Category: Family Life

Weekend Reflections…for all of September

I came here today to write about the last two weeks and realized it’s actually been THREE weeks since my last Weekend Reflections post. Yikes. September has been a rough one, guys. Probably the hardest month yet in this whole pandemic living mess. Life has been HARD. It hasn’t been easy to motivate myself to do much of anything and writing some sort of reflective and positive recap of the weeks is definitely at the bottom of my list. But I want to remember these days, the good and the bad.

I think virtual school – REAL virtual school, not like what was scrapped together in spring – may be the the thing that takes our whole family down. And let me be clear, I’m not blaming the teachers or the school or the classes. It’s my kids. They are fighting tooth and nail to make this whole experience as miserable as possible for all four of us. And while it can be infuriating spending literally hours a day arguing about doing certain assignments, it’s also incredibly sad watching their spirits deflate and lose the remaining hope of normalcy they had.

Caden is doing okay. Every day gets a little easier with him as he realizes he really does have to spend a full class period working on certain subjects. He wants everything to be easy and throws a fit when it’s not. He was also assigned an elective that he did not sign up for and it’s the class he gets the most work in and he HATES it. If he didn’t have that class then we might just be smooth sailing with him.

Then Shepard. Oh Shepard, my most stubborn of the stubbornest of children. Let’s just say learning virtually with the expectation of doing most of your work independently is not a model that works for him. He needs a teacher to keep him on task. He needs classmates and friends to connect with and blow off steam with. Instead he’s stuck in his room with often eight, nine, ten, even eleven hours of school work a day, that he has to keep track of and complete on his own. Greg has to micromanage every single thing that he does and he still can barely finish everything he’s supposed to each day because he just digs his heels in and flat out refuses. He also abhors being on video, and you need to be on video calls or record yourself doing certain things a whole lot in virtual school. It’s been so, so hard with him. And every day seems to get worse instead of better.

Greg wanted to be the one to take on most of the school stuff with them. He kept insisting on it. But it didn’t take very long to realize he can’t sustain that level of interaction if he still wants to do his own job. It’s honestly a miracle he gets any of his work done with how often he has to stop and help either of them. I TRY to get involved, but I’m usually out of the loop to begin with and by the time I try to offer my assistance they’re all too angry to explain to me what’s going on. They’re also all on the second floor of the house and I’m on the first floor doing my work, or cooking or cleaning, so I’m never the parent they’ll come to because it’s too inconvenient. But short of sitting in the hallway just waiting for an opportunity to help, I don’t know how to change anything. And doing that would be a HUGE waste of my time and so many other things would go undone that it would cause a whole new set of problems.

So. I’m not really sure where to go from here. But entering every single week day like it’s a battle has really taken its toll on all of us. It’s destroying us, to be honest. I can’t imagine going an entire school year like this. I can’t imagine another month of this. But what other choice do we have? Yeah, we COULD decide to send them to school. There are very few kids in our district that chose this all virtual model. But Wisconsin covid cases are skyrocketing right now. We have the second highest number of cases in the country at the moment. It feels too risky to send them to school after all the preventative measures we’ve taken the last six months. Plus Caden would still be home three days a week anyway (Shepard one). So instead we just power on. And pray it gets easier.

In happier news, I was able to go on my first solo vacation of the year! I had a couple planned in spring that I had to cancel and just figured I’d never get to do it again. Which was extremely disappointing since it’s basically my all time favorite thing. No offense to Greg or my kids, but my kind of vacationing is very different from theirs and we realized a few years ago it really just works better for everyone if I go on my own. Plus it’s the perfect chance to recharge. Those opportunities have been few and far between this year. I actually scheduled a post-birthday trip first, but after how September started off (worst week of our lives??) Greg urged me to take another trip sooner. He didn’t have to tell me twice! I immediately searched around and found a perfect place to stay in Port Washington a few days later.

I left as soon as I could that first day and stopped at Kettle Moraine Pike Lake Unit State Park for a short hike. Then I grabbed a snack and coffee and headed up to my airbnb in Port Washington where I was able to check in really early. Next I walked around Lion’s Den Nature Preserve. It was a really beautiful spot, but it was SO crowded. This was on a Sunday, and the weather was beautiful – the first really nice day after a week of rain, so it made sense that people were flocking to great outdoor places. I managed to never get other people in my photos, but it was kind of a stressful situation. The water and the clouds looked so pretty that day, though!

On Monday morning I was up and out the door by 5:50am and didn’t come back to the airbnb until late afternoon. The weather was just so perfect that I didn’t want to lose a minute of outdoor adventuring. I was hoping to see two amazing sunrises on the beaches, but my trip coincided with some of the worst air quality conditions that came over from the west coast and the sky was just a flat gray the majority of the trip. Kind of a disappointment, but at least the weather itself was really nice. Plus it was nice walking around the lakeside Port Washington parks so early in the morning.

I had plans to stop at a bakery for breakfast, but missed the memo that they were only open on weekends now. So I picked up a coffee and then headed to my next destination – Harrington Beach State Park. I walked the beach trail and enjoyed watching the seagulls play in the waves.

The real treasure, though, was walking around Quarry Lake. I LOVED it here. It’s an old quarry that filled up with water and then they created a nice easy trail with plenty of places to rest around the entire lake. It was so serene and beautiful. I only encountered about two other people the entire time I was at this park. I’m sure it’s filled up in summer, but for a September Monday morning it was perfect for me.

I definitely ended up doing a lot more driving around on this trip than I ever anticipated. I barely spent any time at my airbnb, which was my only regret. But I was actually having a really hard time finding meals. I definitely wasn’t going to eat IN any restaurants, I didn’t want fast food, and I only wanted to pick up food from a place I could order online from. The late lunch I got on Sunday made me feel pretty crappy and I wanted to try a lot harder to only eat the foods that feel safe (as in, nothing fried). And there just weren’t the right kinds of options nearby. Mexican is what I always seek out because it’s my favorite and it never makes me feel sick, so I eventually did some shopping and landed at a fun taco place much closer to Milwaukee. I brought it to Doctors Park and ate in a quiet field and then hiked down to the beach. It was a really beautiful park too!

I went back to my airbnb in the afternoon for a late nap and then headed out again to check out some other Port Washington parks, but managed to get back to the apartment around 7 so I could enjoy a couple of hours of relaxing before bed. The night before I wasn’t back until after 9 and then I spent an hour trying to better plan out Monday so I wouldn’t waste so much time searching around on my phone. No matter how much research I do ahead of time for a trip (A LOT), it never seems to be enough.

On Tuesday morning I headed out before six again, still hoping for a nice sunrise. The sky was slightly more colorful and when the sun finally rose it was a bright neon pink behind the haze. I grabbed another coffee – a harvest (apple and butterscotch) dalgona coffee – which was so tasty!

My airbnb was so pretty, I really wish I had spent more time there. I loved all the beautiful places I went – nature really soothes my soul. But a third night would have been nice to allow a little more time for resting. I was SO exhausted by Tuesday. Not really how I wanted to feel heading back into reality! When I got home I actually changed my October trip by adding a third night so I hopefully won’t have this problem again. I need a better mix of adventure and rest!

After I left the airbnb I went back to Quarry Lake for another walk. Then I checked out a couple of gifty stores in West Bend and ended the trip grocery shopping so I wouldn’t have to go out again that week. Overall, it was such an amazing getaway and exactly what I needed. Obviously taking vacations by myself every month is not exactly affordable or always feasible, but I’m really thankful I had this one and another in two weeks. They really boost me up for getting through the harder days.

Nothing terribly exciting happened the rest of that week, until Caden’s birthday party on Saturday. I was pretty stressed out about how we could give him a party while also trying to stay relatively low risk, but I think we pulled it off nicely. It was VERY low key, but that’s the perfect kind of party for Caden. We set up the food in the garage, arranged tables on the driveway that were all distanced from each other and could only seat the people that lived with each other. The two sets of grandparents and my brother were the only guests.

We had tacos for dinner and ice cream for dessert. Easy!

The puppies also came! And Caden got all of the computer and techy gadgets that he asked for. Pretty much the perfect birthday celebration for him!

This last Monday was the day it took Shepard 11 hours to complete his schoolwork. It was a really hard day and he was so defeated. So we took a break after dinner and ran to a $1 pumpkin patch out in the middle of nowhere. The mosquitoes were awful so we didn’t stay long, but we got five big pumpkins to decorate the porch. It was a good break for both of us.

Caden’s 12th birthday was on Wednesday. It was a late start (even though everyone does virtual on Wednesdays) so the workload was a little bit lighter that day. Caden got his games back after a three week hiatus, so he played a few hours in the morning and for most of the evening. He opened up his presents first thing, we had his birthday cake at lunch, and for dinner I grilled him a bunch of meat. He’ll eat pretty much anything, but doesn’t really have any real favorites (other than tacos, but we’d been eating them for days at that point), so I just made a big variety. He loved it! He kept thanking me and telling me it was the best meal ever. Overall it was a really nice day.

This weekend has been really busy! On Friday night I had another Pen Pals zoom show, which was a lot of fun. I think they’re planning on having shows once a month until they can start performing in live venues again, so it’s something special to look forward to just for me. I’m also participating in a readathon with my favorite facebook book club this weekend. I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had a ton of time to read, but it’s still fun to feel part of something special with other like minded people!

I placed my first Saturday farmers market pick up yesterday when I realized I won’t be able to go the next two Wednesdays and I’m missing out on so much great produce! I spent half as much money as my last huge order (no baked goods lol), but still ended up with a massive amount of food. I need to figure out how to use all of it this week. It’s a challenge I haven’t felt up to starting quite yet.

And then we celebrated Cindy’s birthday! I made my second berry topped flourless chocolate birthday cake of the week and we hung out on their deck for the afternoon. It was very nice!

And that brings me to today! There are so many things I could have done today. But I’m trying to build in more downtime so I stop feeling like I’m losing my mind with stress and anxiety all the time. I’ve never been a big fan of weekends, but this month I’ve joined the masses with looking forward to these two days all week long. Any day we don’t have to deal with school and work is a win now. Normally I do MY work during every spare moment I have (often around 4am and 7pm these days). But I’d like to try and take weekends off as well. There are plenty of other ways to spend Saturdays and Sundays.

