officially joining the quarantine

Greetings, from the strangest days we've all lived through thus far.

What a month it has been, right?

We bought our house on Friday, March 13th. It feels like a lifetime ago when it's been just 34 days. Groups of less than 250 were still able to gather in public places. Ryan and I didn't think twice before going out to lunch as a mini-celebration of our closing. We went to a wedding the next evening. We were on the brink of change, and like many, didn't realize just how quickly it was going to alter every aspect of our lives.

But even though it's been about 4-6 weeks since everything started unraveling, it didn't really hit me until about a week ago, when my work situation officially changed.

I work as a speech-language pathologist at a pediatric outpatient facility. In the last month, we went from seeing our full caseloads, to no patients, to medical-priority patients. More recently, I went from working my usual four days per week to one day per week. I have to take PTO (up to negative 80 hours) for the other three days until that runs out. Or that's the plan for now, anyway. What I've learned lately is that while nothing is certain, things could certainly be worse for me. All I can do is roll with the punches, and that's what I will continue to do.

Until this point, it's been difficult for me to relate to everyone "quarantining." Going to work each day (sans patients), seeing my co-workers, taking a lunch break all felt relatively normal. I watched TikTok's to "bored in the house and I'm in the house bored," and I thought to myself, "what's that like?"

Alas, now I know, because I'm among the people whose worlds have been totally flipped upside down. I might be late on the uptake, but I think it's finally time I let myself grieve the loss of normalcy. I know this is not forever. But it is right now, and it is for the foreseeable future. And while society is telling me to make the most of this time, I think it's okay to figure out what that is going to look like for me...and if that means I've spent the last day and a half on the couch with my head in a spin trying to figure out how to proceed, then that's what that means.

How have you been handling COVID-19? What does life look like for you right now?

It's today, it's today!

"The time has come," the walrus said, "to talk of many things."

Although I won't be talking about cabbages and kings, or why the sea is boiling hot or whether pigs have wings.

I feel like lately all I've been talking about and thinking about is money. About investing money, budgeting money, spending money - ugh, the word is just annoying to even look at!

What the walrus is talking about is - shocker - moving out. We get the keys TODAY (errrmehgerrrd) and I will officially be moving in this weekend. What comes with moving out? Fees on fees on fees. $250 to turn on electric...what do you guys do, like flip a switch or something? Let's get real. And then of course, rent. Get ready to roll your eyes but I've never actually paid my own rent before. Ouch. Oh and I just dropped another hundo on wall paint and painting supplies...for a rental. Who am I?

On top of that, I'll soon be paying my gas, car insurance and grocery bills. STOP ROLLING YOUR EYES AT ME, I KNOW. I was very lucky growing up and my parents insisted on paying for necessities while I was going to college. But I've been out of college for a year and now I'm moving out of their house and it's great because I want to be independent and I want to be able to pay for everything on my own, but ooooof why did I decide to move out the same month I'm going to NYC?!

Well, at this point I'm kind of rambling, so I guess I'll put you all out of your misery and stop. But I'll tell you what: July is going to be one monetarily celibate month for me. So please refrain from asking me to go out to dinner, go out for drinks, go shopping, whatever...because I don't have the willpower to say no. XO 

Work hard, work harder.

I started this week with a full heart - inspired, motivated, ready to work. As I came into work yesterday morning, I felt myself deflating. I wasn't where I wanted to be, I was short, I was losing hope. I could feel myself getting distracted. I could feel my pipeline of business cards staring at me - laughing, holding rejection above my head. It's silly how inanimate have that kind of effect on me.

It took about a fifteen minute pity party for me to reverse the deflation. I picked up the phone and I started calling. I made conversation. I was politely rejected. I hung up the phone and dialed again. And again. And again. I stopped letting a plastic telephone and a piece of card stock define me, or hold me back for that matter. It was a fleeting 30 minutes with absolutely no luck, but I could feel myself trying.

Genuine success rarely establishes overnight. Whether it's working out, or a career move...it takes time and effort. I figure, as long as I can feel myself trying - really trying my best - then I'm happy. It's never easy, but maybe one day it will be.

Working Girl Closet.

I'm obsessed with clothes, but not necessarily fashion. I haaaate high fashion magazines. I just don't understand them. Half the stuff I see on the runway, normal women like myself (well, I'm mostly normal...right?) would never, ever actually wear. No, I'm not going to pair a bold, pink-based floral blouse with some form of yellow and green patterned pants. I don't care how 'different' it is - ya look dumb.

