Latest / Many Things with Steph Libby / I Just Want to Soak Up the Sun

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I Just Want to Soak Up the Sun · Many Things with Steph Libby

Welcome back to Many Things.
I'm Steph, I'm multi-passionate, and I'm building my dream life one step at a time, and this is the podcast where I talk about all of it.
I'm off today.
I just spent the morning in my garden.
I'm feeling so good.
I don't have much of a garden, but I try to make the most of it.
If you've listened to the podcast before, you know that, a few years ago, I bought my great-grandmother's house.
It's the house that's in my childhood hometown.
I moved out of this town when I was going into sixth grade, and I moved back a couple years ago.
My great-grandmother was great at gardening.
She put in a lot of flowers, and I've thinned them out where they're overcrowding and re- replanted them elsewhere.
And we've added more wildflowers.
And I pruned the lilac trees, so they're really lush this time of year.
And when you lay in bed at night, with the windows open, the You can just smell the lilacs all night.
I love it.
I love this time of year so much.
And I'm slowly turning, you know, what little piece of land we have, and I mean really small, like I don't even It's not even like a, a half acre, and really trying to make the most of it and try to create my own little oasis outside.
I added some raised beds, and I'm using the old clothesline poles for hanging bird feeders and strawberries.
And we have tons of hummingbirds, feeding off them right now, and it's so cool.
We put a little potting stand out back and a fire pit with some patio furniture and, an umbrella, and I sit out there most weekends now and just read and garden and be in the sun.
I just love being outside, especially this time of year.
Winter is always so tough for me because of the change of season and it being cold, and I'm not a cold weather person.
I'm not like a cold s- weather sport person, so I feel very hermited inside in the winter because it's...
I just basically just have to stay inside the house.
So I love being able to get out and escape in my backyard in the late spring and early summer and, and in the fall, and I just really wanna...
I don't know.
I guess it...
I just really wanna make the most of it this year.
I think you know, uh, maybe it's because it's Memorial Day weekend, it just really hit me this weekend how limited life with our loved ones is and how small our lives really are in the grand scheme of things and how lucky so many of us are to have what we have, and, you know, I- it's just our duty and our privilege to, to make the most out of it.
And that's not a new thought necessarily, but I don't think I spend enough time being present in the moment of what I have, and kind of, taking stock of how hard I've worked to have what I have, and the choices I've made, and sacrifices I've made at certain points in my life.
And so much of the self-growth journey feels so negative so negative-leaning that, you know, the things you could be doing better, the things you need to focus more on.
It's always more, more, more.
And I don't know, something about this weekend really allowed me to just kind of, step back a little bit more than I normally do, and just really just be grateful for what I have, and look around at, just this lovely little life that I have.
And yes, there's always things that could be better.
There are things I could be doing more of.
There's better ways to be spending my time, maybe, one could argue.
Why I want to talk about this specifically in my podcast is not just to talk about my house and my yard, but just spending some time with, with gratitude and thinking about, you know, the abundance in my life that I already have and, and how easy it is to live in this negative mindset of, you know, go, go, go and grow, grow, grow and get, get, get that sometimes, I'm very, very guilty of just not taking a step back and kind of looking at the bigger picture.
I get so in my own head What's the point of working towards more if you can't even enjoy what you have when you have it? And but even bigger than that, you know, I've been calling 2026 my year of, my year of curiosity, and I think in a lot of ways when I named it that just to sort of have a direction for my year the curiosity part was really s- focused a lot on, like new, new, new, new, new.
You know? Like new stuff, new hobbies, things I'd never done before, blah, blah, blah.
But I was also thinking this weekend a lot about how curiosity can also come from just like getting more curious about the things that you're already doing.
There's curiosity in my writing.
I love when I'm working on a novel and I'm really getting into the weeds of sometimes it feels like detective work of s- figuring out the puzzle of where your novel is gonna go.
