TWTW - first in April 2022

Friday was a wow day at work, and that's an oh shit wow not a great! wow. I was sick of the wind all week, so no beach. Instead I took to the kitchen throwing shit in a pot and mixing like a mad scientist, which we ate all weekend - ground chicken, half a bag of coleslaw, half a bag of broccoli slaw, baby corn, water chestnuts, soy sauce, sesame sauce, garlic, green onions, eggs scrambled in same pot, topped with some cooked ramen and mixed. After that I worked more until 7:40, then put my zit creams on and lay on the couch to read half of a book, where I fell asleep with all the lights on and left them like that until 6 am. 

Saturday After an early dog walk, I lay back down to finish the book. Up to shower, eat breakfast, and putz around. MFD and Billy cat arrived around 12:30. We took Bruce & Ben to the beach for a long walk and crept on other people's flowers. A relaxing night with leftovers and I read another book.

Sunday was the most balanced day I've had in a while, where I felt things that needed to get done got done, there was relaxing and rest, and there was enjoyment and they were all in equal parts, which is hard to get right. I think I could get it right more often if the work week wasn't five days. Who's with me? 

We did a little relaxing in the morning and afternoon. 

Relaxing was broken up by some solid hours working in the house to ready it for spring personal guests, which means pulling all under bed storage out and inventorying, sorting, organizing, purging, moving, cleaning, restocking, list making, and all that jazz. Lots of work to do before paying guests start to come but a really good start. 

I zipped through a book and painted my nails (China Glaze Planted & Enchanted and OPI Princesses Rule!, the China Glaze color is beautiful), had a salad for lunch, MFD got a massage, we relaxed and watched old episodes of The Office, then we took all the dogs up to Corson's Inlet for a very brisk walk. Damn winds. I started another book at night as MFD was watching historical documentaries on YouTube. No thank you.

Happy Monday!

TWTW - February dreamin'

Friday I had an acupuncturist appointment that got me home after 7. MFD had made pizza and salad and I was in bed early and slept well. Last week was another humdinger. 

Saturday out the door to visit my niece and nephew early, followed by a Target run. That combined with Whole Foods delivery via Amazon is how the grocery game was won this week. 

We took an hour and 50 minute walk in the afternoon. The 14+ year old dog only needed to be carried for less than a minute each five times. He did awesome. 

MFD's friend Albert joined us for dinner (MFD made salmon and salad, I made snickers dip). When they left to go to a meeting I finished a book and that's all she wrote. 

Close to a two hour walk = assed out dogs.

Sunday MFD was gone for the day by 9. I got the sheets changed and in the laundry, towels put away, showered, cleaned out two drawers that were accumulating crap, did some food prep, work worked for about four hours, did some reading, painted my nails (Zoya AJ and OPI Made it to the Seventh Hill!, enjoy this photo of them before I fixed them). Between work work and household management work I didn't have much time to loll around.

Weekly food prep: Breakfast is yogurt with granola and fresh blueberries. Lunches are hard boiled eggs with bell peppers and cantaloupe on the side. Snacks are baby carrots. Dinner is leftover Pioneer Woman pot roast with mashed parsnips. I also have salad stuff to eat and I am making vegan mac & cheese when I work from home on Wednesday. And of course I made Gus and Mae's million dollar food. This is the pot roast just as it was going into the oven...ain't nobody got time to hold a photo collage for Sunday dinner's photo.

This week is packed to the gills. Let's get to it. 

Happy birthday to my little girlfriend Natalia today!

TWTW - the one that is not three day for me

Friday I have seldom been so happy to see a week end. I moved the email icon on my phone out of the home bar on the bottom and onto page three for the weekend and it was fucking glorious. While MFD was making dinner I did my in-home walk. He made steaks and asparagus and fries in the air fryer and we zoned out on the couches with Parks & Rec and me with a book. 

Saturday was leisure-tastic. I finished a book, read an entire other one, and started a third. I painted my nails (Zoya Annie and Charla) and did a bentonite clay mask, we did a family walk on the trail near our house with me splitting off early to bring the old dogs home, and I did a super simple dinner of salad, corn bread, and chicken drums in the air fryer. 

Sunday My mom came over for a visit bearing bagels and her delicious baked goods. MFD and Vincent went to Quaker meeting and I did an in-home walk and showered. What else what else. Normal sheet changing and towel washing and putting the house in order. I should have done laundry but I argued with people I don't know online about why Bloomberg is so fucking terrible instead. After years of saying we were going to we finally bought a new sectional for the shore (no ottoman, but the sectional is the ottoman color) and went to dinner at Margaritas since it was right across from there. The service was great but the food was fucking terrible, we had immediate regrets/should have gone elsewhere. I finished reading Just Mercy and whew. 

