Friday Five

For my Friday Five this week, I've decided to focus on five specific things I am grateful for.

1. I am grateful for deliciously sweet pastries leftover from an event at work. Enough that I can eat as many as I want without feeling greedy. Ha!

2. I am grateful for cooler weather so I can wear pants and not have to shave every day. That's five minutes of my day I can devote to something (anything) else.

3. I am grateful for casual Fridays so I can wear jeans to work. (And Chucks and a long-sleeve tshirt... I may have gone a little overboard with the casual today, but school spirit makes it OK, right?)

4. I am grateful the task of taking the AC unit out of the bedroom window has been completed. It is not something I can do myself, so I had not been looking forward to having to ask for assistance, but fortunately it turned out to be relatively pain-free.

5. I am grateful it's Friday, which means I get to spend the next two days with my little man. Hugs and kisses and boogers and books.

What are you grateful for today?

Lunchtime Reads

As much as I dislike abandoning books, I set last week's book aside. Right now I crave books that are super interesting and easy to read. If I have to work hard at it, chances are I'm not going to bother. I've read about 1/4 of this book so far, and I hate putting it away at the end of my lunch knowing I have to wait 24 hours to rejoin Quinn's bizarre and captivating life. The good news is that if I end up liking the whole book (and I see no reason why I wouldn't at this point) it appears to be part of a series. And I sure do love me a YA series (Divergent! Hunger Games!).

Weekends

Weekends are for relaxing and soaking up every second of togetherness with my son. I miss him so much when I'm at work and he's at daycare. I know he has fun playing with his friends, but it's such a long time to be separated from each other every day. Plus our time together during the week is harried: rushing to get meals, to get dressed, to get out the door, to get into bed. Come Saturday, I just want to relax and BE with my little man.

This weekend had its ups and downs, as he's got a cold and I'm fighting one (you don't have to share everything, buddy). When he's not feeling well he swings quickly from glee to despair and was particularly sad both afternoons after his nap.

On Saturday we went grocery shopping and played in the yard. Nothing exciting, but maybe that's what we both needed.

On Sunday morning we went for a lovely hike with my sister and her son. It was pretty chilly when we first hit the trail, but the boys like to play by the river so the temps had a chance to rise quite a bit by the time we headed back to the cars. I carried the Kelty pack, but my little guy did so well I never even put him in it. When he wanted up I would carry him on my hip for a few minutes and then set him back down to walk some more. The hike itself wasn't that long, but I love seeing him cover so much ground on his own.

While he napped Sunday afternoon I hastily whipped together a batch of banana bread. I love baking, but it is simply too time consuming for me these days. I fear I may have made a slight error because of my rushing, but since I'm the only one eating the bread anyway, perfection is unnecessary.

Cold apple cider in a handmade ceramic mug - the only way to drink it!

Already looking forward to next weekend!

Linking up with Karen at Pumpkin Sunrise.

Friday Five

1. I don't usually like this style of music, but this song is really speaking to me of late. Some of the lyrics really hit home.

2. As I mentioned in my last post, the book I'm reading currently isn't doing much for me. I don't care at all about what happens next. When I pick it up each day I have zero interest in it. But I am still thinking about the last book I read, Still Life with Bread Crumbs, by Anna Quindlen. Now that was a great book, very compelling. I would highly recommend it.

3. I've never been a leggings-as-pants person, but I've long been a fan of yoga pants so it was a fairly natural transition once I got over the not-pants hump. It helps that as a 40 year old single mom of a toddler I am essentially invisible, so I might as well be comfortable. I spent months agonizing over whether to buy a pair of LuLaRoe leggings, which I kept hearing about. I joined (many) Facebook groups and looked at what seemed like hundreds of patterns. I hemmed and hawed and then I saw these:

Bam. My life is now complete. And I shall be wearing them every second I am not at work (as soon as it stops being 85 degrees, that is).

4. I have to remember to set my DVR to record this on Thanksgiving.

5. Today is Apple Fest at work. Bring on the apple fritters. That is all.

Happy Friday, y'all!!

Lunchtime Reads

I do all of my reading these days during my lunch hour. I usually go for a 15-20 minute walk, then find a nice shady spot to sit and read until it's time to go back inside and nuke my food. Most of the time I end up with a chilled backside from the cold stone, but as the seasons change I suspect I might find myself inching towards the sun. This book, while mildly entertaining, is not exactly compelling, so my desire to eat wins easily over my desire to continue reading as my free time draws to a close.

Here we go again!

Hello! It's been a while, I know. A lot has changed in my life and obviously I haven't made time for blogging. I still don't have much time to spare, but I'm thinking (hoping) that getting back to semi-regular blogging might be good for the soul.

So much has happened in the last 18 months or so, and I don't feel up to posting a big ol' summary, so for now I'm going to try to just jump back into posting. At some point I may go back and flesh out the details, or I may not. Guess we'll just wait and see what happens.

I have some ideas and a few posts in draft form, which seems like a good place to start from. So... here we go again.