I’m documenting my life in a series of “Week in the Life” posts. I hope everyone enjoys this little peek into my day-to-day! Read all about Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

Sunday’s story begins at 2:00 a.m., which is when Dutch finally got off the couch and came into my room. “Stephany,” you may be asking, “Why didn’t you just bring him into your room when you went to bed?” Very good question, my friends. Because Dutch was feeling mean when I went to bed and when I tried to pick him up so I could carry him from the couch and to my bed, he tried to bite me. This is his nighttime M.O. He’s gotten me real good before, so I’ve learned my lesson and let him be when he’s feeling mean.

Anyway, he was back to being Sweet Dutch at this time, so I picked him up and put him on my bed and we slept until about 7 a.m.

Once up, we took a long walk and then snuggled on the couch while I read my book. Around 8:30, I got ready and left to meet my friend at Starbucks for our weekly writing date.

I was super stoked to see that peppermint mochas are back at Starbucks! YAY! They were also playing Christmas music and you know, I didn’t hate it. I’m ready for some Christmas cheer! I bought a blueberry muffin and a peppermint mocha Frappuccino, chatted with my friend for a little bit, and then got to work.

I escaped from my story nearly two hours later, having written over 2,300 words. It was a successful morning of writing and I have to say how much I am enjoying the writing process for my novel. I have lots of thoughts and feelings I’ll save for a separate blog post (you know, after I win NaNoWriMo this year!), but suffice it to say, it’s been such a fun time and I can’t wait for the day I can do this for a living.

We finished up our writing date around 11:15 and I took care of two errands (dropping a whole backseat full of donations at Goodwill and dropping my Postal Book Club book in the mail) before picking up a sub for lunch and making my way back home.

I got home around 12:45 and took Dutch on his second long walk for the day. I’m experimenting with taking the little dude on longer walks, 10-15 minutes in length, thinking maybe he’s not getting “everything out” with his shorter walks. It seems to be helping. And this concludes Ponderings About My Dog’s Pee Problems.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing and not doing much! I love, love, love lazy Sundays. I really try hard to keep my Sundays free of plans as much as I can because I feel like it helps me to better ease back into the work week.

I turned football on, ate lunch, and then just puttered around the apartment, getting things done. I finished my book (easily the best book I’ve read this year and probably even in my top three of all-time), took a short nap, started a new book, read some blogs and caught up on the online forums I follow.

After watching the disappointing ending to the Giants/Patriots game, I took Dutch on a long walk and then caught up on How to Get Away with Murder while eating dinner (pizza leftovers!).

I decided I needed to take care of some adulting tasks (mainly bill paying and budgeting), which I did while watching Sunday Night Football. Around 10:30, I took a bath and then wrote this post while watching the end of the football game.

I didn’t get to bed until about midnight, which is super late for a “school night” but oh well. It happens!

Some thoughts: This concludes my “Week in the Life” series! I really enjoyed doing it this year, even though my week was not all that exciting. But I think that’s the beauty of this project. It gives people a peek into everyday living. It allows people to learn about someone’s routines and habits and needs. We get to see the mundane, little moments of someone’s life – these are the moments that so easily escape our memory, but when we’re living in them, they mean so much. I’m happy I did this project again, and I am definitely planning on doing it again next year.

Do you prefer busy Sundays or lazy ones?

This week, I am documenting my life in a series of “Week in the Life” posts. I hope everyone enjoys this little peek into my day-to-day! Read all about Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

I woke up on Saturday to the news about the Paris attacks. Honestly, I have no words and I don’t know how to adequately express my grief and pain. This world can be such a scary place. Innocent lives were lost for what reason? It makes no sense to me. It’s heartbreaking.

No matter how I transition from talking about the Paris attacks to writing a silly day in the life post, it’s going to look awkward and strange and dumb, so I’m just going to acknowledge that. Here I go anyway.

Dutch woke me up at 6:50 a.m. by snuggling up super close and licking my face. He’s the best alarm clock anyone could ask for! We got up and took a long walk. It was 59 degrees at that time and I wore a jacket. Yay for fall-like temperatures! (If only they would stick around…)

After our walk, I lounged in bed reading my book, and then eventually got up around 8:30 to go to the gym.

At the gym, I did a simple 30-minute walking treadmill workout, came home, fed Dutch, and then got right to work on my NaNoWriMo writing for the day (1,700 words – works for me!).

After that, I took a shower and got ready for the day. It was going to be a busy one! First, I had plans for lunch with my mom, and then we (+ Dutch, of course) were going to Dogtoberfest in Dunedin!

