DITL: Shouldless Day

Hey hey! I’m coming at you fresh off the tail of a delightful shouldless day! I thought I’d do a DITL style post because how we relax and refill our cups can vastly vary from person to person. My day was basically full on introverting with the exception of a hair cut but you might fill your day getting coffee or lunches with friends or meeting up with others for a walk or glass of wine, etc. All that said, here is how it played out. 

6 am - I wake up on my own feeling rested and lay in bed for 10 minutes before starting my day! Hurray! 

6:15 - Paul is already awake so I get his breakfast (cheerios - this child is a creature of habit like his mom). I try to get Taco up and he is NOT PLEASED. This is a standard part of our day. Taco is NOT a morning person. He decides he wants dad to get him up today so I happily wash my hands of this tasks. I  make my breakfast (2 scrambled eggs + splash of egg whites made in the microwave with salsa + GF toast), Phil comes down with Taco who is magically in a good mood and not screaming! It’s a miracle!

7 am - everyone is fed, dressed and has their teeth brushed. Phil leaves for work with Taco as he will drop him at daycare on his way to his downtown office. I drive Paul to school which is less than 5 minutes away. 

7:15 am - I am back home in a quiet home! My instinct is to rush to the do the next thing because that is how I am programmed in this young kid stage of life. Every day is a productivity puzzle to solve with the solution being - how much can I get done today? So I have to tell myself - calm down, today is a gentle day so take your time and enjoy your coffee. So I sipped my coffee while doing all my NYT games (spelling bee, wordle, connections, and letter boxed) and read a few blogs. 

8:15 am - I head out for a 4 mile run around the local lake in sunshine while listening to the latest episodes of the Popcast (this podcast makes me laugh out loud which is saying a lot as LOL is not my general vibe) and Animal Spirits (finance/investing podcast hosted by 2 financial advisors - work related but a super entertaining podcast that makes me think). 

Post run with our house in the background - not the best pic but I was a little self conscious about taking a selfie in my neighborhood with people coming and going

9 am - I head out with the plan to buy new Hokas at the running store by our house but they are out of the model I run in (Machs). I decided to go to the coffee shop that is across the street since I know they have GF baked goods - except they are closed today due to construction… so I google around to try to find a coffee shop that has something I can eat and eventually I give up and go to a Caribou close to my haircut/color appointment where I know I can get a GF soufflé (yes more eggs but so it goes). My hair appointment is at 11 which is when I usually eat lunch so I need a little something to tie me over. I score a cozy leather chair, buy some Hoka Mach 6s online and read my book (Fat Talk) while sipping my vanilla latte/eating my soufflé. It’s perfection as I love the background buzz of conversations around me but am happy that I can sit silently and read.

11 am - This is the only social part of my day which is a haircut, which I would more so describe as catching up with a good friend who also happens to cut and color my hair and has for the last 15+ years. 

Fresh hair! No make up because I only wear make up if I am working. Ignore the discoloration around the hairline from the dye! Always seems to take a day for that to fully wash out!

1:15 pm - I’m home! I make a taco salad with leftovers from our Cinco de Mayo taco meal and then crawl into bed to continue reading my book. I also read some of the assigned chapters for May from my ‘Lonesome Dove’ buddy read with a Patreon group.

4 pm - Time to head to pick up Paul from school so I can get home and make dinner (chili) for Phil and I (the boys had leftover tacos). 

After dinner the fun continued with a family walk + scoot to the creek and a stop by to see the geese’s latest costumes (a fixture in our neighborhood)! Paul was not up for photos but Taco was all about it! This is the highest our creek has been in several years! The last 2 summers it has basically gone dry during the summer due to droughts. I hope the water levels stay up this year. 

It was a wonderful day and I could use like a week of these! But I’m glad I had today to spend how I pleased. With how rushed and chaotic life often feels, it’s nice to have a day that can be more slow paced and spent exactly how I’d like with no internal judgment about what I “should” be doing! 

