Tag: life

  • Friday Favorites – Mid-October Edition

    October is such a beast! I can’t believe we’re only half way through! It already feels like so much has happened. But, we’ve got 14 more days to go, which will include decorating our “haunted barn” for our Girl Scout Hal”low”een event on October 26 – and getting all the other food and crafts organized for the night, a cabin camping trip for three days and two nights with the same troop the three days before that Halloween event (scheduling is not easy with this crew), and Halloween celebrations on the 31st! But, let’s focus on this past week for now. I’m joining Momfessionals and A Little Bit of Everything once again!

    #1 – Home Cooked Meals

    I don’t cook at home a whole lot. I would like to cook more, but often just feel overwhelmed. But, last weekend, I was inspired in the morning on Sunday, so I made a potato and egg casserole:

    It was very easy – I used Trader Joes Spicy Spuds and then mixed put pre-cooked bacon in eggs and dumped that in the center of the potatoes and baked it. It was fantastic. Definitely will cook it again.

    Then, I was inspired. to make lunch too! I made Stupid Easy Oven Nachos a la Lazy Genius:

    They were very tasty! I always forget to take photos until we’ve started to eat the food, so they’re always half eaten (or more). I guess that shows they get eaten.

    #2 – Work Fun

    Last weekend was our Wildcat Weekend for parents and students interested in attending in the future. I took my daughter for the second year and we talked to some of the faculty and students in majors she is interested in studying. She does not want to stay in town for four-year college (she will likely go to Community College next year to finish up her GE), but they were nice enough to talk to her about some things to consider, etc. It was fun seeing her interact with faculty and really know what she is interested in studying. But, things may change and that is quite okay! I also gave a presentation to transfer students and parents and we visited some of my favorite places on campus. We also got a new art installation on campus that was made from steel beams from a covered bridge that burned in the 2018 Camp Fire. So many cool things on campus!

    #3 – High School Memories

    My High School class is having our 40th Reunion this weekend. I could not travel for another weekend this month, so I didn’t go. But, people have been posting some photos. It was a little entertaining to see myself back in 1985 (Fall of Senior year).

    #4 – Strange and beautiful things around town

    I had an evening to myself since my husband was traveling for work and my daughter was babysitting, so I ate dinner at Chipotle and went grocery shopping at Trader Joes. Someone made an incredible piece of art out of the aluminum foil lid at Chipotle. Then, someone had a great little Halloween guest in their car!

    #5 – Charcuterie, Sparkle and Trivia

    On Thursday, a couple of friends and I went to a new place in town for Trivia. They had a Bruschetta Charcuterie and Sparkling Wine for two and I ordered it for myself. Lol. I did share a bit of it, but it was so good, I ate most of it. My friend had one glass of the wine and I had the rest and we agreed it was great. And we got second place at trivia and won a $25 gift card for the place! So, we’ll be back on Thursday!

    And that’s it for this week! It was a good one, but I’m feeling like I’m a little behind in things. I’m a little anxious about our trip and our Halloween event. I have quite a bit of work to do at work before the end of the month.

    On another note – I hired a house cleaner! One of my former students cleans houses during the Summer and was looking for jobs up here and I’ve been wanting a house cleaner for a while, but our pets always seemed a little bit of a deterrent to hiring a stranger. But, this student pet sat for us in June, so she knows the pets and our house and was willing to clean it! She came for the first time on Wednesday and oh. my. gosh. My world has shifted. Seriously. It was SO clean. And it smelled so good. And it just made me feel so much better. And I didn’t spend today cleaning! All amazing things.

    In addition, we had our trees trimmed in our backyard and that also looks much better now! I am looking forward to this week because the temps are going down (70s, but 20 degrees cooler than this week) and I will be able to enjoy the backyard!

    How about you? What was your favorite from this past week? What are you looking forward to this next week?

  • Friday Favorites – Getting Rocktobered Edition

    I missed last week and today is Sunday, but thought I would join A Little Bit of Everything and Momfessionals for Friday Favorites, even if late. The end of September and beginning of October have really felt like drinking from a firehose. I’ve done a lot of things. A lot of things have happened around me. Some have been really fun. Some have been a lot of work. Some have been sad. Some have just been hard. And the rest of October has a lot going on by plan and I’m sure some other things will come up and it will continue to be a lot. But, we’re looking for favorites and grace and good things. I’ll go back the two weeks for my favorites and get caught up!

