I’m not sure if this is just me or if it’s perhaps a post-COVID world or aging thing, but I need more time than I did in the past to recover from a whirlwind of events. June and July ran together with a pace of events that I seem to have forgotten how to handle. They were great months, but I spent more time living than sharing, which was greatly needed.

Throughout the past 14 years of having this blog, I’ve gone through a range of posting frequencies. When I first started I would share whatever came to mind, even multiple times a day if I felt compelled. It was exciting to have a place to journal what I was going through, what I ate (I was neck-deep in diet culture), and any other random musings.

These days with a new social platform every year and the ability to share thoughts online with little effort, there’s a lot of noise to break through. “Content creation” has become a profession for many, and there’s some pressure to ensure things are curated or high-quality. It’s not a criticism, since I also make a portion of my income from this work. But, it’s tiring when you are competing for work based on your aesthetic or the quality of your photos. I miss the days of sharing a blurry, yet highly filtered photo of my coffee mug and not worrying if anyone liked it. I’m going to work on finding a happy medium.

In that spirit, here’s a sprinkling of what I was up to in June and July:

In June, I went to New York City to take classes at Peloton Studios. Several weeks later, I’m still buzzing from it for many reasons – most of which have nothing to do with actually riding the bike that goes nowhere. I’ve started writing about that experience and get emotional every time. I hope to share more with you soon. In the meantime, I wrote the much less emotional 411 about how to book a Peloton New York class that you can find here.

Also while in NYC, I was able to attend a Tribeca Film Festival screening of Your Fat Friend Film, a documentary featuring Aubrey Gordon (of many books, her Your Fat Friend column, and the masterpiece of a podcast that is Maintenance Phase.) Again, so many things to say about that film. Until I can get them out, here’s a photo of me with Aubrey! I was not expecting to meet her, so I was thrilled. It was also only because of the nicest person who befriended me in line, then sat next to me, and then introduced herself to Aubrey, and waved me over. When the film was over, she made sure I got a photo with Aubrey. The kindness of people was a recurring theme over the past 2 months, and I’ll forever be indebted to Shannon from Vancouver.

Also in June, a friend of mine had her annual Murder Mystery party, which gave me a reason to wear one of my favorite sequin dresses, an old Eloquii x Jason Wu collab gown that I previously wore for New Years Eve. Turns out, I was the (fake) murderer.

I entered the second month of being completely overwhelmed by my closet, which meant piles of clothes on my floor like this. I really need to get a handle on it – I’m not really buying anything new until I can clean house.

July brought Misters for MS, which is a fundraiser for the National MS Society. I’ve been on the planning committee for the event for 4 or 5 years now, and it’s so fun to see everything come together to raise a lot of money.

This dress was so fun to wear.
This is my favorite strapless bra – I wore it one-shouldered with this dress, and strapless with the black dress below.

I also had a pinched nerve in my back that left me pretty frozen for 2.5 weeks, which was super fun. But, we’re all good now!

Next up was BEYONCE! It was a phenomenal show, and her vocals are out of this world. Again, in another example of people being wonderful, I had to walk through an entire row of people to get to my seat and no one raised a fuss, despite me being way up on them – like literally – there’s no room between rows. I even got some compliments on my face glitter!

Next up was a trip to visit Steve’s parents at the Jersey shore. We hadn’t seen them since Christmas, so it was good to be there. My mother in law came in clutch with this hat for the beach, but I was wholly unprepared for the bugs and got eaten alive. Next time, I’ll douse myself in the heavy-duty chemicals.

No more travel on the schedule for me in the immediate future, so now it’s time to find my way back to an everyday groove. I’ve been working hard on some things that I’m not really ready to share, which I know is annoying. But hopefully one day, I can!!

Book Recommendations

I’ve done quite a bit of reading lately and wanted to shout out some current and upcoming books that I’ve either read or are by people I know and want to succeed!

Fiction favorites:

• Happy Place by Emily Henry
• The Breakaway by Jennifer Weiner. I devoured this upcoming book from my favorite author. It features a delightful, but slightly aimless plus size main character who (like myself) went to fat camp as a kid. She leads a multi-day bike trip where she encounters a hot one-night stand she had years ago, before she rekindled her childhood fat camp romance with her now-doctor boyfriend. Thank you to Atria for sending me an advance reader copy.

Non-fiction:

I hope that you’ve had a great summer so far!