If you had a shouldless day, how would you spend it?

Anatomy of a Shouldless Day

On Friday I used PTO to have what I call a ‘shouldless day.’ I learned about this concept on the podcast Death, Sex and Money. It’s a day where you only do things you want to do and nothing you should do. So much of our lives are ruled by things we should do. So specifying that I won’t do any shoulds allows me to use the day as I would like with no guilt. So here’s how I spent it!

- I got the kids up and helped get Taco out the door with dad for daycare and Paul on the bus. 

- I messaged my colleagues to tell them I am actually going to try to take the day off and not read/respond to emails. I haven’t had a real day off like this in a very very long time. Even in Canada I checked email at the end of the day. I needed a FULL break from work on this day off. 

- I did a full body Caroline Girvan Epic Heat workout. I haven’t done one of her workouts in over a month thanks to the awful cough/viral illness I was fighting for most of October. It feels so good to be back to working out! 

- I also set up our fake tree. It’s tree decorating day and I promised Paul I would wait until he is home from school to put the ornaments on. Yes it is early to put our tree up but we started doing it in 2020 when we needed some extra light in our lives. I host my college girlfriends and their kids for a cookie decorating party the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend each year so it’s nice to have the tree up well ahead of that. 

- I got a deep tissue massage and think of Jenny since she is a massage therapist. As the masseuse works out the ridiculous number of knots in my upper back, I think of how stressful this year has been at work. I carry my stress in my upper back/shoulder so it’s not wonder she’s working out lots of knots. 

- After the massage, I treated myself to lunch at a Mexican place next to the spa. Tacos, chips, salsa and a sav blanc! And I sit in silence and eat which is golden after a week of So. Much. Talking.

- I relax for a bit before Paul gets off the bus around 2:45. He put all the kid-friendly ornaments on the tree. 

And that brought my shouldless day to a close. It turns out Fridays aren’t the best day for this kind of thing since Paul doesn’t have after care on Friday. But I still had about 6.5 hours to do as I pleased. It just went way too fast! But I planned 2 days off in mid-December so have more me time to look forward to. Those days will also be used for final holiday prep but at least I have a couple of days where I won’t be juggling work and holiday prep.

Have you taken days off that are to be spent as you please? 

Shouldless Days of '17: December

I had my last shouldless day of the year on Sunday. It's a good thing I had set aside Sunday as a shouldless day because even if I had committed to doing things outside the house, I wouldn't have been able to thanks to another flare that was pretty brutal. Here's how I spent my day, which was probably the laziest of all the shouldless days this year!

I didn't sleep much during the night on Saturday night as the pain from the flare in my wrist was pretty bad. I went through 3 ice packs during the night as ice is the only thing that takes away the throbbing pain. But it's really hard to sleep when you have something freezing cold on your wrist. I moved down to the couch at 7 am and ended up falling asleep until 9:30 which felt good as I really needed the rest!

When I woke up, I had a breakfast of oatmeal with raisins and some hot cocoa with marshmallows. I know that hot cocoa and sugary treats like that will be a thing of the past as of today when I go on the gestational diabetes diet so I figured I had earned one last treat. And yes, I used Phil's mug for my hot cocoa as I had used the "Mrs." mug the day before and this set of mugs is the best for things like hot cocoa!

Phil and I watched Face the Nation and then he headed out to his mom's for the day.

The rest of the day was the definition of laziness. I pretty much spent the whole day on the couch. I spent a good chunk of time reading, "We Were the Lucky One." I finished it by the end of the day. It was a really wonderful book albeit so heartbreaking to hear about the cruelty of WWII, especially the cruelty inflicted upon the Polish people.

At noon, I turned on the Vikings game. Apparently Oscar is a fan as well as she "watched" the game, too. We both fell asleep during the 2nd half. The Vikings dominated the game, which was exciting but didn't make for the most interesting game to watch.