Weekly food prep: Breakfast is savory oatmeal and a banana. Lunches are salads with a hard boiled egg side car. Snacks are baby carrots. Dinner is spaghetti with veggie meat sauce from the freezer, garlic bread to use up bread from last week, and side salad - MFD is making that Monday night. I'll probably do sheet pan veggies and smoked sausage mid-week. That's one of the only meals I am cool with making the day of during the week. So no pics because the only things I made were hard boiled eggs and oatmeal and cut up some stuff for salads. Oh I lied. Here are some tomatoes. Bye.

Is this just a weekend and books and Thursday Thoughts blog anymore? In this season of life, seems like it. I am not off today, but I do feel more rested than I have in a while.

TWTW - the one with the Easter Bunny

Friday my office closed at 12:30. It was a joyous occasion. I celebrated by going to the hell that is Produce Junction on Good Friday and the gym. I made a quick dinner of baked salmon and salad, then hit Target. I couldn't resist the Buddha of course, but the reason I went was for this Bose wireless speaker. It's awesome.

Saturday Gus got me up at an unacceptable hour. I pissed the morning away shopping online and obsessively building my Spotify library. I just started using it Saturday and love it. The dogs also got gifts from Chewy.com - more to come on that.

Saturday afternoon I went to Fritz's Bakery and the fake Dollar Store (Family Dollar) before having Easter lunch with my grandparents and parents.

I didn't feel like cooking so we went to Sakura for hibachi after I subjected everyone to a family photo.

Saturday night we both did some work and I made some food for Easter. This photo of the dogs has nothing to do with either.

Sunday morning we slept in and ate a shit ton of sugar.

MFD went off to Mass and I laid my clothes out for the week and cleaned my makeup brushes.

I did no food prep this weekend aside from power breakfast muffins to freeze. If I'm hosting dinner and my fridge is full for that, I will typically use something from the freezer or do food prep on Monday night. This week's breakfasts are breakfast burritos from the freezer. Lunch is provided for me Monday and tonight I'll make my lunches for the rest of the week - baked chicken, roasted sweet potatoes, and steamed broccoli. Dinner is Easter leftovers and zucchini noodles with ground turkey and red sauce.

We took a long family walk and enjoyed the beautiful Easter weather.

Sunday afternoon Stephen, Aubrey, and Debbie joined us for dinner. On the menu: ham, double cheese scalloped potatoes (recipe coming soon), mashed sweet potatoes, steamed green beans, corn, steamed asparagus, deviled eggs, pickles, rolls.  Dessert was a trifle made by my Mom, cheesecake, and brownies from Fritz's. After dinner and dessert, MFD was the first to fall prey to the food coma. Stephen was close behind. The women remained at the table chit chatting. We made Peters wear her cataract glasses in our ladies shot. It was a good day! Lots of stuff coming up to be excited about.

Other weekend things:

-I finished my 40/40! I worked out for 40 minutes a day 45 out of 46 days. I feel good, I'm down about a size and a half, and I'm happy so I'm going to continue five days a week.
-Eva the Diva turned one on Sunday! I can't believe it's been a year since she exploded on the scene. I can't wait to celebrate her on Saturday at her Wonder Woman party!

Work has been really busy and I slowed my shit right down this weekend. It felt good.

What about you?

ATTENTION SHOW US YOUR BOOKS PEOPLE! I made a mistake a few weeks ago and announced tomorrow, April 7, as the link up day. The link up is actually Tuesday, April 14. It's always the second Tuesday of the month. Sorry! I hope to see a lot of you linking up next Tuesday.

Linking up with Biana at B Loved Boston for Weekending

the weekend that sort of wasn't

Say what? Well what I mean is that I didn't get done what I normally do on a weekend, because I was otherwise engaged most of the time, outside of the house at a 24 hour Relay For Life event.

Relay is really important to me - cancer has negatively impacted my life and the lives of many people close to me, and this is my outlet to give back. This is my way to deal with my anger, frustration, sadness and grief that asshole cancer has caused. Since Relay is 12 or 24 hours with someone walking on the track at all times, you can't do it without a team. My Random Acts of Kindness teammates have been with me for five years. They don't have to come along on this journey with me - the drive is mine - but they do and each year they show up ready to walk and determined to raise what we can. I appreciate them so much. Missed you this year Michelle! My littlest teammate below first came to Relay as a month old baby. We also joined up with another team this year, and had Tara, a new teammate/old friend join our team. Thanks Dyanne's Defenders for a successful joint effort! Thanks also to Martha, Julie and Lauren for introducing me to Relay five years ago.

Relay scenes: a bra decorating fundraiser, two people rocking out their 80s campsite theme, even on Relay night MFD needs to crush that freaking candy, track scenes, Kit Kat D dancing along to the Sign Language Interpretive Songs. Our team raffled off baskets, did a 50/50, sold Debbie Rae Design bracelets, baked goods and some other stuff. We raised over $1,100 at the event, bringing our total team total to about $4,500.

