What’s Saving My Life this winter

When I saw that Modern Mrs. Darcy was hosting a link up listing the positive, helpful things that are “saving your life” during this sometimes-gloomy season of winter, I loved the idea. I suppose you could say that I don’t hate winter as much as some people, and we have mostly had a milder winter than usual this year, so that’s been nice, but it can still be a bit of a dreary time of year. Here are some things that have really made my days a bit brighter/kept me sane/increased my happiness during the grayer and darker days of winter in Canada 🙂

1) Winter running – When I can motivate myself to get out the door, I actually really love winter running. Fall is my favourite season for running because the temperatures and scenery are absolutely perfect, but winter is nice because you don’t get too hot! Especially now that we are seeing a bit more daylight, this is something that I’ve really been trying to do at least once a week to keep me sane (and in shape :))

2) Vitamin C & D supplements – I don’t always remember to take vitamins, but I have noticed a significant improvement in my overall mood since I began taking these two vitamins daily. I think the lack of sunshine really depletes vitamin D stores in particular so this one is extremely important.

3) Our Instant Pot & other small, easy, appliances – I’ve been using the Instant Pot to make yogurt and prep meals for the week. I have a whole post coming next week about my love for small household appliances 😉

4) SOUP – When winter hits, I absolutely crave soup for lunch so I’ve been making it in large batches, freezing it in muffin tins and grabbing a few “muffin sized” portions for lunches. It really fills you up, warms you up, and can be so healthy! I’d love to share a few of my favourite recipes sometime.

5) Good books and Goodreads – Honestly, this saves my life all the time because I love to read, but winter is such a cozy season for reading and I have really been embracing that lately. Granted, I have also spent a lot of “reading time” browsing social media, which has been nice in its own way 😉

6) The cold sock treatment – this is one of my favourite methods for healing from a cold. I have no idea why it works, and I know it sounds SUPER weird, but it is way cozier than it sounds (your feet don’t actually feel very cold due to the warm layers over top of the cold sock).

7) Taking a warm magic bag to bed – I love to do this in the winter and curl up with a warm magic bag on my neck/shoulders while I read for a few minutes before falling asleep. SO cozy. This is just such a pleasant way to get into bed.

8) Bullet journaling, Project 52 weeks, and fun markers/pens – It’s fun to doodle sometimes! I have also enjoyed all of my 2017 lists and random thoughts during this season.

9) Carbonated water – this feels like a treat but has zero calories. Brian carbonates it for me with his keg system (for homemade beer) and I add lime juice to it, but I also love this stuff.

10) Board game nights – we have had a couple of board game nights so far this year and I love it. Brian got a subscription box with board games in it for Christmas, so we’re excited to try out some new ones too!

and a bonus one:

11) Sunshine!!! – It has been spectacularly sunny in Halifax this week (although still cold), and it has raised my spirits (and everyone’s!) SO much. It is glorious to feel some warm sun streaming through the windows these days.

Happy weekend, friends!! Hope there is something that is saving YOUR life right now. Feel free to share any thoughts on this 🙂

A Day in the Life, January 2017

This post has been in the works for awhile, but I finally managed to track my day! I personally love reading this post on other blogs because I am a bit nosy. This particular day was pretty typical for January 2017. Molly is 5 and in kindergarten (French Immersion), Lucy will be 3 in March, and Brian and I both work full-time so this is what a typical weekday looks like for us.

5:10 am – my alarm goes off. I push snooze once and hop in the shower . Sometimes, I use 20 minutes of time in the morning to work out but I had yoga last night and it was an intense class.

5:30 am – after getting dressed and putting some mousse in my hair to air dry, I make my way downstairs to the kitchen while everyone else is still asleep. This is my “quiet time” in the morning but also my most productive and busy time. I make us breakfast sandwiches using this fun appliance, put a whole frozen chicken in the slow cooker with some spices, and make lunches for all 4 of us. It is a bit of a crazy time, but I don’t mind it.

Molly comes down at 6:15 and starts eating breakfast. Brian brings Lucy down around 6:30 and she starts eating too. The girls are extra cuddly this morning and decide to “help” Brian make our coffee.