In the late afternoon, I watched one of my favorite Christmas movies, "The Holiday." That movie is so delightful. Oscar was an attentive nurse kitty as she spent most of the afternoon/evening curled up on my lap.

Phil got home around 7:30 and we caught up on our days before I headed to bed at an early hour.

This is such a busy time of year but I am glad that I was able to make time for a shouldless day because whether or not I had scheduled it, it was definitely what my body needed.

Since we are expecting in March, I won't set a goal of having a shouldless day/month. But it's been great having this as a goal the last 2 years! If you haven't made a goal like this for yourself before, I highly encourage it, especially if you are an over-scheduler like me, as it's a great form of self-care!

Shouldless Days of '17: November

I made last Sunday a shouldless day. I wasn't sure if I was going to fit one into November as it's been a busy month, but I am glad I was able to sneak one in! Here is how I spent it!

As usual, I was up before Phil. I had oatmeal with raisin and bananas and pumpkin spice tea for breakfast.

It was laundry day so I went through the diapers I bought on sale during Thanksgiving week and figured out which ones I needed to prep. Some cloth diapers require that you wash them 6-8 times so I figured out which ones I needed to add to our laundry. We aren't going to use cloth diapers until the baby fits into one size diapers (around 10 pounds) but I wanted to get the prep work done well ahead of when the baby arrives.

We had plans to decorate our tree that day so I made a special brunch, as is our tradition. I made this easy egg bake with pork sausage from our meat share. While it baked, I read and kitty kept my lap warm.

Then it was time to eat! I forgot to take a picture before we dug in (we were both really hungry and ended up eating 5 pieces between the 2 of us!!).

We lounged around after brunch and got a kick out watching our little sun-seeker catch some rays.

Then it was time to decorate the tree! We decorated a fake, pre-lit tree. We pretty much always had fake trees when we were growing up so it's what I am used to.

It didn't take long for Oscar to start poking around. She did pretty well with the tree last year so hopefully she does well this year, too. We just keep the ornaments off the lower branches.

After that, Phil headed to the gym and I laid down to read and nap. I'm still feeling really exhausted and need naps on the weekends. Oscar warmed my feet and kept me company and we both eventually fell asleep.

Phil likes to keep our house pretty cool (63 degrees!) so I pretty much always have a heated blanket on my lap. Oscar is a big fan, too.

She continued to poke around the tree but so far she hasn't broken any ornaments. She just can't resist something shiny that she can bat around with her paws.

For dinner, we enjoyed Thanksgiving weekend leftovers while watching 60 minutes.

It was quite the lazy day but it was just what I needed after several busy days. It was nice to have Phil around for a shouldless day as he's usually at his mom's on my shouldless days! And Oscar really seemed to love having us around all day, too.

I am going to enjoy these shouldless days while I can as I know they won't be possible once baby Segner arrives!

Have you had any relaxing days recently?

Shouldless Days of 2017: September

Julia Child Night was so much fun, but it was also exhausting. Plus I got an RA flare on Friday night, this time in my left elbow, and got less than 5 hours of sleep on Friday night since the pain was pretty bad. Luckily the steroids kicked in quickly and I was still able to enjoy Julia Child Night on Saturday.

However, after a poor night of sleep and being on my feet for about 12 hours, I was in need of a shouldless day! Plus the flare moved from my elbow to my left hand so it was clear that my body needed some rest.  Here's how I spent my Sunday!

I was in bed later than usual on Saturday night as it was almost 11 by the time we got home from Julia Child Night, so I slept in a bit and laid in bed until 8:30 which felt glorious! After having breakfast and watching part of Face the Nation with Phil, I got started on making some banana bread with some overly-ripe bananas that I needed to use up. I got to use the Kitchen Aid mixer my parents gave me for my baby shower for the first time!

 The finished product!

