The Fabulous Life of Stefanie

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...

Well, here we are, just a few days until I run a marathon . YIKES! It seems like just February that I was freaking out about how to run a half marathon and swearing that it would be physically impossible for me to ever do a full; oh wait, that was this February! Oh how time flies/the craziness of life makes it seem a total blur when you're having fun. I am a mix of excited, nervous and anxious but very thankful that my marathon experienced husband will be by my side for the whole thing, and my AIL (that is Jane's new title, here on out) will be there at the end with her decades of nursing experience/cooking. I know I won't be fast, I probably won't be pretty and I definitely won't be walking normal for a while but it is going to be my race and I am going to run it! On to other topics before I throw up on my desk... Last night I went to a spin class with a friend who I don't see enough (that covers most my friends these days, darn you busy lives!) and it ...

There are many strange things about no longer being pregnant. The most obvious is the fact that the little person growing inside of me is now here, in our world, in our arms and even more in our hearts. We have a baby! Because she is out in the world means that I am no longer carrying her around in my tummy. That, is the second strangest thing. I know, I know, how totally obvious. I was pregnant one day and then the next, I was not, but it takes a whole lot of getting used to after lugging someone else around for 10 months, the latter half of them spent very obviously being pregnant (hello baby bump!). I had a lot of fun with my maternity fashion thanks to a) being pregnant in the summer (sundresses rule) b) Destination Maternity, Gap, Target and all of the awesome options for hip clothes for the prego set and c) that I did not gain a ton of weight (despite my best ice-cream eating efforts to do so) and so I was able to mix maternity and non-maternity options, and I actually wore a lo...

I finished the fifth of a series of five community dialogues that I participated in through the YWCA/Women's Table/Allston Brighton Community Development Co. last night and what an awesome experience it was. Our group was as diverse as could be: Black, White and Asian; Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Episcopalian, Congregationalist; nuns and mothers, gay and straight, ages ranging from early twenties to eighty. Sitting in a room with such a range of people, personalities and experiences and talking about race was difficult, thought-provoking and inspirational, and I am excited that we have decided to keep meeting once a month to talk about what is happening in our communities and what we can do as a group and as individuals to fight against racism and promote knowledge, tolerance and peace. In addition to some wonderful conversations and getting to hear about others experiences with race relations in and out of Boston, I was able to reflect on my thoughts on racism and how I identify, wh...