Hello friends! I hope that you are enjoying February, wherever you are. January went by pretty quickly for me. I’d forgotten what it feels like to go through the month not feeling weighed down by seasonal depression. Maybe next year, I will have already forgotten what Midwest winters were like and I’ll be feeling glum. That’s not to say we didn’t have gloomy weather – we had about a week of just rain – but we’ve had gorgeous days and 70 degree weather, too. We met up with our friends for a hike last weekend at Barton Creek, and the weather was fantastic.

Afterward we went to a Colombian restaurant, and it was so delicious! This is what I had missed about living in a bigger city – access to more than just one trail, amazing international food where ever you go. This weekend my friend/old college roommate* came into town – I haven’t seen her since my wedding, which was somehow nearly SIX YEARS AGO.

I thought since it is the start of the month, it would be a nice time to do a Taking Stock post. As usual, since I haven’t posted in awhile, this will be kind of long, but I’ll try to add as many pictures as I can to break up all the text.

Sipping: Coffee. HEB’s Bavarian Hazelnut.

Reading: North Woods by Daniel Mason and Breakup: The End of a Love Story by Catherine Texier (it’s on my reading list for a writing program! I’m not getting divorced. Haha.)

Thinking: As nice as it is to lounge on the couch all morning, I have a lot to do today. I should probably get up soon.

Looking: Right now? I’m in my pajamas and hoodie, so kind of a hot mess. Buuuut I got my eyebrows waxed for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and am learning how to use a curling iron. It’s been fun experimenting with how I look! I’ve been thinking a lot about turning 40 this year, and I feel really good about where I’m at right how – I’m honing my style, I have some great creative projects, cool projects at work, lots of life experience (good and bad) – and it kind of blows my mind that culturally, I was supposed to peak in my 20s? What? I’m just getting started.

Listening: I started getting into Sepultura about a year and half ago, and learning “Roots Bloody Roots” at drum lessons is my goal for this month. Igor Cavalera is a fantastic drummer and there are little fills and beats of his that add a lot of texture to the song and get stuck in my head (the splash hits in “Slave New World” – chef’s kiss). My teacher wants me to learn this song without a double bass pedal so I can be a better drummer, which I’m definitely good with. It’s not super duper challenging so far, but there are some tricky little grooves, and I DEFINITELY cannot play it at tempo yet.

Enjoying: a slow Sunday morning. My Saturdays have been pretty busy, but I need one day a week where I roll out of bed late, sit on the couch, sip coffee, and do nothing for several hours.

Appreciating: My pets! We have started leaving them by themselves all together, and they are doing so well ❤ We have had some major breakthroughs and I’m so, so proud of them. I was chatting with someone at Petsmart yesterday who handles adoptions for a cat rescue, and she told me how unfortunately common it is for someone to return a pet just weeks after adoption because the other pet was upset, or the adopted kitten was too “rambunctious” (side note – WHY THE HECK ARE YOU ADOPTING A BABY ANIMAL IF YOU DON’T WANT TO DEAL WITH A RAMBUNCTIOUS BEHAVIOR?! My god). I’m very firmly in the camp of rehoming an animal only after you’ve exhausted all your resources (that definition changes by family and circumstance, of course) and if it’s in the best interest of both the animal and family. Social media places really high expectations on how we live our lives, including with our pets. I’ve seen countless “MY CAT IMMEDIATELY LOVED THE NEW PET I BROUGHT HOME!” reels, for example, so I think there’s this expectation that everything should be instant or else it’s not a good fit.

Spoiler alert – no. Rarely does anything in life work that way, and certainly not when you introduce pets. It takes a lot of time, energy, and patience to get a new pet acclimated and for the existing and new pet(s) to get along. It took over 2 months for us and there was A LOT of frustration and tears. It took SO MUCH time, effort, and money to get where we are now, and I was questioning the process the entire way. But it was all worth it – my heart breaks to think of us giving up after just two weeks. I love all three of them so, so much, and I am so grateful that the girls chose us for their forever home ❤

Anyway, thank you for coming to my Ted Talk – look at my adorable pets finally not hating each other.

Eating: Leftovers from Peace Bakery for lunch later, yum. We took my friend there last night and she had us try her favorite dessert, kunafa. It was delicious!

Finishing: a busy week! So I mentioned that I’m doing a writing program, which means I have a packet of creative work/reading response due the first of every month. I spent this week polishing whatever drivel I had been writing this past month. I’ve accepted that this is the unfortunate part of the creative process – the first draft is just going to be beyond terrible – but I shaped it into something readable (maybe?) by submission. It’s a creative nonfiction program, so I wrote about flying out to Argentina, specifically Mendoza (Argentina’s wine country) and what was going on in my life at the time. I should write about that trip here sometime. Writing the piece made me want to return! I do have a friend who lives there, so seeing her would be a good excuse to go back…

Loving: This beautiful gift that my friend brought me of art and apparel from Palestinian artists, including Embroidarat. I’m so humbled to have received it. I’m very much the “nothing is black and white” and “there’s nuance to almost everything” and “maybe social media isn’t a great tool for having difficult conversations” sort of person, but not when it comes to genocide. Ceasefire now!**

Phew, okay, I need to get up and get going with my day. Have a wonderful Sunday, everyone!

*Her brother recently celebrated his 21st birthday. He was born during finals week the fall semester of our freshman year. We had a lot of feelings about that birthday milestone.

** I don’t expect anything from the lovely group who usually reads my blog, but the last time I posted a “controversial” opinion (which, getting vaccinated SHOULDN’T BE CONTROVERSIAL, MY GOD, but ok), I got some random people wanting to have a debate about it on my blog. My blog isn’t Reddit or YouTube and I owe you nothing. I have no qualms about deleting any shitty comments.