10 on Tuesday - what makes me happy

My hands smell like strawberries and Dijon mustard from making my breakfast and lunch today and there was this crazy bitch on the road who was tailgating like it was going out of style while she flung her cigarette butt out the window … so let’s just say I need a pick me up besides my chocolate truffle coffee (although thank you Archer Farms K-cups for that contribution). SO. Here are 10 things that make me happy:

1. Henry seems to be coming out of the dreaded 3.5s quite nicely. He still throws himself on the floor in a snit all the time (especially if he asks someone to ‘let him win’ and then he doesn’t win, competitive little bastard), but for the most part he’s so fun to be around – it’s so fun to see a small child’s mind work.

2. Having a local Trader Joes. You guys, I do 80% of my shopping there now even though it’s not super close because I love it so much. Ghee, lovely fruits and veggies (the watermelon was fantastic), olive demi-baguettes. I would have said 95% of my shopping, but I did a full shopping trip at Publix yesterday. There are a slim amount of things I don’t get there because I prefer certain brands (hello, Wright’s bacon) and I don’t go every time I just need milk or eggs, but still. So. Good.

3. Speaking of TJs, vino verde. Chili lime chicken burgers.

4. I went for a run yesterday. Like, more jogging than walking for 28 minutes and it felt good. Really good. Might do it more often good.

5. I haven’t yet had my breakfast (coconut greek yogurt and strawberries and blueberries) but I’m already looking forward to my lunch – roast beef, Havarti w dill, Dijon mustard and romaine lettuce on a spinach wrap. Come to momma.

6. I love food.

7. I’ve started rearranging the boys’ room in my head. It’s only so long until I start doing it in real life at this point. I’m the only one who realizes this right now. I just got my heart set on a writing desk for Spencer, and therefore the entire room has to change to accommodate that.

8. We are less than a month out from our trip to Colorado, and I will be on vacation for 9 days. NINE. I gave myself a buffer of a day on either side of the trip, so what will happen is there’s a weekend. Then I work Monday. Then I’m off for 9 days (NINE!). Then I work for two days. Then there’s another weekend. I’m ludicrously happy with this arrangement. I need a break.

9. I’m making Spencer keep a journal for the summer. This is not something he would put on his list of things that make him happy, but it makes me happy. I love journals. That was the only reason I wanted to be a teacher, so I could assign journals and then read them. (thankfully I came to my senses to realize I couldn’t deal with the rest of what teaching entailed before I went down that road.)

10. C has to work a couple Saturdays for busy season, and I’m planning fun things to do with the kids. I’m not good at lone wolfing AT ALL so on these days I usually set up things to do so I can be the “fun parent”. I’m thinking of taking them to Chuck E Cheese because we have leftover tokens from a year or two ago which was the last time we went (C HATES the place) and then I might take them to one of those paint your own pottery places. Any other ideas?

What makes you happy?

Always in need of a break post-break

So that was the longest 3.5 days off work in forever. Was it really a week and I stopped counting the days right? Well I’ve come to the part of the day-after a long weekend where I yearn for just one more day to lay around doing absolutely nothing. The problem is if I were given an extra day to do nothing, I would not do nothing. So it’s probably a good thing I didn’t bother.

Thursday’s 3-boy 3-hour extravaganza has pretty nearly cemented my theory that I was not meant to parent three children. So. Much. Noise. I kept them outside in the splash pool for the majority of the time but still, so exhausting. Within an hour of him leaving, I was in bed asleep and ended up sleeping through the night – 11.5 hours. They did have fun though.

We went to my in-laws for the fourth, and it was wonderfully fun. I never do a ton of swimming because I couldn’t go underwater in my contacts, but I finally invested in a pair of goggles and that was a game changer. I swam non-stop for three hours (and paid the price later, in case you were wondering. Holy painful shoulders, batman!) and drank sangria and ate hamburgers and it was pretty much the best thing.

Because we’re insane, we decided late in the day to go to Hollywood Studios (after all that swimming, mind you) to ride a few rides and see the fireworks. It was mostly successful, except that Henry didn’t make it through any of the fireworks (who starts them at 10:30pm? Dude, kids?!?) but when he fell asleep it was pretty darn cute.

MY BIRTHDAY. I was granted sleeping in on my birthday, which is not to say that the kids slept (despite the late night, of course), but then I got up and made breakfast. I thought about asking to go out for breakfast but meh, we had food and I can cook it and I enjoy what I make so much more than if anyone else did. Also over breakfast, I decided that for My Birthday I would actually like to go to Disney. Seriously, this was a thing I suggested. I also requested an Epcot dinner so we made reservations and I made lunches for everyone and dinner for the littles and off we went. So fun. If ever you go to Disney for your birthday, stop at guest services and get your happy birthday pin. Even at 34, it was so fun to have every Disney cast member (and occasional guest) wishing me a happy birthday. I daresay it was MORE fun as an adult. We dined at Nine Dragons, which I was hesitant about because I’m not a fan of Chinese takeout but it was delicious. And they gave me cake and a card with Happy Birthday in Chinese written on it, because Disney is awesome. (plus I bought myself some ears. Happy birthday to me.)