This morning Greg and I took Annie to a beautiful county park to hike around a bit before the rain came. It was really nice! As hard as these days are, I’m really finding a deeper appreciation for little things. A great cup of coffee, fall flavored baked goods, a perfect scented candle, every ounce of seasonal outdoor joy. Fall has always been my favorite, but I don’t want to miss a moment of the beautiful colors and weather this year. It’s probably what is going to need to sustain me through our long cold winters!

The week ahead is pretty quiet, thank goodness. This has been such a busy month. We do have some appointments midweek, but for the most part it should be a slower couple of days. I’m hoping to get a lot of work done and maybe make some sort of breakthrough on how to make virtual school easier. Maybe??

Have a good week, everyone! It’s almost October! (The BEST month. :))

Weekend Reflections 08.30.2020

We made it through the last week of summer! It was even a much more exciting week than usual because we went ON VACATION. I had a lot of complicated feelings this week, as I always do with the end of summer break. More so this year because our fall isn’t going to be anything like it usually is and I’m mourning that loss more than anything else that has changed in the last six months. But now that we’re two days away from school starting I’m a little more optimistic that we WILL survive this, no matter how hard it turns out to be.

To celebrate the end of summer and really just give everyone a much needed change of scenery, we rented an airbnb near Richland Center. It’s in the driftless area of Wisconsin which shockingly, I’m pretty sure I’ve never been to before and it’s only about an hour and a half away. Maybe I went as a kid, but I don’t remember it. There aren’t many bigger cities in that direction, but the landscape is absolutely gorgeous. I loved our drive there on the curvy backroads. Taking car trips further than Madison or Beaver Dam feels like such a rare treat these days!

The first night we arrived after our normal dinnertime, so it was a bit chaotic trying to get everything unloaded and organized while I threw together a meal. I took a video in our first walk through of the house, but didn’t get a chance to take any photos before our stuff took over the place. It was SO beautiful, though. This was our first airbnb experience and it probably spoiled us for all others! Most of the house was on the main floor, but there was a loft area with a bunch of beds the boys could pick from. We thought Annie would sleep up there too, but she was scared of the slotted staircase. She seemed to move around a lot in the night, but spent most of them on the floor by our bed. She can’t usually go in our bedrooms at night, so it was a treat for her too.

After dinner we explored the 40 acres of land the airbnb was on. We didn’t actually end up walking around it as much as we anticipated because most of it was a huge valley. My ankle doesn’t do well on uneven ground and it was also crazy hot this week (at least MUCH hotter than all the other days this month). But Shepard went down to the trees at the bottom and then walked back up to the top on the side of the hay fields. There were a couple of small barns and sheds up on the property as well. It would have been an amazing place for Annie to run around (the reason dogs are encouraged to stay at this airbnb!), but we still don’t trust her off a leash. It was a little annoying to constantly be hanging on to her leash, but I’m really glad she was able to come with us.

Watching the sunrise has been one of my favorite things this summer, so I was really looking forward to watching it over the hills. Unfortunately, it rained the first night and was very cloudy the second night, so neither of the first two sunrises were that beautiful or exciting (the third morning was much prettier). BUT it was really awesome being able to just be outside and walk around in my pajamas – and silence – not worrying about anybody seeing me. That’s one thing I really, really wish we had at our house. Some sort of outdoor space with actual privacy.

You guys don’t even want to know how many photos of the sunrise I took for the two hours I was outside each morning watching it (lol). Shepard was with me for most of the time too trying to catch his own sunrise photos.

My main regret about this trip was that it turned out to be so hot. Which was obviously out of my control. But after such a beautiful August it was really disappointing to deal with the overwhelming heat when we wanted to be out exploring the area every day. It would have been nice to have lazy mornings and go out later in the day, but we needed to get out of the house as early as possible if we wanted to do anything. On Tuesday morning we found a really neat hiking trail at a county party and then we stopped at a bunch of parks with bridges in Richland Center. We attempted to walk a more scenic trail too, but it was a pretty bizarre place and we couldn’t figure out where to actually walk. It was also in the thick of the woods going up pretty steep hills. We gave up on that one. The boys were great for a few hours, but got pretty crabby by lunch time. We picked up some food from a takeout restaurant, ate in the car in a parking lot, and then went back to the house to relax the rest of the afternoon.

There were a lot of fun places to lounge around in the house! Both of these chairs were in the “porch.”

On the second night I made tacos for dinner. The owners stopped by to tell us some more about the property and they gave the boys a ride in their new vehicle across the fields. They also dropped off a big plastic sheet to use as a slip n slide by the barn. After they left we ran back into town to the same place we had lunch to get some ice cream. Then we made a fire, though it was so hot nobody except Greg lasted very long. The house also had a huge bathtub, so I enjoyed a bath that night.

The second morning’s sunrise was pretty uneventful until the sun actually came up and it was such a cool neon pink color. Of course that didn’t translate in my photo, but it was really pretty to see in person. Shepard was fascinated by it.

I didn’t take many photos because it was just so hot, but we went to the Kickapoo Valley Nature Reserve on Wednesday morning to hike a few trails. We kept trying to walk toward a river and dam, but we never ended up finding it. Shepard and I gave up on one of the trails because the uneven and wet grass pathways were really getting to my ankle and Shepard just couldn’t handle being in the heat any longer. We were closer to Viroqua by then so we stopped at a grocery store that sells a lot of local foods and I went in to quickly explore and pick up some local cheese, meat, cookies, crackers, and coffee. Then we found another county park to have a picnic lunch at before heading back to the house.

After a quiet afternoon we set up the slip n slide and the boys tried it out for a few minutes. It wasn’t really that long, but it was nice to see them having fun with something outside. Then we ordered Chinese takeout and went to eat it at another park. It was so good!

On our last night we watched a movie together and then went out for some dusk yard games (for the boys) and photo shooting (for me).

I finally got a really pretty pre-sunrise on Thursday morning. The sky was so pink! Annie and I both sat down to watch it for a really long time.

Our last morning was more relaxed since we weren’t rushing to head to another park. I walked around a lot more outside taking pictures and then got everything gathered and tidied up.

It definitely wasn’t a perfect vacation – those don’t really exist when you have kids. But overall, it went better than I had expected. The super high temperatures really sucked. The internet wasn’t that great and caused a lot of extra tension with the boys and their devices. But it was still awesome just to get away from home and realize we really can have exciting moments and stay safe in the midst of this never ending pandemic lifestyle. I’m glad we took the boys with us on this trip, but being in even closer quarters made me really, really wish I could go on a trip by myself. Maybe even back here! I loved it so much there and would definitely go back again.

We took a little side trip on the way home to ride the Merrimac Ferry. It’s just a couple minutes across the water, but a fun experience! Annie was a little concerned about what was going on, but Shepard enjoyed standing with half his body out of the sun roof watching as we crossed. It was a nice ending to the trip!

Friday was back to reality. I still couldn’t get back to biking because it was storming, then I had to get groceries, and then we had to pick up virtual learning supplies from school. I was pretty stressed out because we’d been bombarded with new school information all week and I finally had a chance to sit down and go through it all. I’m definitely worried about how it’s all going to work out – especially since it seems like Shepard might be working more independently and Caden will be livestreaming his teachers in the classroom all day. Their learning styles would probably benefit better with the opposite teaching methods. They also might end up having very mismatched schedules and workloads, which is going to cause a lot of problems between the two of them (and therefore all of us). I hope it turns out pretty evenly, but it’s definitely too early to guess.

The highlight of my Friday, though, was sitting down by myself (Greg even took the boys out of the house for awhile) with popcorn, tea, and a candle to watch a live Pen Pals podcast show. There was a different podcast show I was looking forward to watching earlier in the week too, but it didn’t work out with the poor internet connection at the airbnb. So I was extra excited about this one and it turned out to be SO enjoyable. It was great to have that special thing to look forward to, even though I didn’t have to leave the house for it. It was a fitting treat at the end of a pretty rough emotional day.

I spent about three hours on Saturday morning cleaning Shepard’s room. I’ve been harping on the boys all month about getting their rooms cleaned so they can work better in a tidy environment. Of course nobody actually listened to me. I knew I’d finally have to give in this weekend and just do it myself. Greg and Shepard did help after awhile and we got it cleaned up. Now to keep it that way! Greg and Caden worked on his room this morning, but it wasn’t as bad. I intended on helping, but I’m just so tired of cleaning up messes that aren’t mine that I bowed out. To write this. 🙂

It wasn’t a terribly exciting week for food. I was going for the easiest meals I could think of on vacation just to make my life easier. But at home before and after I made four mini pizzas to use up random ingredients, jalapeno popper grilled chicken, Caribbean jerk grilled chicken, four different types of grilled meats and potatoes, my favorite migas tacos, a tiny brie from the shopping trip, gluten free banana muffins, and guacamole.

The garden really exploded this week. I picked a bunch of tomatoes and peppers on Sunday and made a couple batches of salsa before we left. Then I picked a lot more when we got home to make pickled jalapenos, guacamole, and I strung up some Thai peppers in my sewing room to try and dry them out to make chili paste in a few weeks. Hopefully that plan works because my little Thai chili plant has been by far the most prolific plant in my garden (besides the grape tomatoes – NOT my favorite) and I’m not really sure what to do with them other than add them to curries and stir fries. This morning I found my first mini pumpkin and accidentally picked it. Shepard and I planted SO many pumpkin plants. Only three or four of them actually grew, but I hope we’ll still have lots of mini ones pumpkins decorations in a few weeks!

No biking pictures this week! Greg took my bike to the shop last Saturday and then went to pick up my mom’s to borrow until it was done. I biked on it Sunday and Monday and then we packed it up to bring on the trip, but I never ended up using it. We really didn’t understand just how hilly and twisty the roads were going to be! I didn’t feel physically fit enough or safe enough to try it out. Plus it was just too hot. I was anxious to ride again by Friday, but then it was storming! And then my bike was done in the shop, six days earlier than they expected. So I really enjoyed getting back on it this weekend and look forward to many more beautiful morning bike rides before winter comes.

