small changes making a big impact

You guys, it has been a year. 

Right? We all know this. We're over it.

Living through a pandemic has impacted literally everybody. Even if we've been able to find a silver lining amidst the chaos, I think most of us could safely say that we would have been a whoooole lot happier without COVID-19 and its hoopla. 

I digress.

Like many, I've learned a lot about myself since March. For example: I am actually far more of an anxious person than I ever gave myself credit for, and I've been trying to navigate that by finding ways to spark joy and reduce anxiety. Here's a short list of what's been working for me so far:

my first "currently" of 2020

It has been over a year since my last "currently" blog post. I could chalk that up to all the craziness in 2019 (planning a wedding, getting married), or I could blame it on 2020 (you just know). Alas, here we are. From new shows to new clothes, here's what's been going on in my little world lately:

Watching

The Haunting of Hill House - As much as I love learning about hauntings and ghosts, I have become a nervous Nelly over the years (ha...show-related puns!). I was hesitant to watch this show, but I'm so glad I did. Absolutely loved it. It definitely has its jumpy parts, and I wouldn't watch it alone, but the story was just too good, and it was beautifully filmed. The twists! The turns! 10/10 recommend. 

The Haunting of Bly Manor - Started watching just before Halloween, but we're only a few episodes in! Just as chilling, but not as "jumpy" so far.

Schitt's Creek - Season 6 is finally out on Netflix. AHHHH. Surprisingly, Ryan and I haven't quite "binged" it yet, but I think it's because we're sad to have it all come to an end. We're not doing anything for Halloween, but I think I might dress up as Alexis and gallivant around the house doing her voice and mannerisms. Mmmmm, happy Halloween!

Emily in Paris - Mixed thoughts about this one. I love Lily Collins, but there isn't anything exactly novel about this show. Her neighbor in the show is nice to look at, so that's reason enough for me. I'll definitely finish the season, but I wouldn't say it's anything to write home about.

The election results - I started drafting this post a few weeks back, but how could I not add this to my "watching" list? As of now, we're still awaiting final results and my anxiety levels are hiiiiiigh.

Reading

I have been slow in the reading game this past month, and I think it's because the two books I've started are nonfiction, which takes me a bit to get through. I started reading Untamed by Glennon Doyle, but then put it down once October hit to read I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara for a little spooky thrill. I haven't really sat down to read in awhile, so I haven't given myself the time to catch interest in either book. I'm hoping to give both of them a real shot over the next few weeks. 

Kinda feeling like I need to hop into another fiction read, though. Anyone else have a hard time with nonfiction? I rarely get that "I have to know what happens next!" feeling.

Making

Lots and lots and lots of Boom cards! I'm so glad I got into making these for my patients this year. Not only does it save me a lot of prep time, but I'm happy I get to use my speech and language knowledge to create a passive income. 

Our house a home! I think both Ryan and I got a little winded from all the renovations and seemingly endless projects. Our doors still aren't painted, baseboards still need to be calked, and it's time we got started on that guest bathroom, but we're slowly getting things together again. We just had someone give us a quote for plantation shutters on ONE window ($1200!!! For ONE!), and we're in the process of figuring out what to do with our backyard/porch situation. In the last few weeks, I've taken on some smaller projects, like framing and hanging wedding photos. Our home feels more cozy with our special moments hanging on the walls.

What are you up to lately?

our home buying process

If you've been around here for awhile, you know I've been talking about us buying a house for a long time. It was actually one of my goals for 2019, per my personal journal. But with wedding expenses (and my new student loan payment), most of our money was going elsewhere. Additionally, our apartment lease was going to end less than 10 days after returning from our honeymoon in Hawaii. We didn't want to feel pressured to buy a house that we didn't love, so we decided to wait.

That's not to say we didn't begin our hunt before then. We started neighborhood hunting around Tampa in the early months of 2019. We'd hop in the car on a random Sunday afternoon and browse around "SOG" (south of Gandy - a semi-cheaper area of south Tampa, which is $$$) and different neighborhoods of Seminole Heights (Riverside Heights, Southeast Seminole Heights, Old Seminole Heights). We thought about looking around the St. Pete area, where I grew up, but it wasn't at the front of our minds. Even though I worked in St. Pete, we both felt confident that we wanted to continue our lives in Tampa. A lot of our friends live in Tampa, we loved our gym, we loved Bayshore Boulevard, we had our go-to restaurants and stores. Tampa was our home.