I sometimes like to put them up on the counter top so they can be close to me but I’m not holding them

6:30 am- The kids get dressed, and we aim to get out the door by 7 am. This involves reminding kids to eat their breakfast, braiding hair while they are eating, cajoling them into clothing, and listening to a bit of whining, packing backpacks with school things, all while watching the clock. As usual, I breathe a deep sigh of relief when we’re all in the car at 7 am.

7 am – 7:30 am – We all leave the house together. We drop Lucy off at her home daycare down the street and drop Molly off at her before/after school daycare. Lucy didn’t want to go today, which is rare for her, so I feel a twinge of mommy guilt. After we drop them off, Brian and I have about a 10-15 minute drive to the bus terminal to chat about the kids, our schedules, and to argue over the radio station 😉 He drops me off at the bus terminal and he parks at work (for free:)).

7:30-7:50 – I take the bus to work. This is when I get to read my book and drink my coffee and sometimes admire the sunrise over the Halifax Harbour. It honestly feels like the most relaxing time of my morning some days 🙂

8:00-4:00 – Work. My work day varies – twice or three times a week I spend my day doing 6 hours worth of neuropsychological testing with patients who have neurodegenerative diseases (MS, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s disease) or possible memory problems. The other two or three days are spent writing reports, scoring assessments and other general office work or test preparation. Today, I’m seeing a patient, so my day is super busy and I often don’t really get a break or much of a lunch. I also wore my new red flats today (LOVE them) 🙂

The work day does go by pretty quickly and I finish up in time to walk over (~15 minutes) to catch a bus to meet Brian. I call my mom to chat on the way over to the bus. I also found it funny that this was one of my snacks today:

“Helicopter Heather” cheese stick

4:00-5:00 – take the bus to meet Brian (aka more reading time), pick up the kids, and get home. We usually eat supper right around 5:00 and today is no different. We enjoy a delicious chicken that cooked all day in the slow cooker (=mommy win) with a side of sweet potato fries done in our new Actifry, and frozen peas that just need to be reheated. The kids get to watch one show (today they picked Tayo the bus) in the living room on Netflix while I’m prepping supper and Brian gets to chill out on the couch or help with the kids 🙂

Brian and I also end up sharing some of our caesar salad with Lucy:

5:30-6:00 – play time with the kids for me. Today, we did some puzzles on the floor and read some books (Molly has homework which is reading in French) but then they started playing together nicely (school AKA Molly is the teacher and Lucy is the student), so I got some supper dishes cleaned up and loaded the dishwasher.

6:00 pm – bath time for both kids tonight – they decided to have one in our en suite tonight but there were no fights, so it was a success!

6:15 – 7:00 – Pajamas on, read a bunch of books, have a quick bedtime snack and off to bed. Brian almost always puts Molly to bed and I put Lucy to bed – this is because Lucy will have a tantrum if I don’t put her to bed. She has let Brian do bedtime a few times lately though and she won’t give him any problems if I happen to not be home at bedtime.

We are super blessed that our kids typically go to bed without much difficulty, go to sleep right away (or at least don’t come out of their rooms), and sleep until at least 6:00 the next morning.

7:00 – 9:30 this depends on the day, but tonight I finished cleaning the kitchen a bit, watched a few episodes of Brooklyn 99 with Brian, did a quick yoga video, read my book and went to bed around 9:30. Brian stays up after I go to bed and plays video games or exercises. That’s our day in a nutshell!

November Recap (What’s New link up!)

November was a pretty low-key month overall, and that was just what we needed in our family. I didn’t even take very many pictures so this post will be a bit boring but I like the idea of looking back on each month and I can’t NOT link up with Kristen and Gretch for What’s New With You?

I only worked the first Friday in November and had the next 3 off for various reasons (Remembrance Day, sick, vacation day). It was nice to have 3 long weekends in a row and I could get used to that!! We went to visit my sister, brother in law and niece on the first long weekend and hung around their house/playground and did some shopping. The girls loved it, and Lucy loved playing a different piano:

It is always so fun to see my niece (almost 1 year old!) and spend some time with family. The girls did great on the drive too (one hour each way).