    #1 – All things Fall

    The weather is even starting to cooperate! It is only 74 at the high today. But, it will be back up to 90 this week, but mostly in the 80s. I can deal with that. The recent 100 degree temps were a little much for Fall.

    #2 – Fun with friends

    That blurry photo is ridiculous but we were playing trivia at a local place with friends. The Seltzer is not quite a Spritzer, but as close as I got these past two weeks. It was tasty – I had never had one. We were at a friend’s house for a small reunion of Speech and Debate team members from the past before our Hall of Fame that we celebrate every three years. I was inducted as a Director (a role I played for about 15 years on campus) and it was lovely. Friends who couldn’t make it sent me flowers and that is number 3!

    #3 Thoughtful Acts from Friends that include Flowers!

    #4 – Teaching and Service

    This past couple of weeks I’ve done a lot of teaching and some service. Our Girl Scout center had a clean-up day where all the troops come in and do some maintenance work – my daughter recruited for her day camp and I helped with some errands and rock moving.

    For teaching, we did a fun “battery” activity in my internship class and we’re all signed up and ready to go for Informative Speeches in my Public Speaking class. We also finished up our Wikipedia unit in Argumentation and took the first exam. I need to grade those on Monday and see how they did and we’ll move on to AI and Debate on Tuesday!

    #5 Puzzles!

    I finally finished my Summer puzzle and now I’m ready to start The Dogs of Halloween!

    Well, that is about it for the these weeks. So much has been happening at work that I can’t seem to keep my head above water. I’m really struggling to get it all done and that is really just October. I know that. But, it doesn’t make it any less painful. This week I’ve got a Girl Scout meeting on Monday to finish planning our Halloween Party we host for younger girls and our weekend trip that happens in two weeks (which reminds me that I still need to do paperwork and a training for Girl Scouts), a fun night called Science at the Pub on Wednesday where grad students and professors come to a local bar and talk about their research, my daughter has their big intercity rivalry game on Friday – called the Almond Bowl (and say the Almond like Salmon if you want to be a local), then there are some fun events over the weekend here in town. The next week is all about Halloween Party and a trip prep with Girl Scouts. In addition, I have a TON of work to do – emails to deal with, grading to do, planning the rest of the semester, making more progress on our 2-unit graduation class we’re trying to get to proposal stage, writing my year-end assessment report for last year in FYE, and so. much. more.

    I will do what I can do! Wish me luck!

    How is your October looking? Are you getting Rocktobered? Are you LockedIntober? Are you in PJs and Sockstober? Let me know!

  • Friday Favorites – Last of September

    How does this happen? I swear it was just yesterday I was typing “first of the –ber months”! Sigh…But, I’m back and joining in with Momfessionals and A Little Bit of Everything once again for Friday Favorites. I love doing this on the hard weeks because it reminds me of all the little things that are worth remembering, but easily forgotten when things are tough.

    This past week has been another tough one and I don’t have many photos (and definitely not many good ones – I need to work on using my new camera). I can also always tell a rough week by what my house ends up looking like at the end of the week, and it is a doozy this weekend. But, I’m happy to have a quiet weekend – just a Girl Scout Experience Day for a couple of hours today and that is it. If things go well today with putting the house back together and getting some grading done, we may drive up to Lassen National Park tomorrow and spend some time in nature as well. We’ll see. We already cancelled a friend BBQ tonight because it just felt like a little too much. BUT, this is supposed to be about last week’s favorites – so let’s go!

    #1 – Halloween Time!

    I love Halloween! I sometimes will wait until October 1 to decorate, but this year, I decided to start early! So, I brought out SOME of the decorations and Halloween goodies:

    My Hocus Pocus cup and my solar powered eyeballs and the cute Boo sign all made it out in the first haul!

    #2 – It is officially Fall!

    I wish the weather was a little cooler. It’s still been in the 80s and 90s here, which doesn’t feel very fall like. But, I got a new cup to remind me what season we’re in:

    And I am currently watching a YouTube video about slowing down and matching the natural rhythm of the seasons and I want to thank Jenni’s Seasons for the reminder that maybe my recalibration for the last 90 days may be a little more than I want to bite off. So, don’t look for Part Two of that little delusion! 🙂 And she mentioned Kendra Adachi and it just so happens that I had pulled “The Lazy Genius Way” book off my shelf a couple of weeks ago to reread, but had not started yet. So, yes! I do listen to Lazy Genius, but I often don’t REALLY listen! Thanks for the reminder.

