Wait, It’s Thursday Already?

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It’s been a slow but quick week. Ha! Another week of not knowing what day it is. Sort of. And a busy week where one day of just a few hours of work morphed into full-time hours.

It’s been a somewhat stressful week. A back hurting week. A tired week. A I’m so glad tomorrow is Friday week. I like Fridays.

Of course, this is Thursday (night) and I like posts are for this day. A bit late. Didn’t feel well last night so no post ready to go this morning.

I like feeling healthy.  And a few other things…

From the weekend:

A few more snowmen that caught my eye on my walk in the warm weather before the Polar vortex caused a crazy week:

Since it’s been so cold, let’s start with the this guy catching some rays: 

Most of us I think would rather hang out wherever he’s at, than with Elsa here: 

Scary weather….maybe one of these Jack Skeleton snowmen caused this mix-up? 

Just one more to share….my favorite. 

The rather humble snow-woman pictured above. Let’s take a closer look.  Mrs. Re-Cycle. She wears her outfit well…made out of plastic bags! 

And a few more birds I liked.  This red-bellied woodpecker at the nature center was nice. 

However, not much beats glancing out your living room window and seeing a hawk perched in a tree in your own front yard! 

Only one quick photo through the window before he flew away.

And moving into this week….a few things I liked with fewer (no pictures to share):

  • The local grocery store giving away free hot chocolate Tuesday night for customers braving the cold
  • A totally random and unexpected goodbye hug from a preschool student
  • The book I read this week (Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng). Characters with depth!
  • A week off from taking my son to school and battling the middle school car-line

****

What things did you like this week? Don’t forget to check out the blog Not Afraid Of Color and see what our host, LeeAnna likes along with all the other bloggers over there.

Gratitude

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Have to work a longer day than anticipated today. Just a quick post of my gratitude list scribbled in bits between last Tuesday and this one.  And one of my favorite photos from the walk I took on Saturday thrown in just for fun.

 

  1. Modern medicine
  2. Husband who cooks
  3. Teenager who can drive to the store while husband drives other kid to baritone lesson
  4. Great catches with trash cans
  5. Nice people who let you and your one item in front of them at the store
  6. Working in very close proximity to both a gas station and a drug store
  7. Concerned little gray cats
  8. Compassionate teachers
  9. Warm clothes, gloves
  10. Paved nature trails
  11. Wonderful friends and friendships
  12. Sons with generous hearts
  13. Green tea
  14. Sunshine!!
  15. The birds

What things are you grateful for this week?

Happy Homemaker Monday, Another Sunday Night Edition

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I work tomorrow so I’m getting my post ready to go right now. Feels as though I blinked and it’s Sunday night. We did absolutely nothing today & the day still flew by.

Trying a new chicken recipe, it’s baking in the oven as I sit here to type up my Monday planning post. Tomorrow, I’ll link up with our host, Sandra from Diary Of A Stay At Home Mom. Time to look at the week ahead.

The Weather  

Rain, maybe a little snow predicted for tonight. Normal (for January) temperatures until Wednesday when our wind chills get a bit low (-4 but at least they backed off the -25 stuff they’d been touting last week). Nice again (for January) by Thursday with 32 degrees and then, up again to a balmy 45 degrees on Friday!

Right Now I Am

Hoping this post motivates me to want to go grocery shopping. Listening to some type of blues/gospel music on a PBS program my husband left on the TV back here.

On My Reading Pile

Finished An Anonymous Girl, definitely a thriller!  You can read my review here if you’re interested.  Almost finished with The Forgotten Hours by Katrin Schumann, my Amazon Kindle First pick.

On My TV

No God Friended Me tonight so probably just SEAL team on Wednesday.

On The Menu

Feeling fairly uninspired this week.  Hoping a grocery store visit sparks a bit of creativity. Whole menu subject to change.

MONDAY:  pork chops, baked potatoes (carry over meal) *G has pep band* *I work 7:45-4:15*

TUESDAY: Country style ribs in the slow cooker (hope I remember to thaw them!) *I work 2-3:45*

WEDNESDAY: taco soup (just tacos for the picky ones)

THURSDAY: lasagna (I’m buying a box), salad *J has baritone lesson*

FRIDAY: OUT *G & I have another college visit*

On My To-Do List

  1. Work a bit more on clearing out paper (struggling with this one)
  2. Write and schedule blog posts
  3. Still need to give dates to my work
  4. Get end of January/February birthday cards, mail them
  5. Grocery store/Target

Creating

Just realized I have something for this category! Went to a painting party hosted by a friend. My masterpiece:  

Looking Around The House

It needs cleaned and then, I think it’s ready for a little Valentine’s Day decorating love.

From The Camera

It’s been so cold and miserable but yesterday was nice (in January terms) so I went for a walk at one of the local nature centers.  Had to see the snowmen before they were gone!  Spent some time snapping pictures of their bird feeder birds as well.  

