Sylvaa

It's better than it was (I can pick the baby up now, where I couldn't Monday or Tuesday), but it's not 100%. It's also at such a weird place on my back, it's really hard to tell what the heck is going on. I've been getting in some extra stretching and my husband has been trying to work loose any knots he finds, so work in process. I am totally exhausted. I should have taken yesterday off as a mental health rest day, but ended up just trying to work (I had a handful of meetings I would have had to attend regardless). So maybe Monday!

Week 0: (that was last week, right?!) Everything went as expected, although I did not finish all my cleaning tasks. We went to a Sip and Stroll on Saturday, which was a lot of fun, but also interfered with my cleaning and grocery pick-up schedule. So groceries got moved to Sunday and a lot of cleaning went out the window. I've got things planned this week, so I should at least be able to semi catch up, but we'll see how it goes. Apparently, I slept wrong last night. This wouldn't be horrible, other than the fact that I've got this crazy rib cage pain going on atm . I'm not sure how I slept that wrong, but it's gotten progressively worse.

Based on these gifs, this movie 100% made it onto my watch list. I'm super excited now.

Let's get one thing really clear before I jump into anything else. Sylvaa does not go with the flow easily. It stems from two things: 1. not being good at making decisions and 2. having to wrangle 4 children for so long. That being said, if you read my week 5 update post from last challenge, I've been dealing with some super clingy baby issues recently. I think it's stemming from schedules changing and the baby using me as a security blanket of sorts. Which is fine, but my work goals started slipping last week and I can't let that be a thing going forward. My goal for this challenge is to keep moving forward. Keep the things I can schedule, scheduled and then fill in the blanks based on how my day goes. The Goals: Gym - 6 days per week (up from last challenge). After years of going, "I can't wake up early to go to the gym," I've actually discovered this works best for me. Starting this week (week 0), my gym is doing 5:30 am classes M-F. I'm not planning on going Thurs morning, because I do two evening classes that day. Saturday is yoga. Winter is almost over here, so snow shouldn't be an issue any longer, so there is no reason I don't go. Eat on plan - we finally seem to have found a meal planning app / site that works for us (my husband and I, the kids still roll for dinners). It's fairly inexpensive, has a lot of nice choices, makes sure I get my protein in, and doesn't make me feel like I have to spend hours in the kitchen. Now if only I could stick to it on the weekends. 🤣 45 weekly work tomatoes - this is staying the same. I definitely struggled with this some weeks (more than my tracking may have led you to believe). And I have a long task list that isn't getting any less filled. Include at least 1 daily tomato focused towards my task list. Clean the house - every week. Each weekend do at least two tasks towards my monthly list. Garden - a new farm store just opened up in my area with some sales on seeds. Grab the stuff I need to start my plants indoors.

Week 5 Update: Last week looks worse than it really was. Promise. My daughter got a second job because her first job wasn't giving her any hours. So of course as soon as she starts the second job, the first job picks up and gives her 20+ hours. So she's essentially been working 60 hour weeks. What does this have to do with my goals? The baby. The baby who is currently sitting on my lap watching Peppa Pig. It's been harder to work because I've pretty much got the baby attached to my hip all the time. (My son is actually the babysitter and he tries really hard, but the baby is just being super clingy with me, so he's moderately useless). I'm trying to be understanding, but it's frustrating to feel like I'm getting behind on my stuff because I can't get the 3 year old to go hang out with anyone else. This week starts extra 5:30 bootcamp classes, so I'm bumping up my workouts for the next challenge.

My self care list includes: tea (the process of making tea is really grounding for me. I invested in an actual teapot and going through the process of making tea doesn't take all that long, but I find it's really peaceful). Reading a book (when I get really stressed, trashy historical romances are my go to, because I never have to think). Taking a bath. Baking (this only works if cleaning up the kitchen isn't overwhelming - a lot of times if I bake something sweet, one of the kids will clean up) Coloring