And there's curiosity in that, and then there's curiosity just in...
You know, I've-- when I watch TV, I've been trying to like, obviously I watch all the same things I normally do, like true crime and comedy shows and series and dramas and stuff, but I've also been trying to make more time, uh, for the news obviously, but different news sources and and more local, getting more curious about like my local government and local decisions and things like that, and but also trying to be more curious about the world at large.
So trying to balance out what I'd normally watch with like watching more documentaries about Earth and space and things like that.
Not that I don't watch those things already, I do, but trying to make a little bit more of a of a mindful, trying to like, just trying to be more mindful of making time for, for those shows and as I do with anything else that I watch, you know? Just trying to give them a little bit more focus, I guess, but also it's also about being curious about my own life in the sense of like I have this garden and I'm really trying to make it lush and beautiful and solve problems, and so I'm getting more curious about aspects of gardening that probably are very commonplace for people who are super avid gardeners, but I'm not a great gardener.
I have a really hard time keeping plants alive, so it's very exciting for me when I can grow them from seed and I can transplant them well or I can buy a few things and keep them alive.
It's very, it's, it's a hard thing for me.
It's really just not my natural, uh, inclination.
So I really try to Ooh, I've been really trying to learn and read and digest and s- really try to solve the problems I've been having and take the extra effort to try to solve the problems and do things well instead of trying to do things quickly or guessing or things like that, like I've done in the past, and the results have been disastrous.
And I'm trying to be more savvy about how I place things in my bed and what I plant with what and things like that.
So there's also a lot of curiosity in that.
There's a lot of learning.
There's a lot of problem-solving.
There's a lot of critical thinking.
And it, it does add stress a little bit.
Probably shouldn't add stress, but it does a little bit.
But it's, it's getting curious about those, the things that I'm already doing, but just kinda going another layer deeper.
So, so that was part of why I think that was on my mind a lot and why I wanted to open up this podcast episode talking about it, because it also feeds into For me, there is a thread between curiosity and living my best life.
I'm curious what living my best life really looks like.
I have an idea of what I want my life to be, you know, five, 10 years down the road, but I think I'm really curious about what that looks like now.
Like how, okay, I, I know where I wanna be five, 10 years, but, but what does that look like from a day-to-day existence? And getting curious about myself and the things that I actually really enjoy, and thinking, And a big part of that is, you know, summer is, summer's a really important season for me.
I- it holds a lot of meaning for me.
It always has my whole life.
And summer has also been a time that's been filled with, a lot of stress for me, too.
It's a summer that's Summer always Okay, well let me back up a minute.
So, so I, I wanna live my best summer.
I have had a lot of really hard summers, especially the last few years, but summers have always been particularly strange for me.
They're filled with a lot of fun and excitement and good feelings and, they're always filled with a lot of excitement.
But they're also filled with a lot of dread of the end of summer coming, and going back to school, and buying back to school clothes.
I, you know, I was overweight my whole life, so, the idea of buying back to school clothes always kind of loomed all through summer.
I was a fat kid, in a time where, body acceptance was just not a thing.
And so there was a lot of anxiety around that.
There was a lot of anxiety about, going camping and having to, meet new friends when we were at the campground, and having to do a lot of, "Oh, go to the rec hall and, and meet some kids and play with them and leave us alone," type of stuff.
But there was also a lot of social anxiety of being around a lot of new people and crowds when we would go on vacation so I just remember a lot of times I was just constantly in places where I was hyper-aware of maybe what people were thinking of me, and, and my weight, and you know, summer's rough on fat kids.
It's just at least when, when I was a kid, it was just, it was a lot of bullying, it was a lot of sweating, and a lot of chafing, and a lot of feeling uncomfortable in a bathing suit that just never fit quite right and, and all of that.
So for me, growing up, summer was like this...
There was always still, It was still a lot of fun.
I loved swimming, I loved being in the woods, I loved reading, I loved camping and all this stuff.