After that I had a few errands to run, starting with the library. I love that they make the returns area extra fun. I am sure it's meant to entertain children but it made this adult smile!

I picked up this book which I am excited to check out! I've heard nothing but great things!

After stopping by the grocery store, I came home and had the rest of the leftover Chicken Tikka Masala that my sister and I made last week. I think it might have tasted even better as leftovers!

For dessert, I enjoyed a slice of banana bread. For some reason, the chocolate chips were not evenly distributed, but it still tasted great!

 

After watching a couple of episodes of Suits, I headed outside to do some reading. Phil had set up the hammock for me before he headed to his mom's that morning. It was a beautiful fall day so the perfect day to spend some time in the hammock. It was a bit chilly (for me, I get cold easily) so I brought a blanket to make it extra cozy. I read a little bit of Refugee, which is a middle-grade book that my a good friend recommended to me. It tells the story of 3 different refugees - a young Jewish boy during WWII, a Cuban family trying to get to the US in 1994, and a Syrian family that is trying to get to Germany in 2015. Truth be told, I didn't read for all that long as I kind of dozed off for awhile.

My good friend Courtney stopped by that afternoon to get a couple of books from me and I ended up picking her brain over pregnancy stuff for longer that she probably intended to stay! She has a little boy who will turn 2 in November and is due with another boy in January. We are only 6 weeks apart so our kids will be so close in age. It's nice to have a good friend who has a similar lifestyle to us and has been through all of this so recently and can share advice on things from breast feeding to which cloth diapers to buy to what stroller to get.

After she headed out, I got going on meal prep for my lunches for the week. I decided to make taco salads this week so I browned some ground turkey and sauteed some peppers and onion with salt, pepper and cumin.

By now it was dinner time so I made one of my favorite comfort meals - eggs over easy with GF toast. I stopped eating this when I found out I was pregnant as I read that runny yolks weren't safe to eat during pregnancy. But when I saw my OB a couple of weeks ago, she said that it was actually ok to eat eggs over medium as there isn't a risk to the baby - just a risk of food poisoning, which is so unlikely since I eat fresh eggs. I'm not going to eat these every week, but they sounded good on Sunday night so I gave into the craving.

I pretty much laid on the couch for the rest of the night. I caught up with Phil when he got home. He brought Oscar back with him as she had spent the week out at his mom's - I was so happy to see her! And I will be heading to bed soon!! All in all it was a really wonderful shouldless day and just what my body needed!

Stay tuned for my Julia Child recap which will be coming on Tuesday!

Shouldless Days of '17: August

We are (almost) 2/3 of the way through 2017 and so far I am on track for carving out a shouldless day per month! This shouldless day ended up being one of my laziest as I wasn't feeling well in the afternoon/evening. Here's how I filled my day.

In the morning, I met a friend for our weekly Farmer's Market date. I didn't buy much this week - just 2 ears of corn for dinner later this week. Afterwards we stopped by a coffee shop for a latte (for me) and tea (for her). I also picked up a GF blueberry muffin to enjoy later in the day.

When I got home, some mild nausea set in so I laid on the couch and did some reading. I started "Truly, Madly, Guilty" by Liane Moriarty. It's pretty good so far although there has been a lot of build-up to "something" that happens at a barbeque and I'm just ready to know what happened.

Oscar cuddled a bit before hopping up to her favorite spot on the couch. She looks so long in this photo as she is all stretched out!

I eventually napped for a couple of hours, which is so not like me and goes to show that I was definitely feeling off. When I woke up, I mustered up the motivation to go to my garden as I hadn't been there since earlier in the week.  I picked lots of green beans...

... some tomatoes (some need to ripen further but they've been 'bursting' on the vine so I decide to pick some of them a bit early)...

... and some tomatoes, a green pepper, and tomatillos.

After that, it was back to the couch for me. Oscar eventually jumped up for some cuddling and we watched a couple of episodes of Season 5 of Suits.