    #3 Homecoming!

    I am not a football parent, so I don’t go to games. But, this past Friday was homecoming and my Senior was willing to share her favorite photos with me. Here are a few – the theme was White Out.

    #4 Puzzle, Soup and a cute outfit

    Still working on that same puzzle from last week. The cats make it difficult sometimes as they really seem to enjoy the puzzle board as a cat bed.

    But, I’ve almost finished it, so it is sure to be on next week’s Friday Favorites as my first completed puzzle of the season!

    We also had one day in the low 70s and I busted out a semi-Fall outfit with some leggings and a new-to-me shirt AND some Chicken Tortilla Soup!

    Ignore my daughter’s messy bedroom – the lighting is better in there. 🙂

    #5 Apple Pie A La Mode Ice Cream and Affogato

    My daughter and I found this ice cream at Trader Joes and it was super tasty! But, even better, I turned it into some Affogato and that was REALLY good!

    So, even though it was a bit of a tough week at work and my home is a bit worse for wear, there are still things to appreciate!

    How about you? What do you have to appreciate this past week?

  • Recalibrating for the Last 90 Days

    Instead of “locking in” for the last 90 days, I’m going focus on recalibrating for the last 90 days of 2026. My nervous system is feeling a bit frazzled by all the things. I’ve realized some things from watching videos and reading some things these past few days that make me realize a recalibration is in order.

    I have been very focused on efficiency and productivity for the past…well, for quite a while. I started a shift to something different this Summer, but quickly have settled back into a mode of stress, rush, guilt, task checking, and just general efficiency.

    I noticed this past week that I took no photos between Monday at Girl Scouts and the end of the week. It was like the weekend ended and all joy left the building. I scheduled meetings and had other people schedule meetings during the hours I have given myself to grade and prep and take a walk on my later start mornings. I had online speech sessions in the evening when I want to be making and eating dinner with my family. In person work felt like one big stressful complaint session with a few spots of positivity mixed in. It was, unsurprisingly, totally exhausting. I didn’t sleep well. I didn’t do much to take care of myself. I didn’t eat healthy – and sometimes no lunch at all. It was just a week of doing things, many that I didn’t even want to do – at least at the time I was doing them. And I didn’t really plan pockets of joy.

    So, we’re heading into what is soon to be the last 90 days of 2026 and I want to recalibrate.

    I want to adjust the accuracy of my processes. I want to readjust my thoughts, focus or actions in order to more balanced and aligned (I am purposely skipping that “effective” part, although I obviously will need a little of that as well). I am so out of balance right now. And I don’t mean work/life balance, I mean wholistic living balance. I took the Psychology Today Healthy Lifestyle survey and wow….that was a little scary. Seriously. I need to make some changes!

    Recalibration #1 – Sleep

    In the past year, I’ve averaged only 6 hours 12 minutes a night of sleep. Past 3 months, 6 hours 15 minutes. Past month, 6 hours 14 minutes. Past week 6 hours 1 minute. At least I’m consistent. But, I am constantly exhausted. I often am falling asleep on the couch or feeling like I can’t focused in the afternoon/early evening. This past week, I had one night of only 4 hours 52 minutes of sleep and 4 out of 7 days were less than 6 hours. And it shows! I have zero energy to do anything beyond what I absolutely have to do. So, what’s my problem? Menopause. Pets that want to be let out in the middle of the night. Sleep schedule changes staying up waiting for my daughter to get home from activities or babysitting. Drinking caffeine in the afternoon. Poor sleep hygiene. You name it, I’ve got the problem! So, what can I control to recalibrate my sleep?

    • Exercise at least 30 minutes daily (this will also come up in a later wheel item).
    • Stop drinking caffeine after 2 pm in the afternoon.
    • Read at bedtime instead of playing Candy Crush (get rid of the phone or other screens at least an hour before bed)

    Recalibration #2 Eating

    My eating has been truly hit or miss since that week that I posted the meal plan. I skip breakfast a lot of days. Some days I will eat breakfast, but skip lunch. Some days, I eat lunch at 3 or 3:30 pm in the afternoon. And my lunch is sometimes more like a toddler lunch – the other day I had an apple sauce squeezer, chocolate covered donettes, sliced strawberries, and a sparkling water (!). It is a bit ridiculous.

