When I read

Stephany did this last week, and it was intriguing to me. I read a lot (obviously), but I wondered when exactly I was getting all my reading done. People are always asking/saying “I don’t know where you find the time to read,” which always sounds loaded to me – good for you for reading so much, but obviously you must be neglecting your family and home. Maybe I'm sensitive (although with less kind people, I can tell you I’m sure that’s what they mean.) I didn’t know this last weekend was going to go how it did, but I think it’s probably still fairly representative of my reading habits.

Wednesday

6:55-7:15 audiobook

11:35-12:45 (minus time for four phone calls and an email response, I’m not good at leaving work behind on my lunch break) 92 pages

3:13-3:28 18 pages

3:58-4:19 audiobook

4:41-5:10 45 pages

7:51-10:13 on and off 217 pages

So I listened to my audiobook on the way to and from work, read on my lunch break and one 15 minute break, for .5 an hour after we got home, Spencer had finished his homework and was playing legos and Henry was playing with his Imaginext toys (and pizza dough was resting). Then I started reading again while they were watching their one show before bed and continued until my bedtime. There were stops occasionally to say goodnight and to get a snack of raspberries, conversations with C. But the bulk of that time was spent reading.

Thursday

6:55-7:15 audiobook

4:06-4:27p audio

5:15-5:50 36 pages

Thursday I listened to my audiobook on the way to and from work, and then read while dinner was cooking. C met me for lunch, so I didn’t read during the work day at all. That night was when I found out my aunt had passed, so I went to my mom’s and then drove her down to my grandma’s, so there was no further reading.

Friday 

9:30-10:40am audiobook

10:24p-11:13 88 pages book finished

Friday I would normally read significantly more than I did, but I listened to my audiobook while I drove home from my grandma’s, and then I spent a lot of the day laying around being morose and napping. We took the kids to dinner and a movie, and I read when we got home until I felt I needed to get some sleep.

Saturday

10:15-11:36 87 pages

3:07-3:14 7 pages

6:16-7:44p 128 pgs

8:12-8:20 12 pages book finished

I read to and from the drive to Disney – we were trying to keep things normal. It didn’t work and I spent a lot of the time at Disney crying so we left early. I don’t normally read so much on the drive – C and I talk while the kids watch a movie – but I told him before we left that I just wanted to space out with my book and he left me to it. The couple pages in the middle are when I took my ipad out while waiting for a show to again, space out a little.

Sunday

10:45-11:53 115 pages

2:20-2:35 25 pages

5:15-5:45 40 pages

7:13-8:02 100 pages book finished

We stayed home in our pajamas all day Sunday, and watched a lot of football. The kids played games – some on their own and some on the tv. I was trying to get through how sad I was, so I went in and out of reading/watching football/being entertained by the kids.

Monday

6:55-7:15am audiobook

11:35-1:40 audiobook

8:16-9:05pm 60 pages

I had a minor breakdown on Monday and left work. I listened to my audiobook on my way to work and later when I went to the grocery store (I kept my ear buds in while I shopped) but otherwise I mostly laid in bed watching Friends and Fringe, crying on and off and eating my weight in brie and olive baguette.

Tuesday

6:43-7:06 am audiobook

11:05-12:03 110 pages

4:06-4:27pm audiobook

4:47pm-5:06pm 18 pages

5:43pm-6:02pm 24 pages

7:38-7:45 pm 6 pages (now I'm just grabbing them where I can get them)

Tuesday was a more normal day. Listened to and from work, read on lunch break. I didn’t take a regular break, so I didn’t read any more during the day. I read a little when I first got home and the kids played Wii. Then I read a little while the lasagna was in the oven. Then I tried reading for a few minutes when the kids were getting ready for show and bed. I would have read later, but I brought work home and I spent my 3 hours later between doing that and watching new programming and being on twitter.

So in 7 days:

1228 pages read

3.5 books read

5 hours 35 minutes listening to audiobook (which is what, 1/3 of a book? This is why I don’t listen to a lot of audiobooks)

And THAT is where I find time to read.

