The Last Five Things I Bought. (More or Less)

This has been a bad week for my credit card.

Brooks Launch 3. I need to start working my current pair out of rotation, and I'm itching to try something lighter (and potentially faster.) I love ordering from Brooks directly- free shipping both ways, and 90 days to run in them to see if they work for you, yes, even outside on trails!

Stridebox. Because I love ipsy and I love running even more. The first box came this week.

A couple Momentum Motivate wraps- one for me and one for a friend. Not telling what they say because it's a surprise.

An iPhone 7. Because my 6 died in a tragic drowning accident last summer and I finally paid it off. I was so ready to be done with the loaner iPhone 5!


Too many of these. And these.  I have no willpower.

What have you bought yourself recently?

Five Pictures from Last Weekend

Last weekend we took a mini-mini vacation- an overnight trip to Watiki Waterpark to let off a little winter cabin fever. We managed to con our favorite family into coming with us, and brought Lauren's BFF MK.  The kids are finally old enough to swim without my worrying too much about drowning and the waterpark had beer and pizza. Good times were had by all.

The Next 5 Non-fiction books on my list.

I can never decide if I prefer non-fiction or fiction, here are the next five non-fiction books on my list:

1. Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow. I LOVED his Alexander Hamilton biography. I wish he'd do one for all the presidents.

2. How Bad Do You Want It? by Matt Fitzgerald. I have big goals this year.

3. Tools of the Titans by Tim Ferris. I love his podcast. I imagine I'll love this book too, though I wish it weren't quite 700 pages long.

4. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond.  After Hillbilly Elegy, this seems appropriate.

5. The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance by David Epstein. I had already bought the book, and then heard him tell a story on This American Life, which sealed the deal.

What non-fiction are you reading next?

The Next Five Books I Plan to Read. (No Kidding)

I'm so easily distracted by shiny new things. My Kindle is a complete testimony to this, therefore, I'm making a list.  Here's the next five books that I plan to read:

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. This is a reread (duh) but I'm having so much fun reading with Tristan.

Only You by Denise Grover Swank. It gave Katherine jazz hands! How could I not?

Hold Your Breath by Katie Ruggle. I need some romantic suspense this summer.

From This Day Forward by Lauren Layne. Don't tell, but I also have the second book in the series waiting.

The Happiness Equation by Neil Pasricha.

I think the difficulty I just had picking five tells you how likely I am to stick to this plan, but lets see how I do...

Five things that happened.

1. A month or two ago my best running buddy organized a 5K run in order to raise money for Alport Syndrome, which two of her sons have.  I was always going to go run, but Tristan decided that he wanted to do it as well, and he did! I suspect he's actually much faster than me, if he were trying, but I can run a long long ways. He ran the entire last mile about 3 yards in front of me, waiting for me to give up and walk. I didn't.

2. We were recently staying in a hotel with a pool, which we used a LOT while Mike was working at an event. I had picked up some cheap goggles for the kids on the way and they loved wearing them. On our second night there, Tristan left his in the pool area. When we returned to swim again early the next morning we discovered that someone had completely trashed them.  I just don't understand that. I can see if someone took them- clearly we had left them behind, and maybe they really wanted goggles, but why destroy them? I am still baffled.

3. Speaking of swimming, my kids are finally old enough to swim in a hotel pool while I sit happily on the sidelines and only keep half an eye out for drowning! This is such a huge parenting milestone. First you get them old enough to play on the playground unassisted, then they learn to swing without being pushed, and now, swimming. It completely changes my feelings about hotels.

4. Hamilton. I've resisted forever. It annoys me how much people love it, like when everyone loves the same book, only this was way worse. But then Noah did a report on Ben Franklin and he could.not.stop. talking about Ben Franklin. I started thinking that maybe the kids would like Hamilton, and I was right. Mike is not a huge fan, but he'll suffer through it for the quiet it brings to the back seat.

5. Lauren graduated from Kindergarten, and Tristan is going to be in middle school next year. What? How? I don't even know.  I completely teared up at Lauren's graduation- my last one!