I loved all of that stuff.
But I also had a lot of struggling during the summertime and feeling like I was at odds with myself and always in an awkward position or an uncomfortable position.
So I've always tried to go into summertime being like, "I'm gonna live the best summer ever."
And without fail, I, I don't.
I don't achieve any of the goals I set out for myself.
I wait till the last minute to read the books for school for summer reading.
I blow all of my money all summer working a, a summer job I hate, and then at the end of summer I have, nothing to show for.
Always the same old stuff.
And I know that there's a part of me that feels like, okay, well, just let go of that expectation of summer being the best, and I think I've sort of done that.
But I also feel like summer's just such an important time for me in general.
My-- it's my summer, it's my birthday.
It's...
I have a f- a lot of family members' birthday, so there's a lot of just thinking about the passage of time and there's still like the awkwardness of being in bathing suits and being in public and being around people and some of that stuff that I'm, I'm still obviously working through.
But the difference I think with this year and how I'm thinking about I want it to be the best summer ever is I'm curious how I define what like the best summer ever is.
What is...
I say it out loud, but then when I'm trying to define what that looks like, it's a little fuzzy.
Like it's a lot and it's maybe, or maybe it's, maybe I'm telling myself it feels funny, but it's actually quite crystal clear, but it's so different than how I've thought about living my best summer has felt in the past that it, I'm just convincing myself that oh, is that really like what you mean? So for example, like in the past I probably would have said, I'm gonna read 20 books for summer and I'm gonna lose a bunch of weight and I'm gonna you know, when I was in college, it would be about like saving a bunch of money and all this stuff.
It would, and it'd be, it would just be a lot, pro- it really was just like a lot around like my weight and things like that.
And where I'm sort of at now is when I think about what the best, my best summer kind of looks like, it's spending a lot of time reading in the yard.
It doesn't really matter how many books I read.
It's about making time for campfires, making time for camping.
It's about not staying inside watching TV all summer.
I can do that all winter.
It's about, getting outside and being in my garden, and I wanna see this garden like really lush and I wanna really see it succeed in a way it hasn't in the past.
And I don't know, it's just a, it's a lot...
I guess to sum it up, it just feels a lot gentler and a lot more realistic.
But it, I, to me it is also filled with a lot of curiosity.
It's about, well, what kind of things would I like to do in my yard? And what kind of things would I like to do outside? 'Cause I do wanna spend a lot of time outside.
Maybe it's I'm interested in exploring some new spots and finding some new spots to go swimming because the obvious spots around here are so overcrowded.
So I wanna get in the woods and find some spots.
And so I don't know.
It's-- There's a simplicity to being outside it's just so restful and relaxing, of course, but it's so peaceful and I don't know, I guess a lot of times I just forget how, how nice it can be to just be and how nice it can be to just rest a little bit and just not everything has to, you don't have, not everything has to be something you cross off a checklist to feel good about having done it.
Like I feel so much better about myself and my day when I've made the time to sit outside and read for 30 minutes than I do when I have crossed off every single productivity item on my list.
You know, like I, I really would like to embrace that curiosity mindset that I started out this year with a bit more than I think somehow I've conflated or maybe re-conflated creativity with like productivity.
If I'm being creative, I also have to be productive at the same time.
And I think, or I've, sorry, I have conflated, I think I've conflated curiosity with productivity.
If I'm being curious and I have to be productive or by framing fun as curiosity, I'm giving myself permission to do the fun, which I guess maybe it's just a way for me to ease into it and ease into that state of mind because there have been a lot of times in my past where like part of the reason why I don't read is because I tell myself that there's something better I could be doing, you know? And it's it's reading.
What is it that I think is so much better than, than reading, you know? And so it, it's interesting 'cause usually my summertime goals are very work-driven or I don't know, I just get my...
