The Fabulous Life of Stefanie

Being a person that likes to do weird things for fun - running 26.2 miles, vacuuming, having children - I thought it might be a great idea to give up my beloved booze for the entire month of January. Thankfully, this is a thing other people do, so a few of my favorite drinking buddies and my very own husband joined me on the wagon. For everyone that thought I was nuts, or everyone that did not think it was worth making a big deal out of because they don't heart Tito's the way I do, I thought I would share some takeaways: I saved money. Not visiting my local liquor store or buying take-home beer from breweries was a pretty solid plus to our weekly budget, but the biggest difference was not drinking when out to eat. Even just a couple of beers between the two of us racks up the bill, so I was pleasantly surprised every time we went out for dinner. I made sure to tip all our servers extra for the month, too, after reading an article about how terrible January can be for servic...

How are we already at the end of the year? This year has been so good - miles travelled, miles run, kiddos growing, goals met, getting to do it all with the very best husband and friends and dog while working in the best job. Here is a little recap with just a sliver of it all! Geaux Saints! Repping in NOLA over a po' boy. January: Rang in 2019 with champagne, friends and leggings. Watched my favorite dude crush my favorite marathon and then spent an amazing night in my favorite city of New Orleans watching the Saints, then the Pats, and somehow managed to make our 5am flight.  11 years and I could not love him more. February: Celebrated 11 years since the most handsome, wonderful human being in the world asked to buy me a beer over a super fancy dinner. Watched the Pats win yet anooooother Superbowl with my favorite cheer squad. Survived winter in Boston, again.  Parade squad! Mama had car bombs for brekkie! March: Reached my goal of doing a hal...

Happy middle of the week, in the middle of the summer! I was just looking at a calendar to book some playdates and perhaps a rare just us date with the hubs, and I accidentally scrolled into September because *gasp* it isn't that far away! Oh, the horror! Good thing summer has been really good to us and we are headed to Germany at the end of September or I might cry a little. Thought it would be fun to do a little "currently" update and please, please share all recs for your currently goings-ons, too! Reading My new job means an 8 minute drive instead of a 45-450,000 minute red line commute, which sadly has cut into my reading time (the only sadly of that story). But I am making an effort to grab my book when I am eating lunch at work and pick it up as much as possible when no one is asking me for a snack or where their shoes are at home. Right now I am reading Courtroom 302 and am really enjoying the stories that come out of the busiest courthouse in Chicago (and ...

Sunday marked my sixth take on 26.2 miles in six years, which is pretty crazy for me to even write because in six years I have been postpartum and breastfeeding (twice), had three jobs, bought a house, celebrated 8 years of marriage, been surrounded by dozens of wonderful friends and yet still have had zero years of prior history with running or being any sort of athlete. But here I am, a marathoner 6 times over, with my most recent being my fastest one yet at 4:15:37, which is at least an hour faster than my first and just over 4 minutes faster than my last. I am happy, for sure. Happy that I have a body that can carry me those miles, happy to have a running club to spend hundreds of training miles with and happy to have a partner and family willing to cover dance class and Target runs and not get mad when I fall asleep before everyone else during movie night after a Saturday long run. Also, so happy to have my "off season" from training. Here is the thing that they don...

Within the span of a few days, two people lost their lives to mental health in a very public way, and I wanted to come here and try and put down the feelings that I have had now that the posts and hashtags and call for more resources have faded into the other background noise of everything that seems to be wrong in our world right now. The feeling of being triggered comes to mind, except that, despite my lifetime of living with an anxiety disorder, I have never once felt the pain of wanting to end my own life. I have been sad and frustrated that I have anxiety; let down in situations and even overwhelmed as a child who experienced trauma and more recently as a young mother trying to figure out my first days with baby but never, ever to the point of suicide. I am lucky, I guess, but that seems like a terrible word in the shadow of this monster. I was gifted my first Kate Spade by my ever fashionable AIL and have since added as many of her bags, pieces of jewelry and whatever else I c...

