Therapist Thoughts

They say the days are long but the years are short and I feel that! I have no idea how an entire month has passed {and then some it’s hard to keep up in real time}. It feels like forever ago heading into lunch with contractions that day and delivering a baby the next! My life before Parker also feels so distant, yet this one also feels so new if that makes any sense at all? All in all this has been a wonderful journey so far, despite the frequent anxiety of the unknown, the

Well, well, look where we are. It’s already been about a month with our sweet baby boy Parker and what an adventure it’s been so far. It’s hard to look much more forward or back beyond his three hour feeding increments I’ve been bound to, but what I can say upon shallow reflection is that everything just feels so immediate, so in the moment, which is nice I suppose given how present it’s forced me to be. Yet, as I sit here during my first real stretch of short solitude (my

My goodness how life can pivot so swiftly. My first {human} child is here, arriving on Thursday, May 6th, one week before his due date and I couldn’t be more over the moon obsessed with him. Despite being absolutely exhausted by sleep deprivation and some of the early trials and tribulations of breastfeeding and pumping, I am beyond aware of how special this early time with him is, grateful he came into the world happy and healthy, my sweet Parker Irving Alexander Simanovsky!

Summer is here, and I’m so lucky I had the chance to enjoy a preview prior to baby this past April, thanks to the lovely Southern California weather. My best friend from high school, who is entirely responsible for my move to Los Angeles following college, decided on a very much welcomed whim to visit me from Chicago before I gave birth. I was so overwhelmed with the idea of a friend visiting, something that clearly hasn’t happened in quite some time. And since Emma lived her

Friends, not friend, it’s plural which hasn’t been the norm for quite some time. Obviously I’m beyond grateful for these little moments on my patio at this point, it was the first time I got to show two good friends my home in it’s fully renovated state and spend some quality time catching up. Simple things we used to take for granted that are making all the difference now. Hence why I make such a fuss about hosting a coffee date, because it’s literally the best feeling to be

This time last year wasn’t great. Right before the reality of the pandemic fully set in we faced sheer and utter devastation losing our sweet Pierre . Life at that point seemed beyond uncertain and sad, quite literally forcing my husband and I to have no other choice but to begrudgingly move forward in with some semblance of hope. And fortunately that hope manifested in the most beautiful of ways, a young mamma and her pup, Muffy and Pearl . Adopting them was a huge undertak

It’s a boy! News that came quite some time ago, but is still exciting nonetheless! I’m not one to make too big a deal out of discovering our baby’s sex, however, everyone else around me is and you know how I love a reason to celebrate. Especially with my favorite marble cake . I know one of the fun things about the pregnancy process is finding out the sex of the baby, so much so that some people have taken extreme and near deadly measures to do so, surrounded by friends and f

Have you heard the news… I am finally announcing my pregnancy publicly on the cusp of my third trimester and it feels really great to finally share! It’s been quite the journey but here I am, starting to really wonder what life will be like in about three short months. And this is quite the long post, so grab a cup of something warm and get cozy. Let me start by prefacing this post with a few thoughts. Let’s keep in mind… Pregnancy is something I was fortunate enough to choos

I’ll be honest, this time of year was never my favorite. Growing up I always remember there being somewhat of a lull between the new year and the drudges of winter in Chicago, where the perfect white snow we waited in excitement for all year long turned brown and slushy by the city traffic and into a general disdain for “weather” that only seemed cheerful in the presence of Christmas trees in our windows. Even after the snow started to melt, I tend to recall some the hopeful

Emily in Paris, you were kind of messed up, but I still loved you and want to say thank you for making the year 2020 just a bit more bearable. Sometimes you just need to see another stereotyped fashionista American in Paris, living it up for all us quarantined Francophiles. T o be honest, I haven’t been that inspired lately, hence why I haven’t been sharing as much for a myriad of reasons. Nonetheless, a few things like this have triggered that urge to find creativity, even t

I chose to walk myself down the aisle… the symbolism of being ‘given away’ just didn’t sit well with me. Like many women, I did often think about what my wedding day would be like. Thoughts about what I would wear, where it would be, who I would marry, all things that I enjoyed talking about with friends, as I would see so many weddings portrayed in magazines, on television and in books. It was never an obsession, but ironically, after coming from a family where my parents go

It’s really not THAT different from thirty . However, this time I’m in pink tulle again, but with a plate a delicious pasta in hand and absolutely nowhere else to be. Oh and did I add my kitchen is now complete? My birthday has always signified the end of something old and the beginning of something new, starting as a kid in school, leaving my summer behind, going into a new school year. I would assume most birthdays are as such, time to reflect, a time to regroup. Last year

Too beautiful for the general public… That is what Arthur would often say about our beloved little piggy, Pierre. Unfortunately after almost 13 years by my husbands side, Pierre went to heaven , leaving us all heartbroken but also extremely grateful for the time we spent with this amazing little Frenchie, who was undoubtedly, too beautiful for the general public. After a loved one leaves us it’s often too overwhelming a task to consider how we might commemorate them for the

I t’s my favorite time of year, despite the state of our country’s health, I am taking it all in. Rolling with what comes, enjoying the moments I am spending at home and outside with my husband and our two, relatively new, little pups. A momma and her baby, Pearl and Muffy , who’ve kept my heart full and days quite busy. After months of social distancing from friends, colleagues and clients, quarantining from my husband for more than a month in our home, I can finally say

We all have our good days, we all have our bad days. Unfortunately Thursday, July 23rd, 2020, was a sad day. A very, very sad day. After 14 beautiful years on Earth, our family dog Caillou has gone to heaven. Caillou became a part of my family when I was 16 years old, eager and excited to finally have a dog of my own. He weighed four pounds when we brought him home and never hit more than eight on the scale since. He slept on my head, sat on my feet when I got ready for schoo

Well it’s been an interesting summer… I must say between the roller coaster of COVID-19 and heart wrenching pain the world is finally starting to wake up to with the #BlackLivesMatter movement, I’m feeling a mixture of frustration, fear and hope all mixed into one complex time. Like many others, I am itching for the comfort of a gathering amongst my friends, family and community while the world appears so divided and so many of us are suffering. Suffering from the realization

Well Summer is here… despite where the world is right now. The temperatures are rising and many people despite quarantining, protesting and listening are also attempting to find a bit of peace. My goal with this blog has always been to entertain, inspire, indulge; but it’s also about being authentic about where I am. And where I am right now is hopeful. Hopeful we will progress as a country, hopeful we will do so by not changing who we are but instead evolving into better ver

This is an important moment in history… The #BlackLivesMatter movement started a longtime ago, but unfortunately the intent hasn’t seemed to have garnered the support it deserves until now, and we still aren’t anywhere near the goal of true equality. But in my very humble opinion, we have made progress, not enough, but we have made progress. As a social worker and therapist I have spent the last ten years of my academic and professional life learning and working with the syst

Muffy and Pearl, our two new girls… Following our tragic loss of our beloved Frenchie Pierre , Arthur and I did our very best to recover from what was perhaps the saddest moment of my life. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic hit shortly after, changing life as we know it. And as horrible of a shock it was, it fortunately allowed us some time to stabilize and reflect. With our daily sunset walks, aka happy hour, we soon realized there was light at the end of the long tunnel, our hea

Of all the crazy… new scenarios within the lat year, living out of boxes for 6 months, having no home before our wedding, finishing our condo remodel, etc; everything seems to pale in comparison with these last three weeks.   If you’ve been following along on   Instagram you might already know our new puppy Muffy was quarantined from her mother Pearl for two weeks following her three day stint in the hospital after contracting Parvo. More about that to come in a future post.