I laid on the couch for the rest of the day until Phil got home from his mom's around 8.  And then it was up to bed for me.

All in all, not much most 'fun' shouldless day, but of all days to not feel well, Sunday was the best day for that to happen since I didn't have much planned.

What did you do this weekend? 

Shouldless Days: July

This past weekend I worked my butt off on Saturday (grocery shopped, team cleaned the house with Phil, did laundry) so that I could have a shouldless day yesterday.  As usual, it was glorious.  I completely recognize that it's probably not possible to have a shouldless day if you are a parent, but if your life circumstances permit taking a day to yourself, DO IT! Here's how I filled my day!

I laid in bed until 8 am (which is so late for me!!) and then wandered downstairs to have a breakfast of yogurt with blueberries and pb toast with banana.

Once Phil got up, I made smoothies with peach, blueberries, banana, and frozen pineapple. I loved this combination! We watched Face the Nation on CBS which is our Sunday morning tradition. Then Phil headed to his mom's for the day and I headed to my garden.

As I said last week, it's growing like crazy these days.

I picked more beans, a few cherry tomatoes, harvested the rest of our beets, and gathered up all the zucchini, which is growing like crazy. I see zucchini boats, zucchini "meatballs", and zucchini coffee cake in our future.

After my trip to the garden, I enjoyed a sandwich, roasted beets from my garden that I roasted last weekend, and cottage cheese while watching an episode of Suits.

After that, I had to figure out what to do with all the beets I picked! I love beets but they aren't Phil's thing and there is no way I could eat them all on my own. So I turned 2 pounds of beets into refrigerator pickled beets (I subbed apple cider vinegar for white vinegar as I think that will give them more flavor!). I loooove pickles so can't wait to snack on these throughout the week and share some with my parents next weekend when we go to the lake.

The rest of my afternoon was incredibly lazy. I laid on the couch and read my latest book, A Little Life. This book is so good but so heart breaking (hence the reason it's been referred to as emotionally devastating. This book is not for the faint of heart!). Before long, Oscar had joined me (she loves it when I lay on the couch!) and we took a little nap together. I was definitely nervous about how well I would sleep after sleeping in AND taking a nap, but oh well! Last week was busy and I guess my body needed the extra rest - plus kitty's sleepiness tends to rub off on me when we are cuddling!

Phil got home around 8 and we caught up on our days. Before I knew it, it was time for bed!

How did you spend your weekend? While Sunday was pretty lazy, Friday and Saturday weren't as we hosted friends for dinner on Friday night and went to a get together with 2 other couples on Saturday night (after a full day of adulting!).

Weekend Recap + a Shouldless Sunday

Happy Monday, everyone!  Did you have a great weekend?  Mine was excellent!  I kept it pretty unplanned because this week is really busy (work trip to Chicago Tuesday-Thursday, heading to the lake for Father's Day Friday-Sunday). I'm also still reveling in the joy of not planning a wedding. Don't get me wrong, getting married was amazing and the day was a dream come true, but it's SO MUCH WORK to plan a wedding. So I am fully enjoying just being married. I'm also enjoying not bleeding money (Frugal Phil is enjoying this aspect, too).

Here's how we filled our weekend!

On Friday I had a mandatory work from home day, which was required by our business continuity/disaster recovery group. Basically they want to make sure that everyone can work from home in the event that something happened in our office. My job is not super conducive to working from home because I work in a collaborative team environment and some of my excel work is really complex and requires two screens. So it wasn't my most *productive* day. But Oscar seemed to love having me around!

My office mate for the day

It was a beautiful summer day so on Friday night I enjoyed a glass of wine on the patio before dinner while Phil cooled down with water after his run. By the way, if you are a white wine drinker, do yourself a favor and buy these glasses from amazon! My mom gave them to me for my birthday and we registered for 2 more for our wedding. You keep them in the freezer. They keep your wine nice and chilled!

