What We Read in August

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Annual Lake Vacation Recap

We are back from our annual summer vacation at my parents’ lake home. We had a great time and lucked out with the weather. We had one day of rain which was ok as that gave us a chance to take the boys to a local toy store and not feel guilty about ‘wasting’ a beautiful morning. When I am at the lake I feel like we have to soak up all the sunshine and beautiful views so it kind of nice to do something different. 

Here is a photo-heavy recap! During our week at the lake, we…

(Belatedly) Celebrated daddy’s birthday!

Taco especially enjoyed the chocolate syrup on his ice cream!

Went on lots of pontoon rides! The boys enjoyed driving with papa. 

The boys enjoyed lots of swing rides!

Lots of fish were caught. 

We roasted marshmallows and enjoyed s’mores.

A rare photo of all 4 of us!!

There was some cousin time! 

The boys had ice cream at ‘Granny’s Pantry’ which is a place I frequented a lot as a child.

And there was lots of beach time!

After Taco was in bed, Paul and the adults played Pictionary each night, which Paul loved! After Paul was in bed, the adults played rummy.

Of course it wasn’t all good - there was plenty of horse play and shenanigans… 

Phil did his annual swim across the lake (which we estimate to be about 1.5 miles). I kayak alongside/just ahead of him. Sounds idyllic, right? Well for me this is one of those things I do not enjoy doing but do out of love for Phil. This year we had calm waters to start but before long it was quite wavy. It is very hard to steer a 2 person kayak in choppy water so there were some terse exchanges when Phil took a break from swimming and would ask where exactly I was aiming the kayak. And then my wrist and forearm started to act up, I assume due to my RA. But Phil enjoyed himself and was just 1 minute slower than his previous PR.

But all in all, it was a wonderful change of scenery. And now Phil and I are back home without the boys as they will spend the week with my parents. It sounds like they’ve been on their best behavior so far. It will be nice for Phil and I to have a chance to reconnect without kids around and this gives the boys a chance to make priceless memories with their grandparents. I’ll head back to the lake on Friday morning to spend a couple nights and then will bring them back.

We have a busy fall ahead of us as I have 9 trips in the last 4 months of the year so we are going to soak up the silence and free time. The first night we were like - what do we do with all this time???

TGIF + Vacation-bound!

Hey hey! Today is my last day of work for a week and I am THRILLED. We head to my parents' lake home on Monday morning for our annual week at the lake... after I am on the Monday morning sales call - for the 2nd year in a row, I need to present the week of our annual lake trip! But so it goes. Besides a few shouldless days here and there, I haven't had a solid break from work since our April spring break trip to Destin so I am really overdue for some time away! I'll be taking a break from blogging/commenting next week so I can soak up time at my happy place. Here's how the week shaped up!

A book I am reading this week is ‘The Wedding People' by Alison Espach which is SO GOOD. I loved her last novel, too (Notes on Your Sudden Appearance). The topic is very heavy: a woman travels to a beautiful hotel in Newport, RI with the intent to kill herself and finds that every guest except herself is there for a wedding. And yet the book somehow the books doesn't have a "heavy book" vibe to it. 

The high of my week was *crickets* No highs come to mind. This was a bit of a ho hum week for me. It wasn't bad but it was just a little meh overall?

The low of my week was a tough parenting night on Wednesday night. Usually the boys can kind of "read the room" and not both melt down at the same time but that was not the case that night. I don't know what set this behavior off but it's probably a fools errand to try to apply logic to tantrums/emotional outbursts.

For workouts I ran 3 miles on Tuesday morning, I'll run 3 this morning, and then tomorrow I'll do another 8 mile training run. My workouts are very running-heavy these days. That will shift when this 10 mile race is behind me. Ideally I'd like to run twice/week and strength train twice/week.

A show we watched was the final episodes of season 2/first episode of season 3 of Welcome to Wrexham. I really really really miss the Olympics but at least we have the winter games to look forward to in 1.5 years (although I do not like the winter games nearly as much as the summer games...). 