Meal plan Sept week 2

Week two

Meal plan:

Sunday chicken gyros w/ zucchini noodles

Monday – salad

Tuesday – Cajun meatloaf, asaparagus & corn

Wednesday – homemade pizza

Thursday - tortellini soup

Friday – I have the kids to myself so we might so something special

Saturday - usually Disney

Sunday

chicken gyros and leftover rice noodles w/ greek add-ins (my zucchini was soggy by the time I got to it)

Monday

salad w/ leftover chicken and feta from gyros.

Tuesday

Cajun meatloaf, corn, asparagus, potato rolls

(this took bloody forever to cook, but it was good. I guess. I’m not fond of meatloaf but my husband loves it.)

Wednesday

Pizza. Spencer likes his pizza with just cheese, and Henry asked for asparagus and turkey pepperoni. I usually cut 25% of the dough off and make mini pizzas for the kids with that, and cook them in the toaster oven. The rest of the dough gets rolled/stretched out as thin as I can make it and goes on the grill outside. This one had tomatoes, mushrooms, asparagus, feta and mozz.

Thursday

Tortellini soup

Friday everything went to crap, and we went out to eat at Red Robin. $45

Saturday everything still crap, went to Chuy’s $55

Raining, pouring

At least I didn't recover fully from the sads.

My aunt passed suddenly. She was alone. I hope I'm not alone when I go. I'm at my grandma's with my mom and a bunch of dogs that I'm allergic to. Such sweet dogs.

I think I'm starting to ramble.

Love to you.

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

Yesterday …

Was pretty uneventful. Spencer got a new lego set on Monday, and that’s pretty much all he does these days. He even skips tv time for it (the boys watch a show before bed usually, as the tv doesn’t often get turned on – so much noise!). I read a lot. I made homemade pizza which was delightful. C had some sort of work crisis and spent most of the evening working but I handled things without yelling and being pretty much fine. I hate handling the kids by myself when he’s in the house but unavailable. It makes me short tempered. But I was good; I even got showers done – Henry’s while Spencer was doing his nightly reading, and Spencer’s while Henry was playing Mario Galaxy with daddy.

Spencer got his first BookIt prize – Pizza Hut is STILL doing this, can you believe it? They get a monthly reading page, and he filled his up in 16 days. Granted, some of it was that he was reading a couple books a night instead of getting more challenging ones, but now that’s he’s allowed to get books from all over the library (they were restricted in Kindergarten), he mostly brings home non-fiction about the planets, or computers, or karate. I like that he’s stretching his interests.

Today …

I’m hoping for a reasonably uneventful day again today. It’s early – who knows. I’m going to lunch w C, which rarely happens, so that’s happy. It’s family reading night at the school, which means I’ll probably have three kids for the night, and we will also need to make a decision about the Cub Scouts. Spencer wants to do it but I don’t think he understands the time commitment. So far we’ve stayed out of organized after school activities, but it’s first grade. These things start.

I’ve been successfully splitting my reading time between an audiobook and a regular book. I’ve never been good at keeping books straight if I read more than one at the same time, but I’m enjoying it. I fixed my Bluetooth in the car so I can listen easier, and it turns out that listening at 20-minute intervals is not as annoying as I thought it would be. I still read much faster than I can obviously listen to a book, but it’s a nice way to keep enjoying while I’m not otherwise able to read.

Tomorrow …

Is Friday! It’s been a long week for me; most of the time I feel like I don’t even know what day it is. They’ve kind of blended together in a mishmash of ups and downs that make me question a lot about my life. Not in the “I want to change” way, but in the “why is that important?” way. I don’t know, I think it’s hard to explain. I’m still getting the sads a little. I’m having very strange dreams that put me in a fog upon waking. It’s just … it gets better, yes? I’m pretty sure.

C is going to a baseball game (between two teams who’ve been eliminated from playoffs) so the kids and I are doing something. I’m not sure what. I think I might let them pick some place to eat that they enjoy – Red Robin, Cracker Barrel. And then we might see a movie. We still haven’t seen Guardians of the Galaxy or TMNT, so maybe. I like being the fun one when we’re on our own, and I’ve got a lot of out-of-town goings on for work and with friends next month so I may as well get it in while I can.