I find that I force myself back into the state of mind that I was in when I was, like, 10, 11, 12, you know, 14, like in high school and middle school, where it was a lot of, oh, this is my free time as a kid, so I need to accomplish XYZ by the end of summer.
And a lot of it was I wa- I know a lot of it was that I wanted to have this sort of high school teen rom-rom-com experience where I leave for summer and I come back the following, you know, September looking like a completely brand new person.
I just have this amazing glow up, and I lose the weight, and I'm, like, the hot girl now, and people can't even believe it's the same me.
It's so wild.
And, I remember in college there was a girl that obviously that went to school with us, and she did that.
Uh, or maybe it wasn't...
It might not have been summer.
Maybe it was just, the winter break, but we took some...
There was some break that we were on, and we came back, and she had, lost a ton of weight.
She cha- completely changed, the way she dressed.
She, basically just, had a Madonna reinvention kind of moment.
And it was wild.
And I remember thinking, "My God," "that's, the thing I wanted to do my entire life."
And, and it is possible.
She did just do it.
And she looked amazing, and she just seemed more confident, and wh- which was surprising 'cause she was already so confident.
But she just looked amazing.
And, and I think that that also has always, as I entered my 20s and stuff like that, I would always think about that.
It is so possible to completely change your life and all this.
But I think instead of being so focused on changing my life It's more about I hate saying this because it's just feels like such a gross term now, but it is more about maximizing my life.
And I, I hate that 'cause I'm sure people are thinking of Lex Maxing and all this stuff.
It's I just think that like I've always been thinking about how it is, how my focus has always been on like revolution and change and dr- dramatic differences, where really I think all I want to do is just enjoy summer.
It's like the simplicity of just like enjoying the moment and enjoying the time and you know, when I think about my perfect summer, I think about, uh, I mean, it feels like I'm in like a Nancy Meyers mo- Nancy Meyers movie or something.
It's just about like I wanna be able to have dinner out on out in my backyard on my patio furniture, you know, in my patio under the umbrella.
I just wanna have, you know, a nice dinner outside in my backyard.
I want to have the smell of flowers all summer.
I want to eat veggies that I grew myself.
I want to spend a lot of time at the lake and in the river and by the water, and I wanna find new places to swim, and I want to And do I still underneath all of that wanna lose weight? Yeah, I do.
But I think all the things, I think spending time outside and spending time in a positive mindset is just a lot better for me than maybe the other headspaces that I found myself in in the last few years.
And I think, you know, I'm just, I just keep asking myself like, "Where do I wanna be at the end of summer?" You know, what do I wanna feel at the end of summer? You know, and, and what will help me feel that way? And I think how I wanna feel at the end of summer is just like content.
I would love to get through a period of time where I just feel like, well, that time was like well spent.
You know? Like I re- I remember...
It's happened so few times to me in my life.
I remember one time that I feel like I really spent my time very, very well was when I took a solo trip up to Acadia this summer when I was, you know, after my boyfriend broke up with me.
And I had never, you know, in the 15 years we'd been together, we had never gone on one vacation, not one.
I don't even know that we had stayed overnight at a motel anywhere other than for a weekend doing something.
I think the most we ever did was get a hotel in Boston when we went to, you know, the one concert we ever went to.
So I think So I took this trip to Acadia, and I was like, fuck it.
I'm gonna go.
I'm gonna pay to get myself to Acadia.
And it was the best week I ever spent.
I maximized dawn to dusk, but I also had some time in there where I just did whatever the fuck I wanted.
I didn't over-plan.
I didn't under-plan.
I spent a lot of time with myself.
I spent a lot of time in my car driving, looking at beautiful scenery, listening to music.
I found little-- One-- I s- I, I just-- I was so...
And y- when I think about that week, I just think well, what made that week so different? And I think it was just pure curiosity.
I was just-- I was up for whatever, and if I showed up one place and it was overcrowded and I didn't wanna do it, I went somewhere else, and I had the best time.