Five Bits of Bookish Randonness on Friday

1. My library doesn't seem interested in the e-book of Fire Touched by Patricia Briggs, so I checked it out in paper. I haven't read a paper book in at least 2 years, maybe 3. And as I write this, Fire Touched still sits unread because it's just. so. awkward.

2. Instead, I keep reading Harry Potter. I finally convinced Tristan that it really was better than the movies and he can't stop reading. I foolishly agreed to read it along with him, and to be honest, I'm WAY behind.  He keeps saying things like "I'm at the Quidditch game where xyz happens!" and I'm all... uhhhh why is that funny or significant? I can't remember!

3. Noah is still reading furiously. I picked up some library books for our trip to Alabama, and a week before we left (as you read this we should be in the car!), he'd already read two of them. "Put your book down and eat!" "Put your book down and get out of my car!" "Put your book down to pee!" I really am turning into my mother.

4. All day at work I think about books (and running) and then I get home and scroll Instagram. Since the last IG update, however, it keeps crashing on me. I decided this was a sign that I should be reading.

5. Mike and I used to compete to see who would read more in a year. In the last few years, he's drifted into only reading articles on his phone and not actual books. He still reads, but it kills me that it's not a book, in paper OR e-form. However, he recently went to a conference and didn't have WiFi on the plane so he opened the Kindle app on his phone and found Walkable City by Jeff Speck on it. I bought it months ago at Janssen's recommendation and haven't gotten to it. He couldn't stop talking about how great it was. Guess I should read it now!

Five things I want on Friday

I am slightly in love with these Dr. Scholls sandals. I think they would be cute with shorts and skirts both.

This Under Armour tank. We tend to not buy UA stuff, because the trendiness of a $50 shirt for 1st graders kills us, but I love the back of this tank.

Nude ballet flats.  As much as I look at wedges and heels, I always come back to ballet flats. I need a pair that "disappears" while still looking cute. I have a very old beat up pair of Clarks, but they are no longer in work condition. I like this pair from Steve Madden.

This summery t-shirt. Perfect for post run. (The hashtags say #perfectday #anyorder #showeroptional #letsbereal)

A Turkish bath towel. If the reviews are correct, these would be well worth the money! Compact and still opens large, dries well, gets softer with washing. I hate the giant bag of towels we lug on the boat each time.

What's on your wish list this week?

Five Thoughts on Books

1. I really love NetGalley. It lets me keep up with my favorite authors in more ways than just receiving ARCS. I am awful at tracking release dates and with NetGalley they mostly just show up. (Except for Avon books, sob.)

2. That said, some days I'd really like to abandon my list and binge on a dozen or so rereads.  What would I reread? The entire Bridgerton series. Robert's Bride Quartet. In the Midnight Rain. (duh, always that one.) Some Julie Garwood, but not The Secret, because that's the one I always reread. And, heaven help me, Harry Potter.

3. I'd also like to finish up some series of books that I've enjoyed but never come back to. Namely, the Darynda Jones Charley Davidson series, and the rest of Julie James FBI/ US Attorney series.

4. I'd love to try out Caroline Linden's Scandal series and Sarah MacLean's Scoundrels.

5. And last, we've recently discovered that the high school senior at my office, the one who is already accepted to law school after her bachelors, the one one with the terrific ACT score and GPA, only "Sparks Noted" To Kill A Mockingbird. After an office wide discussion of this tragedy, I now need to reread it. It only remains to be seen if I can bear to read it in paper or if I need to buy it on Kindle. I still have my copy from high school...

Five Random things this week

1. My oldest child, the Pirate, turned 11 yesterday.  Noah will be 8 on Sunday. How are either of these things possible? We got him a skateboard, and they all took turns on it. I spent the entire time imagining broken arms.

