As I start this blog post I have two promises for you.

1. There will be mention of or links to the Nordstrom sale. Cross my heart.
2. No Olympic or Simone Biles talk outside of that I FULLY support that she is prioritizing her mental health.

Social media trends and news cycles can be overwhelming at times and I think we’ve all seen our fair share of Nordstrom sale talk and posts about the Olympics over the last week.

What I do have for you today is a general overview/update/life post in a “currently” format. The last time I wrote one of these was in August 2020!

CURRENTLY READING

I’m currently reading That Summer by Jennifer Weiner. I’m about 50% through the book and wondering where we are heading. I can’t say it’s my favorite Jennifer Weiner book so far but I’ll report back after I finish it. I did just finish Elin Hilderbrand’s Golden Girl and really enjoyed it!

CURRENTLY IN THE MARKET FOR

A new therapist. I have seen the same therapist on and off for 10 years and took a break in February that ended up being permanent. I adore her, am forever grateful for all the guidance she’s offered me and would recommend her to anyone. After a six-month therapy hiatus, I’d like to get back to seeing someone once a month or so but finding someone whose style and personality that you mesh with can be daunting!

CURRENTLY DRINKING

On my desk right now is a can of Waterloo blueberry sparkling water and my Takeya straw bottle filled with ice water.

CURRENTLY CRAVING

Tomatoes. Just give me all of the summer tomatoes.

CURRENTLY WATCHING

Manifest and I’m so hooked! I also just got a subscription to Disney+ for Finn and that’s been fun to explore. One thing I DO NOT recommend is the movie Blood Red Sky on Netflix. Had to leave the room at times and fast-forward through parts of it. Nope, nope.

CURRENTLY ANTICIPATING

Kicking off our fall 2021 teacher training at Vidya Hot Yoga, and getting my fall teaching schedule ramped up here in Charlotte. After 9 years of teaching yoga and 12 years of teaching group fitness, I hit the wall last fall when we were about 6 months into the pandemic. I was feeling pretty burnt out and I cut my teaching schedule back to three classes a week.

This summer I have been slowly adding classes back and subbing as much as I can. I hope that I can add a couple of more for fall. It’s been so nice to be back in the studio and back to teaching again. I feel inspired and re-energized to teach!

CURRENTLY WISHING FOR

My sense of taste and smell to ever be right again after having COVID last November. It came back but not fully. I used to have a super sensitive sense of smell and now it’s like everything is muted. This is an extreme example but I can hardly smell dog poop when I’m scooping it up in the back yard. Some foods still taste/smell weird like coffee (smells like burning rubber but tastes okay), eggs, peanut butter (this makes me SO SAD) and dairy like cottage cheese, yogurt and ice cream (whyyyyy). There are a lot of fruits like bananas, apples and strawberries where I feel like all I can smell is super ripeness (even if it’s not overly ripe) of the fruit and it’s off-putting. I’ve all but lost my sweet tooth and crave salty way more than I ever have in my life.

In addition to food there are also things like soap, deodorant, laundry detergent, essential oil, toothpaste, etc that don’t smell the same.

This was an interesting article in the New York Times about long-term bizarre food smells. And these food diaries on Eater from people who lost taste/smell in COVID are interesting too. Everyone keeps telling me to give it up to a full year but at this stage in the game, I’m not holding out hope that it will ever be the same. I’m very grateful that I had an extremely mild case of COVID. I know if could be much worse than this but as foodie the long-term taste and smell issues are frustrating and disheartening. I am trying my hardest to continue eating the things that don’t taste right and to imagine they taste the way I remember. We shall see.

On a related note, Finn had a COVID antibody test recently and that came back positive so I am thankful he has some protection with all of the Delta variant craziness going on and him being too little to be vaccinated.

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO

When it comes to audiobooks, I am listening to Brene Brown read the 10th anniversary edition of her book The Gifts of Imperfection. I first read this book back in 2012 and I’m getting even more from it the second time around.

As far as music is concerned, I made a summer playlist for you on Spotify that features three hours of songs that have been on repeat for me lately.

CURRENTLY INDULGING IN

I am fully addicted to the New York Times Spelling Bee and I look forward to playing it every single day. It’s in the NYT Crossword App. You get 7 letters and have to make as many words as possible using the center letter. I have only reached the Genius level a handful of times. I seriously think it helps me decompress my brain and it’s helping me learn new words  I always go and check the previous day’s words and oftentimes google the meaning of some of them!

CURRENTLY FEELING BLESSED BY

My sweet Finn. He’s so full of love, laughter and personality. I feel blessed to be his mom every single day. On Sunday morning he walked into the kitchen while I was making coffee and said, “Mommy, you look adorable.” Later that day, we were sitting in the den together when I got home from teaching yoga. He brought me my slippers, took off my flip flops, slid the slippers on my feel like a shoe salesman and said, “Does that feel nice Mommy?” He went on to get his music box out and serenaded me with Jingle Bells, Mary Had A Little Lamb and Old McDonald before going in the kitchen and getting the waffle iron out of the cabinet and telling me he wanted breakfast for dinner.

CURRENTLY PONDERING

My career and what direction I would like to focus on growing it.

CURRENTLY LOOKING FORWARD TO

Seeing my mom, dad and Mema. We don’t have a date set for a trip to Florida but I’m hoping to make it happen sooner rather than later.

QUESTIONS FOR YOU! 

What are you currently in the market for?

What are you currently craving?

What are you watching?

What are you looking forward to? 

Anyone else experiencing long-term taste/smell issues post-COVID?