Sunday was to be a non-Disney day because every once in a while we need those. Hey, the grass has to be cut sometime, right? I did a minute amount of gardening (the weeds were as big as the bushes, truth) and then took a walk with Henry to Target in the drizzly rain, where I proceeded to buy all sorts of things I shouldn’t have bought knowing I had to walk a mile back home. But now we are proud owners of a badmitton/volleyball set and ladder golf, as well as a dozen odds and ends. (An aside – even though H was THERE when I made these purchases, when we got home he exclaimed to his brother “BUBBA! MOMMY BOUGHT ME BACON!!” so we know where his heart is.)

My mom volunteered as tribute to give us a date night, so we ate at a local brewery and saw Edge of Tomorrow (Tom Cruise+alien war+Groundhog Day) and I drank too much which is a consequence of seeing a movie in a club area – the theater has a bar where they apparently only make club drinks, so my “make me something with gin in it” became “gin, vodka, tequila, curacao, something I didn’t recognize, grenadine and club soda – aka, every other club drink designed to get you hammered for $8.50. The movie was fine – not my kind of movie, but my kind of movie is not one that you need to see in theaters so we picked an action flick.

And now it’s Monday again. Terrible, wonderful Monday, where I will now plan on taking a bubble bath when I get home and finishing the book I’ve been reading for the last WEEK because I can’t seem to concentrate. And everything will be glorious.

HOOOLLLIDAY!

It’s my birthday week, and with that I feel like not doing anything worth a brass farthing. I grilled dinner Tuesday night (every piece of dinner, actually, going pan-less FTW) and set up the table outside to eat, and we all melted with extreme temperatures. Why does it have to be 97 degrees on July 1? Dude, seriously. I filled the blow up pool too, so the kids swam while I grilled and it was all idyllic except for the crazy humidity and the aforementioned blasted heat.

But then that tropical storm out east broke the temperature by causing crazy downpours and we hung out inside watching tv. I’m trying to start a July arm challenge that may ultimately kill me, so I did my calesthetics (the arm challenge plus crunches that made me want to throw up) and then because I got very little movement through the day I started walking through the house while watching baseball, and jogging in place on commercials. Sometimes I’m certifiable.

Oh! And we managed to not kill the gerbils in over a year, so we decided they were entitled to a larger cage to work off all that slothly fat of theirs (they couldn't fit through their own tubes, honestly). So we got them a topper which is apparently not well made and took C forever to get together, but they seem to like it.

Last night we used a coupon and went to Carrabba’s, which made me obscenely happy – thank you, Chicken Bryan. We’ve started packing dinner for the kids when we go out locally unless there’s a kid meal deal – it costs us $10 less just to bring their food, and then I know they’ll eat it with minimal complaints. Last night they had pb&j, cheez-it mix, blackberries and blueberries, yogurt covered raisins and two marshmallows for dessert. I had a reasonable quiet and happy meal. Wins all around.

We’ve got minimal plans for this weekend. I get off early today because daycare is closing early, and I was toying with driving over to Disney for the evening but a friend of the boys’ is coming over for a few hours instead. So apparently after he leaves we’ll do the usual Friday night dinner of movies and popcorn – the boys have been wanting to see Pirate Fairy since it came out, and it’s finally on Netflix, so that’s the likely plan.

For the Fourth I plan on SLEEPING IN, but then we are headed over to my in-laws to swim and have a cookout and not do any fireworks as per our usual ritual. The lack of fireworks is the ritual – the rest of it is just because it sounds fun. It doesn’t really matter about the fireworks – I’ve been listening to neighbors set them off all damn week. Why, why, why?

The rest of the weekend is up in the air. Disney, maybe? More swimming, maybe? Sangria almost definitely? Possibly using my free Red Robin birthday burger and free scoop of ice cream from Baskin Robbins? It’s a long weekend and I’m going to not think about anything hard for the extent of it.

What are your weekend plans?