Because I was attempting to force myself to be on a true vacation this week, I haven’t done any sewing! But I did finally get out my embroidery supplies after years of not using them and made myself this rainbow. I finished a second one on Friday night. I have one more I’d like to complete before I get back to my dolls. I’m kind of antsy to get back to work, but I know as soon as I have them started I’m not going to be as openly ready to deal with any school related problems that might arise this week. So I’m trying to put it off a few more days. I’m not so sure I’ll make it!

I think that’s about it for this past week! I’m nervous about the week ahead, but I think I’m ready to tackle the challenge. At least more ready than I was a few days ago. I’m also really excited to get my fall decorations out and start enjoying my favorite season! I’ve been mentally pushing it off because fall means winter is close behind, but after how hot it was this week I am MORE than ready for the cool and crisp days ahead!

Weekend Reflections 08.08.2020

I’m beginning to wonder if I’m ever going to have a week that’s not fraught with emotional turmoil! Such a rollercoaster, this life. This past week started out so great. Well, technically, one of my children was once again losing it, so I decided to just not be stressed about it for once and focus on the child who is desperately looking for more attention and adventure and fun. We whisked away to my parents’ house last Sunday morning and spent a good few hours out with the puppies.

Shepard actually spent most of time helping my dad chalk up a tree for cutting and then loading branches and logs into the trailer to bring out to the burn pile. He was so eager to help and seemed to genuinely be enjoying himself. He NEVER wants to do any kind of work, so it was somewhat miraculous! He told me on the drive home how much fun it was!

While we were there we borrowed some very old tennis rackets and later in the day went over to the tennis courts to try them out. We were honestly horrible at it, but we had so much fun! I loved tennis as a kid, but haven’t played since. It was kind of a shock to my body to have to actually run a little bit, but we were having such a good time that I didn’t even care. It really was a fantastic day.

But – story of my life – I can’t seem to have something good without immediately something bad happening. On Monday afternoon Shepard came running into the house crying and kind of hyperventilating because he was doing a flip on the trampoline and landed wrong on his extended arm. He thought it felt broken so Greg rushed him to the ER and yep, broken. I think I was more devastated by this than he was. With just a few weeks left of summer now he can’t trampoline anymore, can’t swim, can’t bike, can’t properly hold a controller to play video games, can’t do ANYTHING easily because it’s his right arm that broke. And no tennis, after just one day of finding out how much we liked it (and ordering new rackets!). I’m so sad for him and how life is messed up enough already and now he can’t even do the things that have been keeping him happy the last five months? It sucks SO MUCH.

The first day was pretty rough. Not because his arm hurt, but because the splint was wrapped so tightly around his hand, crushing his fingers into unnatural positions. It was bothering him so much that he started thinking his wrist might actually be broken too. We waited overnight on that one and it felt a lot better the next day, so I think it was just the splint, which we got permission to unravel a little bit. He’s proving to be incredibly resilient, not complaining about it at all, and not even asking for help with anything. He seems to be handling the one handed/left handed life just fine! It’s been more of a challenge helping him find things to do so he doesn’t just sit and watch youtube all waking hours, but for the most part he’s handling it quite well. He gets his cast on Tuesday and then we’ll hopefully find out how long it’ll be out of commission. I’m hoping we’ll get lucky and he can get it taken off before school starts, saving him from needing to write/type entirely left handed. But that’s probably too optimistic.

On Wednesday Greg was actually able to get into his office to clear out the rest of his stuff since he still doesn’t know when or if he’ll be going back to work (there). He took Caden with him after another horrific morning. (Car rides – the best punishment. :P) Shepard and I went back to my mom’s to hang out and to puppysit Herbie while Ollie went to the vet. They were both very full of kisses that day! I like that they recognize us and get so excited to see us!

On Thursday we were able to have a spontaneous date night, which was really great! We ordered from Monk’s and tried out another Sun Prairie park. Annie was with us and we went on a long walk after we ate. This is only the third time we’ve gotten out together since the pandemic started, so it was very much appreciated!

My garden is still slowly ripening up. Yesterday I was able to pick the first bigger tomatoes. I ate them today with mozzarella on an english muffin for breakfast, then with mozzarella plain for a snack, then on a BLT for lunch. And I’m going to cut them up and put them in ground chicken tacos for dinner. So tasty! I wish I were getting a bigger pepper crop, but my plants are still so small. Maybe I planted them too close together? Maybe I should have fertilized them somehow? Those are what I want the most, so it’s disappointing that once again I’m only getting one or two peppers per plant.

Meals were pretty spontaneous this week. I did have Peri Peri Chicken prepared for Monday, but that’s the night Shepard broke his arm, so it was thrown together late and not as prettily put together as I wanted. But it was still good – chicken marinade, basted, and dipped in a homemade roasted red pepper sauce. On Tuesday the in-law’s brought over stir fry. Wednesday I grilled cheddar wursts. Thursday we had our date night and Friday was a frozen pizza. I picked up more convenience food breakfasts at the store to try and cheer Shepard up, but also ended up making a banana bread scone recipe I’ve had my eye on for weeks. I made the original recipe and then made a second batch subbing in gluten free flour, coconut sugar, and hazelnuts for me. They were really good! Tonight I’m going to try and create some sort of fancy (“fancy” because I’m adding a bunch of garden vegetables to it) chicken taco meat to put on nachos, trying to use up a random pound of ground chicken I’ve had in the freezer forever and a bag of Mexican cheese that needs to get eaten asap.

Biking has gone pretty well this week, but I’ve also been riding for significantly less time each day. The week before I put in around 47 miles and this week I’m only at 27. But my knees have really been bothering me this week – I think it’s because of the TENNIS, not the biking, but I’m still trying not to overdo it. Fortunately the tension headaches have gotten so much better! Still a little bit each day, but not enough to really bother me.

The most exciting news of the week is that I finally pre-ordered a new bike! I’ve been spending a ridiculous amount of time researching bikes the last two months. I wanted something lighter and faster than my current beach cruiser, but my non-negotiable feature is that I NEED to be sitting upright or my body is just going to fall apart on me. And it’s pretty hard to find a bike that’s built for both comfort and speed. It’s also just really hard to find a bike, period. Add it to the list of the many, many things that sold out in like March and April and won’t be back in stock for ages. But after countless hours of stressing over it, I finally picked out the bike I wanted and ordered it last night. It won’t arrive until early December, but I’m hoping it’ll be worth the wait! I do have the option to cancel the order if I find something better in the meantime, but I’m so tired of researching them that I’m okay with waiting it out. I just hope there isn’t a massive blizzard in early December that’ll stop me from trying it out! It seems very cruel to have a new bike arrive when conditions for using it will be the worst. But many bikes aren’t even shipping until spring, so I’m lucky I found one I really think I’ll love that will come sooner.

That’s it for this week! I’m hoping next week will be much better! But it’s going to be a busy one. Probably the busiest we’ve had in months. My brother and his family are visiting for the week, so lots of time spent with them. Shepard also gets his cast on, I have therapy, we have a day of babysitting Hudson, I have a dentist appointment, and I’ll have to fit an errand day in there somewhere. There’s just a lot going on. BUT it should mostly be fun!

Have a good week!

Weekend Reflections 08.01.2020

This has been a really emotionally taxing week. I’ve been working through a lot and it’s left me a bit of a mess. I won’t get into all the details, but I’m trying to climb my way out of the pits. It would just be a lot easier if each day wasn’t bringing on new battles!

I believe I mentioned in my last post how I’d been suffering from one of the worst headaches of my life. I think stress is a big part of it, but being too tense on my morning bike rides is probably the main culprit. It’s SO discouraging to me how every time I get excited about some new physical activity that I think will finally change my life around, it causes a new negative issue with a different part of my body, kind of rendering all the benefits null. I’ve been loving my early morning rides so much that I never take a day off from them. But it’s wreaking havoc on my neck and shoulders so I finally forced myself to stay home on Tuesday, for the first morning in the month since I started. I was so angry at myself because I don’t want to start giving in to lame excuses and taking more and more mornings off without a really valid reason. But a whole lot of people told me that breaks are necessary and not to be so hard on myself and on Wednesday morning I actually started feeling a lot better. Now I’m trying to alternate long bike rides with shorter ones every other day. I’m still pretty tense and have a constant lingering headache, but it’s not as bad as it was last weekend.

I listed some dolls last Sunday as well and had more people than usual upset with me that they missed out on a doll they wanted. I had one customer in particular quite angry with me for having a restock a day earlier than I had mentioned “probably” having one to her the week before. (Which I genuinely forgot about, otherwise I would have given her a head’s up.) This is a frustrating aspect of owning your own handmade business that continues to wear me out. I avoid conflict like the plague. I hate having people angry with me. But I also really, really thrive on having my own creative freedom to make whatever I want, whenever I want, with zero outside pressure on me to perform to somebody else’s standards. Which is the main reason I almost never take custom orders and I refuse to make duplicate dolls. But I get tired of trying to explain that to upset customers, especially when so many other handmade businesses depend on making duplicate items as their main source of income. I just don’t want to do it that way. And I wish I didn’t always have to justify that to other people. The whole ordeal really messed with my motivation to start new dolls this week. I did end up making six, but it’s been hard to get myself to sit down and actually work.

We had therapy on Tuesday. It went shockingly well a few weeks ago, so we stupidly assumed it would go well again. It didn’t. At all. I won’t get into it, but it was a pretty sucky day. Fortunately our next session will be in person for the first time with this particular therapist. I think it will go better that way. Virtual therapy with a kid who can just walk out of the room whenever he pleases is just a recipe for disaster.

In positive news, however, I started reading the book The Road Back to You by Ian Morgan Cron. It’s about the enneagram – something I hear about all the time in my online circles. I’ve owned the book for quite awhile, but only finally picked it up because a small group of online friends invited me into a buddy read discussion with them about it. And I honestly think this is going to be the book that will make a bigger impact on my life than any other. One of the first chapters talks about one of the personality types that fits Caden to an absolute tee. You are not supposed to typecast your kids – or try to tell them what they are until they’re old enough to understand all of it, like late teens. But seriously, this was Caden. And it opened my eyes to an understanding of who he is that I have never, ever been able to grasp before. I was uncontrollably crying while I listened (I’m doing audio and physical book) to that chapter. I’m working on getting Greg to listen to it asap so we can maybe finally understand what’s going through Caden’s mind all the time and why he acts the way he acts. And maybe really come up with an effective plan to help him – FINALLY.

