I had a really good day today. The funny thing is, it was almost identical to any other day as far as my activities were concerned: – I went to The Dailey Method for my class. – I did some grocery shopping. – I talked to a couple of friends on the phone. – I worked. – I drank tea (duh). – I tried not to let my dog drive me insane. In fact, with the exception of the grocery shopping part, that list pretty much encompasses almost every single one of my Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Why was it so good? I have a few ideas: –…
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Couch Potatoes.
Ten days after J was born, Jim started his first civilian job after fulfilling ten years of service in the Navy. The new job was about ninety minutes from our house in Wisconsin and so in order to avoid the commute in his first weeks of working long hours he lived away from us Monday through Friday and came home on the weekends. This lasted for seven months—much longer than we originally anticipated—due to the fact that it took us that long to sell our house. J was a fairly easy-going baby and D, at around three years old, was a great helper. Although it was definitely difficult spending five…
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Just Noh.
I’m in a mood this afternoon, because I scheduled a workout for 4:30 p.m. and one of my least favorite things to do is drag myself away from whatever I’m doing to go take an afternoon class. I used to do my workouts mostly in the evening or at 5:30 in the morning almost exclusively, so it’s not like I’m new at this, but I’m a creature of habit and changing up my schedule today hurt. I’ve grown quite accustomed to doing my 8:30 a.m. class and then being finished for the day. Actually, the fact that this is bothering me so much really tells me that I probably need…
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Survival Skills
There’s a saying about how Chicago has only two seasons, winter and construction*. My little corner of my western suburb has been experiencing construction year-round for nearly two years now (even through the winter months), thanks to a gutting and extensive reconstruction of a major state route that happens to be one of the few roads that runs through my entire town from all the way north to all the way south. By the way, that state route happens to border my subdivision. The city planners back in the day had absolutely no idea that eventually Naperville would be the fifth largest (by population) city in Illinois and naturally, didn’t…
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Return To The Chicago Food Swap
Yesterday, as my title indicates, I returned to the Chicago Food Swap. I used to attend monthly, but it’s been literally a year since I could get my schedule to mesh with the monthly weekend. Yes, it’s a weekend commitment for me. The Chicago Food Swap may only last two hours or so on a Sunday afternoon, by my usual M.O. is to spend the entire day before in my kitchen because I can’t keep from overdoing it. Even though I was SO! SICK! of my kitchen by Saturday night… …I survived my marathon baking session and made it to Sunday. Shew! My sister and I headed to the Broadway…
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Sunday Reading
I’m super happy it’s Sunday for many reasons, not the least of which is that today being Sunday means that tomorrow is Monday, and Monday is the day Roxie finally gets her stitches removed so we can put the Cone of Shame away. It’s been a long week and a half. As much as I wanted to give her breaks from her post-surgical collar, she couldn’t last longer than thirty seconds before making attempts to lick where her stitches are. So annoying (for BOTH of us, I get it!). On Friday night I took the collar off and distracted her for a good twenty minutes by giving her a much-needed…
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Ring Ring
You know how you wake up on a Saturday morning and although you have a busy day of baking planned, you’re excited to write your NaBloPoMo Day fifteen blog post but you decide to get some of your other necessary tasks out of the way first, like working out and some of that baking? And you know how you end up being in the kitchen for five hours in the afternoon because you forgot that the very worst part of participating in the Chicago Food Swap (something you haven’t done for a year because it wasn’t meshing well with your schedule) is that you simply lack the ability to ignore…
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Tea For Two. Or Four. Or Sixteen.
Have I mentioned how much I enjoy tea? Oh, right. Because I haven’t shut up about tea for nearly a month now, one of my friends—who I haven’t seen in forever—sent me a Facebook message saying that she wanted to go to Teavana with me. Again, this post is not sponsored. I could think of nothing more fun than meeting her at Teavana, getting her completely addicted to their tea, and then heading across the mall for a bite to eat so of course I said, “Absolutely!” Sabrina and I met as planned, grabbing a sample of tea on the way into the store. The whole time I was in…
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Stepping Out.
I am all about stepping out of my comfort zone these days. I haven’t always been that way and it’s still not always easy but I firmly believe that many of the things I have and things I am able to do have resulted from my “getting uncomfortable” at times, and setting things in motion somehow, by either taking action or just putting the ask out there. I just realized that this week marks the thirtieth anniversary of the day I put the wheels in motion for the thing that has affected just about every element of my life ever since: my marriage. Thirty years ago this week I ended…
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Those Shoes.
I smile a lot. I know, it can be sickening to the people of the world who aren’t so happy-go-lucky. Sorry/not sorry. I just try to spend lots of time appreciating the little things as much as the big things. Here’s one little thing that always always always makes me smile, no matter how many times I’ve seen it–and I’ve seen it hundreds of times: Those are Jim’s shoes (Keen sandals) on the garage floor right behind his car. He wears those shoes from the house out to the garage, where he pulls his bike off of the ceiling hooks and leans it up against the brick wall outside. Then…