Case of the Mondays

 OMG YOU GUYS THE HOLIDAYS ARE UPON US.

I am plugging along with assorted menus and wishlists. Our Elf has his stuff on lock this year and is ready with Christmas jammies (and he even bought everyone a shirt they will wear again, but you better believe the pants are al matching). I have gotten something for most people and lots of some people who are very easy to buy for (cough cough DOROTHY cough cough).

I have a NYT recipe box going with Thanksgiving recipes, and we have started chipping away at our grocery list. My ILs are bringing a fresh turkey with them and making sweet and mashed potatoes at our house. I am making a pumpkin cheesecake with Biscoff crust, and I have already put in a pie order at our favorite bakery. We are making cheesy potatoes (yes we are having 3 kinds of potatoes), green bean casserole, brussels sprouts, stuffing, fluffy jello (midwesty!) ham, and cranberry sauce, all from scratch. Plus peanut butter blossom cookies. And dinner rolls. And my MIL is also bringing chocolate chip cookies and pumpkin bars, so we will have 6 desserts for 9 people, which is a pretty good ratio.

But still! So much to decide on and purchase.

Our family white elephant/yankee swap theme is Inside Out this year, which is going to be fun to shop for, I think...

Anyone else like me and just realize it is already MID NOVEMBER??? How's your holiday prep?

Pic of the week!

 Lately whenever the dog is missing, I find her in Dorothy's room

Sloooooower Saturday: Chores

 One of the things that Dorothy does each week is clean up the shoes in the garage. We do not wear shoes in the house, and it is really convenient for everyone to leave their shoes in the garage, since we come in through the garage (into the laundry room) and there are too many of us and too many pairs of shoes to make leaving them in the laundry room sustainable. We have 2 shelved alls in the garage on either side of the door to the house: one for kid shoes and one for grown up shoes. Plus we have a boot matt and a carpeted space on each side for boots.

The shoes get SO MESSY because if one person doesn;t put their shoes on the shelf when they take them off, then no one does. 

Dorothy is supposed to clean the shoes up twice a week, once on Sunday and once on Tuesday which mirrors Cooper's take out the trash chore (he empties inside trashes on Sunday and puts the cans on the curb on Tuesday). On Tuesday this week, she tidied up the shoes before she left ofr school in the morning, but when she got home from dance that night, she kicked her Uggs off her feet, one flying under the snowblower and the other lodging itself under the stairs to the house, and pranced inside without a care in the world.

I was like why are you making a mess with the shoes when you are one who has to clean them up? And she shrugged and said what does it matter if they get messy-- I have to clean them up in a couple of days?

This is FOR SURE not my approach to chores. But you know what? It's not wrong, and offloading some tasks onto Dorothy and Cooper has given me the space to slow down and process that idea.

Now if only I cold talk her into wearing a coat.

 

5 on a Friday: awesome things this week

1. THIS CHILD'S COAT is just KILLING IT this fall, and I love it so much. It is even cute with my fave scarf and with dresses! (but when I took a small break from this coat, I found my favorite lip stain in the picket of one I haven't worn since last winter!!)

2. The kids and I saw the northern lights again! Including right over our house! Magical!

3. Dorothy and I discovered Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey, and Minnie has started reading to her siblings-- both delightful. 

4. Annabel is moving into Dorothy's room, LOL

5. Coop got a reverse 2.5 on 3M, meaning he has all 2.5's on 3M (front, back, inward, and reverse). Next up? A front THREE and a half (gulp).

Thoughtful Thursday: What's Saving My Life

 I listened to The Lazy Genius on my way to work the other day, and she had a fantastic list of what's saving her life right now. More than the list itself I was charmed by the idea of a list like this. And then! I noticed that both Sam and San have written theirs lately.  So! Here's mine:

1. Gimmee Some Oven no-bake energy bites. Kae raved about these, and I remembered them after not making for YEARS. Now they are back in rotation. I like how filling and also treaty they are. (I toast my coconut in the oven and use sun butter and chocolate chips and aim for 20 balls/recipe).

