š We made our move back to Oahu and have spent the last 11 days eating our way across the island. Truly wonderful forms of fried dough to be found here. And all the fresh poke my mercury levels can handle.
š¤¬ At the risk of sounding like a total B- the house we were supposed to move into last week is still not available bc the tenants (who werenāt paying rent) have refused to leave. Bc of Hawaii laws - the only way to evict them is extremely expensive. I donāt want anyone to be homeless- but WE are currently homeless (staying with a very generous friend in her 2BR apt with my very loud, very energetic kids š¤Ŗ).
If yāall pray or anything like that- pray the tenants move out so we can get the kids settled before school starts aug 1.
Treasures: I'm here! It's been too, too long and I've missed you.
My nephew gets married one week from today and I've spent the last few weeks visiting every store and mall within driving distance desperately trying to find something to wear to the wedding, but no luck. Until today when I finally bought a dress. I love the style and the cut but I don't like the color or the floral pattern, but hey, at least now I have something to wear and the dress is really comfortable!
Congrats on your nephew getting married! I hope you have the best time at the wedding, and Iām sure you will look great that dress no matter what. š
- therapy. Specifically EMDR. We've been working on a preverbal trauma and it's been so good while also being a lot. Just grateful I get to prioritize that care for myself right now.
- Skittles. I bought an original pack and a berry pack & combined them in the same snack bowl so it balances out the less favorable flavors from both.
- trimmed my hair & also ordered a wig because while I love my short hair I also love shape-shifting/upsetting people's expectations.
Turds:
- we still don't have a green light/close date on our mortgage.
- my dentist uncle fell and shattered multiple bones on Monday. This is an uncle with a controversial life where I disagree with so much of how he's welded his power & influence but also I grew up loving so trying to navigate how much I can offer to his support/recovery feels tricky.
- my toothpaste. Turns out the reason my mouth is sluffing off skin every morning is that the new toothpaste I recently started using every day (yay for being able to engage in regular dental hygiene!) contains SLS which I'm apparently incredibly sensitive to. So.... gotta go switch to the old brand of toothpaste I used to use & toss a half used tube of this new stuff.
If you follow Mama Doctor Jones on IG (you should), her stories today are the shenanigans her and her mom did for her mom to make a trip to New Zealand to surprise the grands. Watching the kids figure it out and then be SO EXCITED to see Grandma made me very happy.
Currently waiting for my best friend to finish her newborns' pediatrician appt. so we can chat for the first time in way too long.
There's a fantastic French cafe here that I like to go to, but the parking situation is extremely hit or miss. Today it was a miss, so I went to a backup coffeeshop for breakfast, where I had an incredible sandwich. My current coffeeshop reading is Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, which has been on my TBR for awhile. I think I'll take my time with it, the writing is too lovely not to.
I sincerely hope everyone gets at least one excellent breakfast sandwich this weekend.
I started reading Braiding Sweetgrass when it was a new release but can't remember if I finished it, which says more about the stage of life i was in than the book itself - I remember it being a good listen.
I finished Stranger Things s4 last week and HO BOY I can not wait for season 5.
My main treasure is the app, Swimply - it's like airbnb but for private pools. We are renting one on Sunday (it's supposed to be 105 degrees in SLC on Sunday so just kill me now I guess) and every time I have rented a pool it's been amazing. GET SWIMPLY, Y'ALL. All the luxuries of having a pool without having to take care of it. Plus, if you get a group of people to split it, it's only a tad bit more expensive than going to the rec center and worrying about everyone peeing in the pool next to you. All hail Swimply.
Hello, Friday friends! (Is that accurate for most of us? Just me? Okay. š) Iāve actually had a lovely week of feeling like an actual, productive human being with all credit due to this accurate description of my summer so far:
One of the revelations I had during my week away last month was that I function best with a plan or a guide, if you will, and that I should structure my weeks in blocks of time with each day given its own specific purpose. This is not revolutionary in a work situation but it never occurred to me that I should do it in a home situation. But since my life as caregiver to my mom is also my j-o-b, Iāve realized that I function much better with structure. Itās taken a month to implement these thoughts but it worked *beautifully* this week. In essence, I designated Monday as COOK and used it to prep/cook several dishes to eat throughout the week, thereby having a true meal plan. I was *exhausted* after and my body refused to settle into rest, but it felt so good to know that I didnāt have to do kitchen work again through the week. (I donāt love it, the kitchen hates me, and it all just makes me sad.)
