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It's a good day to have a good day.

I think Mondays get a bad rap because they symbolize the end of the weekend: the end of relaxation, & the restart of obligations. I sometimes find myself dreading Monday mornings on Saturday nights while hanging out in bed with my boyfriend watching Netflix. And for two seconds I suffocate myself with anxiety before Claire Underwood does something empowering and I’m like, “yeah get it you bad bitch who I hate but love so much!” and forget aboutMonday morning until Sunday afternoon.

But what’s really so bad about Mondays? It’s a clean slate. Last week’s gaffes can be disregarded, swapped for better prospects and subsequently, better decisions in general. This week, instead of eating a huge bowl (okay a medium-sized bowl, I haven’t totally lost control yet) of Cocoa Pebz before bed on Wednesday night, I will opt for the small container of watermelon I paid like $7 for at Whole Foods. I will do my best to not jump down the throat of anyone who tries to talk about running with me as I am still very bitter than I cannot run due to my extensor tendonitis. (Sorry again, Jake.)  I will make more time to do homework, to write, to pray. These things took the backburner last week (and most weeks, if I’m being frank.)

I imagine I will never stop waking up on Monday mornings pining for Friday just like I will never stop pining for cannoli while I’m eating quinoa chocolate chip cookies.

Quinoa chocolate chip cookies are good for what they just like Mondays are good for what they are. When juxtaposed with Friday, you bet they suck chode. But standing on their own? I guess they’re not so bad. Unless everyone else is cranky because it’s Monday at which point I’d advise to just avoid eye contact and chill in the outer recesses of one’s own mind because I'm not really convinced that the inner recesses are accessible so early on in the week.

*Note: I’m usually not this optimistic about things. My mom would attribute it to my being born on a Sunday. However, I must assume it is a side effect of eating healthy and working out regularly. How can I be moody when the crocheted crop top I bought is looking better on me every day?

(I’m busting my ass so I can say that.) (Also, still doesn't look good enough to wear in public so I can definitely say that.) (Note to self: blog post on body image.)

"Why do I have to be bored with being foolish & young?"

I'm a woman of a mere 23. Mere in the terms of the average lifespan of an American woman. Not so mere in regards to an undergraduate student still taking classes at the local community college. (Just one, okay? It's Brit Lit II and I need it to get my bachelor's and it's cheaper to take it a Moraine Valley than it is to take it at GSU. SO SUE ME.)

I digress.

I'm only 23 and as of late, the idea of going out and drinking and partying and all that shit just seems like such an unappealing foreign concept. Which, I did quite a deal of drinking and partying and all that shit in my day, (ages 17 to early 22) and now I'm just kind of like, "Meh."

I have friends who can play drinking games for HOURS without tiring. And not the sit around a table and flip a card, chill kind of drinking games, but the kind of games where 5 to 10 people stand around a folding table and flip cups incessantly and throw ping pong balls and chug beer. The kind of drinking games that take a sort of energy that I do not seem to have these days. Although, let me be clear in saying that this is one of those things, like many things, that I have a very "to each their own" mantra about. I do not look down on those who can play those games for hours and drink 800 calories of light beer without a second thought. Sometimes, I even envy them. I wish I didn't have to be the wet blanket who starts yawning at 10:30 pm and trying to get my boyfriend to see that I've been making love to the door with my eyes for the past 30 minutes. I wish I could go back to drinking six Leinenkugel Berry Weis proportionally mixed with Summer Shandy without feeling the need to get in an extra hour of cardio. 

Those were the good ol' days. Now, if I have extra calories to spare, I'm going to have a cannoli instead of beer because, well...cannoli.

I don't know. For me, there is just something infinitely more appealing about laying in bed with Jake and watching Parks & Rec (specifically, "The Fight" aka the snake juice episode) and being asleep by 11pm than staying out till three in the morning every weekend and moping around hungover. Because of this, I am also far less inclined to ingest greasy foodz. 