I left Tampa at noon, with Dutch in tow, and we picked up Chick-Fil-A for lunch, bringing it to my mom’s new apartment to eat.

Around 2 p.m., we made our way to Dunedin to attend Dogtoberfest! My mom, Dutch, and I have attended this festival/adopt-a-thon for four years now, mainly because it holds a Running of the Wieners race every year. I love this race and look forward to it every year. It’s just so fun to be around so many dogs and I love watching the little doxies run their tiny legs off in their races. It puts me in such a good mood. It doesn’t hurt that it’s a cheap festival and it goes to a good cause (just $5 for parking and $7 to enter the race, all proceeds going to the Suncoast Animal League, a nonprofit, no-kill animal rescue agency). Also? Nearly 200 dogs were adopted today! Isn’t that AMAZING? Go, Dogtoberfest!

They run the dogs in different age groups (Dutch is a “Senior Sausage,” in the 10 and up age group). Usually, they run the heats from youngest to oldest, which has never made sense to me. This year, though, they started running the senior dogs first! Yay! We wouldn’t have to wait around for an hour or more for him to run. Instead, we only had to wait about ten minutes for his heat to be called.

In the end, Dutch finished second in his heat, but he crossed the finish line, which is all we wanted for him! He did so well. There’s a fun video on Instagram that includes me screaming his name, for your viewing pleasure.

We left the festival around 4:15 p.m. and headed back to St. Pete to visit my grandfather (whom I will now just call Pops because that’s what I call him. So weird to call him anything else!). I hadn’t seen him since the funeral, nor had I been to his home since the night my grandma died. I’ve been really putting off going to the house if I’m being honest. It just doesn’t feel right being there without Grandma. I kept expecting her to walk down the hallway and see me and give me her bright smile. She always had the biggest smile for me, as if just my very presence brightened her entire day. It’s so unfair that I’m never going to see that smile again.

While visiting Pops, he played two videos he found of Grandma. One was during an interview he and my grandma taped in the early 1990s with the Christian Television Network, where Pops described the time he was electrocuted. (His heart stopped for 20 minutes, but he survived with no issues!)

Oh, Grandma. She looked so beautiful and so warm and so loving and so comforting. And then she started talking and that’s when I lost it. Tears. It just reminded me of how long it’s been since I’ve heard her voice, how long it’s been since she’d been healthy and vibrant. It was so special to see her like that and to hear her voice. I miss her so much, and it just struck me how unfair it is that she’s gone. Life can be such a cruel master.

My mom, Dutch, and I ended up leaving Pop’s house around 6:30 (though it felt more like 9:30 – darn you, time change!), and I dropped her off at her apartment before heading back to Tampa.

Dutch and I got home around 7:15 and I promptly took a bubble bath before lounging on the couch for the rest of the night. I made a frozen pizza for dinner, caught up on Scandal, wrote this post, and set my fantasy football lineup for the week.

Afterwards, I cleaned the kitchen, did my nightly routine, and then read in bed until about midnight.

How was your Saturday?

This week, I am documenting my life in a series of “Week in the Life” posts. I hope everyone enjoys this little peek into my day-to-day! Read all about Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

I had a really crummy night of sleep. I woke up at 1:30 a.m. with a stuffy nose, so I took some Nasonex, which cleared me up within minutes. (Ahh.) And then the rest of the night, I had terrible dreams that Roomie and my mom both had terminal brain cancer. I woke up from the dream multiple times and would recognize I was only dreaming, only to fall back asleep and re-enter the dream. (<– Upon further research, I think I was lucid dreaming, which is when during dreaming, the person becomes aware they are dreaming. They aren’t actually awake, but are conscious of what is happening, if that makes sense. I totally geek out about the brain and dream states, so this was incredibly interesting to me!)

After a rough night of sleep, I was finally awoken for good at 5:15 a.m. to the sound of Dutch dry heaving. Lovely.

Thinking he was going to puke and knowing I had just cleaned my sheets and didn’t want him horking on them, I hurriedly picked him up and placed him on the floor. Oddly enough, he stopped dry heaving after that. Okay then!

Then, we went on our first morning walk before I got dressed and walked down to the gym.

At the gym, I rode 3 miles on the spin bike and then did a 20-minute strength-training workout. Felt so good, and I was so deliriously happy to have my workout done for the day!

Back at home, I fed Dutch, took a shower, took Dutch on his second morning walk, did my hair and makeup, got dressed, made my breakfast shake, and then was out the door by 7:30.

My morning at work was fairly uneventful – all of the editing! First, I edited the pages a coworker sent to me and then I edited the blog-style pages I had written earlier in the week and received back from my proofing partner on Wednesday. By the time I finished up, it was 11:30 a.m. and I was done with work for the week. Wahoo!

