The Fabulous Life of Stefanie

I think I might be a little busy over the next couple of days, so just wanted to pop in and say Merry Christmas (!!!) and put some thoughts down around this little season of life. This year is SO MUCH FUN with Maddie; 5 is a golden age where she is so excited about everything that matters - our time together looking at the lights in the neighborhood, reading The Grinch every night before bed, singing along to her curated Christmas playlist (thanks, Amazon music!) and counting down the days until Santa swings by. She is excited for gifts, of course, but is way more focused on all that other good stuff, which I am going to relish for as long as it lasts. I have been making sure we get all the Christmas cheer in that we can fit while also taking time to just enjoy these little humans (and that older, handsome one that lives in our house too). I transitioned into a new job a month ago and it has made a huge difference in my work life balance. I didn't even realize how much I was c...

I am fully aware that there is one epic Disneyland post owed to this blog to round out my summer travel documentary but it has been since August and so what is another week (or month) in the grand scheme of things? One November I took the time to blog every single day about something I was thankful for and today I am slow clapping at how I ever managed to pull that off. Sometimes I have to think for at least a minute or five on the train to work about whether or not I brushed my teeth that morning (so far I have not missed a day) so how I blogged daily is a mystery to me. Not to say that I wouldn't love to though because putting words down makes me happy, even if they are sporadic, but sadly not happening until someone reads my letter and gets on that extra three hours in a day. But hey November is here! As a New Englander this is just about my favorite time of year aside from the first beach days of summer. The crisp air, the crunchy leaves and the colors everywhere are enough...

If there is one thing I love about vacations, it is going on them with my AIL. Something about having another adult who also happens to be an amazing cook and one of the most awesome people in the world makes vacations with all of us extra fun. For a whole week we all got to be in Wells, Maine at the Cottages at Summer Village , which were kind of the perfect place for us with these two ages of kiddos right now. There were pools, fun activities, playgrounds and a super cute cottage with wild blueberries to pick and put in our pancakes. We had a grill to cook on and Adirondacks to sit in and a path around the cottages that became me and Annie's afternoon nap routine. And when we wanted to leave the cottages we could hike, go to the beach, or head to Portland, which is one of my favorite New England towns, and ended up being a great way to spend the one rained out day. It was awesome to have two pools to choose from because both girls are total fish and just want to be in the wat...

I did a terrible job of keeping up with all our summer travels over here because I was really busy enjoying every (well, almost every) moment of them! I was flipping through my Instagram last night and it is literally three months of adventure! I feel so lucky to be able to do these things with my kiddos and to have a husband that is always willing to let me create these crazy memories together. At the beginning of the summer we created a summer bucket list and on that was a trip to Mystic. CT. Matt and I had been briefly when we first started dating to sight-see with my grandparents while they were visiting from the West Coast but it was an ill-fated trip (I ended up in the hospital the next day with a kidney infection) and we only saw a little of it. This time around, we had big plans! We drove down on a Saturday morning and headed to The Dinosaur Place , which is just a few minutes from Mystic. I had no idea what to expect and had gotten Maddie pretty excited about it, so was re...

I haven't blogged since July and I clicked over here just to remind myself that no one really reads it anyways and saw that I have had a lot of visitor's and, more importantly, so many adventures that I want to share and keep in this space of mine! So far this summer we have been to Maine, Southern California, Cape Cod, and all over our lovely city doing all sorts of fun stuff. I have literally thrown in the towel on anything that doesn't involve getting every last drop of summertime in, which is saying a lot since I have a very comprehensive list of house projects to work on. I am going to overshare the hell out of some Disneyland pics soon, so please bear with me. But, for now, let's talk about how I broke up with my Nike Plus Running app and have gone rogue. I use a Garmin when I run most of the time because I like to know my pace and really like to know my distance (I have no sense of direction at all and will keep running if my watch doesn't tell me when to...

It takes a lot to rattle me. Blame the career path, working in a prison doing therapy face-to-face with convicted sex offenders right out of grad school to helping federal inmates get their lives together after long incarcerations, not to mention the part-time stint with the coroner's office. Blame the childhood of drug and alcohol use around me, the death of my father, the millions of people in and out, the moving here and there. Blame the punk rock scene I grew up in, always aware of racism, sexism and classism and always looking for a way to smash the systems that made the world less awesome. I would say that there is not much to make me sit down and say holy shit , but today, I did. I had bile come up into my throat as though something terrible was happening to me (because something terrible was happening to the world). Yet I forced myself to watch every second of the video showing a man being shot dead with his girlfriend and child in the car because I can't just look awa...

This weekend was a quintessential summer in New England kind of weekend. Fun you can only find when you live in an amazing city with all the things to do for kiddos and yet are just a quick drive to some of the most beautiful beaches on the East Coast.beach. Add in good morning run weather, BBQ with friends, and you've got all the good things. The girls and I visited the Kite Festival at Ronan Park Saturday, which I cannot believe we were at with a tiny new Annie just last year . Maddie flew her kite like a champ after some help from the kite expert/volunteer who was gracious and led me back from a crisis when I could not figure out how to get the kite in the air. Maddie got that kite allllll the way up until the string ran out. We slid down the grassy hill on potato sacks, had a hot dog care of our local police station and indulged in a little self-face painting with Dot Art . We are already looking forward to next year's! Sunday morning we set our alarm for ...

On Maddie's last day of school she brought home a summer reading list, and while many would recoil at another thing to get done, and over the summer no less, I jumped with joy that Maddie and I had another reason for our favorite date: going to our local library.  The ladies and I try and go once or twice a month to stock up on new books, see what programs are going on and let Annie throw someone else's board books all over the ground, but since it is summer and dinnertimes and bedtimes aren't such a huge deal I wanted to try and make it a weekly event that just Maddie and I do together for a little one-on-one time while Annie gets some floor play and cuddles from Daddy.  So last night Maddie put on her unicorn helmet, grabbed her scooter and off we went, stopping to say hi to some friends in the neighborhood, gawk at the ice cream truck that I wasn't prepared/stocked with cash to indulge in and chat about the life and times of my favorite four year old. We knew ...

The best part of Maddie starting preschool last fall is definitely the love that she now has for school, added to her already instilled love to learn and socialize that seems to have developed immediately out of the womb but the second best part? Summer vacay, y'all! No dragging the kid out of bed at 6:00! No more rushing to get everyone dressed, fed, teeth brushed, packed, and out the door at exactly 7:15. Not that the grown ups get to stop doing that but to take away the stress of doing it for the kiddo for a few months...hell to the yes. When you have a baby up at 4:55, one grown up running,  and one 4 year old who literally has to be dragged out of bed in the mornings, things can be, well chaotic. Couple that with my need to make sure beds are made and toys are picked up (I cannot leave a messy house, it will haunt me all day), I get in about 3 miles of walking around the house before I actually walk to the train for the day. But not after next  week, suckers! Sorry, I...