    I also have a ton of food in my house. I cleaned out my pantry and refrigerator last week and my garage freezer yesterday. We have half a pig in the garage freezer amongst a lot of other leftovers and frozen proteins. I did eat a scramble this morning with some left over chicken and bell peppers. It was very tasty. I need more of that and less bowls of Corn Pops.

    Eating is a challenge for me. I think it is may be some undiagnosed ADHD problem – I’ve discovered a few recently. I really struggle with sticking to a plan I’ve made. I think we’ve all become addicted to the taste and convenience of fast or faster food (processed, frozen meals – not just actual fast food restaurants or food trucks). When we do cook at home, we often find it to be good and much healthier. Then, we turn around the next day and nothing is prepared because we’re tired or lost track of time or it just feels hard.

    But, I did put all the items in our fridge, freezers and pantry into a document in Google Docs that I can now plug into ChatGPT and ask it for meal plan ideas from what I have in the house with minimal additional purchasing. So, what’s the plan for recalibrating my eating?

    • Eat three meals a day – breakfast, lunch and dinner – every single day.
    • Make those three meals balanced with protein and vegetables and maybe some fruit. Limit sweets.
    • Limit eating out to one time this week.

    There are a few other areas I need to recalibrate, but this is getting quite long, so I’m going to make it a two-parter. Next, I will talk about recalibrating my movement, social life and spiritual life.

    If you have some things that work for you in the area of sleep (especially those of you who are perimenopausal or menopausal), please let me know! And of course, any easy hacks for eating healthier or more regularly!

  • Friday Favorites – Tough Week

    Joining Momfessionals and A Little Bit of Everything again for Friday Favorites this week. I’ll be honest. This was a tough week for a number of reasons. And I didn’t even work a full week. I worked from home yesterday and took today off other than one online speech session. But, man, it felt like it lasted forever! But, I’m going to focus on my favorites and moving on to better things!

    #1 – Bumper Stickers

    I saw a couple of bumpter stickers that I could really appreciate this week! The first one is more for my daughter, who hates parking. The second is one that everyone should have on their car and how we should all live our lives!

    I don’t like how I’m parked either.
    What would Dolly do?

    #2 Girl Scout Kapers!

    We had our bi-weekly Girl Scout meeting on Monday and our GS Center has put up a Kaper chart on the wall. If you aren’t familiar with Kapers, they are basically chores assigned to girls when you’re camping or doing an event or having a meeting! It was amazing how putting that little chart on the wall got all my girls doing their clean up duties without me asking! Here’s my daughter vacuuming:

    #3 Newly framed art work

    On a trip last year to Lassen National Park, which is pretty close to our home, we saw that they were selling limited prints done by our local artist, Jake Early. I have loved Jake Early pieces for years but never had a realistic opportunity to buy one at a price I could afford. So, when we saw they were selling these prints for only $125 – they started out selling for $500 – I knew I had to get it. It has since been sitting, waiting for a frame. Well, my husband surprised me by taking it in and getting it framed and I love it:

    We got it hung on our wall, but I don’t have a photo of it up there yet – this was when I picked it up at the framing store.

    #4 Getting Cozy for the Ber Months

    I did a couple of things this week in honor of the Ber months and I hope to add more! I got a cute puzzle at Barnes and Noble (and even got it on sale). I’m about half way through.

    I also got a new puzzle board to work on so my cats can’t knock all the pieces all over the place! So far, it has been brilliant! The cats have definitely had their time on the puzzle, but it has stayed in one piece just fine.

    I also took Shay’s lead and got myself a candle warming lamp recently and I am loving it!

    I got my daughter one as well and our house smells good all the time now!

    So, those were my favorites this week! Although this wasn’t a great week, I made it through and I’m ready to rally for a better week next week!

    How about you? Was your week all favorites, all foes or a mixture of both?

  • Friday Favorites – Summall

    Welcome to my blog! I’m joining Momfessionals and A Little Bit of Everything for Friday Favorites again this week! I’ve decided to call this time of year Summall because it feels like Summer most of the time, but Pumpkin Spice Lattes are out, all the stores have Halloween stuff, and the weather has gone from 102 degrees to 67 and raining and back to 97 degrees this week. Guess I’ll just embrace it!

