Cheap stuff I adore right now

 

I am on my 4th one of these coffee pots. The PERFECT SIZE for me (I drink half caff) and programmable. I actually think I solved the mystery of why it has been so hard to get out of bed-- my program button has been broken, but I have been letting it ride. Finally, the regular on/off button stopped working, and I was forced to get a new pot. And now? I leap out of bed to the smell of coffee.  **shrug**

(also, this is a FINE coffee pot. The grounds are always equally wet, which is a good sign, and the coffee tastes great for the first and second cup. After that it tastes like coffee that's been sitting on a hot plate, but I use a big mug and generally drink it all in 2 cups. I decant any extra into a travel mug to stay warm in there, and if I want good coffee, I use a Chemex or French press. Ben keeps sending me links to fancy mother's day coffee pots and espresso machines, but I think I am happy wit the Mr.).

All of this stuff! 

The wake up call eye patches that are Ulta brand are THE BEST ONES I have found ($19)

That EOS lotion (I also use the body wash and spray) smells like cookies ($8)

The Cerave vitamin C serum is so good under moisturizer. ($20-ish)

Ordinary caffeine serum is the GOAT ($10)

Cerave retinol serum is SO GOOD under night cream ($25-ish)

I wear the Ordinary sunscreen serum for jogging post sunrise ($19)

TJ's sheet masks are the very best on the market ($3)

Good old JC Penney for kid suits! The reason they win is that they sell the suit pants in a variety of waist and inseam sizes, so if you need a suit you can wear off the rack, say, THE DAY BEFORE PROM, you are all set. Macy's has more options but generally sells pants that must be tailored at the waist and cuffs, which is no bueno if you are a procrastinator. 

the CUTEST little patterned scalloped sock liners from DSW. $15 for.a 6-pack and totally solved my problem!

Any deals you've found lately??

MAY GOALZ: Not very many.

 May goals:

1. Get dressed in real clothes every day

2. Yoga every day

3. Lift weights every weekday

4. Prepare for KID SUMMER (with lots of alone time, a massage, an indulgent Kindle budget, plenty of work time in coffee shops, and chunks of time where I sit in the house and close my eyes and have ZERO SENSORY INPUT FROM ANYONE/THING (except maybe the dog))

5. Date night for my birthday

6. A visit to my mom for Mother's Day

I see May as a brief interlude between seasons, since I am done with the semester, but the kids are still in school, so I am going to prioritize rest and relaxation. (Also we have a weekend of dance and two different weekends that will see Ben in FL with Cooper for dive meets, plus a weekend were Ben's at work for commencement, plus a kid coming home for summer, so maybe the idea of rest is a nonstarter...)

SPEAKING OF NONSTARTER, I did NOT do a good job of meeting my April goals. At ALL. YOU GUYS.

PD

1. Work on course prep for fall ❌
2. New prep for spring❌
3. Read more AI stuff❌
4. Review new textbook❌

Hobbies and Home

1. Use IG to promote blog posts❌
2. Meet up with a blog friend I have never met in IRL before❌
3. Buddy read Kin✅
4. InstaKids Chatbook this month and make an April album✅

Fitness

1. Maintain a calorie deficit every day this month ❌
2. Hit fiber and protein macros every day this month❌
3. Yoga every day again!✅
4. Get new medium weights🟡 YOU GUYS! My old heavy weights are now my medium weights, and I need new heavy weights! KILLED IT!!!!

Celebrations

1. Take Jack out for an 18th bday dinner✅
2. Super fun Easter weekend✅
3. Plan graduation but like for realz❌
4. WORK ON THOSE STOCKING STUFFERS .❌

But! You know what I DID do?

I kept up a new tradition of starting a phone photo album for the moth and throwing good photos in there-- so easy to make Chatbooks and IG posts! I also got stronger! And kept up my running streak! And did some cool professional stuff that's not bloggable! Also I changed everyone's sheets on the regular. It's the small stuff, you guys.

I leave you with this, the work of a kindergarten planner in the making...

April: What I Read

 OH THIS WAS A GOOD MONTH.