I was so good by myself.
I, I planned out my stuff really well.
I, I got a beautiful Airbnb and and it was like Uh, I brought pizza to a lighthouse and ate it on the rocks.
I brought, uh, charcuterie to, into Acadia, and one day I got rained out and I just sat in my car eating charcuterie looking over the ocean in Acadia, and that was how I spent that rainy afternoon.
And I could have just gone back to my motel and done noth- and, and to my Airbnb and done nothing, you know? But but I didn't.
I found something to do instead.
And I, I don't know.
I...
The whole week was just filled with curiosity, and any time I was hit with a roadblock, I would find something else to do with my time, and I just feel like that week was really well spent.
And there were even some things where I had bought tickets to do something, but then in the moment got caught up doing something else that I wanted to do or just followed my heart "I don't really feel like doing that tour today that's not how I wanna do it."
I think that was the day that it rained, and I didn't wanna spend all day in a tour bus having it be rainy and all this stuff.
So I decided to skip that, and instead I just, So I skipped it, and instead I went to...
I just drove around Acadia in the rain, and I brought charcuterie and a big bottle of sparkling water, and I think I brought some rosé with me.
And I think I spent the time it, the time it was raining just parked on an overlook overlooking the ocean eating lunch.
And then when the rain cleared out, and watched the thunderstorm and stuff, and then after the rain cleared out, I think I ended up going and swimming in the ocean or something.
It was just it was just a magical week, and I would love for my whole summer to have that vibe.
And I think curiosity and just sort of going with the flow and not overthinking things too much and just following my heart and really, really made that week so, so memorable for me.
And I just wanna take full advantage of my summer.
The, the other part of it too, I think, is that the past few summers have just been so difficult, you know? Last summer was, uh, last summer was horrible.
Last summer was really, really hard.
Last summer was crying and breakups and Alanah Hun and dealing with really, really heavy stuff and And I just, in the summer before that was equally hard, and I just want a summer where it's a little bit easy and a little bit fun.
I, I wanna remember what it's like to have fun again.
I feel like I've been taking stuff so seriously, and I have been so in my own head that I just wanna get out of my head, and I just want to be in the moment, and be in summer, and be in the good weather, and be present with friends and family, and my boyfriend, and my cats, and be present and mindful in this house, and be present and mindful in my job, and really just make the most of summer.
Something I've been thinking a lot about related to all of this when it comes to my job, is just how much pressure I put on myself and how much pressure I put on this job, and maybe if I just spend a little bit more time doing the things I really love to do when I'm not working, maybe working wouldn't seem that bad.
If I could make the most of my evenings and I could make the most of my weekends and I could spend time doing the things that I really, really love you know, maybe working won't seem quite so bad.
You know? It'll...
Maybe it would take the pressure off of getting all my fulfillment from, from my job and, or the pressure of getting as much fulfillment as I need to from my job right now in order to balance out the fact that I'm not getting fulfillment from a lot of other areas of my life I just, yeah, I just feel like I've forgotten to have fun.
I was thinking about the first summer that Drew and I-- Drew, my boyfriend, and I got together, and it was just so much fun.
We were in this tiny apartment, but-- and obviously we were both drinking, but you know, there was-- there were just so many fun afternoons of I had this porch, this very small balcony kind of stairway porch off of my main door to go into my apartment, and it overlooked this big field, and then past the field was this brook, and there was, like, a little moss clearing.
And we used to take our, our tent out there, out across the field, and, and sleep there at night, and we would do that many times throughout the summer.
We'd have-- It was just-- It felt like we were having a, a camping...
You know, we, we'd do it, you know, almost every weekend when we weren't actually going camping somewhere.
We'd-- We did this quite a few times, and we'd get to have our own little fire, and it was fun, you know? And we'd just be next to this brook, and we could to-- we could see the stars through the woods in the tent.