The other days this week allowed for ORGANIZE (finances, files for this go-round), REFRESH (laundry and tidy-up), and even a day to CREATE (birthday card for a niece). Iām still thinking through my categories and how to group tasks in my mind, but having a singular focus each day gave me permission to cast off all other thoughts when they threaten to disrupt my flow. I wrote down the thought and went back to my dayās plan. For the first time I felt like a true lazy genius! šš»
Results of this new thang: daily accomplishments that were *completed* and not carried over to another day; actual rest/sleep in the actual nighttime hours and *morning* wake-ups (hallelujah amen šš»); a mind that resisted its usual pinball activity; long, quiet hours without tv noise that allowed for clear thinking and structured planning. This might be the first week I felt like I had a handle on ālifeā since my momās care became the focus. And that was a long stretch to feel so unmoored.
Because Iāve taken to the Gollum Cave (itās hella hot in Texas, ya know) and basically stopped using my voice to keep up with people (apologies, Marco Polo pals š¬), Iāve had a good summer of reading! Iāve mentioned Sea of Tranquility (Emily St John Mandel) which I canāt stop thinking about, but Iāve also finished The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd (great beginning, devolved at the end) and This Too Shall Last (excellent KJ Ramsey backlist). Iām revisiting The Artistās Way (Julia Cameron) with thoughts to include this in my new LG structuring. And I just finished Trust by Hernan Diaz, which might be my only 5-star personal review this year. āTrustā begins with a novella about a Wall Street wizard in early 20th century who became a multimillionaire as the 1929 Crash occurred, and then proceeds to retell that story through multiple narrators until it reaches the climax of that history through the eyes of the manās wife. So layered! It made me go back to reread all the previous chapters to put all the details together in my mind. I LOVED this novel!
Wishing you all a feeling of accomplishment and true rest. š
My treasure this week is God worked a miracle of healing for a woman @church! For a part of her body she didnāt ask for! After I had just prayed for me to be part of a miracle. No lie!
The day after a holiday weekend is always hopping at the library; add to that a brief power outage and a staff member out. Needless to say, Tuesday was wild. I've been trying to be more consistent with an am Bible time, and moving it to my porch this week has kept me motivated. Porch fans make all the difference! I've got a busy week next week as all my programs and my late night/weekend line up, so I'm looking forward to a quiet weekend before all that begins.
Our library is the same, but with three people out all week! The only thing that saved us was that we didn't have any programs scheduled for the week after the Fourth.
Now I need to know... what makes a day-after-holiday so busy at the library? Seems like that would happen before, with people prepping for the vacation? So curious!!
Sometimes the number of patrons picks up before a holiday week, but I'm more thinking of the volume of books we have to deal with coming back. The amount of books returned during a holiday weekend is always insane. I don't know if people finally have the time to drop them off or what. It's also a peak time for us to get missing books returned, maybe since they know we aren't there and they can just drop them off. We also transfer books between our three locations 3x a week, so catching that up after a holiday + the volume of returns just means a huge amount of books being processed and shelved in addition to helping patrons in the building.
My treasure this week has been reading, Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer. Such a tiny book doing big things for my healing from purity culture, evangelical culture, etc.
Based on the subtitle, I was hoping this was going to be about David Archuleta playing Joseph--a video of him spinning in the coat hit Tiktok--but it was just Ryan GosKen. (though I always appreciate a Joseph reference...)
My treasure this week isā¦we bought a house! (Well, āboughtā is a little dramatic. But our offer was accepted!) It happened very quickly and weāre still surprised we got it, but weāre excited mixed with a little bit of āoh crap what have we doneā lol. We close August 12th!
Itās been a hard few weeks for our family (and it doesnāt look it will relent in the near future). If anyone else finds themselves in a similar place, my treasure is Davy Flowersā album I Was Loved. Itās been on repeat in my house since it dropped last week (alternating with Bethany Barnardās All My Questions).
That cat and dog video is def a treasure for me this morning! Here are some of my treasures from this week:
- I joined the Y and started going to group exercise classes for the first time since the P word.
- we started watching For All Man Kind and itās really good. Itās follows the idea of what if Russia landed on the moon first. If you like nasa youāll probably enjoy it.
- when I went to my second class at the Y I went to a Pilates/Yoga mix type class that you do barefoot on the mat and my feet had become so soft and delicate over the past 2 years that it ripped the skin off the bottoms of my toes and I bled everywhere and it was v embarrassing šæ
Okay thatās it. Canāt wait to catch up in the comments š
I am still trying some out, but Iāve done a lot group ex over the years so I have a general idea of what I like. But Iāll pretty much do anything with the right instructor.