First of all, I discovered (thanks to NGS) that I love doing a buddy read! She and I read Kin, and I read Yesteryear with another friend of mine. I loved going slow through books that I otherwise would have devoured, and I loved talking about smart books with smart friends. I can't wait to do it again!

I also read a ton of current books and books off my Q1 and Q2 list-- a delight indeed. I finish the month with 5 library books on my shelf, plus 2 Book of the Month selection and 2 more on the way. Can I clear this back log by the end of May? CROSS YOUR FINGERS, friends.

📕🎉 Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age by Vauhini Vara: Meh.

🎧 The Last Ferry Out by Andrea Bartz: A serviceable backlist thriller to listen to while I ran in the morning.

🎧🎉 This Book Made Me Think of You by Libby Page: This was sweet, but I had to listen to it at 2.75 speed to keep my brain engaged.

📱🎉 The First Time I Saw Him by Laura Dave: A rare sequel that is better than the first book.

📱 Exit Interview by Kristi Coulter: Where are all my Amazon haters? This book was a page-turner.

📕🎉You With the Sad Eyes by Christina Applegate: You guys know I have a soft spot for the celebrity memoir.

🎧🎉Nothing Tastes as Good by Luke Dumas: What. That was a WILD READ. Google it.

📕🎉Missing Sister by Joshilyn Jackson: Her thrillers are very fun to read-- I liked this one a bunch.

🎧🎉 The Astral Library by Kate Quinn: What an awesome departure! And the audiobook is read by Saskia Maarleveld who is one of my all-time faves.

📱🎉 American Fantasy by Emma Straub: Oh, I love her. So funny. So sweet. Such good characters. 

🎧🎉 So Old, So Young by Grant Grinder: LOVED THIS.

🎧🎉More Than Enough by Anna Quindlen: She is a delightful writer, and this book is a great read.

📱🎉 Cherry Baby by Rainbow Rowell: I am a sucker for her books, and this one did not disappoint.

📕🎉Kin by Tayari Jones: I liked this a lot. Loved, even. The book is told in 2 viewpoints that switch off from chapter to chapter, and, as is usually the case, I liked one story far better than the other.

📕🎉Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke: BOOK OF THE YEAR. Can't wait to see her at my library this month!

Bookstore + Blog Friends Adventures

 NGS and I met up to finish our buddy read of Kin last weekend, and we stumbled onto a book lover's dream: A build your own book bar at the cutest little bookstore. WHAT COULD BE BETTER THAN THAT? We both immediately inquired about parties-- NGS for her book club and me for Dorothy. Although, in retrospect, I am the one who would want a birthday book party.

Seriously though, how cute its this??

The shop owners curated a bunch of books that they wrapped cunningly in folded white paper, and they also provided a label with genre and a a shirt, enticing synopsis. Shoppers got to choose a book and then add a bunch of items from the book bar to create a really fun little package. (You could also pull a book from the shelf that they'd wrap for you, but we both decided to pick from the pre-wrapped baskets).

I picked a YA social justice book and added a bunch of cute stuff for Dorothy

Isn't this bookstore adorbs?

Dorothy started reading right away!

(we also brunched and shopped and talked bout our buddy read-- a fun morning!)

Things I need to buy-- got any recs?

 Dorothy got a $10 hairbrush that has made her slick back pony tail dreams come true. She borrowed one from a friend at dance when we all had to improvise between convention classes and competition dances and said she has the hair she had always wanted. So easy to make her happy! Sometimes.

The other day, Minnie and I spent THREE HOURS at the Apple store getting the cameras in my (brand new!) phone replaced. They just... stopped working. It was so weird. And! The store kept telling me it would just be 20 more minutes, so we stayed and omggggggggg. I wish they would have just said my phone would be ready in THREE HOURS. Minnie was fun, and we played lots of I spy and made rainbow loom bracelets with our fingers. No pics of that because I didn't have my freaking phone, but here's the last pic I took before the cameras quit

What the heck is a phone without a camera, anyway? I need to be able to buy coffee with my face, you know?

Minnie also had to come to class with me because ONCE AGAIN it took TWO doctor visits to correctly diagnose an infection **melting emoji**

Things I need:

Seamless underwear that I can wear with leggings and tight shorts-- any recs?