The best money spent was on new glasses for Paul. It's not the most fun money to spend but it was essential. His vision prescription doubled from -1.25 to -2.50 since he last exam! It seems like he's on the path to have my vision (my rx is -4.25). Good thing he looks so cute in glasses!

We went with these frames, but in navy blue. I'm pretty sure he's wearing a shirt that we got as a hand-me-down from Kae!

My plans this weekend include laying low tonight, as usual. Tomorrow we will probably hit up a pool since it's supposed to be warm. Sunday is Phil's birthday! My gift to him was arranging some rounds of golf which I must say was HARD. I can see why he rarely golfs. Getting people pinned down for a round of golf was not easy. But I managed to plan 2 rounds of golf for him. I also plan to take Paul to get school supplies at Target. We did this last year and he wasn't as excited about buying school supplies as I was but it's a tradition I want to stick with as I have such great memories of school shopping with my mom. 

How was your week?

Weekend Review

It was a fall-like weekend in these parts with cool, dry temps. It was nice to not sweat copious amounts during the day but I am not ready for fall just yet! Here is how we filled the weekend. 

On Friday night I was on my own with the boys as Phil was golfing with his cousins. Lately the boys have been interested in a wagon that we got from my parents years ago. So I pulled them around the neighborhood for awhile (which is quite the workout) and then we had dinner and did baths. Paul and I watched the Olympics after Taco was in bed and then I FaceTimed with a friend after he was in bed.

Phil took our car in for an 8am service appointment on Saturday morning so I wasn’t able to run that morning. Instead we walked up to the grocery store/Starbucks for coffee and donuts. Then we headed to the library.

I suggested Paul wear a sweatshirt that morning but he declined… and then was cold so he draped my sweatshirt around himself while eating his donut.

Is there something on my face?

I rested/read my book after lunch and Phil took over as the primary parent. He was getting together with college friends at the house of a friend that has a pool that afternoon/evening so I met up at the zoo with 2 of the wives and their kids. The boys had a blast  

Measuring his wingspan!

Paul had lots of fun with his buddies, a couple of which he went to daycare with.

After about 3 hours at the zoo, we kept the party going and went to a park and got pizza. I walked 14k+ steps that day so my legs were tired! 

I thought surely the boys would both sleep in with all that fresh air and activity, but nope. Taco was up at 5:40 on Sunday morning. Le sigh. Paul slept until 7, though. After Phil was up I headed out for my 8 mile training run. I am about a month out from my 10 mile race and feel like I am in a good spot with my training. I have no time goals - I just want to finish and have fun!

At about the halfway point. The lake was like glass that morning!

Phil got Twins tickets from his cousin for the Sunday afternoon game so he took Paul and I stayed back with Taco. Paul and Phil had a great time. Paul got to run the bases after the game!

While they were at the game, Taco and I went to the goose house to burn some time (twice actually because when we got there the first time he said he had to go to the bathroom and wanted to pee on the sidewalk like an animal and I was NOT HAVING THAT OBV). Luckily it’s only 6 blocks away. Of course I had asked him to go to the bathroom before we left the house but he said ‘I just went’. Why is there such refusal to use the bathroom before leaving the house? Both boys do this! But I digress… he did have a fun time at the goose house. 

After that I was just done with coming up with things to do and had logged 22k steps so we watched part of Beauty and the Beast which he had started that am and The Little Mermaid - which I haven’t watched in probably 30 years and is weird to watch as an adult. Ariel is 16? And her father decides to make her a human so she can marry a stranger? What in the world? Disney plots are so odd. 

After Taco went to bed, we watched a bit of the closing ceremonies with Paul. I am so sad that the Olympics is over! But at least in 2028 it will be in the states so we will get to watch more things live. In 4 years, the boys will be 7 and 10 which sounds wonderful. I’m not wishing time away - I’ve just recognized that the elementary school years are great in so many ways so I am looking forward to that stage of parenting. 

How was your weekend?

5 Things Friday

Hey hey, it's Friday! Here are 5 things on my mind today!