Also that granny panty video had me cackling. I switched from thongs back to granny panties when the pandemi lovato started and my butt has never been happier!
This is my sign that I need to go back to For All Mankind! I watched Season 1 and then sort of forgot about it! My coworker says one of the newer episodes shows a blip image of Gateway (the Program I was working on) as a news clip so now I must find it!
I do barre several times a week (has some overlap with yoga/Pilates) and I will say your feet get stronger!! But that is a bummer. Hope they heal quickly!
I have job hunt updates! Well I donāt have a full-time job offer yetā¦ I have three part-time/contract work job offer! Progress!
This guy has gotten a lot of memes this week!!
Aloooooha!
š We made our move back to Oahu and have spent the last 11 days eating our way across the island. Truly wonderful forms of fried dough to be found here. And all the fresh poke my mercury levels can handle.
š¤¬ At the risk of sounding like a total B- the house we were supposed to move into last week is still not available bc the tenants (who werenāt paying rent) have refused to leave. Bc of Hawaii laws - the only way to evict them is extremely expensive. I donāt want anyone to be homeless- but WE are currently homeless (staying with a very generous friend in her 2BR apt with my very loud, very energetic kids š¤Ŗ).
If yāall pray or anything like that- pray the tenants move out so we can get the kids settled before school starts aug 1.
Ugh! Good luck!
Praying!
Oh goodness! Sending prayers they'll move out asap.
Hi friends!
Treasures: I'm here! It's been too, too long and I've missed you.
My nephew gets married one week from today and I've spent the last few weeks visiting every store and mall within driving distance desperately trying to find something to wear to the wedding, but no luck. Until today when I finally bought a dress. I love the style and the cut but I don't like the color or the floral pattern, but hey, at least now I have something to wear and the dress is really comfortable!
Congrats on your nephew getting married! I hope you have the best time at the wedding, and Iām sure you will look great that dress no matter what. š
Treasures:
- therapy. Specifically EMDR. We've been working on a preverbal trauma and it's been so good while also being a lot. Just grateful I get to prioritize that care for myself right now.
- Skittles. I bought an original pack and a berry pack & combined them in the same snack bowl so it balances out the less favorable flavors from both.
- trimmed my hair & also ordered a wig because while I love my short hair I also love shape-shifting/upsetting people's expectations.
Turds:
- we still don't have a green light/close date on our mortgage.
- my dentist uncle fell and shattered multiple bones on Monday. This is an uncle with a controversial life where I disagree with so much of how he's welded his power & influence but also I grew up loving so trying to navigate how much I can offer to his support/recovery feels tricky.
- my toothpaste. Turns out the reason my mouth is sluffing off skin every morning is that the new toothpaste I recently started using every day (yay for being able to engage in regular dental hygiene!) contains SLS which I'm apparently incredibly sensitive to. So.... gotta go switch to the old brand of toothpaste I used to use & toss a half used tube of this new stuff.
Fun times!
If you follow Mama Doctor Jones on IG (you should), her stories today are the shenanigans her and her mom did for her mom to make a trip to New Zealand to surprise the grands. Watching the kids figure it out and then be SO EXCITED to see Grandma made me very happy.
Currently waiting for my best friend to finish her newborns' pediatrician appt. so we can chat for the first time in way too long.
There's a fantastic French cafe here that I like to go to, but the parking situation is extremely hit or miss. Today it was a miss, so I went to a backup coffeeshop for breakfast, where I had an incredible sandwich. My current coffeeshop reading is Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, which has been on my TBR for awhile. I think I'll take my time with it, the writing is too lovely not to.
I sincerely hope everyone gets at least one excellent breakfast sandwich this weekend.
A good breakfast sandwich is SO good!!!
I started reading Braiding Sweetgrass when it was a new release but can't remember if I finished it, which says more about the stage of life i was in than the book itself - I remember it being a good listen.
Some good good good tweets.
I finished Stranger Things s4 last week and HO BOY I can not wait for season 5.
My main treasure is the app, Swimply - it's like airbnb but for private pools. We are renting one on Sunday (it's supposed to be 105 degrees in SLC on Sunday so just kill me now I guess) and every time I have rented a pool it's been amazing. GET SWIMPLY, Y'ALL. All the luxuries of having a pool without having to take care of it. Plus, if you get a group of people to split it, it's only a tad bit more expensive than going to the rec center and worrying about everyone peeing in the pool next to you. All hail Swimply.
Have a great weekend, friends. ā¤
Renting pools? That's so cool.
Oooo! I hadn't heard of Swimply, thanks for sharing!