2. Our washing machine has stopped draining completely, and on Sunday (ie. Laundry Day) it stopped altogether. We are the sort of people who like to break things worse fix it ourselves, so we took it apart. Last night we discovered a sock in the water pump. Thinking this was likely our problem, we reassembled and ran a small load. Turns out, it was not our problem. It is back to working poorly now tho, instead of not working at all.

3.Mini review! I've had Charles Duhigg's first book, The Power of Habit, on my TBR forever because it's gotten such good reviews, so when I say Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business on NetGalley I was quick to snatch it up.  This one starts out strong and interesting, but after the first two chapters it kind of peters out and seems to lose focus. I was really hoping for some insights to productivity at work, but they weren't here.  I can't recommend it.

4. We have a birthday party tomorrow at our house. I have done zero cleaning and my planning extends to ordering a cake. Can I just throw them on the trampoline and offer them some koolaid? Cause that's the current plan.

5. Mike and I are running a half marathon on April 23rd. I did not run ONCE this week. It could be ugly.  I really need summer to get here so days are longer and we aren't trying to keep a decent schedule for the sake of school!

Five things from this week.

1. I'd like to get around to shopping for my Five Things again, but work is crazy and home is crazier and what I'm telling you is that this week has been INSANE.

2. We decided to watch Survivor as a family. The kids love things with physical competition, and all of those shows where they abandon people somewhere with no supplies, and the adults enjoy a good bit of strategy. This season it divides them into three teams- Brawn, Beauty, and Brains. The boys immediately latched onto the Brawn team. Annnnd spoiler-- one of the Brawn team was voted off the first week. Noah was so invested in the show that he cried big angry tears. You can imagine how nervous we were to watch the second one! And while he did get upset a bit, he was able to get into watching the strategy turn things upside down, and didn't lose his mind.

3. I signed up for Influenster, and I totally bailed on my first box, so I was quite surprised that I was offered another chance. This time around I was sent a bag of Rachel Ray's Nutrish dog food.  We got the beef and brown rice flavor. Ezio was very very interested in the box and what was in it and could he please have some? I tried to tell him it was for dogs, but he's not that bright.  I was quite impressed to see little bits of vegetables in the mix, and it really does look much less processed that Scout's regular Dog Chow.  I'd love to tell you how much more she enjoys it as well, but Scout likes to eat dirty socks, so it's really hard to judge what food tastes good to her. She did not use her snout to push it around the kitchen tho, so that probably says something. As for Ezio, he managed to chew through the box, and then through the bag to test it out. (Yes, there was an open bowl of it on the floor for Scout, I told you, he's not that bright.) Hard to say if he liked it or not, but apparently the smell is irresistible.  The appearance of the food makes me feel like I did something good for the dog (and Ez) so I'm going to recommend that you might give it a shot too. (For your pets, not you. They do make cat food as well.)

4. I recently opened the Trobo that I funded on Kickstarter last year for Lauren.  I was hesitant to talk too much about it, since it was created by a good friend of mine and I didn't want to be biased. I will mention a few things about though, since it is a great product. The little stories are a lot of fun, probably gears a little bit younger than Kindergarten, and while Lauren did enjoy it, she doesn't really want to go back to it again because she's read them all. The Trobo itself is ADORABLE tho. My only real complaint is that it's only for iOS and I hate to share my iPad with the kids. I want a Kindle App!

5. I'm looking forward to a hopefully productive weekend. We have a wall to finish and hopefully paint and I've love to knock out a couple half read books. Plus our house is a disaster and it might be nice to be able to use the flat surfaces again!  What are your weekend plans?

5 Things I Need in My Wardrobe

Lately I've made a point to have an actual list of things I need in my wardrobe and to try not to shop too much off that mental list. Here's five things that I am on the lookout for..

1. A watch I can wear every day. Amazon won't let me post a picture, but I'll probably end up with this one by Nine West. Eventually I'll buy myself this one, perhaps for my birthday?

2. A couple pairs of great slacks, probably black and gray, but the color isn't important. This is too boring for me to shop for, let alone show you.

