Currently: God Bless Texas

Current Book

Current Song

Morgan Wallen Last Night

Current TV Show

Just finished...and I have a lot of questions.

Current Audiobook/Podcast

Current Drink

I'm going to a happy hour tonight with the other AmpedUp instructors.

On the menu is a drink called The Texas Peach. SIGN ME UP.

Current Food

I might have bought this over the weekend. YUM.

Current Shame-Inducing Pleasure

Y'all. The amount of Girl Scout cookies I've consumed.

I am BEYOND excited we are DONE selling cookies - 

although, if you still need some, I've got a handful left, ha!

Current Outfit

This was from a couple of weeks ago, 

but I am obsessed with my Valentine's headband!

Current Celebrity Crush

How cute are the boys in Masters of the Air? Brent and I started this too!

Current Mood

We just booked 2 summer vacations in the last 2 weeks - 

I am getting EXCITED for what's on the horizon!!

Current Anticipation

Spring Break is in 2 weeks, I'm very excited!!

Current Wishlist

So many things for the house decorating project!

- living room rug

- bedroom rug

- cabinet for living room

- bar stools for kitchen

- ACCESSORIES GALORE

Current Movie

Okay this isn't current at all, 

but Drew and I screamed when the Wicked trailer came out!

Current Picture

Hello, my beautiful lady!

Five on Friday

I had several bits of randomness to share, so I thought it was high time for a Five on Friday!

NEW COUCH

After talking about it for over a year, we finally bought our new couch to start our living room redecorating! We've had our previous couch for 16 years, so it was definitely time.

There is still a lot to do to totally revamp the living room - nothing is staying! And with it we're redoing the playroom to 'mature' it up a little bit - it was still very toddler/young kid focused and not a space for teens and pre-teens. It's a little overwhelming but also very exciting.

PERMANENT JEWELRY

I went to a Galentine's party and got my first permanent jewelry! I got 2 bracelets and am loving them. I wear 90% silver-toned jewelry but do throw some gold in there so wanted to have a little of both. I think I want to do a necklace too!

STANDING DESK

I've been hearing for over a year now that 'sitting is the new smoking' and have felt really bad about how much I sit every day. We've only had our office furniture for a few years, so we aren't in the market to revamp the office, but I wanted to find a way to stand more throughout the day. So I bought a little contraption off Amazon that enables me to stand and work during the day. I'm aiming for 30 minutes out of every hour and some days are better than others, but I'm definitely standing more throughout the day, yay! {Writing this post standing too!}

TRIFLE

You know what's super fun when you're selling over 1,000 boxes of Girl Scout cookies? Driving over a case of them!

Crushed boxes, ugh.

But when the world gives you lemons, make lemonade...or a trifle with cookies! I googled recipes made with Girl Scout cookies and found so many options. I made this to take to book club, and it was absolutely delicious!

SMILING SAWYER

Guess whose youngest nephew started smiling?! And is turning into a butterball like all of his siblings? You guessed it, Sawyer! He is so sweet, and we all love him so much.

2024 Book Goals

I blogged earlier this month about my goals and mentioned I would have a separate post for books, so here we go - I always have goals for my reading!!

1. 100 Books - I read 130 books in 2023, so this goal might seem underwhelming, but it's actually strategic for me to read less and spend more time with Brent in the evenings ha.

2. Clean out 2020 from TBR - I already got a jump start on this because I had the idea at the start of the year - last year I did my '10 oldest' but went a little further this time and decided to clear out everything I put in Goodreads in 2020. I finished The Summer Wives, White Awake, Raising Worry-Free Girls, We Were the Lucky Ones, and A Black Women's History of the United States in January - all 2020 books!

What I have left:

• Band of Brothers
• Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
• The Nazi Officer's Wife
• The Invention of Wings
• Well Matched
• When We Were Young & Brave
• How to Be Less Stupid About Race
• Under a Gilded Moon
• I Found You

3. Physical Books - I did a good job cleaning out physical books last year but am still struggling to let go of books - even if I have had them for years and haven't read them. I'm supposed to have 1 basket of books but it's majorly overflowed and there are also books in our closet. So I would like to get this back to just 1 basket.

4. Read 2 Classics - Kind of self-explanatory but want to get back to this goal.

5. More Diversity in Authors - I've had it be a conscious goal to focus more on diversity in my reading, but last year was on the lower side for me. I usually have about 30% diversity and this past year it was only 21%. Definitely want to get that back up again.