    #1 Fall Living Room Redesign

    I think I had a photo of a reading corner on here a couple of weeks ago, but last weekend, I got the bug to do some redesign. We have a huge sectional that can’t really be moved in our living room, so I am relatively restricted in doing any furniture movement, but I decided to take the reading corner to a new level and bring out some fall decor. First, I reorganized two bookcases into one by color and I LOVE it. I’ve been doing a lot of BookTok YouTube videos lately and they all have these gorgeous color-coded bookcases! So, I did it.

    I think it really upped by cozy book reading corner game!

    #2 Organizing Dining Room Hutch

    While I was moving stuff around, I organized our dining room hutch for Fall – school and planner supplies on top, cookbooks and trivets on second shelf and my Fall dishes on the bottom. I added a pumpkin on top as well.

    #3 Summall Salads

    I ate a lot of salads this week. My husband has been traveling and my high school senior is gone more than she is home, so I’m doing a lot of meals on my own. Early in the week I had a TJ’s Sweet Chili Mango with TJ’s Grilled Chili Lime Chicken Breast. It was delish.

    I also had a TJ’s Mediterranean Style Salad Kit with some Foster Farms grilled chicken strips. Also good! And yesterday, I had TJ’s pre-made Caesar Salad with Foster Farms grilled chicken strips on top. All of these salads have a touch of Summer, but also can carry through to Fall, so I’m calling them Summall Salads!

    #4 Kayaking on the River with Friends

    The best this past week was definitely spending some time on the Sacramento River with friends. My daughter took our paddle board and I borrowed a friend’s kayak and we all took off down the river. It was perfect weather, great company and beautiful scenery!

    #5 Seasonal Decorating

    I pulled out a few of the non-Halloween decorations I have for the house. I also bought some seasonal signs from a Facebook Marketplace that I’m looking forward to using all year round!

    Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, so I’m looking forward to putting those decorations up, but will probably wait until the last week of September!

    For now, we have some pumpkins up around the house and I got this cute garland from TJ’s!

    How are things in your part of the world? Are you still in Summer, fully into Fall or are you also in Summall?

  • August Reflections – August was Awesome!

    I don’t often end a month and think, “what a great month that was!” but August was just that! I am so happy with the way the Summer ended and the Fall semester began. It wasn’t perfect, but it was definitely positive! So, what were some of the highlights of August?

    Trip to Monterey, Mission San Juan Bautista and Stanford

    We had a quick, but full weekend trip at the beginning of the month. We drove down to Monterey on Saturday morning and did a campus tour at CSU Monterey Bay. The campus is beautiful. Not much was open because it was a Saturday, but we saw the student union, part of the library, their new classroom building, first-year dorm rooms, and some turkeys meandering across campus! It felt like a place my daughter would thrive and she seems excited about the prospect, so that was a plus.

    We stayed the first night nearby in San Juan Bautista. I had not been to this Mission before and the city and our hotel was so cute! We had dinner at Jardine’s, walked around town and saw a lot of old buildings, old cars and the Mission and then headed back to the hotel for the night.

    The next morning, we headed back to Monterey for my daughter’s favorite place on earth, the Monterey Bay Aquarium! I think her real draw to CSU Monterey Bay may have been the tour guide’s comment that many students will intern at the aquarium and EVERY student gets a free ticket to the aquarium every year!

    We finished up at the Aquarium pretty early, so we headed out to drive the 17-mile Drive and although we got turned around and never made it to the other end, we did have a nice stop at Pebble Beach and enjoyed the little museum and the seats overlooking the course and ocean.

    We then drove all the way up the coast to Half Moon Bay and cut over to drive to our hotel in Stanford for the second night. It was a beautiful drive, but I didn’t get any photos. The next morning we had to be at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital bright and early for a heart cath that had been postponed a few weeks before. It went well and all looks to be stable in her heart!

    Train Trip to Bakersfield

    This was another quick weekend. We took the Amtrak bus to Stockton and then hopped on the train to Bakersfield. Our plan was to go down, spend a couple of days, and then drive my in-laws’ car back up for my father-in-law to have when he got back from Montana with my husband.

    We had a fun visit with historical tours of my mother-in-law’s hometown and a visit to their library for a booksigning and a ton of good food!

    First day of Senior Year!

    Fun with Friends

    We did dinners at friends’ houses and went to a concert! I don’t have photos from all of the visits, but here’s a few highlights.

