Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Things I'm Loving Lately

Happy Tuesday! I hope everyone had a great weekend! This week is shaping up to be a busy one but I thought I'd drop in and share some things I am loving lately!

- Our new compost bin. Minneapolis recently launched an organics recycling program. I'm really excited about this new program! Now we generate even less trash as most of what we get rid of is recyclable or organic. When we visited Kyria, I noticed she had a compost bin that did not smell at all, thanks to a charcoal filter, so I purchased something similar on Amazon. It's really convenient to have something right on the counter top. You know you are an adult when you get excited about a compost bin.  ;)

- Cuddles with Oscar. No surprise here!  It doesn't happen all that often, especially when Phil is around, but Oscar will occasionally sit on my lap or lay on me when I'm laying on the couch reading.


- Summer reading lists. I love lists and I love books, so summer reading lists are totally my jam! A couple that have caught my eye this year are my local paper's list and Modern Mrs. Darcy's list. I love how each list is broken down by category so you can hone in on what you are interested in! Lists like these make my TBR list grow and grow. So many books to read, so little time!

- Our backyard. While I absolutely loved the view of the river from the condo I lived in before, I've really fallen in love with having a backyard. I have already spent lots of time out there reading on the deck or on a reclining lawn chair in the yard. We recently ordered a grill and it will arrive today! I think we'll be eating lots of al fresco grilled meals on our deck this summer.

- Longer hours of daylight. There are many reason why I love this time of year, but towards the top of the list is the longer hours of daylight! It's so much easier to get up in the morning when it's bright out and I love that it's still light out at 8 pm at night!

- Fresh flowers. Phil's mom has lots of flower beds and right now her peonies are in bloom. For the past 2 weeks she's been making a bouquet for me, which is so sweet of her! There's nothing like having fresh flowers in the house, and it's even better when they are free!


- Relaxing with Phil. The last couple of months of our lives have been fairly hectic and stressful with travel, the move, my surgery, and recovering from surgery. So I've been relishing opportunities to relax and unplug! We had an opportunity to do that last weekend when we attended his coworker's wedding in Wisconsin. A weekend of fresh air and outdoor fun was just what the doctor ordered!


What are you loving lately?

21 comments:

Amber @ A Little Pink in the Cornfields said...

I love Minneapolis and how eco-friendly they are! What a cool program!

These days, I am loving all of the free time I have. It is almost overwhelming and at times I feel like I HAVE to fill my time with productivity. However I recognize that relaxing and doing "nothing" is okay.

Marlys said...

I am anxious to hear all about the wedding! I bet it was relaxing.
Her peonies are beautiful! I have one peony plant and it didn't make it through the winter this year and I have had it for years! Bummers!
I, too, wish there was more time to read as I have many books on my shelves and on my Kindle that I have not started yet.

missris said...

That's so cool that Minneapolis is doing a compost program! Man, I wish Pittsburgh would jump on that train, but we're about 25 years behind the times here so I won't hold my breath. If we were able to compost, we would have almost no household trash (ugh and I just hate throwing away things like banana peels and coffee grounds--they're not trash)! If you start to feel really ambitious, you can make your own little compost area in your yard (there are tons of great tutorials online--can you tell I've looked into this?!) and then you'll have amazing, high-quality, FREE soil for your garden ;)

Nora said...

Gorgeous flowers! So sweet of Phil's mom to put together a bouquet for you, too.

LOVE this last photo of you and Phil; hope the wedding weekend was a great time. The sunset looks positively stunning.

Raquelita said...

Haha! I love it that you are excited about your compost bin. We'll see if the estimate is low enough that I can be happy about fixing our fence gates in our back yard. That photo of the two of you is great!

I've been loving planning my upcoming trip to Spain (and maybe France or England) and Belgium and Germany! I'm also loving how I only have one more week of my summer class.

Linda said...

Love that photo of you and Phil!!

suki said...

I've been sick all week, so what I'm loving is the time I have taken to rest. I usually fill up my calendar in advance, and so I've had to cancel a few things here and there to take some me time.

Charbelle said...

