What We Read in September

September was a crazy reading month for me. I didn't realize how many books I read until I started working on this post. I know I got a lot of reading done in Charlotte as I read on the plane rides and read more at night since I didn't have work commitments. But this level of reading is NOT typical for me, and a couple of books were very short! I read 12 books - that is not typical! Below are my 6 favorites, 3 that were pretty good and 3 that were ok to meh. 

Best books of September: 

These 6 books were all wonderful. Flying Solo and Nora Goes Off Script are lighter rom/com type of books although they have plenty of depth. I preferred Linda Holmes' previous book (Evvie Drake Starts Over) but Flying Solo was still great and I appreciated the focus on a single protagonist who is approaching 40. The Unsinkable Greta James is about a daughter who goes on a cruise with her dad in place of her mom who recently passed away. Grief features prominently in the storyline. Mom Milestones is a delightful graphic memoir about parenting. I've see the author's work on Cup of Jo so was excited to read it. You can easily read this in one sitting but I tried to savor it. She sums up motherhood so perfectly. This would be an excellent gift for a baby shower or for the mom on her child's first birthday or something like that. These Silent Woods was my book club pick for September and almost everyone really liked it. It's about a father and daughter living in seclusion in Maine. It's a suspense novel and has a strong sense of foreboding through the book. The father suffers from PTSD from his time in the military and I thought that aspect was well-done. Lastly, Heating and Cooling is another short book you could read in a sitting. It's a collection of "micro memoirs." Some are are paragraph, some are a couple of pages. Shout-out to Nicole and NGS for motivating me to read this!

Here are pics of a few pages of Mom Milestones! 

I took a picture of this to use in conversations with Paul about his day

The following 3 books were pretty good. Not my favorites for the month but I enjoyed all 3. 

The last 3 were just ok to meh. All This Could Be Different was raved about by a podcast guest. It's a coming-of-age story and I may have aged out of that genre because I struggled to find sympathy for the protagonist. Never Simple was an interesting memoir about a toxic mother/daughter relationship. It feels weird to give a memoir a lower rating but I didn't love it. It had "The Glass Castle" vibes given the trauma of her childhood.

What Paul Read:

Will continues to take more interest in books but the ones I'm featuring this month are books Paul enjoyed. 

This first one was my favorite and I've since requested everything the author has written! She combines English and Spanish so that makes it extra fun to read since Paul understands Spanish and I'm learning Spanish through Duo Lingo (more on that in another post!). This book is about a daughter needing to use the bathroom and the family rushing to find someone. Surely it will be relatable to anyone who has kids! I heard about this book from a kid lit substack newsletter I subscribe to! You do not need to know Spanish to enjoy this book. She sprinkles words in and you can tell from the context what the word means in English and she includes a translation of all the words at the end. 

This is a book I randomly pulled off the shelf in the library. It is a really sweet story about a bear that wakes up from his winter sleep and is confused about who he is - is he a bird? A moose? A fox? It is very sweet. 

This is another book I randomly pulled off the shelf. It is a good Halloween type of read given the focus on bones. It's about a skeleton in the ocean that is piecing itself back together. It's a fun way to teach kids the names of the different bones. 

Do any of these books sound appealing to you? Did you read anything great in September?

Race + Weekend Recap

Is it only Tuesday? Yesterday was a brutal day at work. It was one of those days where I felt like I could not keep up and kept getting meeting requests so things will stay crazy this week it seems. Plus I travel again this week - I'm in Chicago on Thursday and Friday. The reason for my trip is a client meeting at 4pm on Friday. Could there be a worse time for a meeting? I think not. So that means I will take the 8:30 flight home and get home around 11. Fun fun. 

But back to last weekend! I had my race on Saturday morning in St. Paul. The sky was really showing off for us again!

Give me all the pink-skied sunrises! They are so pretty! That's our Capitol in the background.

I didn't have a plan for the race. After my 9:33/mile run last weekend, I figured I could run at least that fast and decided to run at whatever pace felt good. I mostly ran by myself as I figured my neighbor would run with her sister. She sprinted to catch up with me around mile 3, I think, and then fell back and said to go ahead but then ended up finishing a minute behind me. 