We perused open houses to get an idea of what we liked (master bedrooms that could fit a king size bed) vs. what we didn't like (narrow kitchens). We were heavily researching, but with the wedding in the works, we didn't feel comfortable making any big decisions.

We got married in October, and started to take our search a little more seriously a couple weeks later. We chose our real estate agent - a family friend who'd helped both my parents and my sister buy and sell their homes over the last 20 years - and went to our first official round of showings.

Our initial requirements:

• 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
• 1,200 + square feet
• Minimal work required

We quickly realized that we had a lot more to consider. And we learned a lot in that initial showing.

For example...

• Quick flips = chocolate covered cockroaches. Newly renovated doesn't mean carefully renovated. 
• Master bedrooms don't always coexist with an ensuite bathroom.
• It doesn't matter how much you love the house if you don't like the street.

Needless to say, we saw a lot of duds...but we remained hopeful!

In January, we went for a longer house hunt in St. Pete. We visited about six homes in varying neighborhoods. The first one, a 3/2 with a two car garage, was in a beautiful neighborhood (secluded street, close to the water, less than 15 minutes from downtown), but needed a lot of work. Both bathrooms were looking rough, the porch was awful, the doors had seen better days, etc. Unfortunately, it was listed too high for us to consider, given all that needed to be done. Pass.

The next few houses were in okay neighborhoods, but featured awkward layouts, half bathrooms listed as the second bathroom, and cheap renovations. Pass pass pass. 

We went to a few more showings with our realtor during the next month or so. Sometimes we saw six showings in one trip; other times we went to visit just one home. We continued to visit open houses on our own as a pre-screening before deciding if we wanted to consider it as a serious option. It was a fun weekend activity for us, until we actually started liking a house only to see it go to somebody else. We visited one we'd been eyeing for months in a cute historic neighborhood in Seminole Heights, just steps away from a few restaurants, breweries, and shops, only to find it was pending sale by the end of its first open house. Ouch.

Zillow searching became the bane of my existence. Even though our budget was pretty generous for a first home, I began to fall into the trap of "if only we had X amount of $ instead, then we could find the perfect home." Not fun, nor fair, for us.

In early February, I went to an art show with my mom and sister in Gulfport, a cute little beach town in the St. Pete area. On a whim, I asked my mom if she wanted to drive around some of the neighborhoods we'd been looking at in St. Pete. I offered to take her past the initial house in St. Pete (3/2/2, awful porch). As we entered the neighborhood, my mom began cooing and singing its highest praises immediately.

"Look at how well everyone keeps their yard! That's a great school nearby! Look, you're tucked away! Oh, a park! Oh, I love it! You need to reconsider this house." We drove past it 2-3 times in several circles around the neighborhood. It was the strangest feeling. It was in those few moments, after a quick conversation with my mom, that I thought to myself, "huh. yeah, this feels right." 

I went home to our apartment that night and discussed it with Ryan. We figured we should at least take a look at the house from a different perspective, and we arranged another showing with our realtor. Between our initial showing and our second, the seller had dropped the listing price by about $15k, which made the opportunity even more attractive.

After our second showing, we wanted the house, no doubt about it. Naturally, so did another couple. Suddenly, a house that had been on the market for months was potentially slipping out of our grasp. WHAT IN THE FRESH HELL, AM I RIGHT? 

I believe the other couple placed an offer that felt too low to the seller, so she opted to see what we wanted to do. On Valentine's Day, we popped a bottle of wine as we officially submitted our offer. It was accepted a few days later, and we awaited inspection and the appraisal (albeit, impatiently). While the seller initially wanted a 45 day close, our realtor worked his magic and negotiated a 30-day close. As it turned out, the seller found a new home very quickly, and we were able to close in less than 30 days. 

And if you're doing a timeline in your head, why yes - we closed on Friday, March 13th, just days before the entire country went into lockdown due to COVID-19. What a time to be alive, right? More like, what a time to have to go to home improvement stores every single day of your life.

