not necessarily in this order

One  6 weeks to right my hike - I’ve made a mess of training (well, life got messy). I gave the friends I’m going with an “out” to go without me if I’m going to slow us down too much, but they want me to still go. So, I’m going for it!  Big swings and adventures and doing the work . Lots of incline walks, building mileage on the weekends, hiking between recitals.  Two  I finally can do a mostly decent dance bun in time for dance recital weekend. This has been a long run of shows and  I’m ready to have our weekends back for some family fun and adventures . Dinners on the deck, reading in the hammock, a day trip here and there… all we have is a full hair and makeup dress rehearsal, 4 costumes, a recital, and cleanup to go! Three  Summer softball has begun! Lil Momma has had a bumpy ride of it. In the spring season, she faced a team with club pitchers (we play in an instructional, recreational league) and  she became terrified of being hit at the plate . ...

  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...

Part of my screen time lessening is increasing my book time ( when, really, I should be prioritizing my cleaning and workout time - but, life is meant to be savored, am I right?! ). Here are some reviews* of recent reads: Still Life   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ It took some getting into for me, a slow burn. But the Inspector grew on me, as did the authentic character studies. I’m not as knowledgeable about the Canadian politics and ongoing, but I got pulled in by the mystery and the people and the vivid messiness of it all.  The Candy House   ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Here’s the thing: I haven’t read A Visit from the Goon Squad , I just thought I had, and that may explain my experience with this. A vivid, sprawling book that moves across characters and timelines that touches on technology and memory in a world that sprawls in bits and bytes. For all the characters focus on technology (for and against), what grabbed me was how real the people felt.  Miss Aldridge Regrets   ⭐️⭐️⭐️ I can definitely se...

Here’s the thing : You do a challenge in a wildly busy month where you plan to cut your screentime ( aka your doomscrolling distraction ) by a significant amount because you spend a significant amount of time on your smartphone.   What you expected :  For it to be  hard , of course. Distraction habits run deep and there’s a reason it’s so engrained in your life.  But, also for it to be  funny . I mean, it’s JUST A SCREEN. It’s almost farcical that a screen eats up so much time when there’s so much to be done. There has to be comedy in this – slapping my own hand when I reach for my phone, tossing it across the room when I realize I’m scrolling, meeting up in real life with long lost friends I’ve only been in a like/double tap/random comment status with for years… Insert a wild montage of you getting all-the-things done with all this free time that you found…   Here’s what really happened :  You figure out  you use your phone when you’re nervous ...

  We are in the thick of it : pollen and histaminic reactions, recital season, spring softball regrets ( we were too busy before multiple softball events a week, sigh ), and all the end of school stuff ( field trips! a 10 minute show! field day! all during the workday?!?!? )… Over the weekend, we went from softball pictures ( in uniform ) to a dance competition an hour away ( hair and makeup and awards and master class and oh did we pack snacks?! ).   Here are  15 mental snippets  from this day in our lives: 1- Why am I stressed if we haven’t done anything yet 2- Lil Momma’s commitment to the founding father style ponytail (thanks,  Hamilton ) may play in my favor with the low bun we need for dance 3- and she did a high pony. It’s fine. I just need to make sure she looks in the camera (vs. her school pictures where she’s staring at the ground, sigh) 4- why is the team picture taking so long?!?  5- this dancer’s bun won’t be like the last dancer’s bun w...

The pollen knocked me out.  The pollen won . No mix of medicine or magical thinking could keep me breathing normal, not with softball 3 nights this week next to the woods and new deck furniture to “enjoy” with its dusting of green ick. But the accompanying sinus infection sure dragged me down. Such bad timing as we’re well into the wild recital /competition / Lil Momma’s packed calendar season, but I’m trying to rally ( this family is being held up by my one coffee a day and eight billion reminders I have across multiple media all over our house haha )! My screen-time experiment has been wild . I’ve felt lonely, I’ve felt overwhelmed, I’ve felt like I obviously reach for my phone when I’m bored or avoiding things… But, I also use the camera on my phone for so much ( part of my aphantasia ), as well as the notes for bits of ideas and reminders, texts to keep connected and mom-group meme it up… Hopefully, the second half of the month helps me use my time in the way I want.  My n...

In August, I’m supposed to this   very-intimidating-to-me day-long hike   with a couple of friends. Not only am I trying to overprepare for the hike, apparently, I am trying to overthink my way through it, too, SIGH. The hike is in New Hampshire’s White Mountains; it’s called the   Franconia Ridge Loop   and includes 3 summits over 8.1 miles, as well as a ridiculous amount of terrifying-to-me All Trails reviews. It would be the longest anything I’ve done in my life.     On any given day, my concerns range from: -The friends I’m going with are from my decade doing a Crossfit-ish like women’s bootcamp. They are two of my loveliest and closest friends, but also were the ones intimidatingly strong and fit and fast in class. The last time we hiked a mountain (6 years ago), they were over an hour ahead of me.  WHAT IF I CAN’T KEEP UP?!?! -5 or 6 years ago when we were doing these yearly NH hikes, I had this weird thing where  I was absolutely miserable ...