The high of my week was book club where we all got to take turns snuggling baby Eleni! We met at Bri’s house and I was so happy that Mikaela was able to come with the baby. We all got to have our moment with her—she’s such a teeny tiny little gal (just 7 lbs at four weeks old)—and it was such a delight. Aside from all of the baby snuggles, we also taste-tested six different frozen pizzas (Screamin’ Sicilian and DiGiornio’s Rising Crust came out heads and shoulder above Red Baron Classic, Tombstone Original, and Totino’s Party Pizza). I am definitely going to start getting the Screamin’ Sicilian for my frozen pizza stash. It was excellent! (And yes, we did talk about the book, haha. We read The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune. Two people gave it 3 stars, one person gave it 4 stars, and the rest of us gave it 5 stars.)
The low of my week was going through some emotional turmoil, stemming from a really difficult therapy session. I think I forgot how much therapy can excavate old wounds that I thought were long healed and force me to look long and hard at all the ways I am letting those old wounds continue to affect the way I live my life. Maybe I’ll write a blog post about this soon, as there is so much to dig into and process, and it may be really cathartic for me to do so. Suffice it to say that I am feeling very tender and emotional, crying frequently (and I am not a crier by nature), and I think this is just something I have to go through in order to truly break free from some of my more toxic thought patterns and behaviors. But it still sucks and I hate it and I just want all of this emotional turmoil to be over with.
A blog post I enjoyed was Redefine the color nude by The Anti-Racism Daily. It’s embarrassing that when I received The ARD’s daily article yesterday, I realized I had never considered how harmful and white-centering the term “nude” is when referencing it as a color. After all, the color nude means something vastly different depending on your skin color and yet, most “nude” colors are for white skin tones.
“From dresses and underwear to bandages and cosmetics, descriptions of “nude-colored” or “flesh-colored” cater to those with fair skin. Even as moves to diversify commercially-used products grow, they fail to address how discriminatory design practices prioritize and center white bodies, making Black and Brown people an afterthought.”
A podcast episode I enjoyed was Cait Flanders: Purposeful Healing & Romancing Yourself on The Pop-Up Pod. Nothing like listening to a podcast episode on a Thursday morning and crying! This episode really spoke to me on so many levels, from Cait’s experience in romantic relationships, to setting boundaries with her mom that led to an estrangement, to learning how to let go of her people-pleasing tendencies that were impacting her relationships (romantic and not). It was as if Cait was pulling out the words from my soul and eloquently describing them in this podcast episode. It was exactly what I needed and the episode was such a healing one for me.
For my workouts, I completed a 30-minute strength workout on Monday (20-minute full body class with Rad Lopez and a 10-minute crushing arms and shoulders class with Daniel McKenna), a long walk outside on Tuesday, a 30-minute Cody Rigsby ride on Thursday, and a 30-minute Leanne Hainsby ride this morning.
The best money I spent was on a cruise deposit! Oops? I don’t know what made me log onto Royal Caribbean’s website and start poking around at cruises. But I did and they were running an incredible sale, and my mom was all, “Book it!” So I booked a birthday cruise. We don’t leave until November (the day before my birthday!) so we have a long, long time to go, but I am so stinkin’ excited. I used to cruise yearly before the pandemic (my last cruise was December 2019) and I have missed cruise life so, so much. I can’t wait to be back on a ship in 219 days! (But who’s counting?)
My plans this weekend include a massage this afternoon (yay!), spending Saturday afternoon with Bri to work on our creative project, game night with the fam on Saturday evening, and going for a 5K walk in a local park on Sunday morning. And Sunday is also Eloise’s 4th birthday! We will celebrate with a dish of wet food with a special topper and some prezzies. The cats never get wet food (they free-feed with dry food) so this is a special treat for them. 🙂
What was the high of your week?
AW! Baby Ellen! I want one! Ha ha… my kids are still teenagers and I’m already looking forward to grandchildren.
Sorry to hear about that therapy session… or maybe I’m not sorry. Sounds like something that’s important for you to go through, even if it’s not fun. You deserve a lot of credit for being brace enough to do it- it would be a lot easier (but not as healthy in the long run) to let that stuff stay buried.
i hope you enjoy your massage! Have a great weekend and happy birthday to Eloise! If she’s anything like my cats, she’ll enjoy that wet food : )
I love holding and snuggling Eleni, and I am also very, very happy to give her back to my friend after 20 minutes. Ha!
Therapy can be such an excavating experience, and it’s something that’s so hard to deal with in the moment but I know it will lead to the change I need. <3
Sorry about the tough week emotionally. Sometimes things get harder in order to feel better/heal, but it’s still can be a very unpleasant process.