I've been on a mission to use up some of the meat from our farm share that's been accumulating in our freezer over the last several months. So on Friday night we had grilled pork chops and asparagus with baked sweet potatoes. The pork chop looks huge but it's a bone-in pork chop so it was a reasonable serving for one person!

Grilled meals are my favorite!

After dinner, we watched the movie Lion which was so sad and heart-breaking, especially since it's based on a true story.

On Saturday morning I was up at 6 am because my body doesn't seem to know how to sleep in! Oscar was waiting patiently for her treats when I came down to make coffee.

Don't forget to give me my treats!

She enjoyed a drink from the sink before heading back upstairs to cuddle with Phil.

I know some people are probably outraged that we let our cat drink from the sink, but you do you! We wipe our counters down frequently. Phil established this routine with her when she was a kitten so there's no way we could ever break this habit.

After breakfast, I headed out to meet 2 friends at a Bounce barre class at Balanced Barre. This is an exercise class on trampolines that I did in March. I loved it so much that I bought a 10 class package. It's a long drive from our house as it's in the west metro in Wayzata, but I love the class so much that I'm willing to drive 25-30 minutes. That's saying a lot coming from a girl that hates to drive! After class I grabbed coffee with my girlfriends. I love combining exercise and girl time!

When I got home, Phil made brunch for us. And then I received an email from our photographer saying our wedding galley was ready to view a week earlier than expected - so I got sucked into that for over an hour. I absolutely LOVE our photos. I'm going to start putting together wedding recap posts later this month when I have some downtime!

It was over 90F that day so I had to pull myself away from the wedding galley to water and weed my garden as it needs water every other day right now since it's been so hot. I am absolutely amazed at how fast my garden has been growing. These 2 pictures were taken 8 days apart!

June 2

June10

It was so warm, humid and windy on Saturday so by the end of the afternoon, I looked like Ms. Frizzle from the Magic School Bus books.

There's no taming this hair on warm, humid, windy days!

On Saturday night we went to mass at the church where we got married. It was neat to be back in the church where we said I do! After church, we went to our favorite Mexican taqueria, Maya Cuisine, for taco platters. We love this place. The food is so good and inexpensive (our 2 taco platters were $20), and they make their corn tortillas in house. I was too hungry/excited for my food to take a picture.

After dinner we got together with friends that live close to us for a game night. We frequently have game nights with this couple as they live about 10 minutes away and also love playing games. Plus they have an 18 month old so tend to be home in the evening most weekends. We played Catan which is a strategy game that Phil and his college friends love playing. It has a major learning curve, especially when you are playing with people who are experts at it, but I won for the first time ever!

Woo hoo! I won! (I'm usually dead last)

We woke up to strong storms (heavy rain, wind, and hail!) on Sunday morning and the weather seemed unlikely to clear up, so on a whim I decided to make it a shouldless day. Our honeymoon was a long stretch of shouldless days, but it's nice to have one of those days at home!

Since it was raining, instead of running I decided to do a 21 day fix workout mid-morning. I did the total body cardio workout, which is my favorite one as it's so hard and leaves me sore for 2 days afterwards!

Ms. Frizzle, the post-workout edition

After the workout, I had a simple lunch of cottage cheese, leftover grilled chicken apple sausage, and chips and pickles. Mmm, I love pickles.

The rest of the day was pretty lazy. I made some ham and northern bean soup as I had ham from our meat share that I wanted to use up. Besides that, I laid on the couch and read.

I had some company!

I wish I looked this cute when I sleep!

She did eventually make her way over to my chest. Her purrs lulled me to sleep! I woke up from my nap, video chatted with Amber, and ate soup for dinner (an odd summer meal choice, I know, but I eat soup year-round).

Phil got home from his mom's around 8 on Sunday evening. We caught up on our days and before we knew it, it was bed time!

What was the best part of your weekend? My favorite part was playing (and winning) Catan with our friends!