TGIF

Hey hey - it's Friday and the first 5-day work week since early December! It didn't feel overly long so I guess that is good? We have a 3-day weekend since it's MLK Day. Luckily the weather will be very mild this weekend! Not nice enough to melt the bajillion inches of snow we have, but I'll take what I can get. Here's a TGIF style recap of my week. 

The book I read this week was Solito, which I finished on Wednesday. It's a hard subject matter (a young 9yo boy traversing from El Salvador to the Tucson area) so it was slower going for me. Now I am reading All the Broken Places by John Boyne. I have loved everything I've read by Boyne, especially The Hearts Invisible Furies! Goodreads says it’s a sequel to ‘The Boy in the Striped Pajamas’ but it’s not marketed that way. The main character is the daughter of a Nazi soldier, so it seems to focus on culpability. I was drawn in from the first page. 

The high of my week was getting together with friends to celebrate a college friend’s birthday last night! We had dinner and then went to a ‘game show showroom’ where we played 3 different games. It was such a fun night planned by her husband!

The low of my week was feeling sad about the passing of a young (54!) former coworker. I didn't know him super well as we only overlapped for 3 years and I hadn't seen him in 4+ years but I was still sad to learn of his passing. I ended up working during the funeral on Tuesday so my coworkers who were close to him could attend. 

A recipe I made was 2 recipes from the Milk Street Instant Pot Cookbook - picadillo and pork carnitas. Both were excellent. We really love our instant pot! It's misunderstood, in my opinion, as this amazing time saving device. For me, the biggest benefit is that you only dirty one pot since there is a saute function. And it does save time - like the pork carnitas are done in about 1.5 hours. But it's not something I use on week nights when we get home at 5 and ideally need to have dinner on the table at 5:30. But overall, I prefer the instant pot to a slow cooker for most things. 

A show we are watching is nothing right now! We finished Fleishman is in Trouble and need to find a new show to watch. We did "watch" The Glass Onion. I say "watch" because I was working on a puzzle. Phil watched it and enjoyed it but not nearly as much as the first one.

For workouts I ran on Monday and Tuesday and will do a strength training workout later today and then will run again tomorrow. And maybe fit another strength training workout in on Sunday? We'll see. 

The best money spent was on a haircut/color! I hadn't seen my stylist since mid-September so was very overdue. We changed things up and did a VERY subtle money piece, which from my understanding means highlights around your forehead/crown of your head. I usually get an all-over color but I am really graying, especially around my temples/forehead area. So the money piece will disguise the graying a little bit. I know there is a trend to lean into the gray, but I have really young kids so don't feel like it's the time for me to go gray. This is ultimately a you do you decision, though! Maybe in 5-10 years I will be ready to lean into the gray!

My plans this weekend include nothing tonight which is typical. We are so tired by Friday night! Tomorrow morning I'm planning to run with my neighbor - maybe we'll be motivated enough to run around the lake by our house, which is a 4 mile route. Then we have our usual combo of the library followed by gymnastics. After nap, we are going to our friend's house for a get together with 2 other families. I'm bringing this chili. On Sunday, I think we are going to the zoo to see the new dolphin that our zoo is taking care of while a zoo in IL works on a renovation. Will is very into dolphins lately so I think he'll love seeing them in real life! We all have Monday off. Phil will take Paul out to his mom's in the afternoon. I don't know what Will and I will do. Wander the toy aisle of Target? The weather will be nice so ideally we would go for a long stroller walk but the sidewalks are kind of treacherous in parts - especially the corners. So we'd have to probably walk on the street which I don't love doing. We'll see how we entertain ourselves!

Bonus pictures

Watching a This Old House video with daddy. Who knew plumbing repairs were so interesting? 

Paul’s latest magnatile creation - a train! 

The complete Lego set we worked on over the course of 4 nights over the last 2 weeks!

What was the high of your week?