    Fall Semester First Classes

    All went well with them! I’m actually really looking forward to this semester. It is so nice to NOT have classes four days a week (only three this semester and one of those it is only a 5-6:15 pm class). Last semester, I taught Monday through Thursday at 8 am and that was ROUGH. Never again for that.

    Home prep for Cozy Season

    I moved a few things around and created a little reading corner and I got a new vacuum! I am also in the process of decluttering a lot of areas – my linen closet, my bookshelves, my kitchen cabinets. I even baked some banana bread – with LOTS of chocolate chips. I guess it is a Fall Cleaning instead of Spring Cleaning for me. Getting ready for cozy season!

    A good book

    I have not read as much this month as I would have liked – but it was BUSY! I am finishing up this book today:

    and will be jumping right into reading August’s BOTM club’s book:

    And Coffee and Spritzers…of course!

    I had a Little Pink Grapefruit at my friend’s house, I had two Dirty Gurl strawberry vodka drinks at the concert (no photos – totally forgot), and last night for a dinner party, I made End of Summer Spritzers. So many fun drinks in the month of August! And of course, it is Pumpkin Spice Latte month!

  • Friday Favorites – End of August Edition

    Joining A Little Bit of Everything and Momfessionals again this week for Friday Favorites! This week was my big back-to-work week. I eased into it the week before with pre-semester training at my University with our student staff and classes at the Community College where I teach starting. But this week it was all the things – classes at the Community College, classes at the University, and my Director’s job at FYE in full force. Work has gone well, but my house was worse for wear, and we didn’t eat much dinner at home this week. Something had to give, though, so cooking was that thing. Overall, I would call this week a win for multiple reasons! This is a long one!

    #1 Concert with friends!

    We don’t go to many concerts, but we have a favorite local duo – The Kelly Twins, made up of two brothers who play piano (well, one of them plays a whole lot of other instruments during the show as well). Their whole show is by request, and everyone sings along loudly, and it is an absolute joy! If you ever get a chance to see them, do it! You will NOT regret it!

    So much fun! I forgot to take a photo of my drink, but it was very good. Not a spritzer, but a cocktail. We were at Argus Bar, on the patio, famous for its unique cocktail menu items. I had a Dirty Gurl. I almost didn’t order it because ordering that at a bar as a 58 year old woman is slightly humiliating – but it sounded worth it. And it was. I had two. Here is their full menu of drinks: https://www.argusvenue.com/menu and another shot of the concert:

    #2 Shopping Local

    On Sunday after the concert, I had my 17-year-old drive me downtown to get my car because we rode home with friends since we had drinks. Better safe than sorry. Since we were downtown, we did some eating and shopping! We had breakfast at one of our favorite places, Upper Crust Bakery. I was back there again on Wednesday to have breakfast with a colleague. Its that good!

    We then went to our local bookstore next door, simply named The Bookstore. It has both new and used books and I ended up with one I had seen on CBS Sunday Morning earlier in the day:

    We then walked down the block to Little Red Hen’s Home store. Little Red Hen is an incredible local org that provides employment and programs for adults and children with developmental disabilities, neurodivergence, and more. They have multiple stores, and they always have unique items. The people working there are kind, considerate, and enthusiastic, and you feel good about every purchase! I bought napkins I could not resist (and seemed made for me):

    and a new bottle of olive oil suggested by the employee!

    And when I was checking out, they asked if it was a gift, and I jokingly said, “a gift for myself.” They put it in the bag and then gave me some paper to make it a gift! ❤️

    #3 Sunsets with my 17-year-old

    I am trying to savor the time with my 17-year-old senior this year, so later that Sunday we drove out to a field by our house to watch the sunset because the colors looked pretty, but we can’t see much of the sunset from our house. We also saw the moon rising.

    #4 Girl Scouts – Senior Year

    We made it! My daughter started Girl Scouts as a Daisy in Kindergarten.

    And she’ll finish out this year as a Senior! We had our first meeting of the year on Monday night and did Court of Awards (handed out badges and patches from last year because I had to cancel that last meeting last year) and a Rededication candle ceremony courtesy of my co-leader:

    I am very proud to have this group of high school girls still showing up every couple of weeks to celebrate their sisterhood! My daughter is the only original troop member left from Kinder, but we have a few from 3rd and 4th grade and others from middle school. It is a really fun group of girls!