I started my week making a batch of donut muffins, with my newfound plan of always having breakfast foods on hand. Of course everyone ate them all in the first day, so it didn’t last! I did go to Costco, however, on Wednesday and picked up quite a few easy options. Not exactly healthy, but some weeks you just need to roll with it. This was our last week of getting free school meals, so my efforts will need to go up a notch next week.

On Monday I made carne asada on the grill. It was my first time grilling such a large cut of meat and it worked pretty well! I’m still not really a fan of steak, but I will eat a bit of it if it’s on a taco. Everyone else loved it.

Chicken wings on Tuesday. This dry rub is amazing. It will most likely show up in my next Friday Favorites!

The rest of the week I kind of gave up cooking all together. We had a Costco rotisserie chicken on Wednesday and on Thursday we ordered Mexican and ate it with Greg’s parents on their deck. I did make this beautiful chocolate ganache tart for dessert, though! It was fun making a fancy dessert – that used to be the only kind I made! Now I just make cookies or brownies, whatever is fast and easy. Yesterday Greg was finally able to pick up some of his things from work, so he also grabbed a Qdoba family meal for lunch. And tonight he’s getting Chinese because that’s Caden’s favorite and he always gets so disappointed when we pick up food from other places.

I continue to pick through my garden every morning to get the next few ripe tomatoes and peppers. I was really excited about that purple bell pepper! I thought none of my pepper plants were the same, but I keep getting so many weirdly shaped long light green ones on multiple plants. I’m not even sure what they are, I just cut them up and throw them into whatever I’m making that day.

I also had my own therapy session on Friday. Some weeks our talks are pretty surface level and some weeks they get a lot deeper. This week we talked a lot about body image and just trying to focus on being healthy rather than what you look like. It was a pretty triggering conversation. It’s frustrating to me how I’m exercising an hour, sometimes more, every single morning and it doesn’t seem to be making a difference yet. I have never consistently exercised and definitely never more than 15-20 minutes tops! It seems like I should be feeling and seeing progress! There are days I feel stronger – on the bike – but every day activities like walking around? It’s can still be so hard, which is pretty infuriating! My body continues to deceive me and I can’t seem to get out of this downward health spiral no matter how hard I try.

Anyway! It’s been a rough week. But maybe the kind of week I needed. It’s really helped to remind me I need to take better care of myself, every aspect of it. This weird pandemic season of life has been so, so hard. But it’s not all bad. I think I’m growing. I have a LONG way to go, but I’m giving it my best effort and I feel good about that.

Weekend Reflections 07.26.2020

Another week behind us in this weird pandemic existence. It’s been such a stressful week as we try to make a decision on what to do about school in the fall. Weighing the pros and cons of going full virtual versus a split week for Caden and a four day in person week for Shepard has been really overwhelming. Every time I feel confident in our decision somebody throws out another perspective I hadn’t considered and then I doubt our choice all over again. (Or it’s validated!) We haven’t turned in our final decision yet – we have until Friday – but I’m about 95% sure we’re going the all virtual route. I’m not happy about it. It’s going to be HARD. But it’s the only way I can guarantee my children will be as safe as possible. And other kids and teachers and our family as well. I wish I knew what all virtual will actually mean in terms of a time and workload commitment, but I guess we’ll find out in five weeks! I really hope a vaccine will come out soon and we won’t have to do this for an entire school year. My brain can’t even handle thinking about that possibility right now. Being home, all of us, all the time…it’s rough.

We visited the puppies on Monday! I liked how both of them immediately climbed into my lap and settled in. In reality, owning a dog that wanted to be held all the time would drive me absolutely insane. But it’s pretty sweet to visit them and have them cuddle up!

I had a farmers market pick up scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. My first in about a month. Instead of doing a grocery pick up as well I decided to go in a couple of stores, but it ended up being incredibly stressful. I normally only go in stores in the early mornings – in pandemic life AND in regular life. So I wasn’t prepared for how busy it was going to be. Then I had to make an extra stop because Caden was out of sunflower seeds and he can’t survive a week without them (he kept texting me “MY LIFE IS OVER!!!!). Then I had a very low tire and had to learn how to refill it for the first time. By then I was pressed for time on my Trader Joe’s run, which was supposed to be an extra special treat. And then I barely made it to the market on time. I was so upset that the one thing in the week I was really looking forward to turned into such a stressful disaster. I really miss when shopping was fun.

The boys have been fighting so much this week. They always fight a lot – because they refuse to EVER be apart from each other. But it’s seemed even worse than usual this week. I suggested a small field trip to the dam on Thursday after dinner. I somehow keep thinking a change of scenery will do us all some good, but it often makes their moods even worse. Caden calmed down, but was uninterested in the adventure aspect of the trip. Shepard enjoyed walking through the river until a giant spider landed on his hand and then he was traumatized. But Greg, Annie and I still thought it was fun to get out of the house and do something different for a little bit!

On Friday Greg surprised me by asking his parents to babysit for a few hours so we could have our second pandemic date night. We ordered Chili’s and went to a park to eat and walk around. I just picked the park on a whim from google maps and it turned out to be such a beautiful surprise! I’m definitely looking forward to walking around there again soon.

I didn’t take any pictures, but on Saturday morning my friend invited me over to walk around some trails near her house. I probably scared her a bit with how enthusiastically I jumped on that opportunity! It was really great to see a friend in person – it’s been almost two months since my last outdoor friend visit. And it was fun to walk around in another new and beautiful place too! Annie came with me and loved the adventure.

This morning I took the boys back to my parents’ again for another puppy visit. Six days was a long time between visits! They were both pretty sleepy today and much more interested in sleeping on the ground instead of us. But it was cute to watch them!

I biked all seven days this week for a total of 45 miles! I’m still loving it! There are certainly a few mornings here and there where I’m dragging my feet a bit more just because I’m not used to getting up early and immediately leaving the house. I much prefer getting up early and enjoying some peace and quiet at home before everyone else wakes up. But these bike rides are totally worth it. I love the days I’m out early enough to catch the pre-sunrise, but I get so frustrated at how poorly my phone captures the beauty! I’m pretty tempted to bring along my real camera, but haven’t done it yet. I bought a mirror so I’d feel more comfortable on the busier streets (though let’s be honest, “busy” in a very small town at 5am usually means I see three cars at most), but I can’t figure out how to secure it properly so it actually stays up. I also bought some bike cleaner and lube to try and learn how to take better care of it, but haven’t gotten around to learning about proper bike care yet either. The only downside of biking is that even though I’m in an upright pedal position, I’m still apparently tensing my neck and back quite a lot. I’ve been having daily headaches from it and today is one of the worst I’ve ever had. I still think it’s a worthwhile trade off, but I wish it didn’t happen at all.

I haven’t done quite as much sewing this week, but still managed to finish nine more dolls. I’ve been binging the show Manifest while I watch and I’m really into it!

I didn’t put a ton of effort into food this week. It’s just one of those things that I really care about or it’s the neverending responsibility that breaks me. There is rarely an in between!

We had a big batch of hamburgers, hot dogs, green beans, and pretzel buns on Monday night. Greg really likes the burgers from Butcher Box. This is the first time I tried their hot dogs and I didn’t like them at all. But I’m pretty picky about what kind of hot dogs I like and these didn’t fit the criteria. But now I know!

I used my new little espresso maker and try and replicate the salted caramel iced latte I always get at my favorite coffee shop. It was pretty close! I have determined that making full espresso drinks is actually a lot of work (lol), so I only have one every few days. I don’t even drink regular coffee every day, but I like to have the option!

I needed to use up some farm eggs I had bought on a whim before they expired, so I tried out this magic custard pie recipe one night. It was really good! I don’t normally make non-chocolate desserts, so it was fun to have something really different.

We ordered pizza and a calzone on Wednesday night. I love those calzones SO MUCH. They’re just amazing.

After my stressful shopping adventure I decided to try out an improvised cocktail using my new fancy maraschino cherries and liqueur. I don’t usually drink at all because I’m not so fond of alcohol and it’s not great for my liver problems! But I wanted to give it a shot. And….still not my thing (lol). But the cherries taste AMAZING on ice cream.

I used my farmers market produce and a couple things from the garden to make some fresh pico de gallo. I’ve been eating a lot of the tomatoes mixed with cut up string cheese, pepperoni, olive oil, salt flakes and fresh pepper. So good! And I used the zucchini to try a new brownie recipe, but was disappointed it ended up just tasting like chocolate cake. I’m not a chocolate cake fan.

Looking ahead, I can’t believe it’s already the last week of July. Normally I’d be thrilled that summer is officially 2/3 over, but I’m trying to really soak up these outdoor opportunities while I can this year. Now that we’ve decided to keep the boys home for virtual learning, I’m really dreading winter and those long cold months of truly feeling trapped. I need to make the most of these days while I can.

It feels like another busy week, with appointments or something on the calendar every day. Most of those will only be an hour or less of my time, but it still feels like a lot. Especially with how headachy and stressed out I’ve been lately. I’d love some truly lazy days, but I don’t think they’re going to happen.

My biggest goal this week is to get more on top of having pre-prepared snacks and meals around the house. We continue to have breakfast arguments every single dang day, though my struggles are usually with Shepard because he’s just not happy with whatever we have on hand or whatever the school gave him and he loves to make sure I know just how enraged he feels about it. Caden’s pretty much given up, he just won’t eat anything and I don’t even really care anymore. But like every struggle we have, I get sad or upset about it and then I pull myself together and figure out a way to do better. And as frustrating as this whole neverending food debacle is, the food making is still my responsibility so I need to try harder.

Have a great week, everyone!

Weekend Reflections 07.19.2020

This has been such a busy week around here! Probably the busiest we’ve had in months. Lots going on and many, many photos to share!