3. Olive boots. These would do.

4. Black loafers that can go with slacks or jeans. I used to have the perfect pair from Born, but years of constant wear finally killed them. These make me happy.

5. A couple dressier shirts. I have a ton of simple t-shirt type shirts that are fine for every day, but occasionally I do need to dress up more. This polka dot one is kind of fun.

Five Things I Think About As Christmas Approaches

1. Are you buying stuff at Amazon? Do you use smile.amazon.com to donate to your favorite charity?  You should, it doesn't cost you anything.

2. Christmas music. I really love Christmas music. I rely on Trish to tell me when it's ok to start listening.  My favorite song remains "O Holy Night". In fact, as I type this I'm surfing Spotify to finally determine my favorite version. I believe Trish believes the Mariah Carey version to be the best, but I am undecided.  I am a fairly equal opportunity Christmas music lover. I even love Little Drummer Boy!  I do not like Grandma Got Ran Over or anything by the Jackson 5, but beyond that? I like it all.

3. I am 90% done with shopping for the kids, minus stockings. Everyone else tho, still at 0%.

4. I'm steadily working through my year end reading. Mainly by DNF'ing things. I'm ruthless about quitting a book if it's not working for me.

5. I mentioned running in the car yesterday and Noah said, "Mom, do you even run any more?" Ouch.  Followed by Tristan saying "You know, there's this magic thing? In the basement? Called a treadmill?"  Oh you smart ass kid, where did you come from?   (Back at it soon, I promise!)


How's your holiday shaping up? Getting all your shopping done? Reading all the Christmas books? Fall off the healthy wagon?

Five Random Thoughts on Friday

1. I've gotten pretty good at preparing these Friday posts in advance. Today I totally forgot.
2. I blame lack of sleep. Sleep has never been easy for my kids, as long time readers know. (Yes, we've tried that.)  Shockingly, Noah (the Bug), who has historically been the awful one, has been great for a month now.  And Lauren sleeps great- if she's in our bed. It's the oldest that is having sleep issues. 
3. And then two nights I stayed up way too late reading. I so rarely get quiet time to myself and I just couldn't help it.
4. I've barely put on my running shoes since the time change. I don't want to run in the dark. I don't mind the cold so much, but it's just never daylight. I'm considering running at lunch, but I'm not sure how to deal with being sweaty. Perhaps the cold weather will help with that. Does anyone else run at lunch or take a lunch time fitness class? How do you handle it?
5. I've been thinking a lot about my life and how I spend my spare time lately. I clearly recognize where I'm wasting time that I could be doing something that's both fun and productive- like go for a run or read a book- and yet I just look at Instagram.  I need to make some physical changes in my environment to make them happen, stating with deleting some phone apps or turning off notifications. I need to clear a handy spot to work on hexies and I need to keep the dining room table clear so I can spread out. I need to get the basement set up so that going down there to work out isn't always a cleaning marathon first. So it'll happen, just I need to muster the energy to make some changes.  Am I the only one who identifies an goal and then spends way too long figuring out how to do it?

Five books from 2015 that I'd like to read.

We all know how I rarely break out of my reading ruts. I rarely read general fiction, even tho I enjoy it when I do, and I mostly just ignore non-romance bestsellers. Despite this, there are a few books that have caught my eye and I think I might attempt to get them on my Kindle soon.

Here are the first five that come to mind:

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

What else should be on my list?

Five Christmas Ideas (for me, duh) on Friday

I hate when we decide to "go small this Christmas" cause that usually means "mom doesn't get anything good" so of course I'm finding All The Things.

1. This pretty pretty purse at Target.

2. This one is a close second.

3. By the time I convince myself to buy a $130 pair of shoes I don't need, these will be gone. (But I DO need trail shoes!) Ok, that is a seriously tiny picture. I hate it when websites won't let you link to the actual picture of the item. Click through, they are cool shoes.

4. Yes, another bracelet. I love the delicateness of this one.

5. I need a new winter coat, and I'd like to find something along these lines, but I hesitate about that collar.


What's on your Christmas list this year?