Mother's Day: A Photo Reminder

I don't really expect much out of Mother's Day. I don't really like other people to my family to cook for me. I like flowers but in recent years I've started just buying my own when I want them instead of being disappointed I don't get them. I get my mom a little something and my MIL a little something and then I'm happy just staying in bed reading as long as I want (or getting back in bed after dealing with something kid related).

This MD was much the same, except that I did get fresh flowers, which was nice. The older the kids get, the less I have to deal with nonsense from them that gets me agitated. My husband gets up early anyhow so I can sleep until 8am if I want, and I asked him to shove a frozen quiche in the toaster oven when he got up so I wasn't cooking but wasn't being cooked for either. It was delicious.

The only problem really is that my brain still hates me and I was in a funk all day, but what can you do about that? I've been in a funk since Friday, and now I'm still in it. So I choose to post some pictures of a nice laid back, reasonably relaxing Mother's Day wherein I accidentally drank a full bottle of wine (in my new Yeti cup) and laid on a float in the pool and watched baseball for the afternoon. I'll work on forgetting the funk this way.

Camping with Kids

  

Before C and I were married, we camped a lot. It was the best way to stretch our money into nice long vacations. We took long rambling road trips around the Southeast, staying for a night or two in a different state park, driving into the closest city to sight-see and relaxing at our leisure. We had it down to a science – it didn’t even take long to pack, we had it DOWN.

But then there was engagement, wedding and immediate BABY (Hi Spencer!) and ten years later, we hadn’t camped once, save for an overnight backyard camp three years ago (wherein we sat on the back porch and watched the baseball game through the sliding glass door). It was fun but not really camping except for the uncomfortable night of sleep, I think you’d agree.

So this last weekend we went camping and it was marvelous. We had so much fun, hiked the trails, went to the springs, relaxed at the campsite for a good deal of time. We didn’t think or talk about work, or kid’s baseball politics or anything of any importance. We fell asleep listening to the radio broadcast of baseball games and spent lots of time sitting around with a drink and a snack and just enjoying each other.

  

It was hard to come home, for all of us. Henry cried Saturday night when he realized we’d go home the next day. Spencer complained Monday that he wish we were still camping. C spent all day Monday researching new tents (ours has deteriorated in the attic pretty badly). I … well, I was busy but I would have preferred to be camping.

So what did we learn? We need new equipment. We have some that is like new – the camping stove, for example. Other items, like the tent is in dire need of replacement. Also, home blankets don’t cut it for sleep, even on top of air mattresses. One, especially child-sized ones, need sleeping bags. Othewise 3am is rather a concerning time. We also way overpacked so I need to figure out how to pare down. Thank god we had two cars due to a work obligation because we would not have been able to fit all four of us in the car with all our stuff.

Overall though, a fantastic time. We’re excited to go again!

Books 2017, a journey in spreadsheeting

This year is the first year I started keeping a spreadsheet of my books read, separate and apart from my Goodreads page, thanks to Stephany. It's been interesting to keep track and occasionally I come up with more information I might want for next time but so far I'm happy with the info I'm getting. So through this morning, here's what I have:

I have 43 books on my list.

Of those, 5 books I didn't finish (I have them highlighted in orange so I can re-request them from the library)

An additional 3 are self-help books that will be on my currently-reading all year while I get through them slowly: Feeling Good, The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook and Driven to Distraction (about adult ADD).

I have read 14,215 pages (not including any of the pages of the unfinished books, as I didn't add the pages in yet. I will do that when I a) finish them or b) count as abandoned, at which time I'll add in only the pages I read.

Fiction accounts for 33 of those books and 10 non-fiction

29 are new to me, 13 are rereads.

16.75 are audiobooks, 26.25 are print/ebooks.

3 were purchased in print from Amazon (the three self-help I haven't finished)
3 were purchased w/ credit from Audible
2 were from my personally owned books
35 were library book - audio or ebook downloads or paper books.

The reason for the weird split on the audio/print is because I started one book in print, didn't get very far and ended up downloading the audiobook form.