2. The NYT cooking app and its daily newsletter. So many great recipes coming right to my inbox!! We have made (and really liked) one pot pasta with ricotta and lemon, chicken and rice casserole,  rice krispie treats with chocolate and pretzels, egg muffins, pasta primavera, fluffy pumpkin pancakes, parmesan crusted salmon caesar salad, chile crisp fettuccine alfredo with spinach.

3. RUNNING. I feel like I have wasted YEARS not doing this.

4. No bed rotting. My alarm goes off, and I GET UP. It is wonderful (and terrible when the morning is cold).

5. Starbucks holiday drinks. I AM VERY BASIC, OK?

6.  Dental floss in the car (probably because I am always eating energy bits on the way to work).

7. Immediately grading student work. NOTHING IS PILING UP YOU GYS. It is amazing.

first snow!

first dive meet of the season!

run!

I have to know: what's saving your life?

Wednesday whines: fast fashion, so much fiber, not delaying healthy habits til the holidays are over

Is it fast fashion when I wear it forEVER tho?

The tl;dr of this first whine is that all my clothes are cheap. I am definitely choosing quantity over quality... ($20 Target juniors jeans and $12 Target clearance shoes in that pic)

Whine 2: eating like a grown up is a pain. I am still eating at least 30 grams of fiber (mostly from fruits and veggies) and between 75-90 grams of protein every day. Gah. SO MUCH FIBER.

Here's a sample day

Breakfast: Gimmee Some Oven energy bites (I use sun butter) and cuties and like to make about 20/recipe-- about 7 g protein and 8 g fiber

Lunch: Turkey sandwich w/ lettuce and mustard, giant apple, leftover roasted veggies-- about 30 g protein and 14 g fiber

Snack: Zero suagr Greek yogurt, granola, plums-- about 15 g protein and 4g fiber

Dinner: this (made ahead on Sunday) (I did make my own cream of soup recipe too), which is 23 g protein (yay!) and 3 g fiber (**whomp whomp**) Plus more leftover roasted veggies for another 6 g fiber (smaller portion than lunch)

Dessert: hot chocolate with Absolut vanilla vodka (NO NUTRITIONAL VALUE SHUT UP).

Totals: roughly 75 g of protein (should try to drink milk or something with breakfast) and 35 g fiber. It is getting much easier for me to meet these macros all the time w/o weighing and measuring, but I am not quite there yet.

Part of me wants to throw caution to the wind and drink peppermint mochas 24/7 because HOLIDAYS, but then! I listened to THIS PODCAST, and she talks about how you should meet eating habit goals BEFORE January because "the holidays" is like 2 meals-- maybe 4 tops if you split time between families. SO TRUE EMMA, SO TRUE. Bah humbug, but also, this is so smart. And! I have already had a mocha this season, so I am not being an extremist.

I am also going back to tracking calories (at maintenance) for a few weeks because I have started to eat random bites and tastes-- this is FINE. No food is off limits. But if I want to eat, say, chocolate covered pretzels, I should sit down and enjoy a portion of them. If I am having a mocha, then maybe I don't also need a sweet something mid afternoon and could have string cheese and carrots and cottage cheese instead-- stuff like that. If I want sweets after dinner, then I should have an energy bite or a Chobani flip yogurt (both are filling and also feel treaty) or a bowl of ice cream or some chocolate chips or whatever it is I want instead of eating bites of Minnie's ice cream and a cookie or two (or 7) on the fly as I pack lunches. The intentional enjoying of a dessert is SO MUCH MORE SATISFYING (hence my planning to enjoy a sweet drink tonight after kindergarten bedtime). I guess the whine here is that the old metabolism ain't what she used to be, and I have to really be intentional about nutrition if I don' want to just slide back into old habits that weren't serving me.

Time Track Tuesday: A Monday

 5:30 am: Time to leap from my bed and go for a run! It takes me a good 10 minutes to brush my teeth, put on my sweats, get dog poop bags, drink some water, etc.

