Adventures in La La Land

Sorry for skipping last week. I have a bad case of The Februarys.  1. The kids have gotten really into games recently. Their new favorite is Clue, and it's fun now that everyone is old enough to read/strategize and we don't have to play Clue Jr. anymore! We even got Justin to play a couple of times!  Plank break! Lena won, but in Justin's defense, he had run 7 miles the day before. As for the nonparticipants . . . Lucy has a foot injury, and I have a childbearing injury known as diastasis recti. #delicatesensibilities #nocorestrength #itslenasfault #fatlardbaby 2. We had the whole week off for Winter Break this past week, and Lucy decided that we needed to put every game we own in a pile and guess how many there are . . . When I sent this picture to my sisters, Libby called me a hoarder. I can't imagine why! 😂 We decided to only count one deck of cards toward our total, and we didn't count duplicates. The grand total is . . . . 80 games! On Tuesday, we spent 4 soli...

1. Oh February. My least favorite month of the year. For the last two years we've taken a vacation somewhere sunny and warm in the last week of January to bolster me through the rest of the winter. This year, however, we're saving our money for a 20th anniversary trip, and slogging through an entire Michigan winter without respite. 0 stars. Do not recommend. I had to do outdoor recess twice  this week, and almost quit my job. The second time, I got smart and borrowed snow pants from the girl I was subbing for. She's like 22 years old, and I had very little confidence they'd fit, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I managed to get them on, but I definitely couldn't zip them over my stomach. Haha. Thank goodness for coats! I was very grateful for the warmth they provided, even if I waddled like a penguin the whole time I wore them.  2. On one of my days off this week I decided to be productive and deep clean the dishwasher. It hasn't been getting thi...

This week was bonkers . . . which I'm realizing I say quite often these days. Is this just my life now? Bonkers? I don't know. This week had a few special caveats that made it more bonkers than usual. 1. We celebrated Lena's birthday with my family on Sunday. She specifically requested a red velvet bundt cake, so I whipped one up for her.  Don't be too impressed. It was a doctored up box cake (thanks, Pinterest!) and I literally warmed up a can of cream cheese frosting until it became liquid, then poured it over the cake. #worksmarternotharder 2. Most of the reason this week was so crazy was because it was Spirit Week at school. So not only do I have to help my kids come up with outfits and accessories, but it's more work for me at my job as well. Don't get me wrong. I love it all. It's just tiring. Haha. I was impressed with the effort Lucy put in to Spirit Week this year, but she didn't let me take pictures so you'll have to take my word for it. Le...

What a crazy week! 1. A polar vortex, the likes of which we haven't seen since 2019 swept in and wreaked havoc on everything in its path for 4 days. Temps were in single digits with windchills well below zero. As if that wasn't enough, it snowed almost continually for those 4 days. And we all wondered, "why do we live here??"  2. We actually had a scheduled day off of school on Monday for teacher records day. We slept in, watched the inauguration and crossed our fingers for a snow day on Tuesday. Wish granted! Snow day #1.  Justin had the day off as well since temps were dangerously low and there wasn't any available inside work. I started a puzzle, listened to an audiobook, played games with the kids, and helped Justin transport his truck to and from the Ford dealership to fix a recall issue. The roads weren't the worst I've ever been on, but they were no picnic. That night, Lena and Levi had their first basketball practices of the season. It's conven...