I ended up finishing in just over 58 minutes. Here are some stats for my other running nerds. I managed to run negative splits which is something I NEVER DO! Yay!

The race goes past the Governor's mansion. The coolest thing was seeing the governor out in his front yard, cheering us on! 

 

At the finish line feeling happy with my time!

With my running buddies!

But wow, did I pay for that run. A couple of hours after the finish, I started to feel awful and had some GI issues. I don't understand why I had such a strong reaction. 9:23 doesn't seem that much different from 9:33 pace but maybe I was dehydrated? And I did really pick up the pace in the final miles, but I never felt like I was running too fast. Who knows. 

Phil had plans to golf on Saturday afternoon and I didn't want to make him cancel so I limped through an afternoon of solo parenting. Will of course took an extremely short nap, so I turned on Little Baby Bum when he woke up and it amazingly held his attention. Paul watched countless hours of this show at the start of the pandemic when he was home with us for 7 weeks and it didn't seem to rot his brain so I'm sure an afternoon of tv for our almost-2yo is fine. 

Zoning out while watching LBB

Luckily by Sunday morning I was feeling much better!! We headed to our friend's house that morning to watch the marathon, making a pit stop to get donuts to share. 

Toddler attitude. He did not want his picture taken! If he has this much attitude at almost-2, what will the teen years bring?

Paul was really into spectating and kept asking questions about how fast they were running and how fast I can run, etc. He said spectating was the most fun part of the weekend. 

Even Will had fun. 

We headed home for lunch and quiet time after that and Will actually took a good nap! Almost 2 hours! After his nap we headed to our local park. He is very into the big slide! 

Of course we had to check out the geese on the way home. They have new costumes - now they are a firefighter and a scarecrow. The owners of this house are amazing and provide so much entertainment for the neighborhood!

We grilled steaks for dinner and had some corn on the cob. And that was a wrap on the weekend. Overall, not the best weekend since I felt horrible and could barely eat on Saturday. I don't think a 58:18 10k was worth feeling that awful, but I wonder if something else was going on - like maybe a GI bug or something.  

How was your weekend? 

TGIF - Race Weekend!

Happy Friday. This week was pretty crazy. The financial markets have been in turmoil so I've been extra busy! 2022 is shaping up to be one of the craziest years ever with bonds and stock markets down significantly. For those not familiar with financial markets, bonds and stocks usually do not move in the same direction. But everything is down this year which means lots of stressed clients and people uncertain about how they should be investing... good times. I won't bore you further with finance talk on this fine Friday, though!

The book I'm reading is The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li. This seems like an under-the-radar new release as I haven't heard it discussed much. I heard about it from one of my favorite book people - Annie Jones of The Bookshelf. It's set in post-WWII France and is about the friendship of 2 young girls. I just started it last night but the writing is so good and I think it's going to be a great read!

The high of my week was book club on Wednesday night! We had 8 people there and discussed my selection, "These Silent Woods" which most really enjoyed. I was worried our book club might be dying off as attendance was pretty spotty last year - and only over zoom - but we added a few new members that have brought some new life to book club and we've been meeting in person in restaurants since this spring so that has helped, too! 

The low of my week was still dealing with a cranky toddler. I'm sure it's a combo of teething, wanting to do things himself, and not being able to communicate. I talked about it on my run this morning and my running partner said that her kids were the same and I probably blocked out Paul going through this stage. I really don't remember him being so cranky but surely he was. 

A recipe I made was seared ahi tuna made on the grill. We eat this about monthly when Aldi has ahi tuna in stock! It is soooo good! I served it with an Asian-style rice.

A show we are watching is still The Patient but we are caught up on episodes so have to wait for a new one to drop each week. I really like this show. But I'm a huge Steve Carell fan! 

For workouts I did not fit in much since I was in the office Tues-Thur. I ran on Monday, did a shake-out pre-race run this morning, and I'll run my 10k tomorrow morning. Sunday I'll do another strength training workout. I'm aiming to do 2/week but will only fit in 1 this week. The running weather has been amazing and check out how gorgeous our run was this morning!!

My amazing running partner turned bestie and me! Little did we know we'd match the sky!

All the heart eyes for this view!!