Last Sunday I was feeling pretty down and wanted to do something fun and different to brighten my spirits. It was the first somewhat cooler day we’d had in like four weeks, so we decided to go to the Token Creek Dog Park. It’s one of my favorite Dane County dog parks, and one of the two closest to our house. We hadn’t been there at all yet this year, so I was excited to get out and explore. The boys were not very cooperative, but I’m never surprised by this anymore. They don’t like doing anything outside of the house. So Greg and I tried our best to just ignore them and had a fun time walking around the park while Annie checked everything out and then we had a picnic before going back home.

Unfortunately, later that night Annie started acting a little off. We assumed she just got a bit overheated at the park, even though we weren’t even there for more than half an hour and she didn’t do that much running. But it was in full sun and she has long dark hair, so it still seemed like a logical conclusion. But on Monday she was clearly feeling worse, spending most of the day walking or sitting with her head hanging off to the side, not eating anything, and almost no energy. On Tuesday it was even worse and in the afternoon she started vomiting all over the house. Her stomach was pretty empty at that point, so it was mostly just bile, but then the blood started coming. I called the vet and was able to get her in immediately so I rushed her over and then spent two hours in my car waiting for the verdict. Her x-rays and blood panel came back fine, so at least it wasn’t anything that needed surgery. But we also really have no idea what happened, other than she PROBABLY ate something at the dog park. I took her back home with a bag full of meds and by the end of the night she wasn’t even walking anymore, Greg had to carry her around. It was pretty scary, especially after my mom’s dog passed away with similar symptoms just a few months ago.

I woke up Wednesday morning to a pretty horrific poop explosion in the family room and Annie still obviously feeling pretty awful. But with each day and each dose of medicine she’s been feeling a lot better. I wouldn’t say she’s 100% quite yet, but her appetite is back and she seems much more like her old self. I’m so glad I was able to get her to the vet so quickly because I’m not sure we would have had the same results without all the medication.

While the whole situation with her this week has been scary and sad, I’m also just really bummed that we probably can’t in good conscience go back to that dog park again. I’m pretty wary of going to ANY dog parks at this point because she probably just ate a random weed or something which could very well be growing all over the place! I purchased an annual pass when we were there on Sunday and I briefly felt elated that I now had another option of something fun and free to do that would get us, or at least me and Annie, out of the house every week or so. And then a day later that option was taken away. It really sucks!

I continued on with my early morning bike rides every day this week. Actually, there were two days that I had to postpone because of rain or storms, which is really annoying because I can’t tell those things are actually happening until I’m standing outside ready to leave! But I still got a ride in all seven days, which has been great! Earlier in the week my legs were really tired and then around Thursday it was like I suddenly graduated to a level of being just a bit stronger and it all came easier to me. But then it got super humid and gross, so yesterday and today’s rides were pretty short. I’m hoping to make up for it with an extra long ride tomorrow morning.

I’ve made twelve new dolls this week (one of my photos does not want to upload!) and had a restock on Wednesday, selling out within minutes. I’ve really been having so much fun now that I limit myself to making three at a time, completing a batch every day or two. But I still struggle with feeling like I’m not making enough or not making them fast enough. At the same time it’s like I literally do not know what else to do with myself anymore, so sewing is practically my whole life. It’s probably not very healthy. But it distracts me from feeling utter despair over the state of our world and our lives right now.

I was pretty on top of meals this week. I’m trying to get back in the habit of actually caring about what goes into my body, as well as using up as many random ingredients as I can before they go to waste. Most days I enjoy the challenge of seeing what I can cobble together. I made a delightful grilled bbq bacon jalapeno and roasted garlic pizza earlier in the week. We also grilled steak kebabs and I made roasted garlic and bacon mashed potatoes – my first time ever making mashed potatoes and I didn’t even use a recipe, but they were great! We had a giant pretzel from Milwaukee Pretzel Company for dinner that night I took Annie to the vet. I made a blueberry honey simple syrup for coffee drinks, though I honestly can’t taste the blueberry, so it was a bit disappointing. I also tried out my new espresso maker a few times. I need some practice making “official” drinks, but it works pretty well! I tried a new granola recipe that I really like because it’s the first one I’ve made that doesn’t taste too sweet. I have a lot of problems eating anything even remotely sweet in the morning without getting a massive headache, so I finally found a winner. It’s great with fruit! We needed more freezer room for our latest Butcher Box, so I made some banana bread, but with a gluten free flour mix this time. (A large chunk of our main freezer is filled with frozen bananas.) So good! Especially the third I made for me topped with lightly salted walnuts.

I forgot to take a picture of the actual meal, but last night I made a grilled Turkish chicken that we ate with curried rice, fresh tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers (all from the garden!), and a Greek yogurt garlic lemon sauce. For dessert we had fresh cherries topped with a mascarpone whipped cream, fresh mint leaves, and shaved dark chocolate. YUM. Caden told me multiple times over the evening that it was the best meal I’ve ever made.

On Thursday the boys and I went to meet my mom’s new puppies, Herbie and Ollie! She knew she was getting Ollie since he was a few weeks old, but Herbie was an added surprise. They are SO CUTE. Ollie is very snuggly and Herbie seems a lot more interested in playing. The boys were in love and back on a campaign to get their own puppies.

On Friday night Greg and Caden had a camping trip in his parents’ backyard. It was a reward for Caden FINALLY cooperating at therapy this week. I was concerned Shepard would be really upset about being left out, so we planned a fun night together too. We picked up some Burger King and then went over to play with the puppies some more! We plan on going over every few days whether they want us there or not so they get used to us!

We made it back home with just enough time to make popcorn and ice cream and watch A Dog’s Purpose together. Shepard listened to the audiobook recently and wanted to see the movie. Then in the morning we went on a short bike ride together. It was really fun! It’s pretty hard to get the boys to spend any individual time with me when they’re both home and distracted by their screens, so we should probably plan to split them up like this more often.

Today is my sisters-in-law’s birthday, so Greg and the boys went to Chicago to meet one of them for lunch and a walk around the botanical gardens. I wasn’t yet comfortable going into a major metropolitan area when I knew I’d definitely need to use public bathrooms multiple times, so I opted to stay home. I spent most of the day sewing, doing laundry, and cleaning. Which feels like a really dumb use of my rare alone time, but it’s so refreshing to clean a room and actually see it stay clean for a whole day, instead of just three minutes until Shepard grabs his next snack that half ends up all over the floor. I also picked up some Mexican for lunch. I love getting food from the place in town because it’s definitely enough for two very full and delicious meals! I added chile toreados to my usual order today and it was a great spicy addition eaten with the flautas.

Besides all the Annie stuff and one terrible night with the children, it was a pretty good week overall. I’m hoping this next one is a little bit quieter, though!

Weekend Reflections 07.11.2020

For the first 99 days of quarantine I was writing nightly instagram recaps of what I did each day and how I felt about everything going on. It was quite a cathartic ritual for me to process this extreme change in our daily lives on a much smaller and more personal scale than a long public blog post. My favorite thing to come out of that exercise was realizing just how much I do in a single day. I’ve always been cursed with constant feelings of “not enough” and it was so helpful to see that even though it felt like my entire life was reduced to just cooking and cleaning and cooking some more, I was still living a very full and productive life, even though it wasn’t exactly what I wanted or what I was used to. I stopped doing those nightly posts around the time I went into a store for the first time in three months. Quarantine was officially over about a month before that so it started to feel silly to keep counting the days after I had been doing a lot more regular pre-coronavirus activities. (Though going into one store a week isn’t exactly “a lot!”) I also started feeling like the days were becoming very monotonous and my mental health was taking another dive, so it was better to stop doing those nightly evaluations when I couldn’t think of anything positive to say anymore. I want to always be honest about what’s going on with me, but I also don’t want to come across as being whiny and ungrateful all the time.

In the last few weeks since then I’ve been pretty quiet on social media. I’ve been quiet in real life too. Summer is always the hardest season for me for so many reasons and it all just feels so amplified this year after already having the entire family confined to the house for three months before summer even began with three long months ahead of us and still no guarantee that any part of life will go back to normal come fall. It’s really overwhelming to this extreme introvert who only thrives when she gets a ton of alone time and space to exhale. Being caught in the middle of so much familial conflict and screen time noises and always having so many demands on my time and energy to cook, clean, and again cook – it’s really starting to get to me. I feel so trapped. I’m irritated with everyone all the time. I struggle to even know who I am anymore outside of these bizarre new circumstances we live in.

Fortunately, I am a fighter. And even though I’m prone to wallowing in despair more often than I should, I also like to problem solve and work on finding solutions to make at least my own life easier and better. Unfortunately, most of the solutions I’ve come up with in the last month have had unexpected negative consequences because my life is invariably linked to the three humans (and three pets) that live with me. Which is really frustrating. But I’m doing my best to just keep moving forward because what other choice do I have?

The best part of my life lately has been going on an early morning bike ride almost every single day. I started about two weeks ago and it quickly became the favorite thing I do. I’ve never, ever been a person who enjoyed exercise. But apparently I’ve just never found the right thing to connect with. I’ve also struggled greatly since breaking my ankle two and a half years ago and getting plantar fasciitis every single time I make a commitment to start walking more. Amazingly, biking doesn’t hurt my feet nearly as much as walking and my ankle seems healed enough (finally!) that it doesn’t hurt at all. My legs certainly get tired when I’m out – probably because I can’t seem to go a day without it right now. But the only lingering effects I have are feeling calmer mentally, feeling less restless physically, and sleeping more soundly (though so far not for longer lengths of time). There are ONLY POSITIVES. Okay, there are actually some negatives, like this morning when apparently one of our pets decided to open the French doors and go wake everybody up while I was out. All three of them get so hyped up when they see me ready to leave the house so early in the morning. It’s really annoying! Both Rory and Annie know how to open those doors to get upstairs if they work at it long enough, but the blame was still placed on me. My biking every morning also means that I’m too tired to go on our regular morning family walk, so those have just disappeared completely. Greg will often still take Annie, but he prefers to go on his own than try to force the boys to go with him when I’m not also trying to make them follow through on this four month long ritual. It really bothers me that I found something I’m enjoying SO MUCH with so many health benefits both mentally and physically, but it still means other things then fall to the wayside as a result. But I’m trying to just focus on how happy it makes me and go with that feeling for as long as I can! I really like going early because there aren’t many other people out (though surprisingly still quite a few at 5am in a very small town!), the streets are free of cars, it’s much cooler out, I can usually catch the sunrise – though my options for seeing it on a more rural road (for a better photo!) are pretty limited – and it’s just a great way to start the day.