What we ate - meal planning week one

These posts are probably not interesting, but I find them interesting when other people post them, so there you go. I’m trying to meal plan weekly again, yay! September should be okay, but October is not going to work out because I'm never home.

Week of 9/6 meal plan

Sunday chicken burgers and green beans

Monday salad (the kids don't eat dinner at home on Mondays, they fill up on junk at grandma's.)

Tuesday shrimp and potatoes gratin

Wednesday savory waffles and eggs

Thursday balsamic pasta

Friday chicken gyros w zucchini noodles

Saturday expected day at Disney

Sunday:

 

Kids plate chicken burgers, green beans, orange. They ate everything and also had applesauce pouches.

Our plates - I added leftover black beans w onions and red wine vinegar to C's plate. (Also I may or may not have drank a full bottle of $3 Chuck and C had 2 Goose Island beers over the course of the day)

Monday:

salads - I forgot to take a picture, but it had leftover taco meat, regular salad stuff, chick peas, goat cheese and oil and vinegar. Pretty regular. Kids didn't eat, as expected.

Tuesday: 

shrimp and potatoes au gratin. The potatoes were an attempt to find a kind of potato that Henry will eat. Still failing but for just throwing something together, these were pretty tasty (I know, it doesn’t look like much. A food photographer I am not)

Wednesday:

savory waffles with avocado and fried egg (and bacon)

Thursday:

balsamic pasta – I did not photograph, it looked terrible but was delicious.

Friday:

I could not be bothered, so we had Vietnamese (it was terrible) $17.00

Saturday

Via Napoli at Epcot. Blown budget, here we come - $90

That artichoke pizza and Prosecco was worth every dime to me, especially after spending 2.5 hours at a funeral.

It continues

I haven’t had much to say this last week. Sure, things have happened, but looking back I can’t even really tell you. I cooked some dinners. I got really down and made my husband get (really bad) Vietnamese food. I spent a lot of non-work time in pajamas and spent a lot of time zoning out or reading. Time … passes when you have the sads, that’s for sure.

But. I’m trying to get up and on with it. We had an only mildly exciting weekend – That Vietnamese food was truly terrible, but it was my fault because I was discouraged that our favorite Thai place still hadn’t expanded their menu. I should have just gotten a crap-ton of dumplings and called it a delicious day. Saturday was the open house/funeral which I kept it together for most of the time, and then afterward we hoofed it to Epcot for some fun and relaxation. Rode a couple rides, had dinner at Via Napioli  (seriously, I’m not a huge pizza person but we had white pizza with artichokes and truffle oil and good Lord, that was amazing). We also rode Maelstrom, which is closing to be redone as a Frozen ride, one last time and Henry got drenched. It’s not a water ride, but “you may get wet”. We’ve never gotten wet before.

Sunday was a lazy lazy day – I let C sleep in and took the boys to Target for breakfast foods as we were low on that. We all got Starbucks and I found out that Henry’s dislike of milk might be a tolerance issue. We found out the hard way. It was otherwise games and football all day, which was pleasant. Pajamas all day again.

We got stalked by a baby squirrel – that was interesting. We had to go inside and close the curtains so it would leave us alone and stop scratching at the sliding door like a dog. It was some kind of crazy, really.

And that’s it. Life goes on, for better or worse. My coming weeks are crazy busy, and maybe that’s a good thing. 

Wild and crazy

Fun, Infuriating, Sweet.

I’m pretty sure I had a post planned for this morning, some inane jabber about my rather decent weekend. But now.

An old friend took his life last night. I know the circumstances of the death but not the state of mind; not what he was feeling, thinking – what he felt drove him to that point. He was really truly like my brother.

He was my brother.

I didn’t have a particularly stable home life growing up, but I had a close friend blocks away, and her family was my family. Her siblings – my siblings. Her parents I still call mom and dad. There are so many memories churning, bubbling there to the surface.