We spent the next “long weekend” overnight at a friend’s house for their son’s 8th birthday. It was a great night with some adult beverages and board games after the kids went to sleep. BOY was I ever tired the next day though.

I also got the majority of our Christmas shopping done (mostly online) because we have an Amazon Prime trial right now…so awesome. It is such a relief to be in a good position with regards to shopping and I also know it was smart to spread it out over a few paycheques.

On the last weekend in November, Brian and I went to Fantastic Beasts (I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to see it but I’m SO glad we did because I loved it!) I spent the next night binge-watching Gilmore Girls with one of my best friends and that was fun too. Look at our awesome Luke’s Diner mugs!! I am totally up for talking about the new episodes if anyone wants to e-mail me!!!!

This month, Molly got her first report card from school and she is doing incredibly well, which we knew but it was such a relief to talk to her teacher and hear positive feedback about our child and parenting. I am so happy with our decision to put her into French Immersion this year and she absolutely loves school which makes our lives as parents much easier.

November went by quickly, but it was a good month. It was nice to have some downtime on the weekends and we definitely made some progress on house-cleaning, house-sorting, and preparations for December. Tomorrow we’re getting our Christmas tree and decorating this weekend (the girls are BEYOND excited!) We have all been a touch under the weather off and on this month, so the downtime was really something we needed.

My reading was allllll over the place this month, and we also started watching Season 5 of Suits so that is taking up some evening time 🙂 can’t complain though!!

On to December – one of the most festive and fun months of the year! Our girls are so excited for Christmas this year and I can’t wait to celebrate with them.

I have a few fun posts planned for December including a day in the life, some book round up favourites posts, goals for 2017, reflections about 2016 etc. etc.!! Let’s hope they all come to fruition! haha.

What’s new with you lately?? Anyone want to chat about Gilmore Girls?!

What’s New and Exciting

I feel like I say this every month, but October was a busy month. BUT it was so good, too!! There was a lot of fun things on the go. I’m going to recap them all in this post & link up with Kristen & Gretch for their monthly What’s New with you link up 🙂 Kristen has some really exciting news this month – I can’t believe how quickly her house sold!!!

I started October off with a bang and went to a concert with one of my favourite Celtic groups, The Barra MacNeils, that we grew up listening to – my whole family (parents, sister, aunts, uncles, grandma + me) went to the concert and it was amazing. The Barra MacNeils performed with Symphony Nova Scotia and it was incredible because the symphony really added a lot to the performance. I will for sure be attending this concert again; I think they do it almost every year but that was my first time there.

We took the kids to a few indoor playgrounds this month because there were some really rainy days & they are at a great age to enjoy this type of thing right now:

I also got a chance to catch up with my old roommate from St. FX and her boyfriend – what a great night. I hadn’t seen her in 2 years so it was great to chat. Ran into another old friend from university the same night out and that was fun too.

Canadian Thanksgiving is in October, and it was a busy weekend for our family. We spent the entire day Sunday with our extended family – at my cousin’s baby’s baptism and with all of my aunts and uncles, and then we had Thanksgiving dinner at my parent’s house which included 39 PEOPLE (Molly made a list of everyone). There were 2 turkeys and a ham, about 15 vegetable dishes, and pie. It was great. Brian took the girls home early & I stayed overnight at my parent’s so I could chat more with my cousins (I always feel sad when I have to leave just as the party is getting started). My niece was also the life of the party 😉

We did some shopping with the kids and I got a start on Christmas shopping, too. Here are some new friends they made at Costco:

I also took my first trip “home” to Calgary since 2013. For those who don’t know, I grew up in Calgary (nestled nearby the Rocky Mountains in western Canada ;)) and lived there until I went to university. With my parents moving out east, we haven’t really had as much motivation to go out to visit with the kids, even though my brother and dad’s family all still live there. When one of my closest cousins got engaged, I decided to head out to Calgary for a visit and to attend the wedding – by myself! Brian stayed with the kids here. This was kind of a big deal for us because I haven’t been away from the kids for that long before (5 days!) and I am more of the primary household-runner in our house, so there was a bit of anxiety leading up the trip, but I’m SO GLAD I went and it was a much-needed break. I’m very grateful too that my in-laws live close by to help Brian out 🙂

The Rocky Mountains near Calgary

Flying out of Halifax

Flying back into Halifax at 6pm

I read about 4 books on the trip (yay long flights!) and spent some quality time with my brother, my dad’s family, and some close family friends. It was wonderful. I was pretty off when I came back (very jetlagged and tired), but we seem to be back in the swing of things now. Molly also seemed to regress a bit while I was gone and has gone back to some crazy tired tantrums, but we’re working on that. She gets so overtired with school and daycare that it can be really hard to get through to her sometimes but it’s coming along slowly.