I’ve also been taking a lot of joy in my garden this week! We’ve harvested all of our radishes, a big bouquet of broccoli, one huge cucumber, a variety of hot peppers, and our first two tomatoes. I usually check for ripe produce every morning after my bike ride and it always surprises me to find at least one new vegetable ready to pick every day. I’ve always loved the idea of gardening, but am terrible at following through on them. Since we don’t have much else to do with our time these days we’re really taking good care of it and I love seeing the fruits of our labor!

After a month of being more productive sewing dolls than I have in years, my sewing room was a bit of a disaster. I also had this corner that I used to use when I was bullet journaling and doing devotions every morning and night, but haven’t really sat down and used in probably a year. I wanted to make it more useful to who I am right now so I finally went ahead with a project I’ve been toying with for a long time – making my own drink station!

It took awhile to perfect how I wanted it to look, but I’m very happy with the results! Since I’m really the only one that uses it I decided to have a more minimalist look with only two mugs out at a time, even though I have quite a collection. If I’m ever allowed to have friends over again I’ll add in a fun mug tree display. I was also happy to finally find a good place to display this adorable little pebble family art that my best friend gave me.

The real winner of all my hot drinks is this Cosori electric kettle that my mom gave me for my birthday last year. I use it multiple times a day for tea or coffee. It’s amazing.

I usually drink more tea than coffee, so I picked up a fun spinning tea bag display to make it look a lot more organized. And of course some tasty syrups that I like to add to cold drinks.

My beloved little pour over pot is what I used most often. The Moka espresso pot is the only thing I couldn’t actually use IN my drink station area, but because I still wanted the ability to make fancy drinks I actually ordered a small real espresso maker. I haven’t taken it out of the box yet, but I’m antsy to set it up and give it a go! I will be a full on barista by the time people are allowed back into my house for visits!

Coffee grinder because I’m hoity toity and only drink coffee from freshly ground beans. My ember mug is my favorite for tea since it tends to take me so long to drink a mug. And a recent addition – a milk frother which is a total game changer. I actually whip up my regular creamer in there and it’s amazing. I also used it for salted caramel cold foam on top of a cold brew the other day.

The main addition was adding in a cute mini fridge! While I of course just wanted it for looks and convenience of having all my coffee items in one room, it also solved the problem we’ve had since quarantine of having more stuff shoved into our main fridge than we technically have room for. It’s amazing how much more space has opened up now that I took all my extra things out of there! Plus we have room for Greg’s soda again – he had to sacrifice that space awhile back. And of course space for my emergency chocolate supply!

I also bought this really cute set of three shelves to add some layering and dimension to the drink area instead of just shoving it all on top of the table. I ran out of things to display by the third shelf so I grabbed a rainbow of my favorite books and added this delightful candle which smells like blueberry pie.

Once the drink station was complete I spent another couple of days reorganizing and slightly rearranging my entire sewing room. The biggest difference was changing the direction of the table. My main reason for choosing to put it there is that I wanted to find out if I could carve out some space for an exercise glider I’m thinking about buying in a few months when it gets too cold and icy to do anything outdoors again. I think it’ll definitely fit, but for now I’m really enjoying how spacious the room suddenly feels! The table definitely looks more like a workspace now rather than any type of welcoming entertaining space, but who knows when we can entertain again so I need to make the room work for what I need now and this is perfect! I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of time in the last few days just staring at my beautiful room!

I also managed to make seven (one not pictured, I’m not that bad at math!) dolls in between everything. It feels like a bit of a disappointment after making at least 15 a week in the last month, but still better than nothing!

I have had some pretty decent alone time this week, so I shouldn’t complain too much. Greg and the boys went to his grandparents’ house on Sunday so I had about eight hours to myself, which was very much needed! I treated myself to some local Mexican food, which we haven’t ordered since Mother’s Day, I believe. So good! Their chile relleno is my ultimate comfort food. Then on Friday I had a grocery pick up, but made a point of ordering myself some lunch from Canteen for pick up as well. Remember right before all this started and I declared it my mission in life to hit up every taco restaurant in the Madison area? Canteen is definitely at the top and it’s been my favorite curbside pick up place I’ve tried because you can easily order online and the directions for pick up are very clear on where to park, who to text, and they rush it right out. They also have the most amazing arbol salsa, which I prefer to eat with their wagon wheel duritos instead of chips. Yesterday I had carnitas and barbacoa tacos and both were so delicious.

As for other food adventures this week, I haven’t been that energized about trying new things – it’s too hot. But after the millionth morning of the boys arguing that they hated the school breakfast food (another solution that has almost only caused more problems) I tried out a new recipe for chocolate peanut butter muffins that don’t have any flour or grains in them. I was really impressed by how well they turned out, but I probably wouldn’t make them again because it required a 1.5 cups of peanut butter and 3/4 cups of cocoa powder. That’s a lot of relatively expensive ingredients! The only really big dinner I made were grilled chicken shawarma and spicy potato and tomato skewers with a roasted garlic sauce. We did run out of propane halfway through cooking, but it was worth the wait! And on Friday we went to the in-law’s house and they ordered food which we ate out on the deck. Today I also made some pretty tasty grilled raspberry jam, bacon, jalapeno, and havarti sandwiches, but I forgot to take a photo.

Well, this is quite a reflection post, so I’ll leave you now with this photo of me holding up this cute rainbow unicorn bottle I bought a few weeks ago when I went into TJMaxx for the first time in 3.5 months! Happy weekend!

June 2020 Reflections

I think about writing all the time these days. But I never actually sit down and do it. It’s become abundantly clear that I can’t commit to posting any of my normal “content” with any regularity anymore and I constantly feel bad about it. I feel like if I can’t even keep up with those easily structured weekly posts, I shouldn’t jump in with anything random or different in the meantime. Which is pretty stupid considering I’m writing this blog mostly for my own enjoyment, so I can do what I want, right?! Right.

I did a quick search to see when I last wrote a monthly recap and it was November, so my inability to stay consistent happened long before the pandemic life set in. I’ve really been struggling a lot since November, trying to figure out who I am and what I want to do with my life. November is when I went to the Hope Writers conference and was re-energized with a deep and longing desire to pursue a writing career, something I gave up midway through college. By the end of December I cancelled my Hope Writers membership because the pressure to write for profit was too overwhelming. There are so many days where I’m just trying to survive (moreso now than ever!), I can’t handle trying to build a platform to launch an eventual writing career when I’m not even sure that’s exactly what I want. But giving up that dream – again – has made me really hesitant to write at all anymore. But I miss it. So here I am again, unpolished and prone to rambling. Ready to reflect on June!

June has kind of sucked, to be honest. It’s probably my least favorite month. Summer begins and long days of challenging parenting stretch out before me. Allergy season is at its worst and going outside makes me miserable. I’m usually mourning the loss of my beloved routine, but trying to make the most of a new routine so I don’t just sit around wishing the summer away. This year, though. Oh, this year. We’ve already been home all together, Greg included, for three and a half months. We have no idea what will happen with school in fall and we have no idea when Greg will go back to the office. So there is REALLY no end in sight and I’m struggling with it A LOT right now. I’m not finding many reasons to be optimistic and hopeful anymore. This is just my life now, indefinitely. And some days I really, really don’t like it.

It was actually a relief to finish out the school year after three months of trying to make this cobbled together online curriculum a success. There was a lot of sadness around the end as well. It was Shepard’s last year at his charter school and he missed out on so many amazing opportunities that were saved up for the final months. It was Caden’s last year in his school (technically he’s not leaving the building next year, but still) too. He loved his teachers so much. They both had such great friendships that really fizzled out after the first month of being home and trying to stay in contact via messenger. Like kids all over the world, they were robbed of some great memories in those final months of school and it was hard for me to just let those things go. I’m so sad for them and all they missed out on and all they’re continuing to miss out on now.

We were signed up for summer school before everything shut down and much to the boys’ annoyance, we kept them signed up even when we found out classes would still be held virtually. I thought it would be a good distraction for them and it would give me a little more time to do my own thing without constantly needing to entertain them. Oh, how wrong I was. That first week was SO stressful. They had all these big craft projects that required hours of work and me needing to keep digging through all my random boxes of supplies to build these projects together. And don’t get me wrong, it was actually really fun to do something creative with both of them, the three of us working together. But it was overwhelming to me how much time it took up – and that was just for one of their classes! There were also a few mix ups on which classes they were actually in. Eventually I sorted it all out and we dropped Caden out of two classes and Shepard out of one and now they’re both just in two classes and it’s all much more manageable. But this past week? I don’t have a clue what they did each day. If they needed help, they went to Greg. Or they just didn’t do the lessons, I don’t even know. There’s only one week left, so we will get through it.

I also signed the boys up for free breakfasts and lunches from school for seven weeks this summer. After countless arguments, mostly with Caden, about food in the last few months I thought it would be such a relief to get those extra meals (or at least snacks!) coming in that I wouldn’t have to think about or cook. What I wasn’t prepared for were the daily arguments about who is going to actually go to school to get the food. Shepard insists on knowing what’s on the menu before he’ll go, even though we’re getting the food no matter what it is. And pretty much every day he starts whining that “it’s so disgusting!” and refuses to go get it. The same meals that he was eating every single day when school was in session (or at least paying for…) he refuses to eat now. I’m eating most of their school lunches because I hate to let the food go to waste. Caden’s pretty good about eating whatever it is, but it’s not nearly enough to fill up him, so I still have to make him food anyway. The real challenge is trying to figure out what to do with four cartons of milk every day when none of us drink milk. I HATE wasting it, but I’m throwing most of it away because we just don’t have the fridge room to spare for something we don’t even want. Anyway, I realize I sound incredibly ungrateful for this free food – but I’m not. I just didn’t know it was going to cause more problems than it solved. And that’s on my kids.