I know this is absolutely my favorite time of year!!! I love the longer daylight, I love being able to be down on the dock with a book, I love the flowers, I love the heat (I know that sounds crazy but I do!).

The flowers are gorgeous!!! Staying down at the lake I make it a game to generate as little trash as possible. I recycle a lot and generally I have a less than half a bag of trash while I'm down there :)

Oscar is just too cute!!!

Elizabeth said...

So many great things indeed and love that you got a compost bin :) Sounds like you're truly loving the transition to the house and I agree a backyard to relax in can be truly great. I'm needing to work on a bit of reframing so this is great: I'm grateful for solid sleep and comfortable mattresses, these slower weeks of one job and relishing the potential last bits of my flexible work style, work covering my travel tickets and the fastest refund they've issued yet, the ability to harvest fruits and veggies directly out of my yard, a stable housing situation, a great visit with my long-time friends who are on the verge of transitioning back to Oregon, a fun weekend outing with best bud & helping out another veteran, good books and time to read them....I might have to post this too :) Thanks for the mental reframing lady and so glad you're continuing to heal up!!

Kelly (She Wears a Red Sox Cap) said...

I love the pics of you and Phil from the wedding this weekend! Looked like a beautiful spot!

I need to buy Eric that composting bin. Currently he likes to just throw things in the backyard to compost. This worked well when we didn't have a kid or much of a backyard so we weren't really out there much. Now I'm walking in the backyard with Max and I see a random piece of bread and Max is like "OOOO BREAD!" haha.

Carolina John said...

gotta admit, relaxing with Phil is pretty fantastic

katielookingforward said...

I'm so glad you guys got out of town!!! What a great way to mix things up and get some fresh air!

Stephany said...

Oh, those flowers are BEAUTIFUL! I always try to have fresh flowers in my apartment (my roommate and I trade off who picks them up!) because they just make the place a little bit brighter. :)

That's such a great photo of you and Phil!

Leigh said...

Love that picture of you and Phil! And your fresh flowers from his mom. Fresh flowers are the best! When you say grill, does it mean the same thing as a BBQ?

Amber said...

I really want to get a composting bin! Such an awesome way to reduce waste. That is cool that you can get a filter that makes it not smell, I will have to look into that.

I love peonies so much! Those ones are beautiful!

San said...

I love our backyard! The view from your apartment was gorgeous, but I can imagine how much more tempted you are to go and spend time in your backyard now! And I love that you love living with Phil :)

Abby said...

Oh cool! We have been researching on different methods of composting. I'm torn on what one to get!

I'm glad you finally are getting to relax a little! Much much deserved!!!

That is one thing I miss about living up north: long summer days! It gets dark At 7:30 here. However...that's our saving grace- Bc it is sooo hot. On the contrary....I am loving that the sun is out at 4:40 am this time of year! Makes my workout so much easier!!

I am loving dirty chais lately - they are my guilty pleasure. And I don't want to know how many calories are in them lol

I am loving the weekend we have planned after some kind of drab weekends where Ryan has been working night shift so we haven't really had much for fun plans.

Kyria @ Travel Spot said...

I love your new compost bin! It's tres chic! I actually just heard a podcast about Minneapolis St Paul and how the garbage pick up system was really messed up; it said that there were like 20 companies and they didn't really have a set route / pick up area, so I wanted to ask you what you thought about that. We only have one option so it's almost the exact opposite!

My TBR list is almost embarrassingly horder-ish; I just keep adding and adding to it and I cannot read the books fast enough! I checked out the links you put up, and of course added a bunch more books to my list! I am actually currently listening to an audio book by Louise Penny which is good but keeps expiring before I get finished with it!

Jeanie said...

Oh Lisa, this all sounds so good and you sound so happy. The garden, the wedding, the compost -- great idea! And Oscar! She DOES look like Barbra Streisand! This post leaves me with a big smile on my face!

The Many Thoughts of a Reader said...

I love those peonies! They are my favorite flower! I'm so sad when they are done here.

Jolene - EverydayFoodie said...

Yay - you guys got a grill!! Lovin' the compost thing; we need to do that around here. Great photo of you two :-)