The wedding, of course, was beautiful too. It was so nice to be there & to see a few of my first cousins I hadn’t seen in about 10 years. Everyone from my family except my sister & her family and Brian and the kids was able to be there, so that was really special. We had a wonderful time dancing and chatting.

Since being back from Calgary, I’ve been doing some more decluttering in our house while listening to audiobooks, and just getting ahead on some things that need to be done before winter comes. We also had a great Halloween. Molly had a Halloween howl night at school which was fun (but so chaotic) – she dressed up in her Belle costume for that, and then the girls went out trick-or-treating as bumblebees. And now I have two huge boxes of candy & chips sitting in the front hall closet and two girls asking for a treat every 5 seconds (don’t worry, I’m going to move the box ASAP). #tempting.

Brian carving his pumpkin with a dremel drill & knife attachment

I’m really looking forward to November, because I love the holiday season and it’s coming up so soon! Our girls are going to be so fun at Christmas this year. I’m going to share some other things I’m looking forward to tomorrow 🙂 I’ll also share what I’ve been reading next week!!!

What’s new with you lately?!?!

What’s New and Exciting over here

Linking up with Kristen and Gretch today for their monthly “What’s new with you” link up. Since I missed the link up in September, I was determined to get a post up for this month!

If anyone who saw me this week asked me, “what’s new”, I would first tell them this ridiculous story. I left the house on Tuesday morning with the kids at 7 am and Brian left at 10 am to go to the airport. He was going out of town for work for one night. Typically, I am not an overly anxious person, but I do sometimes feel a bit of anxiety being in the house overnight with the kids on my own. However, I wasn’t feeling that way this day. I came home from work with the kids at 4:30 pm and when we pulled into the driveway, Molly said “hey, why is the front door open?” and I looked up to see that our front door was, in fact, WIDE OPEN. Cue panic. I called Brian right away and asked him if there was any possibility he could have left the door open (not unlocked, OPEN), and he said “well, yeah, maybe.” SERIOUSLY?! I was fuming and freaked out. I left the kids in the car and went through the house and everything seemed fine but I was still pretty freaked out. Move on to the rest of the evening and I am finally coping with the fact that our house was in fact safe all day long despite the front door being open for 6 hours and living on a bus route street up from a high school. Then I call my parents and tell them about it, and my dad says “I hope there aren’t any mice or rats in the house” and there comes another panic attack. #thanksdad I made Brian go on a pretty big hunt just in case any got in while he was gone. I am beyond grateful that we have a guardian angel somewhere keeping watch over our home because holy smokes would my husband have been in trouble if our house had been ransacked…haha.

Anyway…September was an absolute whirlwind, as I knew it would be. Molly starting school also meant a change in daycare for Molly (before & after school care), which was a whole transition in and of itself (and remains to be). As expected, our little scholar absolutely (seemingly) LOVES school. She is loving French immersion, she seems to really enjoy her teacher and has made some friends. She is happy to report on all parts of her day at suppertime each night, which I love. It has been wonderful watching her flourish in this new daily routine. She originally (and still) isn’t the hugest fan of the new daycare, but I think it’s growing on her. September also means that Brian is busy for 3 weekends straight with extracurricular activities, but I think that will be changing next year because it was insane this year.

Here’s a bit of a recap in photos:

Molly started school and a new daycare

Molly turned 5 🙂

We went to see Beauty and the Beast at Neptune Theatre

We went apple picking near my sister’s house in the Valley (1 hour away)

I ran my final 5k of the year (I am missing one in October to go to Calgary) and it was a fantastic race. Cool weather and finished it in 30 mins. Brian brought the girls out to the finish line and surprised me there, which was sweet.

