot of cheese fondue). It was the best night!

The low of my week was nothing in particular, really! It’s been a fairly good week, aside from some anxiety struggles and slight bouts of loneliness I’ve been experiencing. Those are common for this time of year, so I’m trying to just ride the wave and focus on the good things in my life.

I’m currently reading Hunger by Roxane Gay. I didn’t love – or even like, if I’m being brutally honest – Bad Feminist by her, but I am loving this novel. It’s a vulnerable and gut-wrenching look at what it’s like to grow up in this society as fat. Everything Gay writes is stuff I experience on a daily basis (either from other people or what I tell myself about my fatness.) It’s comforting and eye-opening and it’s making me come to terms with my own fat body.

An article I loved was 28 of the Most Powerful Pieces of Writing By Women in 2017. I am slowly making my way through this list (the article on Dylann Roof was outstanding) that a friend shared with me, and everything I’ve read makes me so grateful for these women and their writing. I encourage everyone to check it out!

A podcast episode I enjoyed was The Defeat of Wright Patman from Slow Burn. I learned about this super interesting podcast from Anna Sale of Death, Sex & Money fame (she called it out in her newsletter). It’s an eight-episode podcast series all about Watergate where the host is trying to answer the question: if we were living through Watergate right now, would we even know it? Obviously, it has links to what we’re currently experiencing with today’s political climate and as someone who knows NOTHING about Watergate (seriously, I had to read through the Wikipedia page on it to learn about it, eeks), I’m finding the podcast series fascinating. Give it a listen!

The best money I spent this week was $25 for my work Secret Santa! Usually, my work throws a White Elephant gift exchange at our annual Christmas party, but our company is getting way too large for us to do it anymore. It would take two or three hours probably! So, instead, there was no gift exchange at the Christmas party and instead, we did a Secret Santa gift exchange at work this week. It was so much fun. The coworker I received is a fellow dachshund mom who loves coffee, so her gift was easy: a cute dachshund mug and a gift card to Starbucks. Boom, done. 🙂

My plans this weekend include all of the Christmassy things! Tonight, I am helping my mom with grocery shopping for Christmas Day (we’re not doing anything extravagant, but it’ll be good to have this done tonight). Tomorrow, I am having breakfast with a friend and then lunch with my grandpa (and that evening, I think it’s time for my annual watching of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation!) On Sunday, the whole family is coming together to make Christmas cookies and watch football – yay! I’ll also probably go out to dinner with my mom and stepdad. Christmas morning will be spent at home, although I’ll probably head to my mom’s mid-morning to open presents before my brother and his family comes over in the afternoon. It’s going to be a crazy, but incredibly fun, weekend! Woo!

What was the high and the low of your week?

The high of my week was the beautiful weather we’ve been having. You guys, we’re seeing temperatures in the mid-70s during the day. That is unheard of for this time of year! We’re usually still in the 90s. Every time I walk outside and I’m not immediately hit by a wall of humidity, I can’t help but smile. I love this time of year, and I’m so happy that we’re experiencing a small dose of fall here in Florida.

The low of my week was feeling unmotivated to work out. My last workout was on Saturday and I have no good excuse for why I haven’t worked out since then. My week has been busier than normal, but that’s really not a good excuse for why I haven’t exercised. I’ve had the time; I’ve just chosen to let laziness take over. I just feel like I can’t get back into my workout groove (it feels like the hurricane shook things up and it’s been hard to settle back down), but the only way to do something is to do it, right? I need to just get my butt over to the gym, even when I don’t feel like it.

I’m currently reading Never Judge a Lady By Her Cover by Sarah MacLean. I’m so glad I found this romance author last year. Her historical romances are my favorite and it doesn’t hurt that her titles are so clever!

A blog post I loved was Why Is It So Hard To Talk To White Folks About Racism? on Scary Mommy. San posted the link to this article on her most recent Link Love post and I can’t get over how incredible it is. Every white person needs to read this. Like, right now. Even if you think you are a “good white person” (whatever that means). This paragraph, in particular, stood out to me and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it:

Most whites live, grow, play, learn, love, work and die primarily in social and geographic racial segregation. Yet, our society does not teach us to see this as a loss. Pause for a moment and consider the magnitude of this message: We lose nothing of value by having no cross-racial relationships. In fact, the whiter our schools and neighborhoods are, the more likely they are to be seen as “good.” The implicit message is that there is no inherent value in the presence or perspectives of people of color. This is an example of the relentless messages of white superiority that circulate all around us, shaping our identities and worldviews.

The best money I spent was $5 to participate in a pumpkin bake-off at work. I’ll admit that I’m not the biggest pumpkin lover. I don’t like pumpkin spice lattes or pumpkin pie but give me a hunk of pumpkin bread or a pumpkin cookie and you’re my best friend. Thankfully, most of our “chefs” made sweet treats for the bake-off (there was only one pumpkin chili, which I couldn’t eat due to my weird texture issues) and they put me in a food coma. Between the pumpkin cheesecake, the pumpkin fudge, the pumpkin baklava, the pumpkin-nutella bread… y’all, my coworkers are some incredible bakers. It was so hard to vote for my favorite!

My plans this weekend include a writing date on Saturday morning and football with the family on Sunday. I also just made a decision on my Halloween costume (my goal is to never spend more than $10 on any Halloween costume, so I always opt for something “punny”), so I might see if I can get the pieces I need at Target this weekend. But other than that, it’ll be super low-key! Lots of napping, reading, and coloring while watching Grace and Frankie is on the agenda. 🙂

What was the best thing you spent money on this week?