The best money spent was on tickets to "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" at the local Children's Theater in November! Paul and I are going with my good friend and her 2 boys and I can't wait! It feels crazy to be planning holiday things, but tickets sell out fast! I also planned my annual cookie decorating party in November over Thanksgiving weekend. We didn't do it for the last 2 years because of covid so I am excited to bring that tradition back! 

My plans this weekend include laying low tonight. Tomorrow morning I have my 10k at 7:15 so it will be an early morning since it's in St. Paul, so not super close. I am not really "racing" though - I'm just out there to have fun and don't care all that much about my pace. The course is an out-and-back on the last 3 miles of the marathon course. If I get home in time, I'll take the boys to gymnastics and then will find something fun to do with them in the afternoon while Phil golfs 9 holes with some friends. On Sunday morning we are going to a friend's house that lives around miles 8-9 on the marathon course to spectate. It's marathon weekend here and the city really gets excited and supports our runners! We know one person running it so it will be fun to cheer him on. I'm sure we'll find something fun to do on Sunday afternoon - probably a park visit. 

Bonus pics:

Week night dance party! 

When my friend Lori came to visit, she brought these cute turtle back packs for the boys. Will is obsessed with his! 

A beautiful walk after dinner last night

How was your week? Are you reading or watching anything good?

Marriage and Negotiations

In my weekend recap last week, a couple of people commented on all the things Phil does around the house - namely the grocery shopping and cleaning. I think we are probably outliers on our division of labor. I don't know of many couples whose husbands clean and grocery shop. So how did we arrive at this division of labor? It was a process! 

Grocery shopping: prior to having children, I did all the meal planning, grocery shopping, and cooking. I didn't mind this, but I did get fatigued by the meal planning. For awhile I tried some meal delivery services like Hello Fresh but Phil wasn't thrilled with the meals and my gluten intolerance really limited our choices. So the first step in sharing the work of getting food on the table was having Phil help with meal planning. 

Then we had Paul in March of 2018. I kept doing the grocery shopping during my maternity leave, but as I approached my return to work, I knew I'd rather spend the 60-90 minutes I'd spend shopping at home with Paul. So initially, we tried outsourcing grocery shopping to Instacart. I was fine with the service but Phil didn't like it because I think you couldn't use coupons or take advantage of some sale items and sometimes he didn't like the produce they selected. He said he could do the grocery shopping "sometimes." My response was - you either need to do it every week or we use Instacart. He opted to take on grocery shopping. 

So now we come up with meal plans together, we both add items to our shared apple note grocery list, he grocery shops, and I make nearly all of the meals. Given his frugal nature, he's actually better suited to grocery shop as he pays more attention to prices and knows where it's more economical to buy various things. He gets as much as he can at Aldi, then goes to our big box grocery store, Cub, and sometimes stops at Target for a few things.

Flash forward to now and I kind of think he has the better end of the deal now that we have 2 kids. I actually think grocery shopping alone doesn't sound all that bad compared to my Saturday morning which includes taking the kids to the library and gymnastics, especially since gymnastics features manhandling a squirrelly toddler parent involvement. But when Will grows out of the toddler stage, our Saturday mornings might be about even in terms of how challenging/tiring they are. 

Cleaning: prior to having children, I cleaned the bathrooms and kitchen and he vacuumed and dusted. Before I lived with Phil, I had cleaners come every other week but I knew he wasn't on board with that expense when I moved in with him. Then in summer 2019 during our house hunting, we were having a really hard time finding a house he was willing to buy (he was even more picky than I was and we had been house hunting for almost 2 freaking years at that point) and he agreed to hire cleaners to kind of offset some of the tension around house hunting. During covid, as we approached my due date in fall 2020, we put our cleaning service on pause to limit the people coming in and out of our house and Phil and I shared cleaning duties. I figured we'd rehire them when I was vaccinated and returned to work. But Phil really liked not having the house cleaning expense. I felt the expense was worth it especially since they got our house cleaner than either of us could! I explained that I felt my time was worth more than what we paid for house cleaners, and our free time is so limited. I do not want to spend nap time scrubbing toilets or cleaning the stove. So since he felt so strongly about not re-hiring the cleaners, he agreed to take on the cleaning. 