So what am I currently reading?

Audiobook:

This is so good, and so dense. I'm loving it, and also know that immediately after finishing I'm going to need to pick it up in print form to see all those glorious words again. 

ebook:

I thought I was simply rereading this series, but it turns out I only read the first book before so now I'm on a delightful journey I didn't know I'd missed.

And that's all for now! I also have a column for genre but I don't really know how to parse that out for a blog post, and also I have a lot just listed as "fiction" that I should probably further split up - YA? mystery? romance? contemporary adult? my non-fiction I have listed memoirs, self-help, true crime, and history.

Meal plan – week of 5/1-5/7

Sometimes I plan my week starting on Sunday and sometimes my week ends on Sunday, depending on the expectations of the week (and also when I get around to shopping, I’m not going to lie).

This week we had baseball tournaments planned all weekend so I didn’t know if I’d be cooking and I had some leftover meals from that week anyhow so through Sunday I was golden (made shrimp, bacon-wrapped asparagus and white rice). Sunday night S asked if we could have breakfast for dinner. Done, child. Here’s our meal plan for this week:

Monday: breakfast for dinner. Bacon and pancakes for the kids, omelets for the adults

Tuesday: carnitas (from freezer)

Wednesday: rosemary chicken and veggie tots

Thursday: I’m out of town, leftovers for family

Friday-Sunday camping! Sandwiches and hotdogs and hopefully lots of healthy snacks for me.

For breakfasts I have hardboiled eggs already made for the entire week, and for lunches I have salads made for the four days I’ll be in the office. I’m trying hard to start off on a good foot (my good foot is my left, in case you were wondering).

Starting anew

I've signed up for BBL again this time, which is a weight loss/healthy living competition that a good friend hosts for a bunch of us online sorts of people. I did well last round but in the three weeks since that one ended and this one began, I've gained back some weight and totally slacked on my healthy choices so I'm mainly signing up to keep myself accountable for those changes that had really started to take root before I gave myself an out on keeping on track. I only really care to lose a little weight, but I really want to get back into form on eating healthier (and thinking about those treats that I really do want instead of mindlessly eating all of them) and getting my body healthier with yoga and running and arm work. I'm also working on continuing my therapy and psych appointments and working on getting my head in line, as that is one of the biggest obstacles I face in trying to get myself better.

Here are my goals:

* 96oz of water a day (this is 4 fills of my usual water bottle)
* 5am wake-up for 30 days of yoga
* couch to 10k - 3x a week
* one LONG walk by myself a week (1.5-2 hours)
* play with my kids as often as possible
* fascia blaster fit routine
* leave work AT WORK
* continue with my mental health appointments and tweaking my meds and therapy to get my headspace more consistent
* a daily arm and core workout

Hello there, from the other side of vacation!

So! It turns out, like everyone else, I need a vacation from vacation. I actually took two extra days off, but is any amount of days enough days? I had three doctor and dentist appointments within those two days, and one of them included me holding my terrified 9yo's hand while he got his first fillings while his terrified brother hugged me from the back and cried because he was scared for his brother.

Sigh.

But all that is over and I'm now mired in work and everything is an emergency and yay, good to be back!!

Mondays are so very Monday, this one more so.

Taking five minutes to decompress and feel some feels before I button back up and get myself on track.

And I don't even know if that gif will show up but whatever.

My aunt passed away in her sleep last night, quite unexpectedly. She had a lot of health problems but she wasn't ill, per se, so it's all very sudden and her loss is immense.

Logistically, she also was the one who dealt with a lot of the family stuff that no one else could, so there's a lot of chaos surrounding this sudden departure - money woes, who will take care of my grandmother, her 16yo autistic son, my uncle with stage four cancer (who also takes care of a lot but someone needs to work and also cancer and 16yo kid). Anyhow, it's all a lot.

I have a dentist appointment this afternoon for some fillings and I think I'll sit down in the chair and say "listen, I just want to put my audiobook on and close my eyes and let you drill on my teeth for an hour. It will be a relief that I can't be expected to do anything else for that time."