The high of my week was dinner with my girlfriends on Monday night. It was so nice to get together with them and chat about how we all were doing following the storm. They kept me sane during the hurricane and I don’t know what I would have done without them!

The low of my week was feeling uninspired. It’s been a weird week for me emotionally. Maybe I’m still recovering from the emotional turmoil the hurricane put me through (which makes me feel like a whiny baby when I see what Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria have done to Puerto Rico). But I haven’t felt like working out, and even going to spin class feels like a chore. I haven’t felt like cooking or eating healthy. I haven’t felt like being around people. I’m just this gray ball of gloom right now. I’m trying to give myself grace and just let myself be gloomy and moody, but I’m really hoping I snap out of this funk soon.

I’m currently reading Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan. This is the September pick for my work book club and it’s been a book that I’ve been wanting to read for a while, but I don’t think I would have gotten around to it anytime soon, if not for book club. I’m only about 50 pages in so far, but I’m enjoying it!

A blog post I loved was this post by Girl’s Gone Child. The post was everything to me. It was about raising feminist children and being a feminist and fighting for what you believe in and rape culture and speaking your truth even when it hurts. Please go read it.

Guilt will not absolve us of our crimes, of course. We must work together to change the narrative. We must fight against our own implicit bias. We must recognize our shadows and face them head on. We must be willing to break our children of their innocence so that across town, children in REAL DANGER can be safe.

We must be willing to call ourselves out…

A podcast episode I enjoyed was Episode 0: Genesis by Good Christian Fun. This is a brand-new podcast hosted by Kevin T. Porter, he of Gilmore Guys fame, and I think it’s exactly what I need. This podcast explores Christian pop culture, something I am super familiar with. As most people know, I grew up in the church and Christian pop culture was all the rage in the 90s/early 2000s. In my house, we solely listened to Christian radio (even knowing the lyrics to a Britney Spears song was blasphemy) and a good chunk of the books I read (especially in my late teens and early twenties) were Christian based. So, I think I will find a lot to relate to in this podcast and I can’t wait to fully dive into the episodes!

The best money I spent this week was on the new iPhone 8! I probably wouldn’t have bothered getting a new phone just yet (I have the 6S), but my current phone doesn’t last more than 3-4 hours before the battery dies. My plan was just to get a new battery for the phone since it works fine otherwise, but I realized that I also need a phone with more space (my phone only has 16gb and let me tell you, that is not enough space, even for someone who doesn’t use a ton of apps!). So I bit the bullet and got the iPhone 8 with 64gb and it should be delivered sometime next month. My plan is to keep that phone until it dies a tragic death – hopefully, four or five years from now, ha.

My plans this weekend include a writing date with my friend, M., and my nephew’s birthday party on Sunday afternoon. He turns NINE on Monday, which is crazy to me. How did he get so old? Other than that, the weekend should be fairly low-key for me, which is exactly what I need. Hoping it’s a rejuvenating one for everyone!

What was the high of your week? What are you currently reading?

The high of my week was taking my older nephew to a Rays game. Over the past few months, my nephew has morphed into a Serious Baseball Fan. He knows stats and players and could tell me all of the injured Rays players and how they got their injuries. So it was especially delightful to take him to a Rays game with my mom to experience baseball through his eyes. The Rays lost and my nephew was definitely bummed, but he had a blast!

The low of my week was coming home from that Rays game to a poopsplosion from Dutch and no electricity. My nephew wanted to stay for the entire game, so I didn’t get home until after 11 and all I wanted to do was wash my face and go right to bed. Unfortunately, life had other plans. First, I came home to a little “poopsplosion” from Dutch, which was all over my kitchen floor, and then after dealing with that, I realized that my electricity was off (it was still on in my bedroom and bathroom, but the living room and kitchen were power-less). Thankfully, I was able to charge my phone and call my electric company to report the outage (I wasn’t the only one affected), and then I proceeded to sleep not a wink that night, mostly because I didn’t have AC and I need an ice-cold home to sleep. While I was able to use my ceiling fan for some of the night, I woke up around 4am to discover the ceiling fan was off and I had lost total power. Fun! The electricity finally came back on a little after 8am, whew.

I’m currently reading The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. My work book club picked this for June after a coworker raved about it. Likewise, just about every person in my other book club has read this book and raved about it, so I think I’m settling in for a fantastic read!

A Internet find I loved this dating profile from 1865. Somehow, I need to adapt this for my own dating profiles.

A podcast episode I enjoyed was Are Election Laws Designed to Suppress Voters? by Stuff You Should Know. This was the kind of episode that had me saying out loud “oh my god” as I listened to it and I really liked how amped up Josh and Chuck got about it. I would encourage anyone to give it a listen to become informed about all the ways we have tried – and are still trying – to suppress peoples’ right to vote.

The best money I spent this week was $10 on Starbucks breakfast on Tuesday morning. Starbucks breakfast is always a “treat yoself” sort of thing for me. On Tuesday morning, after barely sleeping all night, I knew I need to treat myself and so I did. No regrets!

My plans this weekend include some workouts, including a spin class on Saturday morning. Potentially finally getting my book tattoo on Saturday, game night with my family on Saturday night, a writing date on Sunday morning, and a fun DIY class on Sunday afternoon with some friends. Whew! Let’s hope I emerge from this weekend with my sanity intact!

What was the best thing that happened to you this week?