not necessarily in this order

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 ...

    A weekly a portmanteau of TANGents and rambLES Ramble #1 : My effort to lower my screen time this month has turned into what feels like an aggressive use of my local library and   5 books done in the first 9 days   (and 2 prompts checked off for the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge!!). Here are a handful of hot takes:   Good for a Girl: A Woman Running in a Man’s World –  Lauren Fleshman Lindsay rating  = 3 ½ stars Ten-word reaction : thoughtful, sad, infuriating – but I wanted more of her voice PSRC Prompt : #7 – a book about women’s sports and/or by a woman athlete    The Dark Angel (Ruth Galloway #10)  – Elly Griffiths Lindsay rating  = 3 ½ stars Ten-word reaction : twisty and dense but not enough exotic; loved Ruth’s growth   The Stone Circle (Ruth Galloway #11)  – Elly Griffiths Lindsay rating  = 4 stars Ten-word reaction : Nelson being all in his head is all I need   Meet me at the Lake  – Carley Fortun...

  This is a portmanteau of TANGents and rambLES that I am trying out for 2024!   Ramble 1 I had started another post called  no goals, just vibes  to kick off this year… but, I had a tangent (look at me go!) in my thinking the other day and am trying something different. In recent years, I’ve wildly vacillated between: making these  huge lists of hopes and dreams  and watching everything crash down around me because life has been SO MUCH and the name of the game was surviving  and…   struggling with even  basic habits  that I would miss one day of (aka break the streak) and then just give up on because that was easier   This year, I’m trying something different. No big lists, no streaks – rather, a  few areas of focus  to help guide me back to myself and some  cumulative habits  I’d like to see add up (you’ll see those wrapped up on Fridays!).    I’m hoping by trying to break my perfectionist quitting a...

  1 this week was oof. Just hard and awful and messy and sad. My poor mom was back at the hospital and was moved to a rehab - not our worst loop with this, but still disruptive and a bummer. Worse was that one  of the younger students at Lil Momma’s school passed away at the start of the week and it’s been emotional and devastating and  still the last week of school with all the events and moments and things to do.  I’m  more than a little thrown - but, incredibly grateful for my little family and this life and each day (even the messy ones) 2 there’s no segue - not even going to try. I had one of those weeks at work where I literally messed up everything. I was covering for my boss and trying to be me and it was almost an out of body experience as I kept making mistakes.  What do a typo in an email I’d usually catch and accidentally telling an exec they were sabotaging my forum in front of 300 people have in common?  Well they’re two th...

this was supposed to be “wild takes Wednesday” but this week is just wild #1 I hit my 100 rides on Peloton I got this bike after a year of torn rotator cuff and pinched radial nerve PT (riding and spin were all I really could do for a long time). I’m super proud that I finally got this milestone after wanting to amidst all this chaos for like a year (but honestly hope this is the start of me back at consistent workouts and hitting milestones more frequently).  #2 I saw blue sky and sunshine! I swear, this has been the gloomiest winter. I didn’t realize how much the clouds and darkness were bringing me down until I saw some sun and perked up like my poor plants. I even bought one of this alarm clock that slowly lights up like sunrise (I may be taking this too far…). I’m so ready for some cheerier weather and starting my garden and all that spring brings.  #3 I failed another sourdough starter… … but, I know why and it’s ok!! Once I got to the feeding stage, I realized I had no ...

 soup and tangents on a Monday I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas (or the quiet Sunday of their dreams if it’s not your jam). I’m hoping to do a cookie roundup / recipe reflection if another quiet moment hits this vacation week  Lil’ Momma came down with a cold (so far, just a cold) Christmas night, so I’m making this ginger scallion chicken soup but with egg noodles as I don’t have time to make matzo balls. It seems so right for this cold day and will hopefully kick these germs so we can enact our plan of walking adventures later this week (both to keep me and Lil’ Momma out of Brian’s hair while he works and to kick off our year of outside adventures we hope to have) I’m so simmer paranoid making soup. It probably comes from 15 plus years of watching Alton Brown’s Good Eats before bed with Brian*. The episode about what qualifies as a simmer vs a boil vs a nothing echoes in my head whenever I attempt this  I’m starting Anthony Dower’s Cloud Cuckoo Land tonight....