    #5 Fresh Flowers

    Especially hydrangeas! Thank you Trader Joe’s!

    #6 PSL Season!!!

    Last week I said that I had found Pumpkin Spice at Human Bean, but this week I was able to grab it at Starbucks! This has long been a signal that Fall weather, Halloween and all my favorite things are close at hand!

    #7 New Students for Fall!

    It is always so fun to see the new students in my classes for the Fall semester. Many of them are fresh out of high school, and their excitement, anxiety, and newness are palpable. I did my usual activity in my Argumentation and Advocacy class on day 2. They read about different ethical frameworks for decision-making, applied them to a political campaign scenario, then made posters around the room, editing each other’s work and hopefully gaining a better understanding of the complexity of decision-making, ethics, and advocacy. It was fun! And the posters were impressive!

    #8 A New Vacuum?!?

    That sounds ridiculous, but I own four pets, and between their shedding, my shedding, and my daughter’s shedding, our vacuum does a lot. I had my last vacuum for close to a decade, and it was time for a new one! The hose on the old one had a crack and I could envision the dust and hair flying out of it as fast as I was sucking it up! I did some research and got a rechargeable canister vac for hardwood floors, and I LOVE it! It is so light and not having a cord is great.

    #9 A New Houseplant

    #10 Redesigned reading corner!

    I got a new lamp for this corner of our living room. The last one stopped working in spring, but the light in Summer is fine without a lamp over there. But with Fall here and the time change coming soon, I wanted to get another lamp over there. I decided to change magazine baskets, move them over there, and will have my currently-reading and TBR books there as well. It will be a cozy reading corner once Fall weather and darker days are here and I am ready for it!

    WOW! What a great week! All the good that happens can easily get lost in the daily grind for me. But this really makes obvious how much goodness happens in a week!

    Hope you had a lot of favorites this week! Looking forward to reading everyone else’s.

  • Friday Favorites #2

    I’m actually here on a Friday, joining A Little Bit of Everything and Momfessionals again! Woohoo! This week was busy, busy, busy, but I’ve made it through and had some definite favorites. Let’s go.

    #1 An Actual Spritzer!

    My friend just returned from Croatia and discovered a favorite drink there. It is made with Lillet Rosé and Grapefruit juice. It wasn’t bubbly, but it was quite tasty and looked very pretty. And it was excellent for a hot, hot day. Fall is a misnomer for what’s going on around these parts right now.

    #2 Sticking with parts of a meal plan

    I was far from perfect this week. We got a take-and-bake pizza for one of the nights, and my daughter and I got In-N-Out when she had to babysit. But, I did do two meals from the list and a third edit of one of the meals. First, the cottage cheese bowl – it was delicious. I don’t know what I didn’t do one every morning. But, alas, I only had this beautiful masterpiece once this week.

    I went to Panera one day (I have a sip club for iced tea and work near one on Tuesday and Thursday mornings) and got avocado toast there and today we had a morning meeting with breakfast. The other day, I just didn’t have breakfast.

    I also made the Greek Chicken bowls this week. They were excellent and my family was able to build their own so they didn’t complain about the assorted things they don’t like, which are, of course, different from each other. I loaded it up with everything!

    #3 Napping Pets

    We had a lot of napping this week from the pets, as always. I was able to capture these cutie pies:

    #4 Sunsets

    We had some pretty sunsets this week. One of the evenings, my daughter and I jumped in the car and drove out by the orchards near us and I was able to capture the tail end of this lovely one:

    #5 Pumpkin Spice Season!

    I thought I was going to have to wait until Monday (August 25 – when Starbucks releases their Fall drink lineup) to get my first Fall fix, but we went to Human Bean this week and they had their Pumpkin Latte ready to go! They make theirs with pumpkin puree and no syrup and I get it half sweet and it is AH-mazing!

    And I was inspired to “spice” up my own coffee at home today in my travel mug. I use Trader Joe’s Cold Foam creamer and then I tossed some Pumpkin Pie Spice on top. Quite tasty!

    That’s it for me in this week’s favorites!

    I did teach my first couple of classes, and they went well. I’m trying to get my house cleaned and reset before the craziness of the full Fall semester kicks in. It has not been a favorite, but I’ve definitely made progress on laundry and decluttering some things. Much more to do this weekend!

    I am looking forward to seeing everyone else’s favorites!

  • 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?