It hasn't been a perfect solution because our house is not as clean as it was. We both tidy up the house and I do sometimes help with things, like cleaning the kitchen. He fits the cleaning in on quiet periods on Fridays when he works from home or while I'm out and about with the boys. It's working fine enough but I keep hoping he'll tire of cleaning and agree to re-hire cleaners. 

***

This negotiation approach might not work for many and it probably comes off as 'cut throat' since I've stood my ground on not being willing to do things we can outsource. And yes, he takes on things many husbands/fathers don't, but I still do plenty of things like scheduling doctor/dentist appointments, taking the kids to those appointments, washing our cloth diapers, keeping track of what clothes the boys have/what they need, and selling/donating things the boys grow out of. I'm also the primary contact for daycare and tend to stay home with the kids when they are sick since I have colleagues at work who can cover for me when I'm out. I think our division of labor is as close to even as we can get, especially now that we are out of the baby stage - close to even wasn't possible when I was pumping or nursing! 

I am fortunate to be married to a person who sees me and treats me as his equal. But that's what I was looking for in a partner. We are also very left-brained, logical, less-emotional people (in the Myers Briggs classification, we are both hard-core "thinkers," not "feelers") so our negotiations about division of labor has never been contentious or emotional. 

But the way to go about these kind of negotiations are so specific to the marriage and the personalities and interests of the couple so it's really a "you do you" kind of situation, but maybe it's helpful/interesting for others to see how we got to where we are at! 

Weekend Redux

The weather this weekend was more of a mixed bag compared to last weekend. We desperately need rain, but I selfishly would prefer it rain during the week. But we still spent a lot of time outside this weekend. 

On Friday night I made blackened Walleye tacos with sauted peppers and onions (skipped the cabbage part of the recipe to keep things easy) and we stayed inside after dinner since it was raining. 

I was up with the boys on Saturday morning. We facetimed with my parents and then I headed out for my last 'longish' run before my 10k next weekend. I usually run with my neighbor and we talk the whole time so it's a conversational (slower) pace. She was out of town so I ran alone and I must have been feeling extra good because this is the fastest I have ran since pre-kids (9:33). I do not expect to maintain that pace during the 10k next week as I'll run with my neighbor and we'll likely chit chat but I'm not in a stage of life where I'm trying to "race." I'm out there to have fun and do something for myself. But it's nice to see that I can run a little faster than I think I can!

After my run we had our usual combo of the library followed by gymnastics followed by lunch and quiet/nap time. Will took a typical 45 minute nap but Phil took him for a walk so I would get a longer break to rest. The way we handle weekends is the person who gets up with the kids gets around 1.5-2 hours of a break during naptime. By the time they got back from their walk, the wind picked up and it was spitting rain. So we were inside for the rest of the night. We had grilled burgers and corn on the cob so Phil had the fun job of grilling in the rain. 

Then we entertained them in the house for the rest of the Saturday night. My sister got Paul a kitchen play set when he was 2, I think, and this play set has gotten so much use! We spent most of the time in our basement, though, and I was happy to see Will more interested in books. They both enjoyed looking at this lift-the-flap dinosaur book.

After Will went to bed around 7, Paul and I finished the 400-piece puzzle we'd been working on all week - but found there was one missing piece!! Doh. I'm debating returning it but kind of feel like we got our money's worth putting 399 pieces together. 

I got to sleep in on Sunday morning. Then the boys and I headed to the farmer's market and adjacent park while Phil did some projects around the house. The boys had apple cider donuts which they really enjoyed. We were at the park for over 2 hours! Some friends from school arrived around 10 so we stayed extra long. 

 

After lunch and nap/quiet time (which I spent doing a lower body workout) on Sunday afternoon , we watched the tail end of the Vikings game and were shocked to see them pull off a win. The Vikings are a total heart-break team. My 99yo grandma is a HUGE Vikings fan and Phil said he wished she could see them have a successful season but this isn't shaping up to be that season. But they did pull off a win in the end which is all that matters. After that, we headed out to one of our favorite local parks, Triangle Park. So all told, we were probably outside for a good 4+ hours on Sunday. 