And I think this is a good list of goals for me!

Shut Up and Mine With Me!

I had 2 funny things happen in the last few days that reminded me of when Trent and Drew were young, and it felt like the universe was telling me to write them down so I would never forget them...and both have to do with Minecraft {grin}.

Brent and I are redecorating the living room, and I was walking through a furniture store getting ideas [I do so much better when someone brings me 3 things and says 'Pick between these.' I am completely overwhelmed with choices. It is so hard decorating!!] and this song was playing and I recognized but couldn't figure out why I recognized. I kept listening and listening, and it was driving me crazy. And then it hit me. When Trent was hugely into Minecraft, he would listen to parody songs. One was called 'Hypixel Minigames' and was a parody of a 5 Seconds of Summer song called 'She Looks So Perfect'. And for full disclosure I just now knew the actual name of the real song! I literally have never heard the real song - only the parody. So it threw me off to hear the real song and try to place it ha.

If anyone wants to hear the song ha

Then yesterday I was in Jazzercise, and we did a routine to 'Shut Up and Dance With Me' and it reminded me of ANOTHER Minecraft parody called 'Shut Up and Mine With Me'. And the time I was in the grocery store with Drew when she was 2 or 3 and she was singing AT THE TOP OF HER LUNGS 'shut up and mine with me!!!' Top notch parenting right there that I never want to forget!

I can definitely say I'm not sad the Minecraft days are behind us, but I hope to never forget these songs. {grin}

2024 Goals!

Well, once again I'm posting some goals in February ha. I guess I just need extra time to marinate on them and decide! I think I did a good job on my 2023 goals, so it had me energized to try again for a new set.

First off, sometimes I do like to have a word of the year...and when I was in therapy a few weeks ago, a word came to me while I was talking to my therapist. 

PEACEFUL

I don't think peaceful is a word that typically describes me - I am loud, chaotic, explosive, disorganized...the opposite of peaceful. BUT I would like our home to be more peaceful. The mood starts at the top, and I don't exude how I want our house to be!

PERSONAL

1) Stand more. I've heard the expression 'sitting is the new smoking' multiple times. It is so bad for us to sit all day, and I have a job where I SIT ALL DAY. I want a walking desk, but Brent has vetoed that, but at the end of the year, I bought a little contraption to elevate my laptop so that I can stand and work. I'm starting with small increments - stand for this 1 call, stand for 10 minutes, and I want to build up to standing more and more every day. Do I think I'll get to where I stand all day? Probably not. But I can definitely do a lot more than I am now!

2) Play more piano. We got a piano a few years ago, and Drew has been taking lessons for a few years. I will sit down and dabble sometimes, but I want to get in the habit of playing more. I'm pretty rusty, so I'm enjoying using her lesson books, ha.

3) Book goals. I will continue to have specific book goals, but I'm going to do a separate post on that ha.

FAMILY/HOME

1) Organization. We are redecorating a lot of spaces in our house, and it's made me realize we have a lot of clutter. I'm not much of a collector, but after almost 11 years in our house...we've just accumulated a lot of 'stuff'. I also talked to my therapist about this and she gave me some great resources and ideas for tackling our home in manageable increments.

2) Time with Brent. In the evenings, I tend to want to read by myself. Well, that's not conducive to staying connected to your spouse! We started a show together, and while we don't watch together every night, we are spending more time together in the evening.

3) Family vacations. We loved our trips in 2023 {Arizona and Port Aransas with the kids and Las Vegas with friends} and are already planning for 2024. I'm excited to see what we end up doing and memories we make!

4) Incorporate the kids into more chores. This is not a new goal for me, but I haven't done a good job with it ugh. We are fortunate to have a lady who has cleaned for our family for 12+ years, and she is amazing. But that doesn't mean the kids are off the hook for doing anything. I want to work on them keeping their rooms picked up and picking up after themselves throughout the house every day as well as small chores {vacuuming, scrubbing toilets, washing dishes} to teach them some responsibility, help me out, AND make our house look great all the time!

And if you made it through this whole post, your reward is a new picture of Sawyer! 2 months old and getting so fat!

January 2024 Book Review

First book review of the year! I love the start of the year when everything is fresh. It's exciting to think about what my favorites will be from books I don't even know exist yet! 

This month I read 12 books. I was all over the place {in a good way} on genres - historical fiction, chick lit, memoirs, self-help, anti-racism...big variety here! 