TL;DR -

• We started looking for houses about a year in advance, but the actual house hunt took less than 6 months.
• We opted for a house that needed a lot of work, but was in a desirable neighborhood.
• We closed on our house in less than 30 days.

It's been almost five months since we moved in, and it's true what "they" say: home improvement is a marathon, not a sprint. We've gotten so much done in such a short amount of time, but we still have a whole lot we want to do, a lot we want to buy, a lot we want to consider. Despite the work, it has been so worth it to watch it all come together!

what i've been up to, quarantine edition

Here is a brief update of things I've been doing/working on during the quarantine. This is not to say that I am productive every day, or even 50% of every day. I'm doing the best I can. Like most, I'm being thrown for a loop right now. Some evenings, I look back on my day and think, "what did I even do today?" And I refuse to shame myself for that.

Now, on to the good stuff. In the last couple weeks, I have been...

• Making from-scratch meals at home. We had several cook books on our wedding registry, and since moving into our house with a full-size kitchen to work with (and all this newfound time on my hands), I've been keen to experiment more in the kitchen. I made a couple recipes from Cravings - lemony arugula spaghetti caccio e peppe (with linguine, since that's all we had) and sriracha caesar salad (with added sardines...because I discovered that I like them?!). I even threw together a prosciutto and arugula salad with cherry tomatoes and mozzarella tossed together with lemon juice and olive oil for lunch one day last week. Putting together meals that are a couple steps outside of my comfort zone has been a lot of fun for me - I think my husband has especially enjoyed this new hobby of mine, as well.
  *Food photography to improve over the course of this quarantine, hopefully.

• Researching home decor + furniture until my fingertips bleed. Dramatic, but seemingly accurate. I haven't spent time thinking about how to decorate in so long, and it feels overwhelming. I'm the queen of indecision (trying to work on it), and I'm also torn between wanting to invest our money in quality pieces and stretching our budget by spending money on cheaper alternatives. Style wise, I'm drawn to a combination of modern, bohemian, and farmhouse. Isn't that called "eclectic?" To be determined. 
• Reading. I've already read two and a half books since the start of COVID-19 (half a book meaning I finished a book I'd been reading for about a month beforehand). I set my GoodReads goal a little lower this year (12 books instead of 25) so that I could alleviate my focus from how many books I'm reading to how much I am actually enjoying a book. I've been mostly sticking to contemporary romance novels this year. I'm planning on writing a post about the books I've read in the last year soon!

• Wondering why I've never attempted to make my blog a full-time job. Ha! Just kidding, but really. In truth, I know I've never put forth a great effort to monetize this blog. It's always been fun for me to write about my life, and even though I talk about things I buy and enjoy, I hardly consider myself an "influencer." I love to write and share stories, and that's why I blog. I've (personally) always felt like it's kind of hard to capitalize on that. Unless, of course, I wrote a book. 
• Signing up for SkillShare. My aforementioned point. I've always loved writing, ever since I was little. It's even been said that I'm a good writer (...you know, by my family and composition professors in early college). I used to have book ideas flittering about in my brain pretty frequently. In the last few years, my inspiration, motivation, and dedication to the craft fell by the wayside. I've been wanting to take a few creative writing and character development courses, just to see if I can spark an old flame. I may never write a book, but it'll certainly never write itself! 

If you have a lot of new time on your hands right now, what have you been doing with it?

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?

a little update in my newest season of life

I'm not quite sure how we've gotten past the midway point of August without so much as a blog post about me graduating (though I'm sure you're over hearing about it via Instagram), but here we are. I am a fresh little graduated petunia, and I'm scared out of my mind. But we will save that for a later date, yeah?

August has actually thrown me for an emotional loop. About a week after graduation, my grandad passed away. He'd been battling cancer for a number of years - was in remission for awhile before it came back and metastasized - but he's been in a lot of pain for the past year, so while I'm heartbroken, I'm also a tad relieved. I'm fortunate enough to be able to say that this is my first time dealing with the loss of a loved one, and it's definitely been a process. I posted a little something about it on my Instagram story on Sunday, which felt weird. I felt like I needed to acknowledge it in some way, but for the most part, I've been trying to keep it all pretty personal. So this is me acknowledging it again - not to say, "hey, feel sorry for me!" but to say "hey, sometimes social media makes it seem like things are pretty and perfect and all is going well in the world, when really, I'm crashing in ways that I don't necessarily want to talk about...but this is proof that it is happening." Does that make sense?

