Tag Archives: life

day 7/100: beginning of the end

Posted in fashion, infertility, the metaphor baby, TTC by

My BBT dropped to 96.87 and my resting heartrate dropped too, so that’s it. This cycle is another failure. It’s only 11DPO, so it’s both upsetting to reach this point again but helping that it isn’t getting dragged out, my hopes aren’t getting raised. Now I just have to wait for the bleeding to start.

Shane wanted to cheer me up when I got home from work; he took me out to Denny’s to get breakfast for dinner. It’s a little thing, nothing fancy, but he makes me feel so loved when he does things like that. Plus he really wants to get me out of the house more often, I don’t leave much.

Beauty and Health: make mood board for dream look

Oh man. I got stuck on this immediately. I don’t how I want to look at all. My style has changed a lot over the past few years- back in the day I was very twee/hipster/Modcloth/retro, then it turned into graphic tees and leggings, then I started trying to dress nicer. Now my wardrobe has basically become cottagecore sundresses or athleisure. Which is nice and all, but I still struggle with styling things. This weekend I want to sort through my wardrobe and really be honest with myself about how I want to look and if my wardrobe is actually working for me or not. And then maybe I can decide what my dream look is.

Creativity: make a new vision board

This also got me stuck pretty much immediately. I made vision boards for 2024 and 2025, and then just made myself sad because I didn’t get pregnant either of those years. The idea of making a vision board for 2026 just makes me sad. So…I kind of didn’t do this one. I might try again tomorrow.

Connection: reblog some of my favorite fanart with commentary

I have been very very lucky to get fanart for some of my fics, and I went through and reblogged a handful of them. It’s weird, though- I’m so anxious about promoting my own fics. I’m not very good at it, it just makes me feel nervous.

day 4/100: stalling

Posted in 100 to Baby Challenge, infertility, the metaphor baby by

I feel like I’m stuck in the mud. I’ve been putting off this challenge for ages, and I think it’s because…I don’t want to have to do this. I don’t want to have to feel like I want to keep living, I don’t want to struggle to get pregnant, I don’t want to be like this. If my body just cooperated, I wouldn’t be doing this challenge. But it’s not, and here I am.

Today is 8dpo and I’m still in that maybe I’m pregnant, maybe I’m not stage. I’m leaning towards not. I’ve had multiple chemicals so at this point I know what I feel like when my body is attempting to function, and I’m not feeling any of that. But at the same I’ve never been successfully pregnant in the past three years, so who knows.

Anyways. The challenge.

Beauty and Health: set up regular purse

Back in December I bought myself a nice purse to use for everyday- I usually don’t care about that, I either bring a Loungefly for a park day or I just shove everything in my pockets. Neither is really ideal, I’d like to have a designated purse that looks nice and has everything I need without having to keep switching everything around. I like the purse I got (the Sloane bag from Popflex in taupe) but I haven’t even cut the tags off it, much less used it. I treated myself to a little Five Below/Target shopping run to stock it up. Now let’s see if I’ll actually use it.

Creativity and Self Care: do a sudoku puzzle

I don’t do much to challenge my mind, other than the occasional weeklong binge of Candy Crush, and that should probably change. I downloaded an app and played a few rounds. I don’t know if it’s necessarily for me, but it was nice to do something that actually used my brain cells.

Connection: create a starter kit for new readers

Okay, so this was pretty fun. I asked my followers on Tumblr what they would want to see for a starter kit- the general consensus was that Patron Saint of Lost Causes is my most iconic fic, so I started with that. I highlighted a couple of my most well known fics plus a little about me. I still haven’t hit publish on it, but I started it at least.

Cleaning

I’m going to be honest…I immediately fell off the wagon with this one. Cleaning just isn’t one of my skills, plus it’s tied up with the trauma I went through with my ex (a long story, I can explain that if anyone wants to know the Lore). I love the idea of picking one task per day, but it just doesn’t work for me. I’m going to try to do a thorough deep clean this weekend instead and see how much I can get done.

Journaling: where can I find peace, even just for today?

day 3/100: fighting anxiety

Posted in 100 to Baby Challenge, infertility, the metaphor baby, TTC by

This challenge is great and also the most stressful thing I’ve ever done. On one hand, these activities genuinely are helpful. On the other hand, now that I’m blogging about it, and making Tiktoks, it’s terrifying to be vulnerable. But I need to stop hiding how sad I am and how much of a toll this has taken on me.