1. From the windows to the Walz. I, of course, have to acknowledge that Harris has selected our Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, as her running mate. I love this guy! It's been interesting/fun to see him gain national notoriety. He has total Midwest dad vibes! The governor's mansion where he typically resides is on the Twin Cities marathon/10 mile/10k course. When I ran the 10k years ago, I'll never forget how he was out on his lawn, enthusiastically cheering on runners! [I usually do not like to discuss politics on my blog because I am incredibly conflict-avoidant, so if you don't like him, please keep those thoughts to yourself as I'm not looking to engage in political discussions.]

2. Joint update. No, not that kind of joint - I'm talking about my hand joint. The injection from last week seems to have done the trick, thank goodness. The swelling is way down and I can finally start to taper off prednisone. That said, the joint doesn't feel great so I talked to my SIL who is an OT that focuses on hands (did you know such an expertise exists?). She thinks I have what is known as "trigger" finger which is common for patients that have elevated levels of inflammation. She recommended a brace which I promptly ordered from Amazon. If that doesn't help, I will ask my rheumatologist for an OT referral but I hope it doesn't come to that because I can't bear to add more medical appointments to my calendar... 

3. Summer fever. Taco came down with a fever on Tuesday when he got home from daycare. He started crying when he walked in the house, cuddled on my lap, and promptly fell asleep which is NOT typical for our energetic little guy. I know some parents take a "wait and see" approach but I nearly immediately booked an appointment at the CVS minute clinic to rule out strep throat (pro tip - CVS minute clinics are amazing - I would recommend going there v urgent care if you can snag an appointment online. They are staffed by a nurse practitioner. They can run strep and influenza tests and you get you results within 10 minutes.). We had our appointment on Wednesday morning and his strep test was negative but he has a double ear infection. Ugh. He got tubes around 11 months and they fell out about 6 months ago. I was hoping ear infections were behind us as Paul didn't get any ear infections after his tubes fell out. I messaged his doctor and she is hoping this is just a fluke and that he won't have recurrent ear infections. He's been ok during the day but has been spiking fevers during the night so we've had interrupted sleep in our household this week which I am so not accustomed to which means I feel extra tired.

My sad, sick baby. I did soak up his feverish cuddles, though.

4. Olympic fever. We continue to be obsessed with the Olympics. I feel like we've watched more coverage than ever this year, but I have some recency bias. I had a 8 month old baby during the 2021 Olympics so life looked quite different back then. It's nice to have something to watch together every night rather than doing the whole "what do you want to watch" / "I don't care, you pick" / "no, you pick" type of exchange. Instead at 7pm we tune into the primetime Olympics coverage which we watch with Paul until he goes to bed. 

5. Cool, cool summer. Well so much for the heat! It’s been downright fall-like this week. Today the high is 69. This is so bizarre. Apparently it’s related to the tropical storm on the east coast - I guess it’s keeping a cool front over us. It is great for running, though. Paul’s field trip is to a water park today but I am sure the cooler temps won’t hold him back from having a great time. It looks like warmer temps return next week so I will enjoy this cool spell while it lasts. It is nice to not run the a/c non-stop!

What is the weather like in your parts? Are you sad the Olympics are coming to an end?

What We Read in July

July was such a whirlwind month with 3 work trips and the start of the Olympics which took a large bite out of my reading time. Many nights, I sacrificed 30-45 minutes of reading time in favor of watching the Olympics but that was a worthwhile shift in time usage! Here is how my reading shaped up for the month. I read 7 book and nearly all of them were great!

Best Books:

Summer Romance (5 stars) by Annabel Monaghan was an excellent romance featuring a single mom 40-something protagonist. Conflict in romances can stress me out but that wasn't the case with this novel. 

Sandwich (4 stars) by Catherine Newman was an excellent book about the sandwich generation, meaning the middle-aged years when you are caring for your offspring and your aging parents. I loved this book but would have loved it even more if I was in a different stage of parenting. The protagonist is nostalgic about the young kid stage of parenting and sometimes it was hard to wrap my mind around missing the things she misses - like my current "touched out" stage of parenting. I do recognize that I'll miss these cuddles someday but I do yearn for more personal space. I still love the book, though, but if you have older kids and/or are menopausal/post-menopausal, this will really speak to you!

