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!
#1Fall 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?
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.
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:
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!
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!
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?
