not necessarily in this order

  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...

  My brain is shot lately, it seems. I read blogs and think of comments but don’t type them and whoosh - they’re gone. I have blog posts to write ( back to school prep, Lil Momma’s birthday next week, how to work when work feels awful ), but I can’t get my head around them.  I’ve been super inspired by the lists on Engie’s 20th blogiversary guest posts, and Birchie , and Tobia , and whoever else I’ve read and just can’t put a name to, so I grabbed the first 10 prompts from here to just help get some words out of my head.  What’s your favorite sandwich and where did you eat it? I used to work as a Home Depot cashier during grad school in the lumber department by an open door - it was so cold in the winter! I’d drive to the mall on my lunch to go to the Brigham’s in the food court and get a grilled cheese on sourdough and fries (extra crispy) and that grilled cheese was EVERYTHING! Made on a griddle, so crunchy and melty and salty and cheesy. Just perfect.  What’s y...

We really did have a great time in NH. We did everything on our list: We saw waterfalls! We went on rides! We went out to breakfast! But, as a lot of things do right now, the whole thing felt so shaky and precarious. We are in one of those weird seasons where everything feels so wrought with meaning because it’s all the firsts – our first NH vacation where we didn’t have to wait for a call about my mom or have me on the phone with an ER or nurse. It puts a weird “supposed to” energy on things because we no longer have this elephant in the room, but we also are still finding our balance in this next part of life. So, when the boarding place called to say Bella might have a UTI but they weren’t worried about it, it was like muscle memory to start worrying.    <<this part isn’t too graphic, but it just talks about pet ick a bit, so SKIP THIS NEXT PARAGRAGH if you need to, but know Bella was sicker than a “don’t worry about it”, sigh.    A few months ago, Bella had...

  Today started off with an oof as the breakfast place we went to (and had gone to when LM was younger) is now a Mexican restaurant now. So much for nostalgia! We grabbed egg sandwiches from Dunks and headed to  Santa’s Village , this wild mix of holiday nostalgia, rides, Christmas music, and Scandinavian storefronts. The Mr. and Lil Momma love Christmas and rides, so this is a must on our New Hampshire vacations. While not as much my jam, I do very much love seeing how much they love it here. We got to ride the new rollercoaster, ate  gingerbread, and had a great time riding rides and humming random Christmas carols. I even pushed myself out of my comfort zone and tried out the Ferris wheel again after having a full on panic attack so bad they had to stop the ride 5 years ago. (True story.) On our way out, sigh, the Mr. had a text saying Bella (our 10 year old Morkie who is being boarded back home) may have a UTI, which sent me into a bit of a tizzy. We are headed home t...

  Last year, we were supposed to take the  Cog railway  up Mount Washington (6,288 ft), but we ended up bailing out on the vacation early and drove home in a downpour. Not this year! We grabbed a hotel breakfast (and then better coffees at Starbucks; Lil Momma got her favorite hot chocolate with a shot of caramel) and then headed to the train.  It was a whole experience! They have a tour guide who both “narrates” your summit ride and return with what you’re seeing on the mountain including the NH range, flowers and trees, the Appalachian Trail, etc. We also had unusual clearness and could see Maine and Vermont!, but also about the railway itself: its history, how the biodiesel and steam engines differ, and how the tracks were built. It was so cool! Even the seats were at an angle to handle the up to 37% grade.  Once you summit, you have an hour to explore the extreme weather museum, take a picture with the summit sign, and even have lunch! We wandered about aft...

I’ve been so impressed by  Daria‘ s Italy recaps that I decided to take a swing and try and recap my wild week. We have our family vacation to  New Hampshire  from Monday through Thursday and then on Saturday I’m actually going away by myself to Maine, which is a trial run or precursor to my first ever solo vacation this fall. Our energy is a little hectic coming off a week where we were trying to do a big computer swap that just left us only with our work computers and smartphones and Lil Mama having some wild antics. But, I have hope that this vacation can chill us out and make some memories, and hopefully be an overall win. Here’s how I prepped : I admitted that I’m feeling a lot of feels  For almost my entire life, but especially the last 5 to 10 years, I’ve spent every vacation or day away worrying about my parents. Things always just seem to happen when I was away and it’s led to a lot of anxiety around being away. This is my first one since losing both of them...