Other than that, I also signed about a thousand papers for Molly’s school (I did NOT realize how many handouts she would be taking home), we revamped our closet to accommodate organizing all of the new paperwork, we went to a parade and saw a truck convoy (200 trucks!), we spent a couple of hours at the beach (loved it) one afternoon, and had a few movie nights at home. I also got my hair cut, which I am looooving. Here it is, straight, but I usually wear it wavy ish 🙂

I also flew through a ton of “fluffy” books in an effort to escape the stress of everyday life AND because I had a cold for a week. It was wonderful and I’ll be talking about all the books I’ve read lately on Tuesday for Show us Your Books.

July Talk (link up!)

July was a busy, busy month in our house…and August is shaping up to be busy too! That’s what happens in the summer around here. It has been wonderful too though – I am loving catching up with so many wonderful friends and family members. Our girls are at a great age to be “on the go” and that allows us a lot more flexibility this summer to skip naps, have sleepovers, and travel around the province a bit.

It seems like lately all I’ve had the time (or energy) to write blog posts about include this what’s new link up with Kristen and Gretch and the Show us your Books link up. Honestly, I think I’m just saving people time…I consolidate all of my life into two posts a month. hahaha. I’m actually hoping to start writing a bit more, but due to the busy-ness of life, it just hasn’t happened yet. And I’m okay with that. I just like these monthly link ups so that I can look back someday and see what happened 🙂

Linking up with Kristen and Gretch to share some of what we did this month:

Lucy got her first haircut (and Molly got an unpictured one too :))

We celebrated my mom’s birthday with my sister & her family (how adorable is my baby niece?!)

I stalked social media while Sidney Crosby (who grew up in the neighbourhood we live in) came home with the Stanley Cup, but we skipped the parade because it was SO HOT OUT and my kids are too little to care, unfortunately.

(source)

Ate a lot of kale caesar salad (the healthy version – I hope to share this recipe soon!) from our garden

Saw Love and Friendship with a good friend – the movie was super enjoyable!!

Went to a lot of Molly’s soccer practices 🙂

Took the kids to the beach by myself, which was fun but also a bit nerve-wracking. Lucy is absolutely fearless and does not understand that waves are a BIT scary for Mommy. haha.

Spent last weekend visiting good friends in New Brunswick which included Brian and his 2 best friends taking the kids out on their boat on a lake while I went to the mall with the women (what a nice break!)…also included a stop at a wonderful splash pad on the way home, which was SO fun for the kids.

excuse the random stranger (that’s not Brian)

Read a lot of great books which I’ll be chatting about next Tuesday including HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD ❤ which I obviously adored.

And that’s about it. I also read Molly about 10 Magic Treehouse books, watched a bit of TV with Brian, went for a couple of runs, went to a few bootcamp classes & spin classes, socialized with girlfriends, enjoyed time on the deck, nearly melted in the 100% humidity, made some plans for the fall, and deep-cleaned parts of the house (still more to go, though!). What a great month. August looks like it will be even better because it’s my BIRTHDAY MONTH 🙂 So…what’s new with you?!

Life lately (Link up!)

(Linking up belatedly with Kristen & Gretch to recap the last month!)

June was a busy month for our family, and I think it will be from now until our kids finish school. The beautiful weather gets us outside and socializing more. Summer sports and activities begin, and school finishes with all of the excitement that comes with that. This year, our babysitter was on vacation for the last two weeks of June and so we had some grandparents help with childcare & took time off ourselves too. It was wonderful because the weather was pleasant and the kids were happy. It also eased my transition back into full-time work from my previous 6 months of part-time, although I am finding that I do miss the extra time with the kids already.

Here are some highlights from the last month-ish:

Celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary by going out for supper & going to a board game cafe (what an AMAZING date night). We tried 4 new games and had a wonderful time. The kids had a great sleepover with my parents 🙂

Ran a 10K race in EXTREME heat/humidity after slacking on a few weeks of training. Not my best time, but was happy to finish it nonetheless and proud of pushing myself. Next race probably in August 🙂

Finished my third 12 week yoga session with my amazing teacher. She takes the summer off teaching near me, but I will probably take a few of her classes downtown because I know I’ll miss it. Back at it in September because it has changed my life!!

