Author: SecondHeartMom

  • Full Week Ahead!

    Full Week Ahead!

    Well, tomorrow starts Fall 2026 teaching for me! 😮

    Hopefully, I will be “cruising” along soon, but it is always a little rough adjusting to the choppy waters as we start. I feel like I need to manage a few things better this year to avoid feeling overwhelmed by Week Six. So, here is what I’ve done to set myself up for success in my classes.

    #1 Edit classes to decrease grading

    I edited down my graded assignments a ton; I didn’t get rid of all of that work, but made it part of a portfolio assignment. I have built units that I hope will feel more intuitive for students than just following the order of book chapters. Each class is mapped out in a skeletal fashion, with some slack, just in case.

    #2 Meal planning

    I am not a meal planner typically. But, last semester, some of my most frustrating times were coming home from work exhausted and there being zero plan for what to eat. Exhausted me does not handle decisionmaking well and I am often hangry after work. So, having a plan will definitely help. Executing that plan will be the challenge. But, for this week, I have five recipes for this week, went grocery shopping today for the items needed and I’m ready to roll tomorrow! Here is what I’ve planned for the week:

    Monday: Greek Chicken Bowls from Eating Bird Food

    Look at this photo:

    Mine probably won’t look half that good, but YUM! And healthy!

    Tuesday: Easy Sheet Pan Gnocchi from The Nutrition Junky

    Again, a great looking dish:

    Wednesday: Tortellini Pasta Salad from Insanely Good Recipes

    Since my husband travels for work on Wednesday and pasta isn’t his favorite, I try to do pasta-heavy meals while he is gone. This looks like heaven in a bowl to me!

    Thursday: Pasta with meat sauce (will consider frozen meatballs as well) and garlic bread

    Friday: Leftovers

    After Senior Sunrise at 7:30 am and with my husband coming in late that night, I want to make it as easy as possible!

    Saturday: Sheet Pan Pork Chops from I Heart Naptime

    Yum, yum, yum! Again, I just need to execute on all these plans!

    I also have decided on Cottage Cheese Breakfast Bowls for this week to try to increase my protein intake a bit. I don’t eat fish, so I’ll skip the salmon one and I don’t have all the same ingredients, but I have enough of them that I can improvise the rest!

    #3 Chore Chart from Lamberts Lately

    My husband and daughter are both a little “clutter-blind”. This also creates a bit of frustration in exhausted me. So, I’ve printed out the Cleaning Schedule with morning and evening things to do, daily chores, and even Room of the Week Chores. I hope this “checklist” style reminder will help them see that things need to be done even if they don’t naturally notice. We shall see…

    #4 Showering at night

    This is a new one to me. I am a morning shower person typically, but I read that this is a good strategy for improving sleep and my sleep has been ROUGH lately. I made the mistake of getting off my sleeping schedule (staying up way too late) during Summer and now I’m back to perimenopause-style sleep. I feel like it had really improved at the end of last semester, but here we are again. So, trying the showering at night to go along with my Magnesium Threonate and Vitamin D. Fingers crossed this works. I’m also going to fight my rebel urges to stay up late and try to be in bed by 10 pm every night. I have no problems waking up. I haven’t used an alarm clock in years because I start waking up around 4:30 am and even if I get back to sleep, it is never for a lengthy amount of time. So, no worries on the morning side of things!

    What about you? Do you have any tricks, tips or changes you’re making to keep your cruise for Fall 2026 as smooth as possible?

  • Friday Favorites is a Favorite

    I am so excited to join Friday Favorites again hosted over at Momfessionals and A Little Bit of Everything!

    I am a returner, but under a different blog location (I used to blog under Speaking of Easy). If you’re curious why, you can read about it in my first blog post or just skip it! I’m okay either way. But I have really missed reading everyone’s Friday Favorites and doing my own each week. It truly is a bright spot! So, here goes:

    #1 – Library Visits

    Last weekend we used our final weekend of Summer to take a trip to Bakersfield to visit family. My MIL had been invited to a book talk and signing at their main library, and oh my…what a beautiful library it is! I had been to a smaller library in Bakersfield, but never this one. They were having a book sale (another favorite of mine) on the first floor, and the book talk and signing was on the second floor. Two floors!!! It was SO big!

    The book talk and book signing was in the Local History Room, which was appropriate, as the book was Images of America: Arvin, Lamont and Weedpatch and covered the history of the area from the area’s founding through the 1930s or so.

    My MIL and her friend who went with us both grew up in Arvin. In fact, her friend’s mother contributed a number of the photos used in the book! It was such a fun little local occasion with a lot of people who have obviously grown up and grown old in and around Bakersfield! At one point, my daughter turned to me and said, “It’s like being in an episode of Parks and Rec!” Lol…

    #2 Seeing History In Real Life

    After the book signing, we went to lunch. We had planned on visiting Luigi’s, which has been in business for over 100 years in it’s same location! They have delicious pasta and walls covered in black and white photos of old Bakersfield. BUT, it was PACKED when we got there. Sad.