No. No we do not. And if one really feels the need to try a wet swiffer. Unfortunately, according to the manufacturer of my flooring, wet swiffers are at the wrong ph. I didn't know that was a thing, but the things you learn as you get older. I'm supposed to use a neutral ph product. Realistically, it's not necessarily the act of mopping I dislike - our house is actually set up pretty nicely for mopping and it really only takes me like 15 minutes. The big thing is timing (which I'm sure you can appreciate). The easiest thing to do is to mop after the baby goes to bed. But then if he hears me mopping, he gets up and wants to help. And since our downstairs is so open to the upstairs, he always hears me. He's at that age where he likes to help and I want to encourage it to continue, but it's totally a balance for me around encouraging him to help and trying to get things done. My daughter found a job working pretty much full-time hours that she really likes as a Pharmacy Tech in Training. She's working at one of the retail chain pharmacies in our area. It's been really good for her (she's an extrovert and needs the people time) to be out of the house, but it's been an adjustment for the household. My son is watching the baby while she works (it's 8:30 - 4 M - F). The baby however, pretty much just wants me to do things for him. My son tries really hard to get him things, but it's an ongoing struggle and has impacted me getting work done over the past week especially.

Week 4 update I think that's where we are ..... last week could have gone better, but could have gone worse. I had a really stressful work week and then got some not great personal news (it's nothing earth shattering - we were trying to do something and found out that it didn't work as intended). So by the end of the week, I was just worn down and not good at people'ing. Plus, we had a really weird storm pass through Saturday (we got like 4" if snow in like 8 hours, but less than 48 hours later, it's almost all gone. Friday night, we ended up going to the grocery store instead of dealing with ordering and the incoming snow. It was a better choice as who knows what we would have ended up with if we didn't, but it made for a long night. I did get to at least take my time on chores on Saturday because we didn't have any errands going on, but I was kind of done and just struggling. I got everything done, except mopping (do we really have to mop weekly?). Yesterday, we phoned in pretty much the whole day. We didn't even cook dinner. I did throw together breakfast for the next few days and lunch for today, but other than that, we played Lost Ark. I'm feeling better today, however I almost just decided to take a mental health day. I will probably end up doing so before the week is over. Also, the dog ended up getting out Sunday morning (twice!). Our door is really wonky to close and my daughter thought she had it latched, but didn't. So my husband had to go searching for the puppy (it ended up taking like 10 minutes - she's pretty decent about coming back). We also got to meet one of the neighbors because of it.

Fingers crossed on your race! I know races in my area are being postponed due to the weather already!

+ Reminds me of my favorite travel / snack experiences ever. Back when I was traveling to and from Boston for work, when TSA started requiring people to take out their food products, I watched a person open their suitcase and take out 4 party size bags of Cheetos Puffs. I think about that a lot. Where were they going? Did Cheetos Puffs not exist there? This scenario 100% lives rent free in my head.

This is such a hard thing! I'm one of those people who love doing things with others, but really struggles to be the initiator. Like, if I have a specific reason to hang out (i.e. a special event), I'm fine with a call or text to say, "hey, let's do this". But if it's just because, I'm horrible at being that person. And I've read a lot about how it's unfair to initiators, so I try really hard to put forth the effort, but then it's like, did I wait too long? Is this going to come off as insincere? I also agree with: Everything said above. My difficulty being the initiator of conversations doesn't ever reflect my feelings about a specific person and their importance to me.

Weekly Update: With travel, I decided to not count tomatoes for the first three days of the week. It's a lot of sitting around talking about things and it's really hard to quantify the way I do everything else. So I hit all but one of my goal last week. I probably could have hit it if I tried, I was just not feeling it. In general, I hit my goals Monday / Tuesday without really any issues, it's towards the end of the week that I slow down and not having that beginning of the week jump made it hard to get to what I needed. This week starts a 3-month challenge at my gym. I joined, more because it was less expensive to do the 3 months than the month-to-month, but also because I'm hoping for a bit more motivation. Working out hasn't ever really been an issue (although I should definitely push myself harder than I do), but eating is always hit or miss. I found a different app / website to use for food, so the husband and I are trying it out. It's got an exercise plan included that my husband may or may not start. On my list for today is finding both my Fitbit and my charger, so start wearing it again. I might try out the PAI stuff to see how that goes. I did end up finishing all the books I got from the library. I finished the last one Friday night before returning Saturday (no pressure there). I got three more; but one is about gardening, so it's a little bit different. Also, the baby did not do well with me not being home. He was fine while I was gone, but now that I'm home we go through a, "don't leave me" routine every night, where I have to reassure him that I'll still be here when he wakes up.