On My Prayer List

My husband’s grandfather, the family surrounding him, the many kids at school battling stomach bugs, my family, friends.

*****

What’s on your agenda for the week ahead?

 

 

I Like Snow Days

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We’re enjoying a snow day today (Wednesday).  The call didn’t come until 5 AM but a snow day is a still a snow day.  Then later, when I saw my work also called a snow day, I cheered. It’s rare for the boys and I to both get a snow day.

I like snow days. Today I’m taking part of the quiet early morning (my husband still went to work and the boys are sleeping, of course) to work on my I Like Thursday post.  Barring another snow day (unlikely), I’ll be working a full day tomorrow.

The fresh snow (on top of the layer of ice, real reason for the snow day) makes everything look bright and beautiful again. The previous snow was getting old (in more ways than one) and starting to look dirty.

I like seeing fresh tracks in the snow.  Especially little paw prints and those left by the birds. Makes me smile.  From the fresh snow this morning: 

However, my favorite sight today by far…the sun! I like blue skies! Here comes the sun: 

Cold or not, I’m going to stand out there for a few minutes and “recharge” later. 

Fair warning: Much like a snow day schedule, this post is going to ramble about in a lazy, unorganized fashion. 


New candle scent, appropriate, called: Snow day. Had to take a break from cocoa and cream after J started complaining about it. Probably related to his illness last week but nice to have a change.

Wonder how a snow day smells? I’m not sure how to describe it, kind of like a piney vanilla. No other opinions on it yet.  Definitely, does not smell like food.

Speaking of Food…

Sometimes, I actually make healthy food (she shares while waiting on banana muffins thrown together from a cake mix to bake..ahem).  Prepared this Easy Healthy Baked Lemon Chicken last night.

Been craving citrus like mad with the cold, cloudy weather. Served the chicken with rice and sautéed zucchini.  J didn’t care for it and G went out with friends but my husband gave it his approval. And I liked it.

Isn’t this Olive Oil bottle pretty? Used the oil to saute the zucchini. 

Time for second breakfast, banana muffins made from the cake mix.  Hey, at least they have bananas in them. Did I mention the dire need for a grocery store trip around here?

Other Random Likes (Probably Repeats): 

Books and blankets. Hooray for finding one of my favorite winter blankets! And a good, intense read. Finished it. 

Cats who think they’re in charge and blanket scarves. I wear this around the house when I’m cold. The scarf, not the cat. 

Well, my boys stumbled out of their room all caught up on sleep. And before noon! So, I’m signing off for a while to peddle banana muffins and pretend to be productive with household chores.

Don’t forget to go check out the link up, hosted by LeeAnna over at Not Afraid of Color.

Clearing Out My Books Using The KonMari Method

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My plan is to use each Wednesday to share my thoughts on decluttering using the Marie Kondo method. I’m following a free printable checklist found here. Decided to give myself one week per category. One week per subcategory when I get to the miscellaneous section.

First, I want to make sure I point out that I’m only focusing on my items. This isn’t a whole house, family all together project (yet).

Clothing was easy. Books not so much. And I broke the rules a bit. I have more books in the basement but I only focused on the books upstairs. While it would have been a great workout, I didn’t have the energy for a billion trips up and down the stairs.

Books

Again, I made the bed my staging area. Can’t leave it covered if I want to sleep. 

Not very many books from upstairs. Might be a reason why I left downstairs alone though most of the downstairs books are kids and young adult books the boys and I read at the same time.

There’s a subcategory order to follow with the books: Cookbooks, general, kids, magazines, reference and textbooks, and phone books.

Confession #1: I kept every single one of my cookbooks during this stage! However, I did get rid of several loose magazine page recipes.  I started to wonder if I’d keep all my books.

However, after considering each book… 

An entire box to donate!

Confession #2: Shortly after taking this picture, I went to library and borrowed more books!

Final Thoughts on Clearing Out My Books with the KonMari Method:

  1. Her main book question outside of the spark joy one is will you re-read it? I found it easy to focus on which books I might pick up and re-read (not many) versus which I loved whether I planned to re-read them or not.
  2. It’s hard to stick to the category.  I took the cookbooks out of a super cluttered cabinet.  I’m trying to “follow the rules” at least a little so I left it and only focused on the books.
  3. It helped me to think of donating away the books as making room for new knowledge.
  4. Letting go of books I thought I should keep to “look smart” (we’ve all done that haven’t we?) also helped.
  5. The books left (upstairs) are ones that truly make me smile when I see them.
  6. I’ve read about her arbitrary number of 30 books and do think that’s silly. Books are too personal for that.

Confession #3: I completely forgot to sort my magazines. Luckily, I keep up with my magazines so this wasn’t a huge thing. However, I did go ahead and go through the bin, removing several old and outdated travel guides I’d hoarded.

*****

Have you ever cleared out books?  Did you find it difficult?

The next item on the checklist is papers. Everywhere I glance I see paper.  This one’s scary to me!

 

 

 

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