My mother told me a long time that suicide was selfish. I think I had been trying to do something terrible with a lady bic; we were fighting. We fought a lot. I couldn’t make much of a scratch, and the next day things were not as bleak. I still feel that way – down in my soul. Selfish. It doesn’t mean I don’t immediately forgive him for not thinking of all the people he left behind. I don’t know his thoughts. I know that when you are feeling that black, you are selfish. You can’t help but be selfish – you only have room in your head for how you feel.

I hadn’t seen him in a number of years. I still spend a lot of time with his family – I attend his niece’s and nephews’ birthday parties, his sisters’ baby showers, get tagged in pictures by his mom. I don’t see any of them as much as I’d like – real life always gets in the way. But he was my brother, as sure as my own.

He will be missed by so many people - His parents, two sisters, one brother, one daughter, two nieces (and one on the way), four nephews and so many other people like me whose lives he touched.. No matter how black you feel, know that you and your life mean so much to so many people. Permanent solution, temporary problem. All of that. You are loved.

I'm running out of catchy titles.

Friday has come, which means it’s the day for Henry’s very late four-year well visit. I didn’t realize I hadn’t set it until daycare pointed out all my paperwork was expired, so I had to scramble and get an appointment that worked best for me and was asap, so this afternoon fits the bill. He’s getting his before-kindergarten last shots, and I know that will go over just peachy.

I’ve already penciled in milkshakes.

Henry doesn’t really like new people anyhow, so I don’t know how he’ll react to the NP that we are seeing on short notice. He’s never even very happy with our perfectly lovely doctors. I’m positive that he won’t speak to them, and will probably not perform for them like the trained monkey he would normally be if we were just sitting around the house pretending to ignore him while he hopped on one foot in circles around the kitchen.

And finally, last night, I got some real sleep which is amazing. C was watching the football game in bed so I took me a Unisom and passed out for a solid 8 hours and 46 minutes (according to my fitbit). I could have done more, but my alarm clock wouldn’t shut up and we keep it across the room for the very reason that it would be turned off in our sleep otherwise. I have not been sleeping for over a week, just snatches of time here and there, 5-6 hours max at night which I know for those of you with infants is a millennium but I require 8-9 hours of sleep to be a full wonderful person and I wake early. 5-6 hours simply doesn’t cut it, and they need to be uninterrupted. When I am forced to deal with children things in the middle of the night – well, be glad you’re not around; I am not a pleasant person. This is why C does most of the middle-of-the-night nonsense. He is capable of going right back to sleep but I’m up for lots of cranky hours when I get up.

C is working tomorrow, and I can’t stand being in the house tending to children when he’s holed up in the office – it feels icky when I need help and can’t ask or feel like I need to keep the kids quiet (ha!) We have a small house, and the office is right off the living room, and at the front of the hallway to the bathroom and the kids’ room. No real way to keep the kids quiet in that area. So we go out. Last time we did a splash pad and Chuck E Cheese. My plan for the day is to take them to Blizzard Beach, and then maybe another Disney park if I can get good fast passes (edit - I set up MK already as a just in case. Done). Maybe some Cracker Barrel for dinner. Livin’ the dream here. I hate making the drive to Orlando myself, but I think I’m going to have the kids bring tablets and I’ll listen to my audio book (Shotgun Lovesongs) and we’ll be solid. I haven’t decided if we’ll make it a very early morning and try to do something before BB opens (10am) or if we’ll just shoot for opening there. It probably all depends on how much sleep I get tonight.

Apparently here's another post about my kids.

Spencer asked for something other than pb&j for lunch today, and all at once my expectation that my child would eat nothing but peanut butter and jelly for thirteen years went up in smoke. It may not last, but today he went to school with a ham and cheese sandwich so we’ll see how that works out. He didn’t eat his sandwich for the last two days because it touched the grapes in the same Tupperware, so today I put his orange slices in a zip lock so they wouldn’t mingle. Kids. Full of such opinions.

