not necessarily in this order

  This has been a week. Honestly, this has been a year. However, the Mr having a full week business trip the week before Christmas (and the week that all of LM’s activities do their “ let’s do a Yankee Swap ” and “ let’s wear Christmas pajamas ” nights on top of my car battery dying and our first snow was a bit much, haha! On this winter solstice, Lil Momma and I are writing our intentions for the new year and sending them off into the universe the next few weeks. I’m truly excited to end this year at a slower pace (Monday is my last day of work until after school break) and reset my house and habits. And, of course, there’s the baking, haha! As we gear up for Christmas week, here are five things I’m excited to make: One : I’m using Sadie, my sourdough starter that I started at possibly the worst possible time 8 weeks ago, for the first time and risking our traditional Christmas Eve and Christmas Day  cinnamon rolls  on a Sadie-risen recipe.  Two : I’ve started makin...

  I think where we left off was that my little family was getting a puppy in the latter half of September?   I’m allergic to everything, so we had to make some concessions in breed. I so want to be the person to walk into a shelter and save a pup, but we had been waiting for a year for a dog that wouldn’t turn me into a sneezy, hivey mess and that just didn’t happen. So, we researched ethical companies and found one that could help us get a 18-week-old    Bernedoodle from Wisconsin to us here in Massachusetts.  LM has been so excited to dive into puppy prep; she also won the name voting with “Maysie”, named after a character from Seussical the Musical . We got Maysie a crate, worked on ways to separate her and our senior population Morkie, Bella, and dove in to house decluttering while waiting for our transport weekend.  We were supposed to get a call on Saturday letting us know she was dropped off with the transporter. LM and I had seen a play the night be...

Why would we get a dog right now? Honestly. Everything is wildly chaotic and I live in a constant state of overwhelm. The news this week has been so horrifying and that’s on top of the sad and awful it’s been. Why would we get a dog right now? We just survived the back to back of the Mr. and my 20th dating anniversary and Lil Momma’s 12 birthday. For our anniversary, we saw it was the year of “metal” and pulled the plug on buying new kitchen appliances (much needed), including our first working dishwasher and a fridge with water (with water!! So fancy!!) that arrive tomorrow. We have to take a cabinet down tonight somehow and then find a place for the fridge contents. I’m sourcing ice and coolers. Don’t even ask me about the ballet barre and turning pad we got LM; no clue where those will be stored. Why would we get a dog right now?  School starts next week. Besides the fact that LM is 5 feet tall now and 12 years old, the idea that she’s in 7th grade seems unfathomable. This yea...

Oh my stars, food is so messy and full of feelings sometimes, right? This post is kind of about cookies but it’s also kind of about coming out of challenging times and not the best habits and it’s also kind of about being stuck in a rut. We’re having a weird health fall/winter. Obviously, I’m not going to go too deep and no one is in imminent danger and we’re all ok - but some of us are having to focus more on how much sugar and carbs we are  having and some of us are having to think more about fiber and movement. And, as our resident anxious worrying overthinker, I’m trying to make a plan, haha! Added on to that is we are in this transitional year for Christmas and New Year’s where we are reimagining so much of how we do holidays together after losing my mom - the possibilities are endless, which is exciting and hard and weird. When so much has changed, what we hold on to are these traditions that remain and, for us, that’s our Christmas desserts. We are a cookie family, especiall...

 The Mr and I have been together for 19 years. When we began celebrating holidays (a whole other journey that we went on) in like year 3, we did this elaborate Thanksgiving for 2 in our first house. It was the first time I had spent Thanksgiving away from my parents. We made so much: a full turkey, cornbread stuffing, roasted green beans and crunchy onions, apple pie, and a pumpkin pie cheesecake.  I was sure the Mr would love it - pumpkin pie was his favorite. But the next day we ended up giving it away to friends because it was good for a piece but not for a memory: he wanted pumpkin pie like on the can . It’s what he had growing up and it WAS Thanksgiving to him.  Now, I don’t eat pumpkin pie (nor any custardy or cream pie, to be honest), but I am specific about recreating my food memories so I totally got where he was coming from. From then on, I made the pumpkin pie on the back of the orange Libby can and hoped for the best. Now, we’ve had our ups and downs with figu...

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...

What a week it’s been! Matilda Memories Well, we did more than survive Lil Momma’s long-awaited and bumpier than expected journey to playing her first lead/main character role for her musical theater class recital! The  drama  of the lead up weighed heavily on us both – waiting to leave for the  5pm  show on Saturday felt ENDLESS – but she was able to get her head in the right place and go in with an equal amount of nerves and confidence. Let me tell you, from the moment she said her first line to the moment she screamed her last and ran from the stage, the girl was on FIRE! My parental bias is balanced with an undergraduate focus in theater criticism / reviewing, but I have to say she was one of the best parts of the production. She got a ton of laughs, a few gasps here and there, and made it through the hard song like a boss. I think we all are so relieved that this is over, but I’m so glad it can be reframed as a lesson (or lessons) and a good experience vs. what ...