We went stargazing, and we, we went camping, and we went-- We had a spot on the Pemigewasset that was maybe 15 minutes away from us that no one really went to, and it was just deep enough in a few spots where you could tie up our-- we'd tie up our tubes to a couple of dead logs, and we would just...
You know, we wouldn't float down the river.
We'd just float stationary in the water for hours and just sit there, and we could do that anytime we wanted.
I would get off work at 5:00, and we'd be in the r-river by 5:30, you know? It was just so nice to, to have that option.
And then if that place was busy, we had three other spots that not a lot of people went to that we could go to instead, and it was just so nice.
It, it was just...
There was so much adventure and so much fun and so much spirit in those times, and I would love to really be able to get back to a spot where we can experience that with each other again, 'cause it was just so, so fun.
And I-- That was probably the most confident I had felt in my life, because I just-- I was so caught up in having fun and having a good time that I didn't have time to think about my body or my bathing suit or whatever.
And I had this person that just cared so much about me and and he was just up for doing whatever.
And I just-- I really miss those times, and I'm really excited to have, I'm just really excited to have a good summer, and I'm feeling like I'm in such a positive headspace right now.
Not that everything is easy, not that everything is positive, but but I feel like it just feels a little lighter right now going into summer.
I just- Part of that is maybe the long weekend, and part of that is...
But I think a, a large part of that is also just finding time in my day to enjoy my life and the things that I'm doing and how I'm spending my time and feeling like, I don't know, just feeling good about all of it You know, I just, I wanna have, I guess maybe it's more about just having a mindf- a mindful summer.
A mindful summer, an intentional summer.
I just, I th- maybe that's the way that I'm, I've, I haven't been thinking about it properly.
In the past, I would've just been like, "I wanna have a productive summer."
That's what I mean by having a good summer.
That's how I used to mean have, what having a good summer meant, productivity.
But now, having a good summer is more about you know, simplicity and magic in my everyday life, and more joy, and more smiles, and more laughter, and feeling lighter, and everything feeling a little bit brighter.
And none of that has to do with p- uh, like productivity, you know? I think productivity can be, like, a byproduct of all of that.
But you know, I didn't think I'd survive last summer, and it wasn't just my relationship, you know? Um It was, it was everything.
My boyfriend was, like, hitting rock bottom.
I think I was hitting rock bottom emotionally.
It was my job.
My spark was gone.
I, I was stressed about money.
I just didn't recognize myself, and everything felt so heavy, and I-- there was no brightness in front of me.
There was-- it felt like there wasn't really much hope in front of me, and stuck doesn't even begin to describe it.
I did not know what to do.
I just kept feeling like I was moving backwards.
No matter how much I was trying to move forward, it was just backwards, backwards, backwards.
And, but I was so desperate to move forward.
You know, I didn't know where I'd be now, but I certainly didn't think I'd be here and and everything's perfect, no.
But perfect also isn't realistic.
But things are very good.
Things are so much better, and I don't think I've completely found my spark again.
But I do feel brighter.
I do feel, um You know, I, I don't feel light necessarily, but I feel a lightening happening.
I feel energy coming back to me.
Focus is coming back to me.
Creativity is coming back to me.
I feel like I'm on the path to something greater, and I don't 100% know what that looks like, and I don't know if it's, you know, living in a new place or finding a new hobby or or a phase in my relationship or a different job or maybe all of it or maybe none of it.
But you know, I'm excited to see where all of this is going, and I'm excited to just allow myself to enjoy the ride to get there.
That it can't just be about building towards something.
It, life is also about living in the now and being able to enjoy the things that you're doing today.
Yes, look ahead.
Do something that helps your future self out.
But also look at where you are right now, and don't forget to just sit in this moment either.
This moment also has benefits for you.
This being able to look around and actually take a second and look at what you've achieved already, you know, I think, I think if I maybe did that a little bit more, maybe I would feel less defeated and less pessimistic about the future sometimes.