Hi friends!
We had the best time with our nephew last weekend. He's getting so big but also he's still so little!
Finally started watching Abbott Elementary and I'm hooked, I love it so much!
We're going to see Thor Love and Thunder today and I'm so excited!
Iām slowly working my way through Abbott Elementary and itās great! Iām seeing Love & Thunder today too and I will MP you my thoughts after!
Have fun at the movies and let us know if you liked it!
It took me a few episodes to really get into Abbott Elementary, but I'm loving it!
Yessss it's so good!
I think I forgot to say this in MP but I LOVE ABBOTT ELEMENTARY. So so so good. I can't wait for season 2!
I've been trying to ration it because I know it's going to be over too fast!!
Hello, Friday friends! (Is that accurate for most of us? Just me? Okay. š) Iāve actually had a lovely week of feeling like an actual, productive human being with all credit due to this accurate description of my summer so far:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CfbtU-OuxA9
One of the revelations I had during my week away last month was that I function best with a plan or a guide, if you will, and that I should structure my weeks in blocks of time with each day given its own specific purpose. This is not revolutionary in a work situation but it never occurred to me that I should do it in a home situation. But since my life as caregiver to my mom is also my j-o-b, Iāve realized that I function much better with structure. Itās taken a month to implement these thoughts but it worked *beautifully* this week. In essence, I designated Monday as COOK and used it to prep/cook several dishes to eat throughout the week, thereby having a true meal plan. I was *exhausted* after and my body refused to settle into rest, but it felt so good to know that I didnāt have to do kitchen work again through the week. (I donāt love it, the kitchen hates me, and it all just makes me sad.)
The other days this week allowed for ORGANIZE (finances, files for this go-round), REFRESH (laundry and tidy-up), and even a day to CREATE (birthday card for a niece). Iām still thinking through my categories and how to group tasks in my mind, but having a singular focus each day gave me permission to cast off all other thoughts when they threaten to disrupt my flow. I wrote down the thought and went back to my dayās plan. For the first time I felt like a true lazy genius! šš»
Results of this new thang: daily accomplishments that were *completed* and not carried over to another day; actual rest/sleep in the actual nighttime hours and *morning* wake-ups (hallelujah amen šš»); a mind that resisted its usual pinball activity; long, quiet hours without tv noise that allowed for clear thinking and structured planning. This might be the first week I felt like I had a handle on ālifeā since my momās care became the focus. And that was a long stretch to feel so unmoored.
Because Iāve taken to the Gollum Cave (itās hella hot in Texas, ya know) and basically stopped using my voice to keep up with people (apologies, Marco Polo pals š¬), Iāve had a good summer of reading! Iāve mentioned Sea of Tranquility (Emily St John Mandel) which I canāt stop thinking about, but Iāve also finished The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd (great beginning, devolved at the end) and This Too Shall Last (excellent KJ Ramsey backlist). Iām revisiting The Artistās Way (Julia Cameron) with thoughts to include this in my new LG structuring. And I just finished Trust by Hernan Diaz, which might be my only 5-star personal review this year. āTrustā begins with a novella about a Wall Street wizard in early 20th century who became a multimillionaire as the 1929 Crash occurred, and then proceeds to retell that story through multiple narrators until it reaches the climax of that history through the eyes of the manās wife. So layered! It made me go back to reread all the previous chapters to put all the details together in my mind. I LOVED this novel!
Wishing you all a feeling of accomplishment and true rest. š
I truly love the way you structured your week! What a gift to give yourself.
Trust is staring at me from my shelf, and I have had a truly horrendous day, so maybe I will start it tonight. ā¤ļø
So happy for your good weekšš
Jules, I'm so glad you've found a schedule that works for you!
I'm so happy you found a plan that works so well for you! š§”
Sounds like you are definitely on to something Jules! So happy for you because you are doing one of the hardest j-o-b-s!!!
Ahh, it's so nice to find a structure that works for you!
Okay, Trust sounds super interesting, I'm going to have to read it!
My treasure this week is God worked a miracle of healing for a woman @church! For a part of her body she didnāt ask for! After I had just prayed for me to be part of a miracle. No lie!
The day after a holiday weekend is always hopping at the library; add to that a brief power outage and a staff member out. Needless to say, Tuesday was wild. I've been trying to be more consistent with an am Bible time, and moving it to my porch this week has kept me motivated. Porch fans make all the difference! I've got a busy week next week as all my programs and my late night/weekend line up, so I'm looking forward to a quiet weekend before all that begins.
Two recipe treasures to share!