I'm pretty simple when it comes to my fashion choices, whether it's for a work event, going out to dinner with my boyfriend or going bar hopping with my friends. Recently I've been trying to up my outfits for work, which is no small feat. Professional clothes are EXPENSIVE, so I try to mix and match a lot of what I already have to create new looks. This way, I'm [slightly] less tempted to go buck wild on a J. Crew Factory sale. 

I've needed a little more inspiration than usual lately, so I've been actively updating my Working Girl Closet Pinterest board (check it out here). Going through it, a lot of these are a variety of the same thing: full, high-waisted skirts with a simple blouse, a fun-colored blazer with a pencil skirt, etc. Having only been in the workforce for a little over six months, I can only hope my Working Girl Closet will someday be a variation of my own closet. 'Hope' being the operative word here.

These are some of my favorites:

Can you tell I like skirts or...? XO

When life gives you lemons...well, you know.

If you asked me in April 2013 where I thought I would be one year later, I probably would've told you "I have no idea." Which would've been entirely accurate. I was two weeks away from graduating college, three months away from traveling to Europe, four months away from saying goodbye to my at-the-time boyfriend of almost two years as he embarked on his journey to law school. I was lost, but I wasn't unhappy. I was just accepting the fact that everything was about to change, because what choice did I have?

At the time, I didn't know that in six months, I'd accept a full-time job opportunity at the company I was interning with. I didn't know I'd come back from Europe to have my boyfriend tell me he had no interest in having a long distance relationship. I didn't know that two months after saying goodbye to him in Tennessee that I would meet the man who has ultimately changed my life for the better; someone that I truly believe I was meant to meet; someone that I would fall hopelessly in love with.

I guess I'm just trying to state the obvious: life throws you curve balls. More than half the time, you won't be expecting them, and you won't be ready for them. I think the most bold and beautiful thing you can do is not only roll with the punches, but embrace them. If, in your heart, something feels right, it probably is, and vice versa.

If you asked me in April 2013 where I thought I would be one year later, I wouldn't have had any idea that I could be this happy, this sure, this confident. I'm thrilled to be where I am, and I hope this feeling never goes away.

Even the darkest night will end & the sun will rise.

A wise man once said, "life's tough, get a helmet." Okay, that man was Eric Matthews from Boy Meets World. But let's get real, life gets rough sometimes. I'll be boppin' along, head in the clouds, rocking second-day curls and ready to take on the world...and then all of the sudden I get a setback. I'll take a wrong turn on the way to a networking event, taking me 20 minutes in the wrong direction. I'll have an argument with my parents over driving on the grass. Someone might make a snarky remark to me about something trivial that (probably due to my hormonal rage) really hits my heart. Days like these, I want to gauge my eyes out with a spoon.

What I need to remember on these days is that this, too, shall pass. No matter how upset I am by 11 a.m. on a Monday morning, 5 o'clock will eventually roll around, and I will end up at home, and I will end up in the box of Ikea goodness that is my bed. No matter how stressed out I am about hitting my numbers throughout the week, the weekend will eventually come, and I'll find temporary relief. These things probably seem elementary, but my point is that more often than not, life will go on despite the major or minor setbacks we all experience. The stress will pass. The darkest night (or in my case for March, month) will end, and the sun will rise, and there will be a possibility for a better tomorrow. While said tomorrow is never guaranteed, it's all we can hope for.

Oh hey, it's been a minute

So big girl job life has been absolutely CRAZY lately...why didn't anyone tell me that was going to happen? ...oh wait, everyone told me that.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't stressed out with work roughly 90% of the time. In sales, meeting your personal and company goals is crucial, and deadlines are nonnegotiable. It's not easy - if anyone ever tells you that sales is easy, kindly punch them in the face and let them know I told you to do so. Just kidding but really.