It was hot walking during the day, and I got my typical back of the knee sunburn that I get every blessed year despite major sunblock reapplication. But overall, it was gorgeous and we enjoyed the best Relay weather day we've ever had. We also saw the super moon, which was not actually super until about 5:00 a.m.

The luminaria ceremony is the heart and soul of Relay. If you've never experienced one, you should. We had too many bags lining the track of people we've lost or people we honored who are battling cancer now or have beaten it. These are just a few of ours. My Grandmom died in December of pancreatic cancer. I dedicated my Relay to her this year. I checked her candle at 5:15. Still going. Her candle was one of the only ones still burning at 6:30 in the morning on Sunday - 10 hours after it was lit. So typical of her to persevere. Thanks for the sign Grandmom.

There's nothing like walking part of every hour for 24 hours to come to terms with some things and honor people in your life who've had cancer.

Sunday
I hobbled into my house about 25 hours after I left on Saturday, got one of the top five showers of my life, and enjoyed an awesome lunch a la MFD: a steak, baked potato, and steamed broccoli for lunch. Boom.

Other Sunday things:
-Five hour nap
-Two epsom salt foot soaks
-Lots of ibuprofen
-Blister care
-Foot elevation
-Mexican takeout
-Sweet Home Alabama
-The Killing

Aching feet and body can't compare to what cancer sufferers go through daily.

Weekly food prep happens tonight, as does other normal weekend stuff. Have a great day!

Check back here tomorrow for a Shabby Apple giveaway!

Linking up with Join the Gossip for Monday Morning Gossip
Linking up with Sami's Shenanigans for Weekend Shenanigans
Linking up with Southern Sunflowers & Coffee Beans for Monday Mingle

the weekend getaway that was

Diary of a mad hausfrau: MFD had a listing appointment so I was able to change the sheets, clean both baths and the kitchen, put laundry away, empty the dishwasher, sort the mail and vacuum the entire house. I love coming home from a weekend away to a clean abode. As you can see above, los perros were anxious to leave so as soon as MFD got home on Friday we were gone with the wind.

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We hit bad weather and had a bit of a harrowing drive, finally arriving at Lori & Jack's close to 11.

The dogs were ecstatic, and we were happy to have a weekend of relaxing ahead of us.

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Geege was up most of the night. He was too excited to sleep. 

We were up for good early on Saturday, which required a lot of coffee.

I didn't mind being up early since it was Lori's birthday and we had a lot to get in!

Excuse the schizophrenic photo frames in this post. 

Variety is the spice of life? Yes. That's the ticket. 

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A damp but invigorating walk in the woods. Lots of dogs scampering and fall foliage.

My boys were on the go with Max, Lori's youngest puppy.

Check out Darby, who's blind and will be 15 in December. She was out there

trucking along over the river and through the woods with the rest of the pack. Miracle dog!

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A quick jaunt into LeRaysville to The Cheese Factory.

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The LeRaysville Market. I'd never been there and was bowled over by their selection and prices.

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A stop at the Dandy is a must. I love the coffeepots. 

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Enjoying the great outdoors

Excuse my fuzzy deer

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I was showered and in my pajamas by 2 pm. It was fabulous. We feasted on a snack food spread,  watched a bunch of college football and had a blissful doze.

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Steaks on the grill, twice baked stuffed potatoes, steamed broccoli, red wine and cake from The Flying Cow Bakery. Happy birthday Lori!

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Dates from Hell on ID Channel

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I'd like to have coffee like this every day.

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Sunny Sunday woods walk

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One of Jack's big breakfasts. 

True fact: I only eat pancakes at Lori & Jack's.

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A seamless two hour and 45 minute ride home with some very tired dogs and some 

glorious fall foliage views. And of course the requisite MFD photo in Meshoppen.

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Enchiladas for dinner. Ole!

I sauteed some chicken and onions, added a bit of sour cream, enchilada sauce, 

cumin, garlic powder and some Tastefully Simple fiesta mix. 

I plopped some of that in the middle of whole wheat tortillas, grated some cheese on top, poured

enchilada sauce over them, added some more grated cheese on top, and baked at 400 for 20 minutes.

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Sunday soup: tomato, basil & cheddar

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TV: Revenge, Hart of Dixie, Vampire Diaries

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the weekend that was

What a wonderful weekend. I love going to Lori & Jack's, and it was even better this time because it was Lori's birthday and I got to spend it with her. I was so relaxed that I couldn't even bring myself to do the mountain of laundry that's currently in the basement. 

Toodleoo, tootsies. Happy Monday.

I'm linking up with Sami's Shenanigans, Five30Three, and Join the Gossip for the weekend update - check them out!