athousandwords

Love this. ❤️ OOOh that one's cool. I might try that one when my cat destroys his current cardboard one! Spider-cat is a pretty accurate description. How about the "Wavelengths" game? Seems like a good, low-stakes way to get to know someone.

Glad the Man's surgery went well!! And I love that you're getting to go to the gym with your stepdaughter (no comment on the rest of it... 😬) - it's lovely to have that connection between the two of you. Hope your weeks are more 'normal' soon, but it sounds like you're doing FANTASTIC managing all the different things life is throwing your way this week.

Congrats!! All that practice is paying off!

That feels so accurate this summer 😆 Hope you have fun scrapbooking! Would love to see some pages if it's not too personal!

Sounds like a very cozy weekend getting caught back up with each other. Hope you enjoyed your game!

I'm a silly finance nerd and I love this 🤓 Not just the savings, but mostly that you two were on the same page about money and got excited about a shared goal!! Vacations are great, but if you're not thrilled about spending the money it's never going to feel as fun. I love that you decided to wait until the right time and instead put your money toward getting ahead. Who knows what's in store with a new house anyway.

Week 5 Trackers 🌊 Drink 64oz water daily 👍🏻 🍍 Track on LoseIt daily ✅ 🏄‍♀️ Move 60,000 steps weekly ✅ ⛱️ Update NF 2x weekly ✅ Yes! Thankfully it was an easy repair - not a brand new AC system! /whew 😅 The weekend went much better after all the mid-week stress. We had some friends visiting from out of town for Friday night, so we had some mutuals over and threw a little taco bar party to celebrate. 🌮 Our friends have a six year old who gets on like wildfire with our kids, so everyone was happy. Had a few hard seltzers during the party, but overall kept the calories pretty low and avoided too much grazing on party food. Saturday we all went to the pool and I had fun playing 'swimtag' with the kids and chasing them all over the water. Then Sunday was a super chill day - mostly caught up on house work and meal planning, and did some meal prep for the week ahead. It's hard to believe we've only been home from OK for one week, and we leave for the beach in two weeks! I'm feel like we're figure out what summer 'normal' means. I'm still trying to get movement in more consistently - most days last week I got less than 5k steps, then I had two or three huge 10k+ days. I'd like to be more like 8k everyday, just to build that habit. Goals for this week: - Steady steps every day - Stick with the meal plan and eat at home - Keep the house picked up - Have some weeknight summer fun with the kids

Well, I spoke too soon. I ended up totally fucking up dinner last night - just a total rookie mistake on timing how fast the shrimp would cook. Ended up with overcooked noodle/veggie mush and raw shrimp. 🤮 So dinner went in the trash because it was inedible, and we went out to get pizza for dinner. Of course, I was stressed over the dinner catastrophe, so I had a beer with my pizza to calm down and ate way too much pizza because at some point it's just not worth saving 1 slice of a personal pizza, you know? (<justifications>) But I did go for a walk around the shopping center after dinner to get some energy out with the 7 yo while 4 yo was slooowly eating. So I got over 8k steps yesterday, which wasn't bad. Then we got home, and boy, when it rains it pours. Because we walked upstairs to get the kids ready for bed and were blasted with a wall of heat. 🥵 Our upstairs A/C unit stopped working at some point yesterday, and with the heat index over 100, it was a furnace upstairs. Thankfully our house has two separate HVAC units and the one for the basement/main floor was working fine, so we had a slumber party in the basement with the kids. 🥳 ...Actually that sounds like more fun than it was - I was truthfully not at all in the mood to handle this gracefully on top of everything else last night, so the kids got a rather cranky mom telling them to stop bugging each other and go to sleep I swear to god. When they did finally settle, I had yet another beer while we watched Ted Lasso, so there goes that plan to cut back on alcohol. 🫠 We'll have another basement sleepover tonight and I might actually try to make it fun for the kids since I know it sucks for them to have to move out of their bedrooms after we just got home. We could do a movie night and let them sleep in tomorrow maybe. The AC technician is coming tomorrow morning and they seemed confident that it's an easy fix, so fingers crossed that we're not buying a new AC this month! And without the stir fry I was planning to cook we don't really have enough leftovers to avoid cooking dinner tonight, but we do have a backup meal of homemade pizzas and I'm sure the kids won't argue with pizza two nights in a row. On a high note: I had a dentist appt this morning and successfully did not get myself a little treat at Starbucks next door even after all this stress. Baby steps toward improvement.

You inspired it, actually! We're talking about moving next year and I thought, I don't want to end up spending hours decluttering right before we start packing like poor @Laghail has done... 😈

So truuuue. My husband and I have a weekly time slot scheduled on Tuesdays where we try to knock out an hour or two of decluttering/cleaning/organizing after the kids go to bed (so it doesn't build up on weekends) and last night we just said screw it and watched TV. I'm holding out hope for next week, but we may not resume until school starts again since we have another trip planned in a couple weeks.

I can't believe you're making me want to go to Pittsburgh... and why does the Duolingo headquarters look so interesting?!

Yeah, I was tracking on vacation and while I'm happy I kept up the habit, I don't think it really influenced my food choices (poor, btw) or was accurate to any degree. Feels like a wash. Good luck keeping your head on straight these next two weeks!!

Love your introspection here - seasons of waiting make me so restless. I love your approach to celebrate the small magics and appreciate the day to day.