On Sunday night, I made a bacon and cheese egg bake. Then we hung out in the basement until bedtime. Paul was proud of his magnatile creation. He's getting into an "awkward smiling" stage. Will was interested in reading books again so yay!

And that was a wrap on our weekend. Lots of time outside, a bit more time indoors than I'd like, but overall a good weekend! 

How was your weekend? 

TGIF - Fall is Here!

Fall is in the air here and I am here for it! I love summer, but I also love fall, maybe even more than summer. I just hope that we have a nice, long fall! We had some hot, humid weather earlier this week - like upper 80s. Once the splash pads/local pools are closed, I'm kind of over that kind of weather. So give me all the cool, crisp mornings and warm, sunny afternoons!

The book I'm reading is The Defense by Steve Cavanagh which is the first book in a series. I heard about a later book in the series on a podcast and was really interested in that one, but as they say on this podcast, since I'm not an animal I started with the first book in the series. I am not far into it so can't say if it will be a success yet!

The high of my week was my day off on Tuesday! I had a haircut at noon so took the day off. It was a wonderful day! I started with a run at 5:30 with my neighbor, finished a book, sorted through the boys' clothing/packed up stuff they have outgrown, bought some new clothes for them, and then attended a work happy hour at 4. Yes, that is a lot, but when I am setting the schedule, I don't mind being super busy like that. I typically would not go into work on my day off for a happy hour, but the head of my division was in so I wanted to make an appearance. I saw him last week in Charlotte but knew our interaction would be different in a social setting. I really like the people I work with so I did not mind going into downtown to socialize with them! And missing the dinner hour is not the worst thing. ;) 

That new haircut feeling!

The low of my week was dealing with some crankiness from Will. He's getting his bottom 2-year molars so has been quite cranky. I know the crankiness is from discomfort so I have sympathy for him but will be glad when he has all of his teeth and we can put teething behind us FOREVER!! 

A recipe I made was a corn chowder from a Milk Street Kitchen Instantpot cookbook. I used fresh corn and the recipe has you cut the corn off the cob and then put the cobs in when it's cooking. It is so much better when I do that because the corn flavor is extra strong and delicious! 

A show we are watching is The Patient on Hulu. I mentioned this earlier this week, but it's a show by the creators of "The Americans" which is one of our all-time favorite shows. Steve Carell plays a therapist who has been kidnapped by his patient who is a serial killer. The patient is desperate for his therapist to help him overcome his urge to kill. So clearly this is not a light show! But we are enjoying it but enjoying is a weird word to use to describe a show like this if you know what I mean. The new season of The Great British Bake-Off is on, too, so I will watch then when I have time alone in the house which is very rare!

For workouts I did a strength training workout on Monday and ran 4 miles on Tuesday and Thursday morning. I'll run on Saturday morning and do a strength training workout during nap time on Sunday. So this week I'll fit in 5 workouts, but that's because I was only in the office one day this week! Check out the view from my Thursday morning run. It was a crisp 48 degrees. I am sure that sounds so cold to my friends in the south but it's ideal running temps for me! The leaves are just starting to turn so the views will get better and better this fall!

 

The best money spent was on clothes for the boys. Paul got new shoes and socks from Target and this may make you all cringe, but I bought some outdoor clothes for winter from Once Upon a Child. I stopped there to sell some clothes and they had all their winter stuff out so I figured I'd buy it while I was there. I love buying things at Once Upon a Child, especially winter stuff like boots and snow pants, especially since we ideally need 2 sets of snow pants/winter coats so we can leave one set at daycare. On this trip I got snow pants for both boys, but I need to exchange Will's for a bigger size. Winter clothes are tricky to buy. I thought what I bought for Will might be too big, but he has such a long torso so I need to go up a size. I really really really hope we won't need these clothes for many months but you never know. We got a huge snow storm in mid-October a couple of years ago so it's not out of the question that they may need these clothes in as soon as a month! 

My plans this weekend include very little so far! Our mornings are set - library and gymnastics on Saturday, farmers market and park on Sunday, but we'll need to fill our afternoons. I think we are going to go to one of our favorite parks one afternoon but that's about it for plans! We'll definitely be outside soaking up the beautiful fall weather!