Read a few good books but not as many as I’d hoped…and also started a big Harry Potter re-read 🙂 Come back tomorrow to see my reviews for Show us your Books!

Went to our first of several 2016 weddings, Brian’s cousin Laura and her new husband. This was the first wedding I’d been to which included a POEM that the groom wrote for his bride AKA I could not hold back the tears. It was a gorgeous event.

Celebrated Canada Day with friends and had a wonderful time! Went to the playground and had a picnic, swam in an outdoor pool, drank some adult beverages 🙂

Got a new cell phone (LG G4) after dropping mine and shattering the screen – loving the new one so far & our contract was up so it was free (aka the best time possible to break my other one :P)

Spent some time with friends and family including an awesome outdoor birthday party with a beach volleyball court AKA a “huge sandbox” for my kids

Took in some awesome music with a wonderful friend at a fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity called Raise a little Hellp. Really, really enjoyed this night out.

Watched our older daughter “graduate” from preschool and tried not to cry 🙂 She is going to love school in the fall – she will be in French Immersion and we are all quite excited to see her grow!

Took a week off with Brian and the kids leading up to Canada Day and went to Upper Clements Park amusement park (2 1/2 hour drive away)…the kids LOVED it.

And a couple more pics from the last month ish:

Sorry to be late to the link up; it’s been a busy few days!!! I have a few fun posts in the works for later this week and next week after taking a bit of a blogging break (I’ve probably averaged 2-3 posts a month lately…oops!!!)

What’s new with you lately?!?

MAY recap – (What’s new with you? link up)

Linking up with the wonderful Kristen and Gretch for their monthly What’s New with You? link up. Truthfully…what’s new with me is NOT MUCH. haha. I can’t believe how fast May flew by. We did do a lot of fun things, and enjoyed a lot of sunny days, but it went by fast and a lot of it was pretty relaxing and close to home. Here are a few things that my little family and I did in May:

1) We took Molly to her first theater production at Neptune Theatre for Shrek: The Musical. She LOVED it but it was 2 1/2 hours long and she was pretty fidgety by the end of it. My cousin played as a musician in the performance, and the music was phenomenal as was the acting. What a fun production.

I promise she was actually happier than she appears to be here 🙂

2) We took the girls to see Raffi in concert. Raffi is like a 5th member of our family some days and we listen to his music around the house constantly. Brian and I both grew up listening to his music and the girls love to sing his easy kids songs. We saw him in concert 2 years ago (left baby Lucy with her grandparents), and this concert was VERY similar to that one but both girls seemed to really enjoy themselves and it was definitely fun to sing along with him for an hour.

3) We celebrated Mother’s Day with brunch and lobster. Molly also made me an adorable sweater with the help of Brian’s mom. SO cute. I need to take a picture of it, actually…

4) I read a lot of great books which I will talk about on Tuesday Jun 14 for Show Us Your Books. We watched a couple of movies and a bit more White Collar.

5) I did not complete the 30 day yoga challenge. I know this is a total excuse, but I find it very difficult to do yoga at home sometimes. We don’t really have a conducive “always clean” location for me to practice in. If I’m doing a Fitness Blender or strength workout at home, I don’t mind if there are kid toys in the room or papers on the desk. If I’m doing yoga, I find all of the clutter around me really needs to be gone or I will stop doing yoga and focus on cleaning. I know this is really weird and I’m definitely working on making our bedroom (aka command central for laundry etc) clutter-free so I can practice yoga in that space.

6) I went for a few runs, but I’d have to say I dropped off this wagon a bit too this month and I need to get back on it for my 10K on June 26.

7) I booked my trip to Calgary (my hometown) for October for my cousin’s wedding. This will be the longest I’ve ever been away from my kids (3 nights/4 days) and the longest time that Brian has been alone with them…so good luck to him! haha, just kidding, it will be all good. I am really, really excited to see all of my dad’s family.

8) Molly had primary (kindergarten) orientation this month. She is starting in French Immersion in September. We are really excited, and it also make me feel a bit nostalgic. She is loving chapter books these days too and we have read 4 Magic Tree House books in the past week.