I came straight home from work, took Dutch on a short walk, and then ate lunch while reading all about lucid dreaming (see above, ha!).

And then I proceeded to have the most boring Friday afternoon/evening. I wish it was more exciting, but it was productive and I’m really happy I knocked off a lot of tasks on my to-do list. Here’s a run-down of what I did:

• Cleaned my bathroom, including washing my rugs and mopping my floor
• Cleaned and vacuumed my room
• Read a lot of The Martian (I am enjoying this novel so much that I’m taking my time with it and savoring every word)
• Wrote 3k words for NaNoWriMo (woo!)
• Grocery shopped for the week
• Baked homemade chocolate chip cookies to bring to my grandfather tomorrow
• Baked chicken to take for lunch next week
• Took Dutch on multiple walks, of course

My last task of the evening was to bake my cookies, so I did that while finishing up this week’s episodes of The Voice and watching a few episodes of Blackish. Then, I did my nighttime routine, read for a bit, and went to bed around midnight.

Thoughts on today: So not the most exciting of Fridays, eh? Such is life. When I began thinking about doing another “Week in the Life” series this year, I felt a lot of internal resistance at first because my life from an outsider’s perspective is rather boring. It’s not boring to me; I actually quite enjoy the “boring,” though that is all relative, you know? But it’s not filled with grandiose plans. I’m a homebody to my core, and I think this past week of posts has shown that. I like being home. I like cozy nights in, snuggled on the couch with my pup, writing or watching TV or reading. I enjoy this little life of mine. I know these posts probably are not as interesting to others as they are to me (I’m actually having a blast writing them!), but I think it’s interesting to take an average week in someone’s life and document it. It’s fun to see how people’s day-to-day lives differ from others.

Would you ever do a “Week in the Life” series on your blog? Tell me one good thing about your Friday!

This week, I am documenting my life in a series of “Week in the Life” posts. I hope everyone enjoys this little peek into my day-to-day! Read all about Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

Since today was a work-from-home day, I didn’t plan on waking up until 7 a.m. (divine!), but Dutch had other plans and woke me up at 6:30, needing to go out.

So we got up and took a short walk outside. I fed him when we got back inside, and then sat on the couch and read a chapter in my book before turning on my computer and getting to work.

The morning was fairly uneventful. I wrote for a medical client, which is something different from all the home improvement clients I have, so it’s a nice break from the usual. I wrote four pages of content this morning, along with doing some other tasks, like making breakfast, taking Dutch on two walks outside, and making an appointment. Productivity FTW!

Around 11:30, I went down to the gym to get in a 30-minute workout. The gym was empty, so I hopped on an elliptical and got to work. It went well, but my right knee started to hurt me near the end of it and it was nearly impossible to climb the stairs afterward. Weird!

Once I got back, I put my lunch in the oven and then while it was cooking, I wrote a quick 175-word marketing page that my writing manager needed from me, and then ate lunch while watching The Tonight Show from early November. (Um, I’m a wee bit behind. Poor Jimmy.)

The rest of my afternoon was fairly productive. I finished the monthly content for my medical client and sent out a request to have those pages proofed. I did laundry, cleaned the kitchen, took a shower, and took Dutch on two more walks.

At 5 p.m., I shut down my computer and then decided to finally take down my Halloween gel clings and replace them with Thanksgiving ones! I also hung up my “Give Thanks” banner (is anything more Target than that?!), so now it feels a bit cheery in here! I honestly cannot wait to buy a Christmas tree and decorate our apartment for Christmas.

After that, I folded laundry while listening to a podcast and then decided to tackle my NaNoWriMo writing for the day. After just 500 words, I realized I really wasn’t feeling the writing today so I decided to give myself the night off. I’d have to make up for it over the weekend, but that’s what weekends are for, right?

I took Dutch on another walk (this is #6 for those keeping track…) and then heated up Santa Fe chicken leftovers for dinner. At this point, Roomie decided to eat, too, so we watched a few episodes of The Tonight Show while eating our respective leftovers. (I love how boring this tidbit is, but how comforting this memory makes me feel!) Then, I made us undercooked chocolate chip cookies for dessert. (And, lest you think I whipped up a batch of cookies, I almost always have Nestle Tollhouse cookie dough in my fridge for emergency cookie situations.)

By this time, it was around 8 p.m. so I decided to put my freshly laundered sheets on my bed and while doing so, Dutch proceeded to have an accident in the house. *&#*@)*(#!!! I don’t know if he’s having typical old dog incontinence or what, but he just cannot seem to hold his pee anymore. He seems to do fine staying by himself for 4-5 hours without an accident, but when I’m in the house, he suddenly can’t hold it. I am honestly at my wit’s end. I’m very tempted to pick up some doggie diapers the next time I’m at PetSmart.