    BUT, luckily right down the street is Wool Grower’s Basque Restaurant. It is a younger place, only 72 years old. 🙂 They had plenty of tables available. It was delicious as always. There is a large Basque population in Bakersfield and they have multiple Basque restaurants, but this one is definitely my favorite. They do a family style “set up” and that’s “all” I had (you can get a set up with a main course added on), but it included soup, bread, beans, salsa, tomato salad, more bread, and french fries, Yum! They also had some old photos of their own and this beautiful mural in the parking lot.

    After lunch we went on a drive out through Lamont, Weedpatch and Arvin to see what had been talked about in the book talk. We saw where my MIL and her friend went to elementary school and high school. We saw farms where they used to sneak cherries on the way home. We saw places from the book and newer places that have been built up in recent years. It was a great trip and I learned a ton about the area and its history! I’m glad that my neice (12) and my daughter (17) got to learn it all as well.

    #3 First Day of Senior Year!!!

    Well, this is a mixed favorite. I can’t believe my daughter is almost done with K-12, but I’m so happy to see her thriving as she goes into her Senior year. We got her a car in July, so she got to chalk a parking space and do her car windows for the first day. She has her leopard print backpack – not the exact same one, but pretty close to what she carried for her first day of Kindergarten.

    And here is that Kinder photo and her with the Kinder photo:

    She has days one and two under her belt now and seems really excited about the year!

    #4 Slow days before the Rush

    I do not start my Fall semester of teaching until Monday (I teach college at two local campuses). So, I had Thursday and Friday to prep, but mostly just take it slow before the rush of Fall semester starts. I spent a few hours in the hammock in our backyard enjoying an unusally cool day (in the mid-80s and breezy) with my book.

    It was glorious. But, now, I’m feeling behind in being ready to start on Monday. It was a trade off, but I’m glad I had some downtime. I have my first three to four weeks ready to go for my classes at the campus that begins on Monday, so I will be fine. And the slow day of reading and relaxing was much needed after two very busy weekends away and all the prep getting a Senior ready for her first day!

  • Beginning…again!

    Beginning…again!

    This is my first post on this blog.

    I’ve blogged in many places over the years. I’ve also deleted almost all of those blogs. I still have my daughter’s heart transplant blog, which I just updated after a seven-year hiatus (!), and that’s about it.

    I’m telling you this because I realized something about myself today. I start blogs because I genuinely love writing. I love interacting with people and learning about their lives, their places and people, their ideas, and the things they’re excited about.

    And then my insecurities sneak in.

    I’m not posting consistently enough. I’m not doing this “right.” I don’t have enough interesting things to say. My blog doesn’t look the way it’s supposed to look.

    Eventually, I stop writing. And apparently, I then just delete the whole darn thing.

    But today I realized that I miss the writing and relational space. I miss the interactions. I miss having somewhere to put the things I’m thinking about. And I miss the process of writing for an audience. Even if that audience turns out to be only a handful of people who I’ve never actually met in person.

    So, I’m beginning again. And I’m doing it under a name that I had decided didn’t fit me.

    Sparkle & Spritzers.

    I bought this domain after my recent birthday trip to Sonoma where I felt really good about myself, a bit “sparkly” perhaps, and I drank some wine spritzers.

    Then, I almost immediately decided I couldn’t use it because I’m not particularly sparkly and I don’t spend my afternoons sipping spritzers on fabulous patios. I felt like it would be a “lie” or an online persona that didn’t match who I was in person.

    But, then I thought I was looking at it all wrong. Because I WAS that person for a few days. And I could be that person more often.

    Sparkle doesn’t mean “I am a sparkly person all day, everyday.” It means I can find a little more fun, interest, connection, confidence, beauty, ridiculousness – whatever – in my oh-so-ordinary life.

    And Spritzers doesn’t mean “this cocktail blog.” It’s more about leisure and celebration. Sitting down with someone. Trying something new. Enjoying myself.

    In other words, the title is aspirational, not my persona. And I think that’s actually much more realistic at this stage of my life.

    I’m in my late 50s. I work full-time, plus a side gig. Tomorrow, my daughter starts her senior year of high school. I’m heading into a year of lasts and firsts, followed by parenting an adult and, before too long, an empty nest.

    I’m definitely not presenting The Fabulous Life of a Sparkly Woman Who Drinks Aperol Spritzes. That actually makes me laugh a little when I read it. That is so not my life right now.

    I can write about my ordinary, somewhat chaotic life while I’m still figuring things out. AND I can seek out ways to bring more sparkle and have a few more drinks on patios along the way!

    So here I am. Beginning again.

    And if you happen to recognize me from Speaking of Easy (I would link to it, but I deleted it – sigh), hi! I can’t bring it back, but I can start writing again!

    This time, I’m going to try very hard not to not think this has to be done perfectly. I’m just going to write. Imperfectly. Showing up, mostly.

    Hope to see you here again!