Today is 7dpo, so it’s still that Schroedinger’s phase- either implantation is working or it’s not. It’s so stressful but I’m trying not to stress; I’m trying not to think about it but it’s all I can think about. Truly an awful phase to be in.

My plan had been to get up early before work and get myself going- and that definitely didn’t happen. Another thing I’m trying to do is listen to my body and rest when I need it, and I definitely needed more sleep. I also forgot my Fitbit at home, so I couldn’t track my steps. Whoops. We’ll try again tomorrow!

Beauty and Health: buy new sunglasses

I’ve been putting off prescription sunglasses for years, for no real good reason. I just always talk myself out of them. So I ordered a cute pair of pink prescription sunglasses off Zeelool, and hopefully I’ll like them when they get here!

Creativity: sketch a dream dress

I’m planning on an outfit to make for a Florence and the Machine concert next month, so I’ve figured out what I want to sew. I really want a Victorian ghost nightgown meets Stevie Nicks, so I found a Gunne Sax inspired pattern on Etsy that will be perfect for the ten yards of ivory dotted swiss tulle I have in my stash.

Connection: brainstorm coping mechanisms with friends

Maeve has been my rock through the past three years- she’s helped so much with keeping me distracted. My therapist also send me resources of progressive muslce relaxation and I really hope that makes a difference.

Journaling prompt: what does beauty mean to me now?

This is an uncomfortable topic for me. I don’t feel beautiful ever- how could I possibly feel anything good about myself when my body doesn’t work? Maybe making myself go through this challenge will help shift that view.

Wedding Wednesday: Priorities and Aesthetics

Posted in someday bride, wedding by

Because of the Kind of Person I Am, I had a wedding pinterest board long before I got engaged. I’ve always been super interested in weddings, especially after I worked at a bridal shop for a few years right after I graduated from college. Needless to say…I had a lot of different ideas to wade through when Shane and I started planning.

The most important thing was to figure out, well, the important things. A 100k wedding was not in the budget, so we wanted to make sure we made our decisions really carefully. So we narrowed down the top three things we wanted to make sure were perfect.

#1: The Venue. The venue can make or break a wedding. Too far away, too difficult to navigate, lack of parking, not enough shade or air conditioning (a huge concern in Florida!), no rain plan…we wanted to make sure our venue set us up for success.

#2: The Food. If you’re inviting your guests to celebrate with you, you probably should have good food. I feel like that’s one of the things that guests really remember about a wedding, what they ate and if it was good or not. Plus, Shane was really hoping for barbecue.

#3: Photography. At the end of the day, that’s all you have left. Once the wedding is over, it’s over. That might be the only time you have all those people in one place with you. That might be the hottest you’ve ever looked in your life. This is a huge day- it seems important to have great photos to remember it!

At the end of the day, we felt like everything else- the clothing, the decorations, the invitations- could be DIY or budget friendly. If we were going to spend money on anything, it would be those three things. It really made a difference in wedding planning!

When it came to the aesthetic, though, that’s where Shane let me loose. He was like “you can have all the pink you want, all the girly things you want, make it exactly the way you want…all I ask is that I get to wear a navy suit and I get to eat brisket.” Done. Super reasonable. I still asked his opinion on things, and if he truly didn’t like something then we came up with a compromise, but those were his big things.

I knew that I wanted pink. I wanted shades of pink, and a cottagecore princessy vibe. Very garden-y, old fashioned. I knew that would be a tall order for Florida (where am I going to find a storybook garden in a swamp state??) but that’s another post for another day! The aesthetic kept evolving as we kept going, and it ended up being perfect.

Wedding Wednesday: Our Love Story and Proposal

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Shane and I met all the way back in 2013. I had just started back at Disney as a part time cast member at Star Tours, and he was working at Jedi Training Academy. Sometimes we would chat when we were outside at the same time, and one day I mentioned how jealous I was that the JTA cast got to carry lightstabers.

Shane then said “Oh! Do you want one?”

Turns out he had accidentally accumulated multiple lightsabers, and he offered to let me have one. But then…I cross trained at the Great Movie Ride, and he moved on to Dinosaur and we completely lost touch.