Books I read: June

Dude. I’ve read (or I’m reading the last of) EIGHTY BOOKS in six months. Last year I struggled to 90-ish for the full year, but this year I’m just flat out enjoying my reading. I really think the rereading helps – I always know there’s something that I’m going to really enjoy. And I LOVED my rereads this month too.

reread:

36. Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell

37. Attachments - Rainbow Rowell

38. A Discovery of Witchess - Deborah Harkness

39. Shadow of Night - Deborah Harkness

40. The Face on the Milk Carton – Caroline B. Cooney

new:

31. Things a Little Bird Told Me - Biz Stone I read this because Janssen recommended it, and while I agree that it was light and fun and witty, I felt myself taking exception to the idea that knowledge is overrated and manufacturing opportunities always works out. I wanted somewhere for him to give an example when it didn’t work out for him instead of just feeling like he lead a charmed existence. Yes, I know he worked hard, but you can’t just always assume things will work out your way. I want my kids to expect to work hard and give them a foundation of knowledge and experience, not simply luck.

32. He Found Me - Whitney Barbetti A friend wrote this, and I thought it was lovely.

33. Deathmaker - Lindsay Buroker Ahh, Lindsay. Not my favorite, but I still look forward to the next one.

34. Whatever Happened to Janie? – Caroline B. Cooney a friend recommended the series and I remembered the first from my childhood but didn’t realize there was a whole series. It was a little young for me, but very enjoyable. I’m glad I went back and read it.

35. The Voice on the Radio – Caroline B. Cooney

36. What Janie Found – Caroline B. Cooney

37. Janie Face to Face – Caroline B. Cooney

38. The Signature of All Things - Elizabeth Gilbert Shalini was enjoying this so I put it on my library requests. I liked it very much, and expected not too. SO MUCH GOING ON. You know the phrase “sweeping epic”? Yeah, that. And also it didn’t really feel like anything *happened* at the same time. I spent a lot of the book trying to figure out how I felt, and then decided I loved it.

39. Sacre Bleu - Christopher Moore This, I couldn’t get into. At all. I puttered through the first third and then decided that I had better things to do with my reading time.

40. The Lies of Locke Lamora - Scott Lynch I’m not quite finished with this one, as I decided to fake nap on the plane on Monday since I had to get up at 4:15am to make said plane trips (day trip for work). I say fake nap because I can’t really sleep on planes, but I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep for most of the ride. Anywho, Stephanie recommended this and I am quite enjoying it. I’m finding things a little predictable but very fun, and I needed a fun read. I think my next is Orphan Train.

Bucket List

This weekend C and I went to breakfast at a place that, instead of asking for your name to call out when your order is ready, asks for your bucket list item. We had never been there and were a little taken aback – bucket list? I don’t know what’s on my bucket list! My smart ass husband didn’t know what was going on right away and turned it back on the cashier – what’s on YOUR bucket list?

Anyhow, I blurted out ITALY and so that’s what was called out when our biscuits and gravy and eggs came out. I’m not sure if Italy is on my bucket list. Would I like to go? Sure. Is it something I would feel incomplete having not done before I die? I really don’t know how to answer that. C would say that the concert that we were supposed to see this weekend which got moved to October would be a bucket list item.

Skydiving was a popular answer, and there was another Italy in the mix before we left. One person simply used “Live Well”. I think that’s an excellent answer. That’s the most lovely request out of life – to live well.

So this morning I’m back at work, so of course I’m thinking about my bucket list. I just can’t think of anything I feel like I HAVE to do in my life. Perhaps I’m being too serious about it. Maybe I should come up with things that I would like to do, that will make me happy to do. Travelling is up there – I’d like to see Europe, I’d really like to see Australia and New Zealand. I’d like to run a half marathon (no ambition at all for the full 26.2 miles). I’d love to have the money to fix up my mom’s house completely and pay off all her debt. I’d like to see more Broadway shows (since I’ve only seen one).

But the things that make me happiest, looking forward in my life, are quite simple. I want to grow old and be comfortable in life – not needing to be rich but not worrying about how to pay my next bills. I want to see my sons grow up and be happy and pursue whatever vocation makes them content. I want grandchildren and daughters (or sons, I’m not picky) in laws. I want the time to spend with my loved ones and the awareness to realize what I have and to embrace it.

I want to live well.

What’s on your bucket list?

(BTW, this is where we had breakfast, and if you are anywhere in the vicinity of Jacksonville run - don't walk - to this place. I've never had better biscuits and gravy. Ever.)

Offloaded

I am often surprised at how fast my 12.9GB of phone space goes up in smoke, and sometimes I look into why.

This is why:

Friday bits

I’ve realized that when you are trying actively to lose weight, that is pretty much all you talk about. I know I knew this, but couldn’t actually shut up about trying to figure out how many calories was in every single thing I ate and why, oh why, couldn’t restaurants give me nutrition facts so I could make an informed decision about what I was eating. I knew this, but not until my husband decided to lose weight too did I realize how exceptionally annoying it is. I try to sit and read and he sits there with the MFP app, telling me how many calories was in every single thing he ate during the day. So. I will try to keep my blogging about those things to a minimum, and I’m mum at work now. I will just quietly log my calories, thank you.