A lipstick that won't blend into the lines around my mouth and is also hydrating-- any brands you love?

Shoe liners that don't show so I can wear a couple pairs of spring flats-- I am having a hard time finding any that are truly no-show-- any recs?

Please enjoy this 30 second clip of Dorothy's trio from the other weekend (why yes, I was too cheap to pay for the whole vid) and appreciate what a bubbly, perky biker gang member she is.

RANDOM FRIDAY THINGS

1.  I do NOT know how I managed to get up in the DARK and RUN in the COLD every day (mostly every day-- I have a few notes that I ran on the elliptical in my work out dungeon during the very coldest months)** because I CANNOT get out of bed these days. My alarm goes off, and I have coffee. And I read. And I have more coffee. And all the sudden the kids are up.

2. To be clear, I am still running-- every day since 9/1, in fact. That's 235 runs in a row. But I have been more creative with working it in lately since for some reason I cannot get up. (Which is weird-- it's not super cold in the house when I wake up. It's light before 6. WHAT THE HECK? Can I still blame the time change?)

3. I was putting Chobani creamer in my coffee-- just a splash!-- along with the Fairlife chocolate milk - another splash!-- I always use, and I realized the creamer was a YUGE calorie trap. Soooo, I have started using a splash of chocolate milk and a splash of Premier Protein chocolate peanut butter. Less sugar! Fewer calories! A bit of protein! It takes me about 4 days to use 1 drink, so that's about 35 calories and 10 grams of protein a day.

4. The end of the semester is so close I can taste it, you guys. And it tastes a lot like course prep for fall while the kids are in school. I LIKE IT. I am also teaching a giant comm theory lecture in the spring which is a class I have not taught since pre-COVID times, so I for sure need to look ahead to that prep as well. Yikes! (But I have S I X  W E E K S of kids in class and me with tons of prep time, so I am CONFIDENT I can for real get my shit together before kid summer.)

5. Finally, apropos of nothing, here are some lewks I've loved lately

Minnie in her KPop spoils

Mask chic at a double kid sick visit 

Dorothy and Cooper twinning a bit

Fresh from ballet to eat pizza and watch the end of dive practice

OMFG it is STILL WINTER WHAT THE HELL

Spring? Is that you? ARE YOU ON THE WAAAAAAY?

** I have been tracking my workouts in my weekly planner, and I love it. I make 4 little boxes for 7 runs, 7 yoga sessions, 5 20-minute weight sessions, and 7 days of walking for 60+ minutes, and then I fill in the date and what I did. I also keep track of my walks in my daily planner, so I can make sure to grab that last 12-16 minutes with Annabel after Minnie goes to bed. I open my Apple Fitness app right before I retire my phone for then night (no phone after about 9 when my alarm to take my progesterone goes off***) and choose a weight workout for the next day so I can have the appropriate equipment ready to go in the morning-- less friction!

***9 is about the time the everyone is home for the night and I can stop waiting for them to text me if they need something at an activity or if there's a carpool hiccup. Ideally, I would retire my phone earlier than 9, but what are you gonna do? (That's rhetorical). (I am going to continue to obbssessively track my middle schoolers on Life360 until they come home. I AM WHO I AM).

Weekend recap

 We had a blast in the Chicago burbs last weekend. The tl;dr is that Dorothy's dance comp went great, and she loved her convention classes, too. And Cooper! Won both his events at USA Diving Regionals and is headed to Zones in June, with the goal of qualifying for USA Diving Junior Nationals in July/August.

(He will also compete in tower at Zones-- USA Diving Regional comps do not have tower).

Minnie and Jack and Ben watched diving and had lots of hot dogs and breakfast pastries because why not.

I sat around the airport Westin and was at Dorothy's beck and call

She loved hanging out with her dance besties and enduring costume and makeup changes before the dressing rooms opened on Saturday ( a weird convention/competition schedule bump).

She didn't even mind a SEVEN AM call time on Sunday

(I minded tho).

There was much pizza

Some shopping

A little hotel pool action

A great weekend!