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Monday Musings 10.14.24

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We took a day trip to Mystic, CT on Saturday. After some aquarium fun (I love the penguins), we wandered around Olde Mystik Village for some shopping and snacks and ended up in an artisan honey tasting room (words I’ve never put together before, haha!). Lil Momma had a whole moment when trying some of the “hotter” ones and I was able to find a few to buy and try out at home: lemon honey, ginger honey, and salted caramel honey. We are trying the ginger tonight as part of a stir fry! My arch/ankle saga has gotten a bit worse, sigh. The PT is definitely helping “raise” my fallen arches, but has also identified that I stand on the outer edges of my feet (no wonder balance is hard for me) so we are doing lots of work on that, too. The new challenge, though, is that I seem to have torn/strained my right peroneal tendon and have a ton of swelling in that ankle, which is also stiff any creaky. I’m off to an orthopedist who specializes in feet in a week or so, so hopefully I can get back to wal
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on september and sleep

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Instead of deep diving how I cried at my yearly physical only for the doctor to tell me I’m not sleeping enough ever since the double hit of Lil Momma’s scared freak outs and getting up earlier for middle school (sigh), I’ll just note that I’m focusing on sleep hygiene and personal routines / rhythms in October and recap last month. This mummy Hello Kitty is my stand in, haha! As for my September 16 … I’m super proud of myself! It was a hard and exhausting month but I was able to take some great steps to taking care of myself (and my to-do lists): 6 habits  Wk1 ✔️; Wk2 ✅; Wk3☑️; Wk4 🏁 Shower every morning  ✔️✔️✔️_✔️_ ✔️✔️ ✅✅✅✅_✅✅ _☑️☑️_ _ ☑️☑️ _ 🏁🏁_🏁🏁_ Drink water every morning  ✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️ ✅✅✅✅✅✅✅ ☑️☑️☑️☑️☑️☑️☑️ 🏁🏁🏁🏁🏁🏁🏁 Have a vegetable every day _ ✔️_✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️ _✅_✅✅_✅ ☑️☑️_☑️☑️☑️☑️ 🏁🏁🏁🏁🏁🏁🏁 Take a walk every day  ✔️✔️✔️_ _ ✔️✔️✔️ ✅✅✅_ _✅✅ _☑️☑️_ _ ☑️☑️ _ 🏁🏁_🏁🏁🏁 Read a book every day ✔️✔️✔️✔️_ ✔️✔️✔️ _✅✅✅✅✅✅ ☑️☑️☑️☑️☑️☑️☑️ 🏁🏁🏁🏁🏁🏁🏁 Do 3 workouts each
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recent reads roundup

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  The “recent” is probably not accurate in this case; it’s been a bit since my last reading roundup. But, here’s some thoughts from the last few months’ worth of books! Marple: 12 New Mysteries  3.5 ⭐️ When they worked, they worked. I really wanted to like these more than I did. Agatha Christie’s Jane Marple books were formative in my lifelong love of mysteries. I love the idea of 12 women authors putting their spin on Miss Marple as she ages, but it made me miss Christie’s specificity in places. These were written for the twist and I think that’s what let some of them down.  The year of living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country  by Helen Russell  3⭐️ I liked the first half better than the second half… The conceit was so compelling (burnt out writer goes freelance in Denmark and explores what makes Danes so happy), but the execution got bogged down in balancing the memoir aspects with reporting on the reality of Danish life. I’m glad I read it, but it wasn
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five random catch-ups

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One  Lil Momma is having a  better   time   at   school . She finally got a locker last week! It is nice to hear her talk about having lunch with new friends and not coming home wrecked by aggressive kids in her class like last year. She isn’t as excited about this, but I’m happy to see homework and quizzes and all the things that give her the structure she needs get moving.   Two  We were also able to come to a compromise on  her  bedtime   nutties . See, they started because she watched all 3  Annabelle  horror movies with a friend Labor Day weekend (after never having seen anything scary in her whole life – like, she just watched  Jaws  this summer) (I have so many feeling about this but this isn’t the moment for them) and her solution to her very valid nighttime fears were to A. get herself so riled up at night so she wouldn’t fall asleep and B. to then try to sleep with her door open literally every light in her room on, so even the sleep she was getting wasn’t great. We were all
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a mother’s afternoon thoughts

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  Thanks to everyone for their kind words about Little Mama’s school start bumps. I kept waiting to write this week thinking things would get resolved, but they just kept going on (and on). They even threatened to randomly select kids from her team to move if they didn’t get enough volunteers (oof). She left her   Elf the musical Jr.   audition convinced she’d never get in because she isn’t one of the competition team kids. All of her dance and musical theater and voice classes started. My work drama is about to come to a head next week. Things just keep happening     Then, this afternoon, my phone blew up with texts because there was a shelter in place at the high school across the street from LM’s middle school. There was a threat of a fight with a weapon; luckily no one was hurt. I’d say nothing happened, but those kids went through that experience and so did their parents and they’ll carry that weight of knowing what could have been , especially after what happened last week down S
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school dazed

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I expected this week to be frantic, but I didn’t expect it to be so messy. Oof. A quick roundup of what’s been up over here via  middle school  edition of the  Friday   Five .   One: Team / Class Assignment Day In preparation for the school year to begin, we usually receive homeroom/team assignments the middle Friday in August followed by class schedules in the parent app the following week. This is quite the stressful day for Lil Momma; she has never ended up on a team with a friend and it’s always a lot of feelings, made more feelingsful this year because of the move to middle school. The assignments were supposed to  come out at 5pm . My plan was to pick LM up from YMCA camp at 3:45, go get dessert first, and then to navigate the feelings together as the Mr. and I checked each team’s post on social media for friends in her classes (or, as is the way with tweens, frenemies and nemeses, too).   BUT,  PLOT   TWIST : the email came out  at 3pm ! The Mr. and I jumped on the posts while o
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September Sixteen

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  I have so much blog catching up to do. Lil Momma turned 11 and starts middle school on Wednesday. The Mr. and I celebrated our 19 year anniversary. Summer kind of spiraled and so did I with the stressful work situation ( which should be resolving in the next few weeks ), getting ready for school and after school activities, and looking at all the things I wanted to get done this summer that just didn’t happen.  I keep trying to write about those things, but I get brain freeze. It’s all just so heavy and so much   Instead, I’m just going to allow myself to move on and talk about what I’m doing in September. I was talking to one of the women on my team who has just bought her first house and I reminded her to take care of herself alongside of everything on her list. I think I was super cliché and told her to treat herself like a plant and remember that she needs sunshine and water and someone to say nice things to her every now and then . And that’s exactly what I need to do for myself
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