One bright spot in June was having the opportunity to hang out with our nephew/cousin Hudson for a couple of days. It did cause some strife between Greg and I because we had to basically give up all the social distancing rules we’ve been trying so hard to enforce because two year olds don’t know how to keep germs to themselves. I thought the risk was worth it, but we did have to do a lot of reevaluating that week. Some days it seems like that’s all we’re doing. The world opened back up in the middle of May, but it’s only getting more dangerous out there. Weighing the risks and benefits of every single decision we make has really been stressful. We’ve just kind of had to come to terms with the fact that we’re still going to be as safe as we can be, but we have to open back up to the world a little bit at a time and respect each other’s choices. We’ve seen family more often and in closer proximity. I’ve shopped inside of a couple of stores for the first time since early March. Greg went to his great uncle’s funeral. The guys went to the pool for the first time this weekend. We have no plans to go to any large gatherings or events, probably for the rest of this year. We’re wearing masks when we go into buildings. We’re still just seeing family in outdoor settings. But we’re trying not to feel so completely confined to our home the way that we were March through May. I couldn’t take it anymore.

Oddly enough, I’ve actually been super productive with doll making this month. Around the end of May I was so stressed out trying to keep up production while also balancing all my family’s needs that I decided to take an indefinite break away from it. But it took me about two days to realize that I can’t walk away from my business. I NEED it. I just needed it in a more flexible way. In stepping back for about a week I figured out a new system that has been working crazy well for me. I only make three dolls at a time and I’m under no pressure to photograph and list those dolls until I have enough saved up that it feels worth my time to do all those listing steps. I love this new system because I’m seeing constant results, finishing three new dolls every 1-2 days. It also gives me more freedom because I’m kind of obsessed with making batches of similarly themed dolls and feeling like I have to list those dolls all together for the greatest impact. But now I’m finally free to make all these totally random themed dolls I always think I’m going to make but never actually have time for because they don’t fit into my larger picture. Now there is no larger picture! I also don’t have that stressful time crunch to finish dolls by the perfect time of day for photographing so I can list them immediately. Honestly, all these little changes have worked together to create the perfect production style for me. And I’m kind of addicted to it. I’m sewing all the time. I’m having so much fun with it. I’m being creative and reveling in doing something I feel so GOOD at, when everything else in my life seems to be falling apart. Granted, I could probably still step back a little bit and work on putting those other pieces back together. But…it’s hard to do that too. I like to be good at things. I like to have something that’s just for me. And I like a good distraction. Continuing to crank out these dolls every day has been awesome for me. Also – I don’t call it “work” anymore. I think I needed to call it that for a long time to try and justify why I gave it so much of my time, and why I was still staying home even though my kids were in school all day. But I realized I don’t need to justify myself to anyone anymore. This is just something I do because I love it. Yeah, it brings me in some extra money. But it’s a choice and an outlet and it brings me a lot of joy.

This is pretty new, but I also started biking this month. Thanks to my CBD oil, my plantar fasciitis actually seems to be doing a lot better, but I still can’t push it too hard on the walking or I relapse. But I need to do something active to counteract all the sitting I’m doing every day. Biking just might be my thing. It’s good exercise, but also fun! And I go alone so I can do it at my own pace. I have a love hate relationship with my beach cruiser bicycle, but I’m trying to see how reliably I can commit to this exercise before I seriously consider buying a different style of bike. I’ve only been biking every day this past week, but it’s been a highlight of my days.

Overall, June has been pretty rough. I feel like all four of us have been unraveling. We rarely have good days on the same days, which really sucks. It’s hard to imagine continuing to live like this for much longer. I miss time alone SO MUCH. I miss quiet rooms. I miss cleaning and having a space actually stay clean for more than five minutes. I miss shopping for fun. I miss eating at restaurants and going on dates. I miss planning vacations, especially the ones I take alone. I miss looking forward to fun events because there’s not anything to look forward to anymore. I miss seeing my friends and actually feeling connected to people face to face. I miss seeing my kids have fun with their friends instead of running away from the neighborhood kids in fear because of how hard we pushed the social distancing rules back in March. I also miss feeling like Greg and I are participating equally in our parenting roles. You’d think it could be more equal when we’re all at home all the time, but it hasn’t been the case. The boundaries have become even more blurred this month as the boys are constantly interrupting Greg while he works to deal with their technology problems. He’s helping them all day long and then he spends all night playing with them or watching tv with them. I cook for them. I clean up after them. But I rarely feel connected to them because they always just want him. He’s buried under the weight of their constant expectations and I’m left feeling like the outsider and relegated to the role of chef and house cleaner with no real connection to anyone. I feel like a failure ALL. THE. TIME. It’s been hard. I’m still searching for bright spots, but it’s becoming more and more challenging to reach those silver linings. Hopefully July will be better.

How I’m (Trying to) Survive Self Isolation (for now)

I’m going to jump right into this. You know what’s going on. And it sucks. Big time. Our family decided to start self isolating nine days ago now, on the night of Friday the 13th when they first announced school closures. We’ve had extremely limited contact with anyone since then. Greg took two very fast trips to the grocery store with a wipe in his hand for everything he touched. We’ve been to the dog park twice without touching any surfaces. We picked up school supplies on Tuesday in a drive thru. Shepard had very brief contact with some neighbor kids earlier in the week. And that’s it. It’s just us, at home, like so much of the world right now.

Also like much of the world, I feel like I’ve been on a ridiculous emotional rollercoaster this past week. The first few days were REALLY HARD. I was already really struggling after months of at least one extra family member being home for most of the week, week after week, because of random illnesses or bad weather. My routine hasn’t been “normal” since November. And my mental health has not been good. I’ve been working with a therapist to come up with ways to take care of myself and most of those solutions entailed leaving the house by myself. And then…this happened. I was not mentally healthy enough yet to deal with everyone home all the time with no place to go. I’m not handling it every well. But I’m trying.

After two weekends with a week in between, I think I’ve come up with a pretty good plan to survive this. To be totally honest, MY life hasn’t really changed that much since I work at home anyway. My social life was pretty limited to 1-2 gatherings a month, so it sucks not to have that anymore, but it’s also not a huge change. I just can’t ESCAPE. I can’t go shopping. I can’t go out to eat. I can’t go on two (probably three, maybe four) trips I had planned in the next few months. I realize that so many other people have had to cancel and postpone much more monumental events. I’m not trying to compete with that. It sucks for EVERYONE. But considering this isolation period will probably last weeks – most likely months – I need to have a concrete list of ways I can fight back to find the good in all of this. So here’s what I’ve come up with so far.

Follow a Schedule

My kids think this is the worst thing in the entire world. But after the first few days of working out the kinks last week, it made all of our lives SO much better. We all do better with knowing expectations, having boundaries, and following the same routine day in and day out. My initial schedule was a bit too rigid, but we reworked some of the time blocks so the boys have about an equal amount each day of screen time, “learning” time, free outdoor play time, family walk time, and quiet reading and art time. I’m sure no one will be surprised to hear that learning time has been the most difficult. They will have real school lessons starting up in a week, so I’m sure we’ll need to adjust things again depending on how many hours their teachers expect them to be present. But I think this is the best way for all of us to survive. I can really vouch for that after having a “normal” weekend of basically unlimited screen time and me feeling totally overwhelmed and sad and trapped again. I didn’t feel quite so helpless when we were following the schedule during the week.

Walking as Much as Possible

We have two daily walks on our schedule every day. And for the most part we’ve followed those, though we did have a lot of both rain and snow this past week. Greg and I have also gone on occasional walks alone when one of us needs to get out of here. Annie is getting a lot of exercise! Everyone always says that exercise is the best way to reduce stress and I’ve never craved that outlet as much as I have this past week. Today we even changed things up by hiking around a (deserted) county park. The boys were NOT happy with it (less screen time), but it made me feel a lot better to do something a bit more rigorous and in a new setting.

Writing A LOT

Though I’ve been very quiet on the blog, I have been writing a lot in other places. Mostly I’ve been keeping up an ongoing daily log of the changes that are happening in the world and how our family is dealing with it all. Just a private space that only I’ll ever see where I can vent out everything in my head. I’ve also been writing in an actual journal every morning and adding a list of ten things I’m thankful for, trying to get in the right headspace for the day. And most nights I write some sort of public instagram post about how that particular day has gone, which helps me feel like I’m being heard and connects me to other people with my honesty.

Quiet Time

During my normal life, during the school year, I take a nap almost every afternoon. I always feel like I need to justify that fact with a reminder that I get up at 4AM EVERY DAY. And this past week? I’ve barely been sleeping at all. I’m allowed to take a nap! I know for an absolute fact that I will not survive this isolation period if I can’t also isolate MYSELF for a chunk of time every day. I’m also trying to enforce individual quiet times for the boys too, even though they keep wanting to sneak into each other rooms. They fight nonstop, but also can’t seem to stay away from each other. The boys have a 1.5 hour time block in their rooms for reading and art followed by 1.5 hours of screen time. So that gives me THREE hours to myself every afternoon. It will be my lifesaver.

Make Big Meals

This is maybe the most stressful part for me. The expectation of needing to feed four people three meals a day, while also monitoring all their snacks, for an indefinite amount of time in the future. Also – THE DISHES for all those meals. It’s so much mental gymnastics trying to figure out how to use up the most perishable food first at every meal so we’re not wasting anything and prolonging trips to the store for as long as possible. My only real solution to this is that whenever I do make a new meal, make it as large as possible so it’ll last at least two or three more meals in leftovers. I was very overwhelmed by this last weekend, but it’s becoming more of an enjoyable puzzle each day, getting creative with the food we have on hand. Though I do really miss running to the stores for random ingredients for special recipes. My plan right now is simple and big.

Sprinkle in Some Take Out

I wasn’t sure how I felt about this at the start, but I’ve done some more research on how unlikely it is to catch coronavirus from having a no contact delivery food experience. It feels like a safe option. It’s also a huge morale booster. And it helps support our local small town restaurants for as long as they’re open. So far we’ve gotten a pizza and Mexican food. As long as they’re open we’ll probably continue to order about twice a week.

Being Creative

Lucky for me, being creative is my job. At first I considered closing my etsy shop all together for the time being because I was worried it would be too much added pressure. Now I’m realizing it might be the absolute best option for keeping myself sane. I’m mostly just sewing during the boys’ learning time, so we’re all doing something productive at the same time. But I’ve spent a few nights doing it as well. I’m not putting any pressure on myself to produce a certain number of dolls a week or anything, I’m just using the creativity to keep me happy. I’m also looking forward to trying some other craft projects I always put on the back burner and maybe even picking up one of the many coloring books I have, but never actually use.