And baby snuggles. Two was enough for me…but still when I see someone cuddling a newborn, the cuteness does seem almost too much to bear.
I love snuggling a newborn… and I also love handing her back to her mom after 20 minutes or so. The whole “keeping a human alive” thing is not for me. 😉
Cruising! I’m excited for you! And look at that little sweetheart – how fun to get baby snuggles!
The highlight of my week was my birthday! Yesterday (Friday) we had my favourite Lebanese takeout and cake and wine – so many of my favourite things! Now, if it would just stop snowing for a while…
I am so happy to hear that you had a lovely birthday! Crossing fingers and toes that the snow stops!! I can’t believe you’re still dealing with that in late April!
Out of nowhere, one of my friends texted me about The House in the Cerulean Sea, asking if I had read it. I obviously had and we spent a few minutes going back and forth talking about how much we loved it. Such a great book – I’m a bit surprised there were people who gave it 3 stars!
I love how your last two bullet points are things I would NOT be excited about – a cruise and a massage does not sound like a good time to me, but I LOVE how different people are. This world would be really boring if everyone was like me!
One of the people who gave it 3 stars listened to the audiobook and I guess the narrator wasn’t great, so that lessened her enjoyment. It makes me really glad I didn’t try it on audio! But most of us gushed about the book and it was so much fun. <3
I listened to the audiobook through Hoopla. I thought the narrator was great!!! It’s crazy how different people react to things.
Yay for a birthday cruise to look forward to!!!! I would love to hear more about your therapy, if and when you feel comfortable sharing. I did a few months of therapy a few years ago and didn’t get a huge amount out of it, but I think if I found the right therapist, it could be really useful. I definitely have some toxic thinking and behavior patterns I would love to know how to change.
Hope your massage was wonderful — I love massages and haven’t had one in a looooong time and miss it a lot!
I am always happy to talk about therapy! I wrote two posts on the subject in early 2020 (the before times!): https://stephanywrites.com/what-to-expect-at-therapy/ and https://stephanywrites.com/what-ive-learned-after-18-months-of-regular-therapy/. But I can answer any other questions you have! It really does depend on the therapist you have. The therapist I have now has been very open with the fact that she might not be the right fit for me and that’s okay. Thankfully, I think she is!
Yay for having something to look forward to for your birthday! I know how much you love cruising so it’s great you can get back to it!
Baby Eleni is so sweet! Yay for some baby snuggles!
It sounds like you have found a really effective counselor. That session and the aftermath sounded hard. But it sounds like her or she is going to help you figure out how to worth through/process what you are dealing with.
I am so stinkin’ excited about my birthday cruise! Everyone (crew + passengers) has to be vaccinated and I have hope that things will be even more improved than they are today by November.
That pizza taste test sounds so fun!
I am sorry the therapy session was so hard. It sounds like you are working through stuff you need to, but how taxing! I’d say I hope the next session is “better” but that’s likely work you need to do, right?
I never thought about that with the color “nude.” Thanks for sharing that!
I am excited you booked another cruise!
Thee highlight of my week when you asked this was seeing the Gateway Arch!
It was such a fun experiment! And I found a new favorite frozen pizza from the taste test, so that’s a win for me!
As much as I encourage therapy, it IS hard work and I am sorry you’ve been feeling raw from your last session (but this is where the progress is being made, am I right?).
Yay for baby snuggles (such a cute photo!) and putting deposits on fun things to look forward to 🙂
Progress definitely comes from the hard stuff, that’s for sure, especially when it comes to therapy. <3
I love these posts… so nice to have a glimpse into your daily life!
The picture of you makes me smile – such a second child! Comfortable being passed around and held by everyone, I suspect. (She is clearly SO relaxed and happy. :>)
I’m know what you are talking about with therapy. I had to say to my therapist not in this last session but the one before that I had to stop because I was too tired to go further into what we were focusing on. I need to remember, too, that I should NOT schedule things after my appointments. That can be challenging in the virtual world because often meetings are just added to my calendar when I am available. (I guess I could… decline them… What a novel thought. Huh.)
But yay on the workouts. Seriously – you are rocking it! Go, you.
And yeah, the frozen pizza night sounds awesome. I’ve never heard of the Screamin’ Sicilian. Hmmm…
Ugh, I know exactly what you mean about not scheduling things after therapy. My therapist only has afternoon availability so I had scheduled a meeting RIGHT AFTER my appointment and had to change it to give me at least 30 minutes of breather afterward. And then I did the meeting and promptly took a nap afterward because I needed to decompress. I need to schedule my time better on these therapy days!