It's like I don't think I ever would have thought I'd be here right now ten years ago.
I don't think I thought any of this would be possible.
And look at where I am.
And then maybe it's...
There are pr- there are probably a lot of people who have accomplished a lot more in ten years than I did, but this is what I have accomplished.
I'm not in their body.
I'm not in their life.
I'm in my body, and I'm in my life.
And is this maybe what I would have hoped I'd have in ten years? In some ways, yes, because I did not think it was possible.
In other ways, no, I definitely wish I wanted...
wish I could get more or be in a different place or be a little bit more financially well off or, or whatever, but this is still pretty good.
This is still really, really good.
This is...
I do have a nice life.
I get to record this podcast I get to record this podcast, and then I get to go back outside for the rest of the day and read my book and work in my garden and enjoy the sun and listen to music, and it's like that...
I didn't get to do that all winter, you know? I didn't get to do those things all winter.
I'm so excited to get to do them now.
The sun is bright.
It's almost 80 out.
And I get to just be, and we're probably gonna have a cookout later, and it's just sometimes these things are just lovely.
These small, quiet moments are just so lovely, and I get so caught up in the rat race and the next big thing and how am I gonna make more money and all this stuff that it's man there's some good stuff happening that I'm not paying attention to nearly enough.
And some of it's very small.
Some of it is just seeing how happy and peaceful these feral cats are that they are so happy and so loved and love their life so much, and I was able to give them that life.
Otherwise, they would still be, like, living in the woods right now, and if they were living at all, you know? And it...
but it's like you can just see how happy these cats are with this luxurious life they have.
And I don't know.
It's just, it's really nice sometimes to just remember to take a step back and look at what you have.
And so that's what I'm trying to do more this summer is just, I guess, be more curious about my own life, be more curious about the things I'm already doing, being more curious about what, what good feels like to me, and that good doesn't necessarily have to be connected to accomplishments and productivity.
It can just be like or, you know, it can just be about being present and being in the moment and enjoying a walk in the woods and enjoying spending time in the garden because maybe those are things that a lot of people out there listening to this podcast are already doing, and this is not some new revelation for them.
But for me, it is very much just like You have to be able to appreciate what you have because I think, one, it just makes you realize how much you do have and how much you have accomplished that you're not giving yourself credit for.
Two, I think it just makes you realize this is what I'm really trying to work towards.
You know? It's not about the things that come with the success.
It's about what the success affords me in these small ways.
I just want more time to read.
I just want more time to be in the sun.
And it's well, you have time to do some of those things right the fuck now, so go out and do those things.
I've always just been so focused on the des- the, I've always just been so focused on the destination.
I always have been, my whole life, and now I'm embracing the journey more, I guess, and I'm seeing where the road takes me, and I'm being open to the adventures and newness and spending time well and exploring the things that make me happy.
To live a full life, I think between the last few episodes and this one, that's been the thing that's been on my mind the most is what i- what does a full life look like? And I guess in some ways it's wasn't I trying to answer this question when I did the life audit exercise back at the beginning of the year? Sure.
But I think as you grow and evolve and do different things and explore different things, I think that idea of what a full life looks like shifts, and it's never the same thing, and you get a little bit more clarity, and things start to be a little less fuzzy or theoretical and start to actually feel, okay, what I wanted six months ago is not that different from what I want now, but I think I have a sharper idea of what what I'm working towards actually looks like.
My perfect summer is filled with being in nature, camping, water, swimming, evening walks, stargazing, fire pit conversations, tubing in the river, reading in my backyard.
You know, getting a, a new pair of sunglasses, and getting sunburns, and fresh veggies, and vases filled with flowers, and fun, refreshing beverages in my backyard, and cookouts, and music blasting on my Bluetooth speaker, and watching birds, and windows rolled down on a sunny, on a sunny day.