Okay, I said I would update, but then I didn't, so here we go. Last week was a success in terms of home stuff and work stuff; I hit all of my goals. I didn't end up working out daily, but I did get all of my gym workouts in. I'm totally fine with this (and my husband has been working out without me, so it hasn't impacted him at all). The one thing I didn't complete in February was my monthly chores list. I got more than zero done, but we had a few busy weekends and I never prioritized doing any of those monthly chores. March has a larger list, so I'm going to have to make sure this gets done on a regular basis. I have two books to return to the library tomorrow that I'm still working on finishing, so I'm going to have to do that tonight. In exciting news, we are scheduled to get our internet and cable hooked up on Tuesday afternoon! So it looks like I'll be done using my hot spot on the regular.

I'm good! Just traveled this week for a meeting in Denver and haven't had time to update on NF. I'll be returning home tonight, so I'm planning on update tomorrow. But thanks for looking out for me!

I've found that timing around when you ask the question is a big part of how successful meal ideas can be. We struggle to figure out what we want to eat if we are hungry or full. I gave the kids about two weeks warning and even now, some kids are still adding things to their menus. The lists also live on Google drive, so everyone can access as they wish. And it makes it really easy as people randomly think of ideas. So youngest is 17, turning 18 in April. But understand that there are definitely different types of Mac and Cheese that are on lists! My kids are now fairly adventurous when it comes to food (and my boys enjoy watching cooking channels on YouTube, so they always come up with different ideas) but also really like their old standbys. It has 100% been a process with us though. When my husband and I moved in together, he worked a swing shift (until 7 pm) so they were used to being fed by his mother, who does not cook. His two would eat fast food at least 4 - 5 times a week. So getting used to real food was a challenge. Add to that, stomach issues (Crohn's and Colitis) run in my family, so sometimes standbys are necessary. What I'm saying is that you won't get any judgement from me if you end up with PB&J for dinner. Your meals always sound so good too! I didn't realize they were that varied! (Also, I'm shocked about the 3 years - it's really been that long?!)

Did we talk about an air fryer before? If we didn't, I highly recommend looking into getting one (and using it). It's not 100% the same, but it's definitely better in terms of texture than trying to bake things. As an added bonus, there are a lot of veggies that turn out amazing in the air fryer.

We don't make any extra for lunches on purpose, although since a lot of recipes feed 4, I'll double them (for our family of 6) and end up with some naturally. What happens more regularly is if kids end up not liking it, they just don't eat it. Alternatively if they really like it, it'll be eaten same day. So some weeks, we end up with all kinds of leftovers and other weeks we don't have any. But I never really know how that will shake out until day of. We do have one night a week dedicated to eating leftovers, so I need to just stop being wishy washy and plan my own lunches. When I do make my own lunches, they are generally well balanced and healthier than our traditional dinner meals (like this week, I'm eating a butternut squash and lentil dish that is super tasty, but definitely not something the kids get behind). So if the kids choose to eat them, I 100% don't complain. I'd prefer they expand their palates and try new things. I will complain if they waste it though. We roll a d6 and d20. Chaotic Neutral for the win! It's actually working a lot better than I had hoped when we started. The kids even get involved in the rolling, so they really have no one to blame but themselves. We will allow for vetoes (situation dependent), but it's been rarely used.

Having your hubby take her sounds like a great way to at least set a personal boundary (it doesn't sound like your mom will even understand what she did wrong by not checking in with you about this appointment). Saying, "since you didn't say anything, I didn't know if you needed me" is legit and (regardless of how she takes it) isn't rude or hurtful. I'm going to try to say this in a way that doesn't place blame or negativity on anyone, and I'm going to put it in spoilers. But re: your husband taking her