After cleaning up his mess and taking him out (#7!), I finished putting my sheets on my bed, took my comforter out of the dryer (so warm and cozy!), and then did my nightly routine.

I read in bed for a little bit before shutting off the lights at 10 p.m.

Thoughts on today: Dutch definitely gets the most walks of any dog in the history of pets. Life would be a billion times easier if I could just let him out in a yard! But, as you can see above, those walks are necessary and usually only last a few minutes. We’ll go on 1-2 long walks, and the rest are short ones where we walk downstairs, he does his business in the grassy area right outside our building, and we walk back upstairs. It’s annoying to have to give him so many walks, but I guess it’s just par for the course when you have an elderly tiny dog.

Does your office allow for working from home? Tell me one good thing about your Thursday!

This week, I am documenting my life in a series of “Week in the Life” posts. I hope everyone enjoys this little peek into my day-to-day! Read all about Monday and Tuesday.

This morning, I woke up a little before my alarm went off at 5:30 a.m. I was having an anxiety dream, and it involved Dutch, my mom, and my brother (read: the three most important people in my life) so I was more than happy to wake up from that!

I took Dutch on his first morning walk, fed him and emptied the dishwasher while he ate (he won’t eat unless I’m physically in the kitchen with him, so because he’s spoiled, I stay in the kitchen and if I can make my time productive, even better!), took a shower, did my hair and makeup, got dressed, packed my lunch, and then took Dutch on his second morning walk.

I left for work around 7:10 and managed to score a prime parking spot in our parking garage. Woohoo!

Once at work, I made my breakfast shake, chatted with my coworkers for a bit, and then got started on my day. I edited the rest of the articles I had written yesterday and sent them off to my proofing partner, and then wrote four more articles.

A little after 11:15, I left work to drive home and take Dutch on his afternoon walk. Fairly uneventful – we walked, we snuggled, I left. I did manage to snag my same awesome parking spot when I got back to work, which never, ever happens.

I had the most unproductive afternoon at work – it was seriously impressive how little I got done! I managed to finish one last blog article, and after editing the articles I had written earlier, I sent them to my proofing partner. (Another client finished for this month – yay!) From then on, though, it was a struggle. I refreshed Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram approximately four billion times. Played at least a dozen games of Candy Crush. Read blogs. Sigh. At the end of the day, I managed to edit and send off monthly content to one of my clients, and write a half-page of content for another client. Not ideal.

Since I’m technically still on schedule this month, I didn’t beat myself up for this unproductive afternoon because they definitely happen here. There are only so many days where I can sit and write, write, write. It just means I have to maintain my focus for the rest of the month. I can do this!

I left work at 5 and got home a little after 5:30. While the commute to work is easier than it was when I lived in St. Pete, the commute home is definitely worse. I guess it all balances out, though.

Once home, I took Dutch on his walk and then chatted with Roomie for a little bit. Right before I decided to sit down and do my NaNoWriMo writing for the day, Dutch threw up! He hasn’t thrown up since the night he was super sick, so it was a bit troubling. But he seemed okay, so we snuggled on the couch and I started writing.

After I wrote 1,000 words, I decided to take a break for dinner. I took Dutch out for another nighttime walk, fed him (I gave him some bland GI-safe food that he scarfed down), and then put a frozen pizza in the oven for me.

As my pizza cooked and then while I ate it, I finished Monday’s episode of The Voice, and then finished up my NaNoWriMo writing for the day (1,668 words total).

It was around 9 p.m. at this point, so I cleaned up the tiny mess I made in the kitchen, took a bubble bath, did my nighttime routine, and then snuggled in bed with Dutch and my book.

Lights out tonight at 10:30 p.m.!

Thoughts on today: As you can probably see, my nights aren’t exactly the most thrilling. Sometimes, I feel bad about that but most times, I don’t. I really, really like having low-key weeknights. My job can sometimes take a lot out of me, and I like the days when I can just go home and relax on the couch. Plus, with Dutch, I hate leaving him at night when I’ve left him all day. (I try to avoid this whenever possible.) I’m not someone who thrives on being busy (in fact, it’s an anxiety trigger for me!) and as an introvert, I need these low-key nights to recharge. The last thing I will ever do is apologize for doing something that feels good to me, so you can have your busy schedules. I’ll take slowness any day.

Do you find that you follow up super productive days with an unproductive one like me? Are you someone who thrives on busyness or slowness, or do you fall somewhere in the middle?