If I didn't make time for myself to relax and recuperate, I would go nucking futs. Here's a few things I like to do when I'm stressed out to help ease the pain (slightly):

1. Cry and then take a nap - Yeah, I don't really care how pathetic I sound on this one. Sometimes I really just need to cry and sleep it off. I take a deep breath and just let myself feel everything all at once; I'll normally give myself about 5-15 minutes to have sob fest in the comfort of my bed...and then  I stop. I have allowed myself a few minutes to mope, so now it's time to pick myself up and move on. 
2. Cuddle - While I'm a huge believer in personal space, I am also a giant believer in the power of the cuddle. Whether it's with my mom, my dog or my 6'8 boyfriend (long arms = great cuddle bug), it's crazy how much it comforts me to be in the arms of someone I love and I know loves me back.
3. Pinterest - When the mood strikes, Pinterest is my favorite of all social medias. To me, it's like swallowing a large dose of inspiration. Whether I'm looking up new ab work outs, scoping outfits for work, or decorating my future home, looking at "pretty things" is an extreme mood lifter.
4. Retail Therapy - There's something to be said about what one (or several) purchase(s) can do to your mood. When done in moderation, a Target spree does this girl so much good. Sometimes you just have to throw your hands in the air and buy a new statement necklace to calm your nerves, ya know?
5. Drinking tea with my family - Maybe this is just me because I come from a British background, but one of my favorite things to do is sit down at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and chat/rant/bitch/whine/laugh with my mother about the woes of life. 

Life gets messy and scary and stressful and overall, just damn difficult. Sometimes you just need to take a couple of hours to yourself to just breeeaatheeeee and know that the bad stuff doesn't last forever.

Coping.

So I'm finally starting to get adjusted to the many changes that have been thrown my way in the past few weeks. I'm not necessarily thrilled about all of them, but I'm managing a lot better than I thought I would.

I've found extreme comfort in my friends. No surprises there, of course. I've always been really good at surrounding myself with the right people. The kind of people that make me laugh, the kind of people I can really share my feelings and thoughts with, the kind of people that inspire me in more ways than one. Whether it's watching stupid movies or baking something delicious, blowing money at the mall or getting sunburnt at the beach, I really haven't had a lot of time to be sad. I'm sure that'll all catch up with me eventually, but it's okay for now.

I finally started at my new Carrabbas and it's not as awful as I imagined it would be. Anyone who has ever worked in a restaurant knows that being the new girl (or guy) is never fun, even if you're a transfer. You have to prove to everyone that you know what you're doing; a lot of people will hardly even acknowledge your existence until then. Thankfully, I haven't had much of that. Even when I do, I just roll with the punches. The restaurant business is never personal.

The days pass by a lot faster now that I'm out of school and not working every single day of my life (yet). I have all the time in the world to go to the gym, go to the beach, get together with friends, paint my nails...silly, frivolous things that I hardly had time to do before and now I get to do them every day.

I'm just in the process of becoming a better version of myself, I think. I'm growing up. I'm putting time into things that matter and not giving a second thought to things that don't. I'm being a twenty-something, and I like it.

XOXO, Samantha.

When Nothing is Sure, Everything is Possible.

 

I gotta say, I love me some inspiration quotes...especially when they're decorated with fancy fonts and artsy designs. Seriously though, I couldn't begin to tell you how accurately both of these quotes depict how I feel about life now that I'm pretty much graduated from college. On one hand, I feel as if the world is my oyster. There are so many things I can do with my degree if I really set my mind to it [and work my butt off]. On the other hand, I feel like the burning question in my mind is, "what the hell am I supposed to do now?"

I'll come right out and say it - I have never really been a total go-getter. Whether it was a group presentation in college or any of my restaurant jobs, I never went out of my way to "be the best" or to get noticed. With that being said, I am 100% compliant. As a student and as an employee, I have always gone out of my way to do exactly what I am asked, when I am asked, and I don't complain about it. But with how competitive the job market is nowadays, my demeanor makes me nervous! A part of me is freaking out a little on the inside that I don't have what it takes, whatever it is.

Another part of me is chomping at the bit to make a change; to find my passion, and to find my niche. I want to figure out exactly what I want in life, not just within my career, but my personal life too. I know I want to get married, I know want to have kids, and I know I want to be happy. That's cliche and maybe a little silly, but it's true. 

Like most people, I would ideally like to have a career where I can live comfortably aka make pretty good money. Having said that, I also want to look forward to going to work! I know too many people that hate their jobs. I never want to be one of those people. I'm determined not to be one of those people. I'm finding my way, and as scary as it is, I can't wait to see how my life unfolds.

---Also, since I'm trying to get into this whole Blogger thang, I signed up for BlogLovin! Finally, something I can understand on here :)
Follow me on BlogLovin!


XOXO, Samantha-