6:20 am: 20 minute upper body strength work out on Apple Fitness Plus 

6:40 am: Pack lunches at water bottles in back packs for Dorothy, Cooper, and Minnie Put Jack's lunch and a Bubblr on the dryer where he can grab it. Wake Jack up so he can go for a run. Lucky Annabel gets to start her day with an hour of running,

6:45: Minnie is awake! She brushes her teeth, puts on the clothes she laid out on Sunday for the entire week. I do her hair in her requested style, and she eats breakfast (right now, she wants grapes, a piece of cheese, a peanut butter sandwich and a Danimal, plus her Kirkland kids vitamins). I wipe down all the bathrooms and make my bed and Minnie's, start some laundry, and help various people with various parts of their breakfast, plu drink SO MUCH COFFEE. 

7:25: Time to talk Minnie to schoooooool!

7:35: Make Jack a breakfast to go and  sequester myself in my bathroom with MOAR coffee to do my hair and makeup

7:55: Check in with Dorothy and Cooper as the do their final preparations. I have to be suuuuuper nonchalant about it, but sometimes Dorothy accepts help with her hair. Putting on her socks is sometimes a trigger for her, but if I time myself right, I can find a matching pair for her (she and Cooper wear the exact same frigging socks, and sometimes, the laundry fairy messes up putting them away equitably) and have them appear at the right moment. Dorothy can get distracted looking for them and then start primping again still sockless and it's a whole Thing.

8:05: Walk Dorothy and Cooper to the bus. Annabel enjoys this, and it's fun to walk by Minnie's classroom. She bangs on the window and brings friends to wave to us.

8:20: Crunch time for me-- I throw on my clothes and pack my work bag and really really really need to be IN THE CAR DRIVING AWAY by 8:35 AT THE LATEST.

9:00: Aaaaaaaah, I am in my quiet office where I check what I need to do in class Monday and Tuesday, answer emails, and delight in my solitude.

9:55: Teach my great speakers and speeches class. Elizabeth Warren's 2019 Washing Square Rally speech is on tap as an example of public memory-- both the social imaginary she tried to change with her selfie lines and pinkie promises (ladies can be president!) and .the way she retold feminist labor history in the speech itself. Class was great!

11:00: Meet with my awesome TA

11:30: WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK. On tap Monday was a good mix of grading and responding to students and also prep for spring. I ate my packed lunch at my desk-- an arugula salad with chicken breast, beets, and goat cheese, plus an apple and string cheese.

1:00: Office hours. I only had one visitor, so I kept my work streak alive and worked through 40 research paper proposals for my Tuesday class, all the weekly assignments in my Monday class, and recording grades for Monday classes's recent blue book exam.

3:00: Walk on campus and listen to podcasts. I try to take a walk before office hours, too, but it was not in the cards this day.

3:45: Meeting prep

4:00: Weekly TA staff meeting for the big course I direct

6:00: Finish up a few more things before heading to the pool to collect Minnie from Ben

7:15: Arrive home with Minnie. We walk the dog. Minnie watches TV while I eat dinner (I WAS SO HUNGRY) (I had leftover salmon and caesar salad in a bag from Costco plus an apple with peanut butter and a couple energy bites). I also had to do some housework which actually made me really mad, since Ben worked from home all day.

8:00 Minnie bedtime, a little later than usual, but I stayed after my meeting a little later than usual.

8:30: Ben, Coop, Jack all home. Jack has dinner. Coop gets ready for bed. Ben makes sure he is ready to go to Peoria in the morning. A final dog walk.

9:00: Dorothy is home from dance and ready to crash. She has a giant snack and she and I both take showers.

10:00 Couch rotting. We are watching Sticks. We actually have like 4 shows going and sort of drop in on them randomly, which doesn't work super well for me, but also I AM TIRED, so I mostly just fall asleep snoring with my mouth open most nights and call it watching TV.