AUGUST! Here we are half way through August and my tan is just now getting good, so here is hoping for a September that still has beach days because I am really not ready to let this summer go yet. I am now fully aware that we New Englanders make up for the horrific winters by jamming a million things into the summer months and I am officially ok with it, though my husband may say differently. Last weekend, for example, our Sunday afternoon opened up and so we drove up to York, Maine to eat at the Goldenrod, go to the zoo and enjoy one of the most beautiful drives along the water. It was awesome and as we sat in traffic on the way home I couldn't believe that we had spent the morning at Maddie's swim class but then crossed three states and pet baby goats. I love you, New England, even if I do say otherwise in the middle of February. Kiddo is wearing zebra leggings too, if you can't tell. GOATS! She was so sweet with them and I really wanted to take one home. ...

Despite all the chaos in my life right now, I am still managing to throw myself into my book for a couple of hours on the train and before bed (ok, maybe once this week when I didn't fall asleep on the couch, but whatever) and right now I am plowing through Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety .  Reading books about anxiety can go one of two ways for me: it can make me feel better and less alone for suffering from it, and even laugh at the absurdity of it all (much like Augusten Burroughs books do) or it makes me hyper-aware that my anxiety does indeed exist, that it came from somewhere deep and dark and that it is never, ever going to be a non-factor in my life. Monkey Mind is simultaneously doing both, which is great for the laughs but holy crap not the best timing for analyzing what I secretly refer to as my "anxiety monster". I know, not a very original pet name, but it makes it a little more childlike and a little less scary to call it that when in the throes of belie...

My arms are sore, the good sore, but the kind that makes washing ones hair a little painful. I smell like chlorine even though I ran and then took a shower after the pool. I get small whiffs of it when my hands are near my face. Strangely, I like it. It reminds me of summers when I was young and spent my whole time off school at my grandparent's house in San Diego. Most of my waking hours were in the pool; even lunch was eaten poolside, peanut butter falling on my tanned legs as I stared at the pool, waiting to get back in (but always having to wait a half an hour because my grandma wrote all the old wives tales). No one could drag me out of that pool, unless my grandma said we were taking a grocery trip to the Navy base. The grocery store on the base had a hot dog cart and ice cream and it was so much cooler than going to the grocery store at home, plus grandma let me have anything I wanted. She is a tough lady, but I was (am) her Achilles, especially when it came to ice c...

It's been a hard couple of weeks and my lovely anxiety disorder has not let me forget it.  I've spent a good portion of my life being stressed out but it's been a while since I've had something tangible to stress about and DANG has it done a number on me. I'm tired. My stomach hurts. My shoulders hurt. I'm one bad thought from a panic attack.  Yesterday I decided to try and do something to feel better as we await a response from our realtor about our inspection punch list, so I went over to the Greenway to eat my lunch and soak in some sunshine on a rare 80 degre day.  It was SPLENDID.  I sat in the grass, sunshine on my face, toes in the open air. I put my phone face down, ate slowly and absorbed the moment. It was exactly what I needed to calm down and appreciate everything that has brought me to this point. I was able to be thankful that I'm even in a situation to be stressed out about buying a house. That I'm able to leave work and go sit in a beauti...

Today I'm thankful for the soreness in my muscles after two nights of yoga classes. I'm thankful that I got up and went for a run and made up for the disaster of a run Saturday morning. Although my anxiety continues to be nagging and unwelcome this week, I'm pushing through and doing all I can to send it packing. I'm preemptively de stressing before the holidays, although I anticipate more fun than stress with my Mom's arrival just a few short weeks away. I'm exhausted from being exhausted but tonight it feels good and welcome in my muscles, as I lay on the couch with Maddie sound asleep against me.  I had a half day at work today and then took Maddie to the library to read and get some new books. We came home and read, played, danced and then decided to get a pizza and snuggle on the couch, where she quickly fell sound asleep. This is what happens when she doesn't take a nap! But instead of moving her to her bed and having her wake up and scream for an hour...