In 2016 he happened to ride the Great Movie Ride and saw me briefly, and then he friended me on Instagram…and then he slid into my DMs and asked me out on a date. I hadn’t been on a date in ages and gave myself an early out by telling him that I had rehearsal for Seussical that night- and I warned him that I’m late for everything and I’d probably be late for our date. He told me he had sisters, he’d never been on time for anything. (And yes, I was late). But we ended up really hitting it off, and he walked me to my car, and he kissed me…and that was it! We dated casually for about two months, made it official, and we’ve been together ever since.

(I also found out much, much later that he had a date lined up with someone else after our first date, and he called her up to cancel and basically said “sorry I have to cancel, but I think I met my wife.”)

We started talking about getting married, and originally had planned on getting engaged in 2020…but, well, you can guess what happened with that. His original plan was incredible. I was directing Tuck Everlasting at my home theater (the same theater where I did Seussical when we first started dating!) and he had planned on filling the audience with friends and family for the last performance and proposing during the curtain call, and then the cast party would be our surprise engagement party. And that filled the only guidelines I really had for a proposal! All I really wanted was:

-to look nice (wearing something cute, and preferably have my nails looking decent)

-have someone there to take photos/videos

-celebrate with friends and family afterwards

That was all I really wanted! Unfortunately, the pandemic had other ideas, so everything got postponed to the spring of 2021, and plans had to change pretty dramatically. I was not dressed the way I wanted (and my nails were…not good) and the pandemic meant that a party was out of the question. Shane also…might’ve panicked a little. He got down on one knee, held out the ring, and blurted out “are you going to say yes or what?” No name, no little speech, no…actual asking. But I did say yes, and the ring was absolutely perfect! (I didn’t have a single clue what kind of ring I wanted, and he nailed it.)

I didn’t get a formal wedding band (more on that later), so I’ve told Shane that if he ever wants to get me a new wedding band and re-propose, I wouldn’t be mad about that. But the most important thing was that we formally got engaged after four and a half years of dating!

That’s a very condensed version of our love story- let me know if you want to hear the longer version! What’s your proposal story?

day 1/100 (cycle #40, day 3)

Posted in 100 to Baby Challenge, the metaphor baby by

Today was the first official day for my 100 to Baby Challenge. I fully chickened out of making Tiktoks, though. I intended on making a Tiktok and and even took a few clips, and then it just…fizzled out. Maybe I’m not ready for that step. I might try again later!

The routine went well in the morning- I went for a walk, I ate breakfast, I left for work on time. I didn’t put on any makeup, but that’s okay.

Evening? Not quite as good. I had a whole plan for the afternoon, especially since I got home earlier than usual, but all my plans go thrown out the window. Not only was my husband home (a good thing, but he’s the most chaotic human and I didn’t plan to work around him), but he had A) disassembled our old broken bed frame and thrown it out, B) had all the pieces of the new bed frame scattered across the apartment, and C) had started making a different dinner from the one we’d agreed on the night before. My whole neurodivergent brain went WOOP.

We got it all figured out, but I didn’t end up doing my second workout or cleaning, and I definitely didn’t stick to my healthy eating (the food itself wasn’t unhealthy, but I did eat more than I planned). But I did get back on track with my nighttime skincare routine, and here I am blogging! Tomorrow I close at work, so things will be unpredictable again, but I have a night shift routine planned out and I’m hoping for the best.

Health
-didn’t sleep 7 hours, but did get an 86 sleep score
-ate decently today- I’d give myself a 7/10
-went for a morning walk but didn’t do afternoon workout
-vitamins taken!

Beauty and Style: Work on brows
My brows tend to go crazy. I feel like I have no idea what to do with them. I at least tried to tame them, which is more than I’ve done in months!

Creativity and Self Care: build a playlist for the year
I made myself a quick Spotify playlist with some of my favorite “keep going” songs. My motto for this year is “do it sad,” so I picked a lot of high energy hopeful songs- “Don’t Lose Sight” by Lawrence, “Dog Days are Over” by Florence and the Machine, “Opalite” by Taylor Swift. Things like that.

Connection: make 2026 goals with Shane
This ended up being a really sweet little conversation. He wants us to go to more baseball games together, go out to eat at more restaurants instead of picking up food and bringing it home when we treat ourselves, and going on walks together. I love all those plans. I was just going to say that my goal was for us to have a baby, but I love all of these ideas that he had.

**Journaling Prompt: What are my fears around fertility, and where do they come from?