not necessarily in this order

  Random life updates :  1. More on the puppy when she’s here – expected arrival is the week after next! So much to get ready, but also so much excitement and anticipation.  2. Lil Momma survived her first few days of 7 th  grade but is having trouble with the noise levels of having THIRTY SEVEN other kids in the classrooms. There is a whole other post I could write about public schools and overrides and how we’re failing our kids and our teachers and staff, but that is not for today. Foot/Ankle/Morale Update    I am almost 5 months out from having this foot/ankle surgery. If you had asked me before the surgery, I would have thought I’d be 80% back to my life: Walking in the woods, if not hiking. Strength workouts. Slow jogs on the treadmill. Intervals on the bike. Dragging my family on weekend adventures.    That is not how it has gone down.   I severely underestimated what recovery would look like. My expectations were so far out of reality...

It’s been a wild July and I feel like I’ve been scattered all over the place. I figured I’d start the week off with some quick updates! Weighted dance Dino and hotel room ice cream!   PT Update I’m in this weird space where I feel like I should be progressing faster, but I’ve also come so, so far. I have to keep reminding myself that I started weight-bearing at the end of May and got out of the boot and back to driving at the start of July – it really hasn’t been that long!   Now that I’m more comfortable walking (and less terrified my ankle/foot will shatter into a million pieces), my PT is all about building strength, balance, and endurance. I’m finding that I can walk for a few minutes in good form and then I start to limp– and, the limp leads to my right hip and lower back hurting. This was exacerbated by going back into the office 2 days a week (which is so much walking) and sitting in awful chairs on the weekends for Lil Momma’s performances. So, I’m also doing a lot of ...

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...

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...

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...

Long background story short : problems with my right foot I at first assumed was plantar fasciitis because I was a new runner but then thought was a stress fracture after further Googling…   I guess I got what I deserved in trying to self-diagnosis myself. (or, as the Mr. often says, “ Doctor Google isn’t a quack! ”) My lack of knowledge about foot anatomy also played a key role, as well, in both my misunderstanding of what was going on and how I actually made it worse throughout June.   The good news is that  I don’t have plantar fasciitis nor a stress fracture !    The bummer news is that I have this thing called  posterior tibial tendon dysfunction  or  PTTD . My rough understanding is that this is a tendon that connects your calf muscle to the bones on the inside of your foot and supports your inside arch. When you mess it up, it can cause pain on the arch where the tendon connects (hey, that’s me!) and up through your ankle. To be honest, it ...

  What a rollercoaster of a week. It’s sometimes hard to share about Lil Momma’s big life; her privacy is always the priority. However, we went through a weird parenting and social experience that I think I can explore a little without breaking the trust I have with my girl.   Getting a “lead” in her musical theater class’s recital show has been a goal for LM since she started lessons 5 years ago. She’s seen her elementary school classmates who also go to this school excel; lead roles, asked to be on the competition team, etc.; and it’s been a lot of long conversations for us about opportunities and timing and growth and proving herself and, on the other side, how “fair” is a social construct and we don’t control some of these things and how there will be other opportunities to perform there and other places in the future. She has a whole life ahead of her and also has a very fulfilling set of dance classes and competition teams at a different studio, too.   So, when LM g...