Same As It Ever Was (4 stars) is the sophomore novel by Claire Lombardo. I really liked it but felt it was a bit long at 512 pages. But I am amazed that this single, childfree author so accurately captured the challenges/emotions of raising small children. This is very character-driven so avoid this if that is not your jam.

Margo's Got Money Troubles (4 stars) is what I would describe as a "voicy" book meaning that the protagonist is quirky and she does not hide it. It's about a single mother that is impregnated by her college professor. Her father is involved with the WWE and has a history of opioid abuse. It's a book that made me think about how situations that look terrible on paper are actually not so terrible when you examine them more closely. 

I would love to know who recommended Wandering Souls (5 stars) to me. I mostly use a TBR tag in Libby to keep track of what I want to read. I wish I could make notes about the recommendation source - but to my knowledge, that is not possible. This is a slim novel (I think less than 250 pages) about 3 teen siblings who flee Vietnam during the war and eventually settle in the UK. The story is told from numerous points of view, including the siblings' deceased younger brother. It's heartbreaking but such a well-told story. 

Pretty good and did not work:

The Wealth of Shadows (2 stars) sounded like it would be right up my alley as it was about the economic warfare that was deployed during WWII to end the war - like cutting off supply lines for Germany, for example. I wanted to like it but dear God, I was so bored at the end that I debated abandoning the book at 90%! If I do not complete a book, it goes on my abandoned shelf, so even if I read 90%, I do not count it as read - and I did not want to do that so I slogged through the last 10%. I know of people who will mark something as read even if they abandon it at 25% but my enneagram 1 personality can not wrap my mind around that. Nonetheless, this was not a fit for me, but I am an outlier as it has high reviews on Goodreads! What really set me off was the reaction of the economists when Pearl Harbor was bombed - they were thrilled because that meant that the US would get involved in the war which meant there was a higher likelihood to the war ending. But how can you celebrate something that resulted in a catastrophic loss of lives??? 

Wavewalker (3 stars) was a solid 3-star book but it got a bit long for me. It's a memoir about the author's childhood spent sailing around the world with terribly neglectful parents. I did not need detail about all of the different stops they made during the voyage - I think she could have trimmed 50+ pages and still done their voyage justice. All that said, we had a great book club discussion about this book. 

The boys' reads:

The boys' reads have been a bit lackluster lately because we have not gone to the library as often. Instead we are often doing something outside. But the library will be there waiting for us when cooler weather hits. Paul and I have read a few more of the "Dragon Master" books which he really enjoys. We are on book 10. Taco has been really into the Bruce books by Ryan T. Higgins which I adore!!

Did you read anything great in July?

Weekend Review

We had a great weekend! Hosting Kyria was definitely the highlight! Here is how we filled the time! 

On Friday night we laid low (as we typically do). I made pork nachos with leftover carnitas I had made earlier in the week and we watched the Olympics coverage. 

She helped Paul make a fortune teller. Do you remember making these as a child?

Saturday was a full day! Kyria decided to join me for my 8 mile training run even though she hasn’t been running (you know, since she is busy biking across the US/Canada!). 

2 miles into our 8 mile run with Lake Harriet in the background!

The run went really well and the miles flew by since we chatted the entire time. After we showered we walked up to Starbucks and the grocery store with the boys. The girls got Starbucks drinks, the boys got donuts. Then we hit up the library. 

For lunch I made the now-famous chickpea salad. She was a fan! We rested for a bit and then the boys and us headed over to a local beach (Shady Oak Beach) for some swimming. Unfortunately the beaches of the lakes close to us are closed due to the level of e.coli. We have had so much torrential downpour this summer which tends to lead to elevated e.coli levels. But it was fun to check out a new-to-us spot! 

Kyria got to witness a toddler meltdown when we left. Good times. For dinner I made chicken tikka masala with cauliflower and peas for dinner. And then we watched more Olympics coverage! 

On Sunday I did a Caroline Girvan iron series lower body workout in the morning and then we hit up the farmer’s market and park where we saw a bunch of families from the Spanish Immersion daycare the boys both attended. 