Shout out to Ryan for being a damn trooper during all of this - from hand holding to laundry, making dinner, and being on pooch patrol. I will say that I really lucked out in the life partner category.

In other lighter news, it's certainly weird to know that I'm not going back to school this week for the first time in three years. In some ways, the last few years felt like the longest of my life, but for the most part, they flew by. I've been job hunting and trying to find the right "fit," but I've also been trying to relax and enjoy this little season of unemployment. I'm still serving tables until then, so in between shifts I've been going to the gym, reading books, and getting together with friends.

To cap off this mixed up post, I figured I'd drop a little "currently" closer to keep you up to date with the frivolous bits in my life:

Reading: Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah and Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis.
Watching: Not a whole lot, honestly. I need to find something to binge watch.
Buying: These, these (which I would check your local store for...I bought them for $6.88 before the coupon!), and these from Target because they have a 30% off flat sandals coupon on Cartwheel (until August 25!). I nevvver buy shoes, so getting all three of these for less than $40 was a real treat. Additionally, I bought an Enso ring for work/the gym because I am deathly afraid of ring avulsion. I went for the pyramid stackable in pink sand.
Establishing: a morning routine. Well, attempting to, anyway. More on that later.
Attending (?): Taylor Swift's Reputation tour! I went with a group of girlfriends last week and to no surprise, Taylor killed it. I left my glasses at home (womp womp), so aside from the giant screen, I couldn't see her very well, but I had such a blast.
Booking: wedding things! If you follow along on Instagram, you'll see that we signed a contract with a venue in downtown St. Pete, and we are so pumped! Now to book everything else...yikes.

a BIG announcement...

...we're engaged!

After 4.5 years, Ryan proposed on Sunday, June 10th. Fun facts include the following:

• It happened right around where we had our first kiss on October 12th, 2013.
• I almost wore shorts and a tank top (thought we were going to a casual brunch), but decided to throw this on last minute (we stayed at my parents' place the night before and i almost didn't even pack it).
• I had zero idea what was happening pretty much until he got down on one knee.
• My gel manicure is about a month old (aka absurdly grown out) in this picture #selfcare.
• My heart rate probably hovered around 170+ for the next 20 minutes.
• I am the happiest clam!

Full story and plenty of details to come. I'm in the process of studying for the speech-language pathology Praxis exam (essentially a "boards" type of test), so the blog has been on the back burner for the last month or two during preparation. But I can't wait to dish out all the deets - where it happened, how it happened, and all of the other fun frivolities that came with it.

Thank you to everyone who has already sent along their congratulations and best wishes. I am so excited to start officially planning for our future...starting with a wedding! What?!?!

Also...probably a good time to let everyone know that the 'Rose' in Samantha Rose Says is actually my last name. Come next year, I'll be a Fredericks! (Unless I convince Ryan to become Ryan Rose, that is). 

Also alsoooo...here's a closer picture of the ring. He did SO WELL, and I can't stop looking at this thing. 

linkup : what's new with you?

This is my first time linking up with Gretch Runs & See You In A Porridge for their monthly linkup: What's New With You?

Travel

As many of you know, August was a big month of traveling for me. I went to visit my sister who lives in Bulgaria, and spent about two weeks road tripping across the country. We even made it to northern Greece for a couple of days!

I know your next question - why does she live in Bulgaria? I totally get it - when you think of somebody moving abroad to Europe, you think England, Ireland, Germany, etc. Long story short - my brother-in-law is from Bulgaria, and a few years back, his grandmother wasn't doing so well. He asked his job if he could work remotely, and baddabing! My sister has always been a bit of a gypsy, so moving there was an adventure that she was more than happy to take on. She absolutely loves it. They've lived there since 2013, and although she'll tell you differently, she is very fluent in Bulgarian. Pretty cool, if you ask me!

I plan to do a couple of posts about my trip in the next month, if anyone would be interested to read about it.

School

Again, like many of you know, I'm in graduate school for speech-language pathology (just started my second and final year, woop woop!). I just began my first externship a couple of weeks ago, and I'm working with children for my third semester in a row!