Bonus pics:

Paul had soccer again this week and it went much better. I don't know how Phil did it with both kids last week. I think I would have given up and gone home if I was him. It was tough with 2 parents as Will wanted to be on the field, too. Next week I will take him for a stroller walk in the neighborhood and stay the heck away from where Paul and Phil are!

Paul is very into puzzles these days so I bought a couple new puzzles that have big and small pieces so we can work on a puzzle together!

Visiting the geese at a house in the neighborhood. They change the costumes throughout the year. Last week one was a squirrel and the other was a teacher. Now they are a Vikings player and a ref. Paul LOVES seeing these geese so much!

Throwing leaves into the (nearly dry) creek on a beautiful fall evening.

How was your week? What is the weather like where you live?

Another Fun, Full Weekend + Weekend Planning With Young Kids

We had another fun, full weekend. Friday was a quiet night and our first night back together as a family of 4. I made tacos for dinner since that is a super easy meal to throw together. Everyone except Will - whose nickname is Taco - enjoys that meal. Go figure the kid who goes by Taco doesn't like Tacos! Hopefully this changes with time! Oh and we got the email with the boys' school photos on Friday. We never order pictures since they usually don't turn out well. This year's batch were comically bad. So many tears and Will isn't in the shirt I sent for him. Paul had told us that Will cried the whole time so we figured they wouldn't be great. He was not kidding. But wow they are real life!! Paul's expression cracks me up in his photos! Much to Phil's chagrin, we have family photos on Thursday after work. We can only go up from here! 

But back to our weekend! Saturday morning I ran 4 miles by myself and then we headed out for our usual library + gymnastics routine while Phil grocery shopped. After lunch and quiet time, Phil and Paul headed out to Phil's mom's and I was on Will duty. I took him for a long walk that included a stop at the park. 

He enjoyed having the toys to himself, especially the "drill" toy which is a hand-me-down that both boys love. 

Will is so obsessed with using silverware. He insisted on eating his blueberries with a fork. I guess it's good for his fine motor skills!

It's getting a little easier to have Will on my own for a longer stretch. The afternoon didn't feel too long on Saturday. It helps that he's more interested in puzzles and books. The reason it's easiest to be outside of our house is because of his limited attention span so the better he gets at playing with things like puzzles and sitting with me to read books, the easier it is to be home. 

On Sunday morning we went to the farmer's market and park. We were there for about 2 hours. I was thinking all the fresh air would mean Will would take a good nap that afternoon. But nope - he napped for 45 minutes. I did manage to fit a strength training workout in during his short nap but it was not the "break" I had envisioned!

That afternoon we went to the birthday party for the daughter of one of Phil's high school friends. The boys had fun playing with these push toys. Paul is too big for them but he was a good sport about pushing the toddlers around. 

Then it was home for baths and bedtimes. Phil and I have started to watch a new Hulu show called "The Patient" which is written by the creators of "The Americans" which is one of our favorite shows. The episodes are only 20-30 minutes which is perfect for me! 

So overall, it was a good weekend. I feel like we are in a good place with how we schedule our weekends. We have a few placeholders - library followed by gymnastics on Saturday morning and the farmer's market/park on Sunday morning. Those are both things I tend to do on my own with the boys. Phil grocery shops on Saturday mornings and often does other things around the house on Sunday mornings, like yard work, house projects, cleaning (since he doesn't want to re-hire house cleaners, he does all of the cleaning), etc. This past weekend he didn't have any "chores" so he went to the driving range. I get breaks, too, which I spent running and doing a workout. And I go up to bed at 8:30 so get time to myself then to read. I'm just looking forward to a time when we have more hours to ourselves on the weekend. I did get an hour during Will's nap on Saturday but since his naps are so unpredictable, it's not the most "relaxing" time since I'm just waiting for him to wake up! I think/hope this is something that will get easier as the boys get older and more independent so I probably just need to accept that this is a "high touch" stage of parenting that is just kind of exhausting but short in the grand scheme of things. 

How was your weekend? Do your weekends fill your cup or deplete you? We have a lot of fun with our boys but if I'm honest, I'm usually more tired at the end of the weekend than I was at the start!