I can’t remember (I suppose I could look, but I can’t be bothered right now) if I’ve commented on Henry’s eating lately. Henry’s whole attitude all together is just fantastic, but more on that later – his eating! The pickiest eater in our family is actually agreeing to our one-bite rule, and not only that – he’s LIKING things! It started really with Smitten Kitchen’s one pot farro.   …. I started typing this and the muscle memory kicked in and I was sure I told this before so I check, and yes – last week. So anyhow, the next day was turkey burgers and asparagus. Greens are always out, but I grilled them with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. He wouldn’t touch them on principle but when told he needed to have one, he ate all on his plate. “They’re sweet! I like asparagus!”

A few days later was green beans. He eats them at daycare but has always refused here. Potatoes were the same night, and I cut them thin and sautéed with garlic and salt and pepper. The green beans were pan cooked in ghee. He loved the green beans and ate them all – hated the potatoes (which he’s always told me he doesn’t like potatoes, even at daycare and lately even fries). He did agree that he would try potatoes again if I cooked them differently so next time I'm trying a gratin.

When we were out the other day there was zucchini on his plate and mushrooms too, and he refused and I didn’t push it because we were in a restaurant. I’m trying to decide how I could try cooking both for him to try that he might like. Last night I dropped some peas and chopped chicken in mac & cheese and he at first refused again but by the end of the meal he was exclaiming “I like peas!”

I feel like we’re on a roll here and I want to keep expanding his repertoire. I also keep reminding him about things he liked – “you liked asparagus, remember?” so that he doesn’t revert back to hating everything. Tonight I’m making pot pie, and I’m nervous because H never really goes for unprocessed chicken or soup-like consistencies, and lately he tells me he doesn’t like carrots. I might have him help me make it though. Dinner! In a pie! Maybe the novelty will help.

And more about his attitude – Four has been so delightful lately. He has these little quirks that make me laugh so much. If he gets mad (which is still OFTEN, short fuse boy) he makes this stern face (I need to get a picture) and forces my face forehead-to-forehead like he’s going to stare me down, and then gives me eskimo kisses and completely melts his own mood. He doesn’t fight about his homework (the daycare does kindergarten readiness, so he has worksheets there and at home every day to work on matching skills and writing letters and numbers) even though he still gets discouraged because he’s not good at it yet. He loves to hold my hand and tell me about things he did and remembers and specific episodes of shows that he saw that I’ve never seen. THIS is what I love. The last six months struggles were to get to this point. It was worth it.

What is today? Tuesday, Wednesday?

It’s been one of those mornings where focus is not happening. I was supposed to have a meeting but it was rescheduled and I didn’t update my calendar so I’m a little at a loss. I ate my yogurt too early in a rush for said meeting, downed my coffee and now …

I hope you had a good Labor Day weekend. Ours was pretty decent – a day of Disney, swimming at my in-laws’, shopping for new sandals for Henry. It was low key and easy, which is my favorite kind of weekend and left me refreshed for the coming week. It was brutally hot though – for a holiday that is something like the gateway to fall, holy goodness is it hot. I keep waiting for reprieve. Please, reprieve!

I signed up for Fantasy Football with my husband’s league. I’m not excited. I think I thought I would be when I signed up – the last time I played was 2008, and I remember enjoying it. I haven’t paid much attention to football the past couple years; my brain only holds one sport at a time, and baseball’s my game. I’m slightly offended that football starts while baseball is still going on, really. But I signed up, and I’m going to do it. I had lunch with a friend last week when I was having a no good, very bad day and she was EXCITED about the prospect of fantasy football, so she is now coming to the draft with me and we are co-managing the team. This makes me happy – I did zero research and she made a spreadsheet. I would feel guilty about the amount of work she put into this except that a) I’ve now offered co-management so it’s her team too and 2) it seemed to actually make her really happy. Anything I can do for a friend, right?

I’ve been listening to audio books lately; it started that I was taking some long drives, but then I needed to continue them so I was listening pretty much always. It’s hard to take 12 hours to listen to a book! I have one more downloaded but I don’t know if I’m going to get to it – I don’t have any more long drives and I just don’t know if I’ll enjoy it listening at 20 minute intervals on my drive to and from work. Do you listen to audio books?