Talking to a Therapist

I really picked a good year to start up online therapy! Yikes. I mentioned this a few posts ago, how I signed up for therapy through the company BetterHelp. I connected really well with the therapist they assigned me and it’s been such a positive experience so far. It’s so nice knowing I have that impartial person to talk through all of this with. She’s helping me problem solve a lot of the issues that have popped up. And she’s really helping me deal with how much anger I’ve had at certain people for not taking everything seriously. I know it probably feels like a frivolous expense in such uncertain times. But if you’re really having a hard time, I think it’s worth it, even if you only sign up for a few weeks or a month. With daily conversations it could really do a world of good to change your perspective.

Meditation

To be honest, I’m not so great at this. But I’m also on day 47 of a meditation streak using the Calm app, so I’m not giving it up. I still have a very hard time concentrating, but I’m committed to the effort. I like this app in particular because there’s a new 10ish minute meditation every single day, so I never have to think about what I want to do, I just sit down and do it.

Drink Tea

I am trying to train my brain to see tea as an ultimate form of comfort and self care. It’s fast and easy to make, it’s cheap, it forces you to slow down for a few minutes, and once you find a few kinds you like, it’s really quite delicious (and calorie free!). I try to drink at least four cups a day and it’s my go to every time I need a little warmth and comfort.

Reading

This one is NOT going so well. It’s been so hard to concentrate. But I’ll never give up on reading! It’s been more frustrating that I don’t seem to be connecting with most of the books I pick up. I’m dnf-ing quite a few. But then a book comes along that I like and it’s a great distraction. I’m hoping as we all settle into this new normal reading will once again become the great joy it’s always been to me. In the meantime, I might just keep rereading all of my favorites because they’re a surefire way to bring me hapiness.

Connect with Other People

I’m going back and forth on social media lately. On one hand, it seems like so many more people are connecting on deeper levels since this all began. Everyone has more time to read and write more honest posts and support for each other has been a lot more prevalent. But I’ve also had days this week where it felt like other people’s comments were being directed at me which I took very personally and kind of lost it. I don’t handle my feelings being invalidated very well. Even if it wasn’t intended to poke at me, I certainly felt like it was. I’ve also been getting incredibly angry at people who are continuing to live their lives the way they always have and taking unnecessary risks. But for the most part it’s been a positive space lately. I’m also trying to stay in contact with my friends. And of course family.

Celebrate the Things You’d Normally Celebrate (and maybe a little more)

St. Patrick’s Day is one of my favorite holidays, but it really got lost in the midst of all the chaos this year. Fortunately I had already picked up my box of Lucky Charms, so the leprechauns were able to make their annual trek to leave it out for breakfast. And I made an effort to make a festive dinner that night. Tomorrow is Annie’s 5th birthday and Caden’s 11.5 birthday (we’re big on half birthdays around here). I’m making chicken tacos at Caden’s request and will come up with some sort of dessert for him. I’ll probably try to find some kind of dog treat cake to make Annie as well and we’re planning a trip to the dog park to celebrate. I’ve been buying things online so I’m fully prepared for all our normal Easter festivities, minus the time with extra family. And I’ve been trying to put together a nice selection of gifts to send my sister-in-law whose bridal shower is (I assume) definitely not going to be happening in a few weeks as planned. Even though life is totally crazy right now, I’m trying to remember to celebrate all the things I’d normally celebrate while also making an effort to help other people celebrate as well. We could all use a little more cheer to get through these hard times.

Lower all Expectations

I hope it’s obvious from my list that while I’m trying to find many ways to bring joy and normalcy to our life right now, my expectations are still quite low. Caden is really struggling with the indefiniteness of everything being so uprooted in his life. Shepard, as the most social of us (by far!), is really struggling with not seeing his friends, especially all of those that are running around right outside our windows. Greg is probably struggling working in such a distracting environment and not being able to leave the house for a job he enjoys. I’m struggling with the constant noise, constant arguing, constant need to prepare, make, and clean up after meals. The messes that are never full cleaned up, the enormous piles of laundry waiting to be folded, the inability to do any of the things I really love doing that nurture my soul, and the disappointment of so many trips being cancelled. But I’m also enjoying how much longer and freeing my days feel, without any real plans or restrictions. I find myself actually WANTING to exercise and really enjoying every chance I get to walk around outside. I hope that if I continue to focus on the things I CAN control, I won’t be so overwhelmed by all the things I can’t. And that somehow, we will all come out of this devastating pandemic for the better.

Saturday Reflections 02.22.2020

I think I need to start writing more. My emotions around writing have been all over the place since early November when I went to that writing conference. I went from being totally committed, to feeling completely inadequate, to deciding writing doesn’t really fit into my current life goals, to circling back to the realization that I NEED to write. For ME. And I’m going to start showing up for this little corner of my world again because it feeds me in a way that nothing else can. So hello. I’m back.

The last few weeks have been really hard. The short of it is that winter is killing me. Whittling away at my soul by taking away my inability to spend time outside, making me feel cold and uncomfortable ALL THE TIME, to keeping all the gross sick germs circling around every building, to keeping my family members home SO MUCH OF THE TIME and equally losing their own souls. I’m over it. The last two weeks have been particularly hard on me because Caden was sick and then Greg caught it and was even sicker for even longer. The pressure was SO high for me to stay healthy so I could pull off Valentine’s Day as well as a week’s worth of birthday festivities for Shepard. I literally could not afford to get sick. And now today, when it’s finally all behind me, I expected to feel relieved and relaxed and excited. Instead I feel like my entire body is just shutting down. I’m so tired and irritable and sore and bleary. Can it just be spring already? Can I be whisked away on a solo vacation to properly recharge without all the constant responsibilities of home and work? February, I am so over you.

Valentine’s Day was actually a really great day. I bought the boys festive donuts for breakfast and then had an early morning therapy session before heading to a friend’s house for a coffee/cheese plate brunch. As much as I like my always open chat room with my therapist, I’m finding our weekly live sessions even more valuable. That alone put me in a pretty good place, but seeing my friends (and getting out of my house after Greg and Caden being sick the whole week!) really helped too. I made plenty of time that day to take care of myself with an afternoon nap and pockets of time throughout the night to read one of my favorite books.

I made a much larger cheese and chocolate plate for our dinner. It was a bit much for me after only eating cheese and chocolate all day already, but the boys think it’s just the coolest meal. Greg joined us at the end of the table, even though he was literally shaking because his fever had come back with a vengeance. Not a good week for him!!

On Saturday the extended family was in town, so we split our afternoon between families. (Greg stayed home.) The boys were having a blast playing with Hudson! I really enjoyed watching a 2 year old’s version of hide and seek! We had dinner with the in-law’s then, which was really nice as well.

We moved Shepard’s birthday party to my in-law’s house on Sunday morning since Greg was still feeling so awful on Friday night and we didn’t want to risk it. I have to say it was really nice not needing to prep a whole lot (lol)! I made french onion dip, Cindy had tons of fruit, my mom made veggie pizza and punch, and we ordered a bunch of pizza and boneless wings. I made Shepard a cookie dough ice cream cake that looked beautiful, but turned into a soupy mess by the time I cut the first piece. It was good, though!

This was the only selfie I got with Hudson this trip. He’s a pretty active toddler! Plus I can’t just grab him and force him to take a picture (in my defense he was HANDED TO ME for this one!) the way I could when he was a little baby!

The boys didn’t have school on Monday for Presidents Day. They basically just never have school on Mondays in January and February. It’s SO ANNOYING. Technically, I mean, they have had school. But at least one of them has also been sick every school Monday the last two months. Which is super frustrating to me since Monday is my favorite day of the week to run errands, get lunch out, and celebrate five days ahead of feeling some sanity and accomplishment. When I don’t have my Mondays, I get very grumpy. This Monday in particular was frustrating because we had plans to go to the Dells for Shepard’s birthday dinner at Moosejaw. Instead we had another six inches of snow pile up in the afternoon. Trapped again!

Shepard’s official 9th birthday was Tuesday! He wanted donuts for breakfast, so a cheap pack of mini donuts from Pick n Save that I picked up Monday right as the snow started was the best I could do. I made little edible cookie dough cups for his school treat.

We made a spontaneous decision to go to Moosejaw on Tuesday after Shepard opened his presents. In hindsight, it wasn’t the greatest decision since it essentially meant spending most of the night in the car. Plus Caden was NOT happy about it and made sure we all knew it. Caden hasn’t been happy about any birthday things, no surprise. But the food was good and I think Shepard enjoyed it.

We had Shepard’s birthday brownies on Wednesday night.

On Thursday I ran a lot of errands, but also picked up two new plants and repotted some of my others. I’m so terrible at taking care of plants, but I really like having the live greenery around the house.

Yesterday I had morning therapy again and then met a friend for coffee. Then I threw about the lowest key birthday party I’ve ever had. I didn’t want to do a friend party. I thought we were over these. Shepard didn’t have one last year because we were in Florida, so it seemed a logical time to stop having them (he really didn’t like his the year before because it was too crazy and wild). But he took things into his own hands and invited people over, so…we had a party. I made tacos and a donut tower and the small group of kids mostly played Fortnite and laughed at their own boy jokes. I think he had a great time.

Today has kind of been a waste of a day. I did take care of a lot of lingering computer tasks I’ve been putting off for ages right when I woke up. I listed some dolls. And then I took Annie to the dog park for the first time in weeks. After making lunch I went upstairs and spent three hours reading/sleeping in bed! Greg took Annie for an hour and a half walk during that time, so she is totally blissed out right now. I wish I could love exercise even a fraction as much as she does! I’m still totally failing on that front thanks to my stupid plantar fasciitis. But I think it’s MAYBE getting better. Maybe by the time real spring weather hits it’ll be gone! Fingers crossed.

I think that’s a pretty sufficient update on how the last few weeks have gone! I might possibly be back tomorrow with INTENTIONS. Maybe it’s time to start easing them back into my life…