9) We barbecued a lot this month and spent a lot of time in the backyard. SO enjoyable. You know what I love about barbecuing? NO (or very few) dishes.

10) We faced a few parenting difficulties this month. Nothing major, but just an overtired 4 year old who is trying to spread her wings and feels supremely jealous of her little sister. I am trying very hard to spend as much one-on-one time with her as I can when Lucy is napping or otherwise occupied, and it seems to have improved over the past week or two. The weekend that Brian was away was particularly challenging, and I yelled at her more times than I’d like to admit, but we have forgiven and moved on.

All in all, a pretty good but not SUPER SUPER SUPER exciting month. It was relaxing though, and I think we need that in our lives sometimes. I can already tell that weekend and weeknight activities will be picking up as the summer progresses, and that will be fun too. Our girls are at great ages to really enjoy the summer, so that’s what we plan to do!

Some other snippets from this month

Check out what everyone else has been up to on Kristen or Gretch’s blogs today!!

“What’s New With You?” link up with Kristen & Gretchen

When one of your favourite bloggers announces a fun link up idea, there is really no question about whether you’re going to join in or not! Kristen and Gretchen just started this link up to chat about anything you’d like. They are following the idea that when you run into someone you haven’t seen for awhile in person, you usually ask “so, what’s new with you?” but these kinds of posts don’t always happen frequently in the blog world. I wanted to link up today with some things I’m currently enjoying or thinking about 🙂 Go over here to check out some other bloggers’ posts…I know I’ll be snooping through the link up!!

I’m CURRENTLY….

GRATEFUL for the fact that Brian was able to find the diamond from my engagement ring after it fell out of the ring setting last week. I had a panicky, anxious day looking everywhere in the house for it and when he came back from work, he unscrewed the trap from the kitchen sink and it was in there. PSA: If you have a warranty on jewelry like this, DO THE INSPECTIONS. Part of why I felt so bad was that if I had kept up with the bi-annual inspections, they would have replaced the diamond for free if we hadn’t found it. I will absolutely be doing this from now on (also, it might have never fallen out in the first place…)

READING Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah…it’s my first book by her and I’m reading it for Erin’s Book Challenge 4.0. My plan is to read The Nightingale by her too.

LISTENING TO: The Arkells, all the time. Their concert here 2 weeks ago was AMAZING and I can’t get their songs out of my head. My top three are Michigan Left, Book Club, and 11:11 right now.

DRINKING: Water, water, water, water and water. Plus 2 coffees and a decaf tea per day (on average). It’s Roll up the Rim season here in Canada, so a Tim Horton’s coffee isn’t a bad thing occasionally too 😉

EATING: As many vegetables as possible. And a lot of protein too. Still loosely following IIFYM and trying to pick healthy choices whenever I can.

LOVING: Working part-time. It’s been a bit of an adjustment, but I love the extra time at home to a) love on the girls, b) read millions of kid books every day and c) clean/meal prep/exercise/run errands during the daytime. I am also LOVING yoga once a week, but that is a whole separate post. It has been AMAZING for my mental and physical health.

ANTICIPATING a fun get-together with friends this weekend, spending more time with my baby niece this month, and a possible local weekend getaway with Brian in March

RECOMMENDING Modern Mrs. Darcy’s podcast…I’ve mentioned it before, but it’s just so good! We also just started Season 2 of Serial.

WORKING TOWARDS completing Erin’s book challenge by the end of April. So many books that I requested ages ago at the library are available now, so I’m balancing reading those with challenge books, but I have a few categories completed and hoping for a few more by the end of Feb!!

CRAVING just a little bit more sleep, or an extra hour in the day 🙂 Preferably an extra hour of daylight so that I can get a run in before bed 🙂

IMPRESSED WITH MEC’s organization of their race series. My 5K run this past Sunday was a trail run on snowy, icy, trails, but it was fun, it was extremely well organized, and the ice obviously didn’t bother me, because I ran the same time (35 mins) as I did 2.5 years ago at my last 5k. I am SO excited about all these races I have going on this year and feeling very motivated to keep running.

So, what’s new with you lately???