Try getting different planes and textures for your scratching posts too - one of my cats loves an upright sisal, while the other prefers a horizontal cardboard scratcher. And thank you for being open and vulnerable with us - I know we're just internet 'strangers' but we're rooting for you! ❤️ It's lovely to follow along on your journey and watch you grow - through the good times and the tough ones. Figuring out parts of our personalities that are deeply rooted in childhood is never going to be easy, but I hope it's worthwhile for you.

Your whole weekend sounds lovely, and honestly, so does your day back! Nice work hitting your goals of getting movement in earlier before it gets blasted hot. Hope you enjoy your evening walk!

Getting back into the swing of things has been a mixed bag. I'm finding it hard to get back into the movement habit I had before we went on vacation - when we left I was getting really good at fitting in steps, but it's less natural now. On Monday I did shoo us all out the door for an evening walk, so I got up to a little over 6k steps. Then yesterday I went really hard: early morning walk, and a 1 hr treadmill walk during a meeting... but then I was exhausted come evening from the extra intensity. And today I've done basically nothing. I've barely broken 1k steps. I was hoping to stick to our school year routine of waking up around 6am so I could go for a walk while it's still cooler out, but this morning I was too tired and overslept. Tomorrow's another day I guess. Food has been good though. We've cooked at home every night this week so far, and tomorrow we'll have enough leftovers to do a 'clean out the fridge' type dinner so that we don't have to actually cook. Everything we made this week was pretty easy and extendable, so, for instance, we made a few baked sweet potatoes on Sunday night and then pulled those out as a side other nights because my daughter loves them, which is great, one less side dish to cook. Other easy meals this week: bbq chicken, tuna burgers, my kids' favorite cucumber salad, and tonight we're trying this stir fy udon with shrimp. I think we're all just adjusting to being back from vacation time. The kids are annoyed at having to go to bed at the entirely reasonable time of 8:30, because they got to stay up past 9 or 10 on vacation, but then they're cranky waking up at 7:30am for summer camp. And honestly right now I'm wishing I'd had another cup of coffee today because I'm minutes away from falling asleep at my desk...😴

Checking in late because I've been on vacation, but following along! Glad to hear that working with a coach is still going well for you! I put my watch in my pocket when I'm at the grocery store/using a cart/doing whatever where my arms aren't swinging. But I've heard of people putting them on their ankle/shoe as well.

Proud of you for listening to your body and doing what's practical instead of pushing yourself too hard. I'm sorry you're losing the discount though! Also: I love Stardew! Glad you're having fun playing! But don't neglect your sleep! *stern mom look*

Just realized I was missing your summer update - hope all is going well in your corner of Stardew!

Glad you're feeling better and happy birthday to your 6yo!! 🥳 Sounds like your summer has been busy and challenging so far (and a hurricane doesn't help...) hopefully your next few weeks go smoothly and you can have a relaxing vacation. 🏖️

I love this. ❤️

There's not right way to get results - taking a break and letting your body rest is just as important as sticking to a strict plan. ❤️

SW: 170 6/17: 169.6 (-0.4) 6/24: - 7/01: - 7/08: 173.4 (+3.4) Not surprised to see my weight up after two weeks of vacation. I'm hoping it's mostly just water retention and I'll be back down closer to my start weight next week! I'm home for the next three weeks anyway, so I'll be working hard on turning that number back around.

Week 4 Trackers 🌊 Drink 64oz water daily ❌ 🍍 Track on LoseIt daily 🫤 🏄‍♀️ Move 60,000 steps weekly ❌ ⛱️ Update NF 2x weekly 🫤 Back from Oklahoma, and even though those trackers look, well, terrible, the week itself was a lot of fun! The cabin trip was super relaxing (and hot) - we got some real quality time in with my cousin and her family, ate some delicious food, and just enjoyed the time off. I feel good that I tracked through the whole trip, even if that tracking didn't really influence much what I ate. The one day I forgot to track was actually the day we flew home - I was mentally tracking what I ate, but just completely forgot to log. D'oh! Anyway - we got home late Saturday night and spent Sunday catching up on house tasks, meal planning, grocery shopping, etc as well as just being lazy and letting the kids acclimate to being home again. And honestly it was just nice to be in our own house again. I found myself happily meal planning and washing dishes because it was comforting to be in my own space and in charge of my own world again. Being on vacation, even with some of my favorite people in the world, means a lot of compromise. This week's goals: figuring out our summer schedule with the kids in summer camp instead of school cooking at home as much as possible (I already prepped a bunch of veg so that dinners can go faster on weeknights) getting back into that habit of movement and getting outside before the heat of the day cutting back on the beer/alcohol that I've been indulging in for the last two weeks Hope everyone else had a great couple of weeks, and a happy independence day if you're in the US and celebrated! Our fireworks celebration was rained out, but we got an amazing lightning show instead!

Week 3 Trackers 🌊 Drink 64oz water daily 🫤 🍍 Track on LoseIt daily ✅ 🏄‍♀️ Move 60,000 steps weekly 😬 ⛱️ Update NF 2x weekly ✅ Apologies for the potato post quality, I'm on mobile. Numbers were not great this week, but the important thing is that tracking happened! We're at a cabin in rural Oklahoma for the first part of the week and I'm still not getting any movement in. We were hoping to go hiking, but it is just so hot here. I'll be playing catch up next week, but for now, signing off to relax and have fun. 🏕️