Tag: reading

  • 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!

  • 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 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!