TL/DR: food is hard So for dinner, we play what we refer to as "Dinner D&D". Since there are 6 people, we each came up with 20 meal ideas and we roll weekly for them. We determine the meals of the week, then fit them into the days that work best for the family. People can either switch up their ideas whenever they want or we've started making supplemental lists of 20. Once we get to 8, we'll change our dice. Depending on dinners, I'll grab myself something (usually either a bagged salad mix if it's only one day or something to batch cook if the week isn't looking too hot). It's been really nice because it takes a lot less time to meal plan. We will reroll if we've already had a meal recently (burgers got rerolled this week because we just had it last week) and kids can request a meal if they really want something. But it's nice to not have a hassle to try to plan meals. Breakfast for me is usually either oatmeal, overnight oats, or yogurt with granola. Sometimes I'll get fancy and do eggs or something, but I'm pretty lazy in the am. Which really only leaves me lunch. Except lunch ends up being so hard. As a family, we've been trying to work on limiting food waste, so first lunch choice is always leftovers. However, whether or not we have leftovers is very random. Which makes it hard to batch cook (or else we end up with a ridiculous amount of leftovers). So basically, I need to figure out like frozen stuff I can keep on hand and eat when we don't have leftovers OR only batch cook like half a recipe and hope we have leftovers for everyone else so they don't eat my stuff. This week, I'm making a butternut squash and lentil salad (with no lettuce) because there are a few days I won't eat dinner (Cajun chicken alfredo) and there are a few days I'm not anticipating having any leftovers (like BLT night). I'm safe with that for lunches and dinners because the kids aren't all about that life.

Week 1 Update: Man that week did not suck, but could have been better. I hit over my goal of 45 work tomatoes, although that was partly due to a large project I have due every 15th of the month. It's much easier to complete goals when you have a lot of work to support it. I also got all of my house chores completed. It's nice having a clean house. Saturday night was supposed to be D&D, however one of our group members had some heavy stuff going on with his family, so we decided to do a pizza night. We invited his wife to come along with him and hang out, but she wasn't feeling up to it. Instead, we played Telestrations After Dark, which was hilarious. Yesterday, I did a full English-style Sunday roast (I roasted beef, carrots, and potatoes - although not together, made gravy, Yorkshire pudding, and butterscotch blondies) for the family. It was super fun and tasty. I hit all 6 of my workouts at the gym last week. The Wednesday one I did at home instead of going to the gym (no one else was scheduled for the early morning class, so I told the instructor if she wanted to text it to me we could both sleep in). The yoga teacher wasn't my favorite (there are two others in the area I have taken classes from that I like better), but it got me up and moving on a Saturday morning. I am slacking on running, but I am working out without freezing. One thing I haven't been doing great with recently is food. I've actually not been buying enough to get me through meals, so I've been eating super randomly. I've not been hungry and I've been eating things that don't upset my stomach, but my meals have been looking a little rough. I need to prioritize figuring out my full day meal plan, not just knowing what dinner is going to be.

I've been thinking about you as I look at the whiteboard at my gym. I'm glad you're back, even though everything is crazy.

I personally do a combination. There are certain things that I have completely removed from my diet, there are some things that I'll allow myself at certain time as treats, and there are other things that I'll "cycle eat" (have a food in my diet, then feel like I'm eating too much of it and remove it). My food decisions are mainly determined based on stomach issues I have (similar to SK above - just not diagnosed, but the overall thought process is fairly similar). The thing about food specifically, is that everyone has different social and economic factors that go into how hard or easy it is to change up their diet. If you live alone and buy all your own food, it would potentially be easier for you to make drastic changes to what you eat than if you rely on family to purchase your food or have other people living with you that might not accept your food decisions. Even the amount of time you have to make food versus eating out. The other thing to remember is to give yourself grace. It's hard to completely overhaul your diet and be successful without any lapses. And it's only two months into the year!

While it is always a good idea to go to the doctor about concerns, how ARE you sleeping? Do you have a tracker that gives you info about sleep hours and quality? I am super guilty of being tired, then staying up late for random reasons (which are never worthwhile). And you've had a lot of random things going on, which probably aren't helping. That being said, if you are getting a good 8 - 9 hours of sleep a night and are still exhausted, go to the doctors. Just to make sure.

What about Colonial Williamsburg? It's been a hot minute, but I remember there being a lot that was semi-open (although, I went in the summer, not the winter), and as of the last update to their webpage, they were still requiring facemasks indoors.

So I am participating in Sourcebooks / ALA #readtheyear challenge. I'm currently reading Me and White Supremacy and working through the 28 days. I'm also reading a fiction book called White Tiger. I tend to browse through the library and see what looks like it would be interesting, so there aren't really any titles I have in mind outside of my reading challenge. I'm trying to do at least one non-fiction and one by a non white author each time I go.