And thank you for not complaining about it.

I will say (I know, breaking my own rule already) that last night I made a meal that I knew would be fairly low in calories but I couldn’t really figure it out. I cut up cod and coated it in egg wash and Italian bread crumbs and baked it, and then I sliced up two strips of bacon and cooked a pound of brussel sprouts in that. But. When I went to tally the calories for each of our meals I realized (I tallied this several times, and wrote the recipes into MFP to confirm) the ENTIRE meal was 494 calories. That included a few strips of fish for each of the kids, two strips that were left over, and about ½ a cup of sprouts leftover. My own meal was 105 calories.

So if you are counting calories and need something low for dinner, you know what to have that’s not salad.

I had frozen yogurt for dessert.

**

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned here how hard it’s been for quite a while to leave the house in the mornings. It’s hard enough that I don’t want to leave, but Henry was crying every morning about going to daycare. I would have worried more about why except that I have asked him pointed questions with no fearful answers – he just doesn’t want to go. He wants to stay home or go to grandma’s (he goes to my IL’s once a week). Once he gets there, he’s fine – he runs straight in and gives her a hug and doesn’t look back, but the time that he’s throwing himself on the bathroom floor crying while I try to do my makeup – it’s hard.

Since it’s summer, Spencer is now back to going to daycare through the week as well. There has been significantly less complaining since that happened – still a little whimper when he can’t go to grandma’s but nothing like it was. I guess he just missed his brother during the day. Plus, they are doing way more fun things – the water park weekly, library, playground, skating, and today they are going to the aquarium. We pay extra for some of the outings but they are at a daycare discounted rates, and hey – I don’t mind paying for them to have a great time during the day even though I’m sitting at a desk. She clears the field trips ahead of time with me so I can decide if I want to pay for that, and if I don’t she does the verboten trips on the day they aren’t there. Busch Gardens – I refuse to spend the money on Busch Gardens when my kids can’t ride most of the rides. That’s a Monday trip.

And yes, she takes 6-10 kids to these places, sometimes with her sister-in-law. She’s my hero.

**

I talk a lot about how much Spencer reads, but every time he blows through a book it really blows my mind. I broke down and brought him home the last two Captain Underpants because he loves them so much and he finished #9 in two days. C made the comment that he reads faster than he does! And then he told him all about it, so he’s actually retaining the information so I’m just so impressed with him. He’s obsessed with reading – books in the car, pouting because he can’t take it into the mall with him, the whole deal. When I put off requesting those two CU books from the library because I wanted him to read some of what he already had (which he was, but he wanted those books, darn it!) he asked me every day when I picked him up if they were in from the library yet.

I thought at first he wasn’t retaining the story because he had a hard time telling me about the book, but when we asked about specific characters, he could tell us all about it. He has trouble finding a starting place to tell about the book, I think. His comprehension is there but not his retelling.

**

And lest you think Henry has no interest in reading (C thought this), Henry has started asking constantly to be read to. If he doesn’t have a book in the car, he pouts too. There’s this anthology of Disney stories we have, and he points to the picture of the story – “What’s this one? Read me this one.” He’s doing well on the Hooked On Phonics app I downloaded during teacher appreciation week, although I don’t know how much it helps. Anything that gets him excited about reading, I’m all for.

I’m excited about reading. I want my kids to be excited about reading. Even if it’s about pee and poo and boogers, apparently.

**

We decided to forgo a birthday party tomorrow to go to Disney. We don’t usually do that even though we are always at Disney, but we decided we needed a break from obligations and declined all Saturday offers. Spencer was trying to get together with a friend but we nixed that too – is that selfish? I did tell the other child’s mom that we should work out another day for it, so hopefully it’s not too mean. Sunday C and I are going out of town for a night and wouldn’t see the kids and it just … well, I guess I don’t need to make up excuses as to why we are going to Disney, but damn it we’re going to Disney. We’re even going to eat there, in a sit down restaurant, which is really unheard of for us.Hollywood Studios and Epcot, we’re coming for you.

**

I got a picture of Henry’s hair! He still hates it, but C has asked if I’ll cut his hair exactly the same so I guess it’s just Henry. (C keeps his hair short on the sides and longer up top because it’s very thin, but I think he’s finally coming to the conclusion that keeping it longer is not making him look like he has any more hair.) I’m scared to death to cut his hair though. Power through, I shall overcome.

**

And finally, you should read this. If you are reading my blog, you probably already know Emily but if not, you should – this is a great post. #gohugo has affected all of us in my little corner of the internet, and I’m so glad that good tidings for the sweet boy are reaching near and far (Kimmy Gibbler did a #gohugo picture, people!) and I wish all the best for Marianne and her family. Internet! Good!