I will drink on special occasions. Two of my best friends turn 23 in April and May and I will drink to their longevity. But I don't feel the need to drink just because it's Friday and that's what people do on Fridays. So I guess I'll be the wet blanket and maybe my boyfriend's friends will think I'm the reason he stays in (which is not true! I actually encourage him to go out with them! But we're very much alike in some ways, one of them being neither of us really has this propensity to drink and party anymore. Also, it's cold and neither of us want to leave the warmth of his bed and stuff) and maybe I can't have more than four shots without getting wasted now but I feel really great. And I'm very content with waking up at 8am on a Saturday and getting my day going as opposed to 11:45 and moping around until I get the energy to go get myself a chicken bowl from Chipotle. 

That was summer 2012 Steph and now I'm winter 2014 Steph and, you know, I'm happy (usually.)

Although, it will probably be much easier to go out and do things with other people when the temperature goes over 25 degrees and this winter that has surely risen from the depths of hell has subsided a bit. 

Hello I'm here and alive but with a small sinus infection.

It's been awhile since I logged onto this here blog.
Actually, a more accurate statement would be that I have logged in but feel like I haven't had anything new or interesting to say as of late. I guess it's a creative rut of sorts. This booty-ass winter is not helping any.
I have been pretty active since Christmas, I've changed a lot of my eating habits, and I'm feeling overall just much healthier and far less lethargic. But let me tell ya, after a long day of exercise, work, and school (2x a week), the second my head hits the pillow at bedtime, I am out cold.

Basically, I just need to work on making time for my creative outlets. And my boyfriend. And my friends. And my dog. And school. And even my family sometimes, or at least my mom. Sometimes I just need a night where I lay in my parents' bed with my mom and veg out to Keeping up with the Kardashians. The idea of putting my brain on cruise control for an hour of bad television almost always wins out to the things I love but utilize brain power that runs particularly low at the end of my night.

Well I'm not one for complaining about things that I can change, so that's something I will actively work on.

That and this blog. Holla.

Revoking my own poetic license.

Plum lipstick, cable knits, men’s socks, brainy wits, sad songs, good moods, chicken noodle soup with extra noods.

I still love writing. I still love stringing words together like popcorn garland for a Christmas tree. But like popcorn garland, I think my words grow stale and lose the crunch and saltiness and it just makes me feel so inadequate sometimes.

<---Also, here's a picture of me at work the day after I gave in and got my bangs trimmed for the umpteenth time. I have no perseverance whatsoever. But damn, my eyebrows lookin' fresh2death.

"Good Morning, Mister Handsome! Can a bitch get to know ya?"*

Lately, I've just been devouring the writing of like-minded female writers and my God, these women are great. I just added Samantha Irby's Meaty to my Christmas wish list that my mother promptly requests every year and I've been going through Emily McCombs' various blog posts on xoJane and taking notes because she is amazing and great and those are two choice words that I refuse to find more creative synonyms for.
It's strange, though. As cool as I think these girls are, I would probably shrink up into a shriveled little turd if ever given the chance to hang out with them and discuss writing.

I need to work on my social anxieties this coming year. And maybe my confidence, as well. Maybe if my confidence was a little bit better, I wouldn't have been so accusatory of my boyfriend when I found out he hung out with his friend's girlfriend after everyone else went to sleep simply because he was trying to sober up and wasn't ready to drive home and whatever, I have my thoughts on that but have found that I can't quite express them without sounding like a self-conscious fifteen year-old and I guess guys don't really find that sexy for some reason.

*Note, the title of this post comes from Samantha Irby's blog that I have linked to above. Check it out, people from the Ukraine that evidently visit this blog from time to time like heavily-accented ghosts and don't offer me any Krokodil.**

**That's shitty of me. I'm just your run of the mill suburbanite that can't seem to differentiate from Ukrainians and Russians just like I cannot the Swiss and Swedes. Also, to any feds who may be tracking the word 'Krokodil', I haven't so much as smoked a cigarette in over a year, so do not come a-knockin' on my doe trying to raid my shit.

Shedding its red.

I am quite pleased with the amount of foliage encountered on my walk today.