Happiness for Beginners by Katherine Center - I pretty much like everything Katherine Center writers. They aren't NOVELS, they are light and fun and make me smile. This follows a woman who decides to do a wilderness challenge to get herself out of a funk after a divorce and her little brother's best friend is on the same course. I thought this was very cute. It was a little cheesy, but overall I had a smile on my face throughout.

The Summer Wives by Beatriz Williams [audiobook] - I usually like Beatriz Williams' historical fiction books. They follow alternating timelines and over the book we unravel some mystery. This was no different...I just found it boring!

White Awake by Daniel Hill - This was on my 'oldest books to read' list for my 2023 goals. I thought it would be such an interesting book - we need more white people talking about anti-racism. But this book didn't really do it for me. Parts were good, parts were boring. Good effort and more books like this are needed though!

Raising Worry-Free Girls by Sissy Goff [audiobook] - I've had this on my TBR for a long time, but as we are navigating Drew's anxiety, I decided to give it a listen this month. I thought this had a lot of great, useful information and am so glad I read it to be able to support Drew better. However, I wasn't expecting there to be such a focus on Christianity and that turned me off a bit. As someone who dealt/deals with anxiety, I haven't personally found comfort through religion, and while others might, I didn't think it helped the book.

A Black Women's History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry [audiobook] - SUPER interesting! I don't know why I'm surprised every time I read books that focus on parts of American history I know nothing about, but here we are AGAIN. This covered some amazing women who did incredible things through the last 4 centuries. So, so good!

We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter - Wow-ee. I thought this was historical fiction about a Jewish family in WW2. I did NOT know this was the story of the author's ACTUAL family. Her Polish grandfather was living in Paris at the start of the war, and this book follows his journey to South America as well as the stories of his siblings who were scattered over Europe. If I didn't know this was a real story, I would have thought there was no way this could all happen. It was incredible!

Wildfire by Hannah Grace - This was a cute 2nd story in a trilogy about the hockey team at a fictional college. I continue to enjoy this trilogy {this time one of the hockey players works at a summer camp and falls for a co-worker}, really enjoy the spice level, but they seem just a smidge too long.

Fire Weather by John Vaillant - We read this book for Blog Friend Book Club and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. This was 4 different BORING books in 1, and I SLOGGED through it. Part 1 was the history of the community this fire took place in [way too detailed], Part 2 was the actual fire [it finally got exciting but again was way too detailed, the entire part covered 3 days of a fire that took over a year to put out], part 3 was climate change [I actually skipped pages and pages here because it was SO repetitive], and part 4 covered other catastrophic fires and the aftermath. I just don't think this author knew how to put all this information together which is unfortunate because it could have been awesome.

Betting on You by Lynn Painter - I will read anything Lynn Painter writes. This is an adorable YA rom com - a genre Lynn excels at.

Paris: The Memoir by Paris Hilton [audiobook] - I am not a Paris Hilton fan per se, but I ended up listening to this and was surprised that I ended it with some respect for her! I had no idea everything she endured in life. Is she super privileged? Yes, most definitely. Did I speed the book up because her voice was kind of annoying? Yes, I did. Did I enjoy it? Also yes!

The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston - I saw so many people post about this and I think everyone I follow on Goodreads who had read it gave it 4 stars. It sounded super cute - a girl realizes her apartment moves people around by 7 years, and she meets a guy...and you can guess what happened. It WAS cute, but I didn't enjoy it as much as everyone else seems to have. I didn't love the pacing - the beginning was slow, then I really got into it, then it got slow again. When it ended, I was almost relieved.

You Sound Like a White Girl by Julissa Arce [audiobook] - When I read American Dirt a few years ago, I saw a lot of stories about 'own voices' stories and it really opened my eyes to the problematic nature of publishing. A former co-worker went to high school with Julissa and recommended her books to me. This is the second book of hers that I read, and it was excellent! We are about the same age and both grew up in Texas, but we definitely had different experiences, and it was so interesting thinking about what I learned in school as a white girl and how much was missing. This was really fantastic!

My average rating for the month was 3.6 - a little low for me but Summer Wives and Fire Weather took it out of me, ha. {My average for all of 2023 was 3.7 and for 2022 was 3.9.} My favorite of the month was A Black Women's History of the United States, but I don't see that being the TOP book of the year... So we shall see!