And I wanna soak up every minute that I can, you know? My great aunt comes by every Sunday, and she's in her 80s, and she's constantly making jokes about not having a lot of time left.
And lately it feels like she's looking back on life and, and taking stock or something, and she's having a harder and harder time moving around and getting up my steps.
And she talks about all the stuff she has in her house, and that she doesn't have the energy she used to have.
And all I can think about is how I wanna look back at my life at her age and, you know, what do I wanna think about my life? I hope when I get to her age I'm not thinking about, you know, all the junk I've accumulated in my life, you know? I You know, I'm 38 and I think about how much time I've wasted and which may be debatable in some ways and, but what I'd like to do differently and I don't know.
It's just, I've just been thinking a lot about when you do get to that age, like what are the things I'm really gonna think? I'm gonna be thinking about how I spent my time, and I'm gonna think about back to that Acadia trip, and I'm gonna think about the reading in my backyard, and the things that give me real pleasure and joy and make life feel really full.
And So, so yeah, so that's just the thing that's been on my mind this week is just, I don't know, I get this one was a pretty rambly episode, but I've just really been thinking about how I wanna spend my time.
What does summer, what would a perfect summer look like to me? And what are the things I can do to actually get it? And, and, you know, the irony is that living a perfect summer just means doing more of the things I love.
It really is not about doing anything too difficult or too crazy or anything like that.
It, it's not even about spending a lot of money.
It's more just I just wanna soak up the sun.
It's a Sheryl Crow lyric, but I do.
I just wanna soak up the sun.
I just wanna be in my backyard.
I just want to enjoy the time I have in the space that I have.
I've worked really hard to be able to afford this house and to have a backyard and to put money into my backyard so I can spend time there.
And all I wanna do is just plant some plants and lay in the sun.
And honestly that sounds really freaking good.
So I'm gonna go out and, and do that.
And, um I, I have a small recommendation corner before I sign off.
It's nothing, it's nothing that too, it's nothing too wild.
But, one thing, I, okay, so speaking of living my best summer, so, obviously my boyfriend is sober, and so I'm really not drinking really much at all, and I don't keep any alcohol in the house.
So, I've been leaning into like seltzers a lot.
I- you've heard me talk about my SodaStream a lot on this podcast.
My SodaStream is on the fritz right now, so I had to go buy some more like canned seltzers.
And I always forget that like in the summer they always release like the best new flavors.
So I'm having a SeltzerAid from Polar right now.
This one is starfruit lemonade.
We got it because, I mean, I do like starfruits, but I have a cat named Starfox.
Somewhere along the lines we started calling her Starfruit, so anytime we see anything that has starfruit in it, we always have to try it in honor of her.
So we got these starfruit lemonade seltzers.
They are so good.
We also got like a blueberry lemonade seltzer.
Ugh, so good.
And then they had these apple lemon seltzers and guava passionfruit.
Ugh, it was so good.
But anyway, I'm just a shout-out to seltzers because they are so good, and they really do fill the void for me of like I'm a, I'm a big cocktail person.
I didn't drink beer.
I drink s- a little bit of...
I drink some wine, but I definitely was like a gin cocktail person, and I've not had gin in forever.
But, But these fun fruity seltzers really do fill the void of having a fruity little cocktail.
So shout out to them.
And then that's really it for my recommendation corner right now.
But so yeah, so go outside, enjoy the outside, get some air.
I'm gonna do that.
Pop open a seltzer, and I hope you guys all have a good summer.
I mean, obviously I'm gonna be here next week, but I'm so excited to kick off summer.
I can't wait.
Let me know what you guys are planning for summer.
You can find me on Instagram and TikTok at manythings_steph.
Would love to know about your plans.
Where are you going? Are you going on any trips? If you're staying home, what's your staycation plans look like? How are you spending your weekends? What are some of your hobbies that you do in the summer? I would love to know everything.
But come back here in a couple weeks.
Okay, bye.