A Day in the Life

So, what does a Stephanie do on a daily basis? Since most of you either know me from a Catholic IF facebook group or in real life but live far away, I figured I'd give you a little snap shot of my life here in Memphis to help you relate to my story as this blog thing continues.

My husband and I live in a sweet little apartment outside of Memphis. It's very pretty. And hardly clean. But always "30 minutes to clean," as I like to say. So if you ever want to visit, we'll just need a 30-minute heads up, thank you very much.

The kitchen and dining area, complete with cooking husband.

I'm a late riser, so most days, I get up around 9am. I was not always so lucky to live a life of such luxury (teachers get up before the crack of dawn, eww). But now I have the best hours evarrr, so I'm allowed to snooze a little extra. I report to work at noon on the dot every day and wrap up around 4:30pm. This lady is NOT complaining 'bout that.

At work, I dibble dabble in random stuff that needs to get done. I send emails, lots of emails, to my youth group and their parentals. I coordinate outings (bowling and laser tag and snow cones, oh my!), and weekly meetings and plan big service trips. I also work hand-in-hand with some of the other cool ministries at our parish - the middle school youth group, the PRE program (aka CCD, at least when I was a youngin'), etc.

My youth groupies on a service trip.

When projects slow down, I try to learn a little more about my Catholic faith while at work. For example, I'm currently working my way through Pope Francis's recent encyclical, Lumen Fidei... which is pretty enlightening (bahaha! cheesy pun!). I'm also working my way through the Youcat (an easier-to-read youth version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church), so that's neat. AND, when I've reeeeeally got nothing to do, I find hilarious Catholic Memes on facebook and post them to my youth group's facebook page. Cause I'm cool. And I'm trying to convince the teens I'm funny. And that people can be funny, cool, and Catholic all in one. It's a hard sell, but I think I'm slowly making progress :P

A silly from Catholic Memes

When I'm done with work, I like to Jazzercise, but only about twice a week. I've tried a bajillion different forms of exercise (step class, ellipticals, jogging, bikes, body pump), but find that my favorite is exercise that involves some sort of spastic dancing. Zumba is another one of my faves. If I've gotta do this thing that's good for my heart, I might as well shake my bon-bons while I'm at it. It's fun stuff and it (mostly) passes the time quickly.

During the hours and days that I'm not working or Jazzercising, I mostly enjoy being lazy or adventuring with the husband. However, this only works when he's not working. Ya see, his schedule is a bit non-tradish. He's a pediatric hospitalist and he works 7 days on, then 7 days off. When he's on, he's gone. He leaves the apartment by 6am and doesn't return 'til 8 or 9pm. He'll get home, kick off his shoes, eat the delicious meal I've prepared for him, then go to bed to do it all again the next morning. It's not my favorite, BUT I do love it when he has 7 days off.

About to head out for his first day of work!

Hanging out by the pool, trying new recipes, eating our way around Memphis, catching up with friends, jamming out on ukulele and guitar, clothes shopping, watching movies... these are the types of adventures we like to have when he's not working. And they're usually pretty darn great.

I'd say our favorite recipes to cook are usually tacos. Any kinds of tacos. Ok, but mostly fish tacos.

More like taco EVERYDAY

Taco date in the park. We're serious.

When it comes to finding new places to eat out, I obsess over Yelp and restaurants' websites and find places with mostly positive reviews and interesting menus. Sometimes, while we're out to eat trying a new place, I'll spend more time on Yelp finding another place to eat for the future or I'll find a restaurant that would have been better than the place we're currently eating. I know, it's silly. But it's me! Some of our fave cuisines include: Greek, Ethiopian, fancy pizza, fancy hot dogs, authentic Mexican (I mean, we did live in Houston for 3 years), sushi, and any kind of fro-yo, duh.

Trying adult beverages in a fruit? Sure, why not?

Clothes shopping happens when there's a sale at J. Crew. We. cannot. resist.

Movies are usually rom-coms or nerdy action movies (Star Wars, LOTR, Harry Potter, Back to the Future, etc.). I know what you're thinking... she likes the rom-coms, he likes the nerdy action movies. Well, you'd be kinda wrong if you thought that. We both like both equally. Cute, right? Oh, and we love animated movies too, specifically Pixar movies. But who doesn't love Wall-E and Buzz Lightyear and Ratatoullie? Amiright?

We also get addicted to TV shows, even though we don't have cable. We watch 'em after the fact on Netflix or Hulu. Shows we love include Friday Night Lights, Arrested Development, and Downton Abbey.

Oh, and we also spend a lot of time thinking and talking about being parents. Truth. Obviously there's a  bunch of medical stuff going on, now that we're working with a NaPro doctor, so we discuss that a bit. We also talk about adoption. And all the other "what-ifs" that come with infertility.

For the most part, we're just two kiddos in love, out in the world, trying to make the best of things while we wait for God to help us make the next step happen. As my husband likes to point out, we've got to be joyful with our lives in the in-betweens. We can't just live our lives mostly being excited about the next big step (finishing college, getting engaged, getting married, going on trips, having babes). We've got to find a lot of love doing the little things. So that's what I'm working on. Finding love in movie dates and new foods at new restaurants and being a Youth Minister and holding hands at the park.

Don't mind us, just being reeeeal cheesy.

What do you do in your in-betweens that makes life worth it?

Up next... the story of how John & Steph met and were married. Stay tuned.

Glamorous.