In the afternoon we hung around the house for awhile so I did some meal prep (I made the marry me chickpea dish Jenny posted about last week for my lunches for the week and prepped pork enchiladas for dinner tonight). Phil and Kyria went to a self serve bike shop to work on her bike but it was unexpectedly closed! I took the boys to the goose house while they were off on that adventure. 

We had grilled brats and corn on the cob for dinner and watched - you guessed it - more Olympics coverage! I will be so sad when the games are over!

We get Kyria for one more night as she will run errands today while we are at work. We have loved hosting her so much! She is the easiest guest to have around. She’s the kind of guest who will ask if she can help and I will actually give her a job which is something I don’t typically do! 

How was your weekend? Are you good at taking up offers to help?

TGIF

For some reason this felt like a long week and I was often confused about what day of the week it was, maybe because my Tuesday and Thursday were thrown off by medical appointments? Maybe because I wasn't traveling for the first time in 4 weeks? Whatever the reason, I'm glad it's Friday! And we will have a fun guest arriving today! Here's how the week shaped up!

A book I am reading this week is ‘God of the Woods’ by Liz Moore. It is SO good and worth all of the hype I've heard about it. Moore writes literary mysteries but they aren't overly literary in my opinion. This book is set at an estate in the Adirondack that is adjacent to a summer camp. 2 children from the same family go missing 14 years apart (which is something I cannot wrap my mind around experiencing!). 

The high of my week was going to book club on Wednesday night. I used to never miss book club but now that I travel twice/month I have missed book club a number of times - and will barely be around for meetings this fall. We discussed the memoir "Wavewalker" which is about the author's childhood spent sailing around the world with pretty neglectful parents. After dinner we walked across the street and got ice cream which felt like the perfect end to the night for a summer book club!

The low of my week was Thursday morning. Phil did drop off for both kids but I buckled Taco into his car seat before they headed out (and set my keys down next to his seat while doing so). I then went for a run, got ready for the day and was going to drive to a Starbucks close to my injection appointment but I could not find my car keys! Luckily I have a tile tag on my car keys since I have a lot of absent-minded professor energy. I assumed they'd ring in my purse and I could narrow down where they were - but the app showed me that my keys were in a parking lot in downtown Minneapolis - apparently I did not remember to grab them after setting them down to buckle in Taco so they were in our car that was parked downtown! Doh. I was so annoyed with myself. So instead I ubered to the clinic where I knew there was a coffee shop and I worked from that area until my injection appointment. All in all it worked out fine, I was just so annoyed with myself. Why am I so scatterbrained! But thank goodness for Uber!

For workouts I only managed to run on Thursday morning was I was in the office M/W and I didn't have time to spare on Tuesday as I was off the desk for 3+ hours for my infusion. I will do my long run on Saturday or Sunday. 

A show we watched was no shows because we are all about the Olympics in this house!! We do not have cable or a peacock subscription so we just watched the coverage on NBC (that we have access to through an antennae). In particular I've enjoyed watching gymnastics and swimming!! I got chills and teared up watching the conclusion of the women's all-around gymnastics finals!

The best money spent was on those ubers that allowed me to get to/from my doctor appointment. There was no chance I was going to miss this crucial injection appointment (it's too early to say if it was successful as it takes 24+ hours to work typically)!! I just hate spending money completely unnecessarily. But such is life. 

My plans this weekend include soaking up time with Kyria! She arrives at our house this afternoon so we will be showing her the sights this weekend. She last visited us in February of 2023 which is really NOT the prime time to visit Minnesota so I am excited to spend time with her when we can be outdoors a lot and not freezing. I'm not sure what all we will do besides visiting one of our local lakes. She's the easiest house guest to have and is adored by all 4 of us. I mean Phil texted her to see what kind of ice cream he should have on hand for her and she'll enter our house via a key left in a lock box since we'll both be in the office when she arrives - so that kind of tells you what kind of friendship we have with her. She's kind of like family at this point!

Bonus photo:

The boys still happily play with magnatiles! They made some really cool creations on Monday night. Paul said his was a Poke-Donalds (he's very into Pokemon these days). 

How was your week? Are you a scatterbrained type of person? Phil is the opposite of me - he never misplaces things and would have no need for a tile tag on his keys.