Joy the Baker is always a delight, and I will probably by making this Tomato Galette all summer! https://joythebaker.com/2020/08/a-summer-tomato-galette/
Beth at Budget Bytes is another fave, and this one-pot meal has been a great brainless crowd pleaser for me this summer. https://www.budgetbytes.com/cajun-sausage-and-rice-skillet/
Our library is the same, but with three people out all week! The only thing that saved us was that we didn't have any programs scheduled for the week after the Fourth.
Now I need to know... what makes a day-after-holiday so busy at the library? Seems like that would happen before, with people prepping for the vacation? So curious!!
Sometimes the number of patrons picks up before a holiday week, but I'm more thinking of the volume of books we have to deal with coming back. The amount of books returned during a holiday weekend is always insane. I don't know if people finally have the time to drop them off or what. It's also a peak time for us to get missing books returned, maybe since they know we aren't there and they can just drop them off. We also transfer books between our three locations 3x a week, so catching that up after a holiday + the volume of returns just means a huge amount of books being processed and shelved in addition to helping patrons in the building.
Fascinating! Itās really a cool career, isnāt it? š
Ooo I may need to try the galette. I am overwhelmed with cherry toms right now.
My treasure this week has been reading, Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer. Such a tiny book doing big things for my healing from purity culture, evangelical culture, etc.
Based on the subtitle, I was hoping this was going to be about David Archuleta playing Joseph--a video of him spinning in the coat hit Tiktok--but it was just Ryan GosKen. (though I always appreciate a Joseph reference...)
My treasure this week isā¦we bought a house! (Well, āboughtā is a little dramatic. But our offer was accepted!) It happened very quickly and weāre still surprised we got it, but weāre excited mixed with a little bit of āoh crap what have we doneā lol. We close August 12th!
We spent the 4th with my extended family in Iowa, which was a childhood tradition that we havenāt done in many years. I got to bring my husband there for the first time, and both of my brothers brought their fiancĆ© and girlfriend, respectively, as well. Itās fun and weird to watch people marry into your family, isnāt it? Like, Iām glad youāre here, but alsoā¦who are you? But I like you? If that makes any sense at allā¦
In the words of Pantsuit Politics who I have recently started listening toā¦have the best weekend available to you!
My nephew is getting married next week and "Who are you? But I like you?" made me giggle because that's exactly how I feel about his fiancĆ©e. š
Itās been a hard few weeks for our family (and it doesnāt look it will relent in the near future). If anyone else finds themselves in a similar place, my treasure is Davy Flowersā album I Was Loved. Itās been on repeat in my house since it dropped last week (alternating with Bethany Barnardās All My Questions).
š Prayers and hugs for you guys. š Hoping for relief soon.
And I do hope things relent soon! If not soon, then eventually? šš»
I need to listen to Davyās new album, especially because she and Bethany are BFFs and Bethanyās album has been a go-to for me too. š„¹
Morning Swipes!
That cat and dog video is def a treasure for me this morning! Here are some of my treasures from this week:
- I joined the Y and started going to group exercise classes for the first time since the P word.
- we started watching For All Man Kind and itās really good. Itās follows the idea of what if Russia landed on the moon first. If you like nasa youāll probably enjoy it.
- I love granny panties and this video celebrates them: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CdWYMwRAt3m/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
Turds:
- when I went to my second class at the Y I went to a Pilates/Yoga mix type class that you do barefoot on the mat and my feet had become so soft and delicate over the past 2 years that it ripped the skin off the bottoms of my toes and I bled everywhere and it was v embarrassing šæ
Okay thatās it. Canāt wait to catch up in the comments š
Yay for exercise classes at the Y! Are you trying different types or have you picked your go-tos already? So sorry about your bleeding toes.
Also, thanks for sharing that granny panties video š
I am still trying some out, but Iāve done a lot group ex over the years so I have a general idea of what I like. But Iāll pretty much do anything with the right instructor.
Granny panties video is the best!
š Video. Grannies anonymous!
Also that granny panty video had me cackling. I switched from thongs back to granny panties when the pandemi lovato started and my butt has never been happier!
This is my sign that I need to go back to For All Mankind! I watched Season 1 and then sort of forgot about it! My coworker says one of the newer episodes shows a blip image of Gateway (the Program I was working on) as a news clip so now I must find it!
I do barre several times a week (has some overlap with yoga/Pilates) and I will say your feet get stronger!! But that is a bummer. Hope they heal quickly!
I am almost done with season two for all mankind. Season one starts off slow but definitely gets better as it goes along. Enjoy!ļæ¼