I'm at the point where I still don't know if I'd like to work with kids or adults when I graduate and begin my career, but I'm hoping that once I'm placed into my adult externship next semester, I'll have a better idea. Prior to getting very involved in the field + major, I had no clue that SLPs can also work to improve communication and swallowing in adults who have dementia, or have suffered from a stroke or traumatic brain injury. I observed these types of patients at a hospital during my post-bacc classes, and I'm still very much interested in this population, so we'll see how it goes! In the meantime, I'm loving getting to play with kiddos every day. I'm slammed busy most days, but it's so worth it.

Life in general

Our apartment lease is up in November, so we're between a rock and a hard place about where to live next. Ideally, we wanted to wait until I'm done with grad school to buy a house. However, we've been looking into the Florida First Time Homebuyer grant program, as it might be "going away" sooner rather than later. If we qualify for that, we might be cracking open a whole new can of worms! But it's still way too soon to tell.

Coffee Mate Natural Bliss is my go-to creamer, and I finally tried out their salted caramel flavor. I was about to complain about their lack of fall festive flavors until I went to link it AND Y'ALL THEY HAVE PUMPKIN SPICE, BYEEEEEEEE. 

(PS: these shorts from Aerie are comfy AF - keep them bookmarked because they always have great sales. I just got them for $12 last week. YOU NEED THEM) (PPS: mug is from Target, duh).

Also, for those of you who don't know, I live in the Tampa Bay area of Florida, so it's safe to say that we've all been in a real panic about Hurricane Irma. I'll be the first to admit that I'm pretty jaded when it comes to hurricanes, because in my lifetime, Tampa has yet to get a direct hit. Even now, it's looking like it'll be heading up and along the east coast. Having said all that, Irma's diameter is literally the size of Florida, so I think we'll be getting a little sumsum no matter what. I know Key West is under a mandatory evacuation, and the rest of Florida is under a state of emergency. 

I braved Costco on Tuesday and waited in line for 45 minutes for just a few nonperishables and wine. Everywhere is out of bottled water (and gasoline), but shoutout to my boyfriend for having bought two large cases months ago "just in case we get a hurricane or something." What a guy. Anyway - we are all set to hunker down for the rest of the weekend until this thing figures itself out. I've been glued to the news, updates, etc. and my heart is just breaking for everyone in Irma's direct path. 

On that positive and uplifting note (not), what's been new with you this month?

mid-week rambles.

- Like many, my heart is breaking for the people (and animals) of Houston as they suffer from the effects of Hurricane Harvey. While there isn't a whole lot I can do from Florida, I decided that I wanted to skip a lunch out this week and donate what I could afford to a meaningful cause. There are so many different ways you can help, and if you're not sure where to start, this article really helped me decide exactly where I'd like to donate.

- I'm one week into my last year of my grad program and it already feels like it's been a month. Last minute, I was placed into a private practice setting for my advanced clinical practicum. In other words, I'm actually working off campus in a clinic that isn't affiliated with the university when I was supposed to be at the campus clinic for one more semester. In other other words, I have a bonus externship - WOO! I'm already learning so much and I'm so thankful...but I am also super overwhelmed and desperately trying to find a balance. Currently feeling thankful AF for planners, to-do lists, and a patient boyfriend because I have a sneaking suspicion that it is going to be a busy couple of months for me.

- Taylor Swift forever. I will admit I had to listen to Look What You Made Me Do a couple of times before I was hooked/on board. Now? I know every word. If you're an active listener of Taylor, you've probably noticed her slow transition into pop music since the Red album. After 1989, I was down for full-on pop Taylor, so her new song really didn't surprise me the way it did for a lot of people. I am so ready for Reputation. 

- Margaritas over everything. After my friend's bachelorette party this weekend, I'll be trying to cut back on my favorite sugary alcoholic drink for a month or two. As much as I love tequila, I'm not so sure it loves me back. You know what that's like. But sometimes you just need one (or two), and sometimes said margaritas need to be the size of your face. After the launch into the semester I had last week, you beeest believe I started my Friday night with a classic marg + trio dip + lettuce tacos (because...balance? sure).

What's on your mind this week?