Casual Friday + Love of the Week

• I’m not that “in” to Halloween. My family never decorated growing up, and I like to keep my focus on Christmas. That said, I put up our pumpkin mini-lights last week, and everyone in the house keeps commenting on them. A thrift store find years ago, I leave the mini-light string up all year round (incorporating it into our mantle swag at Christmas), but slip the plastic pumpkin covers on for October. It’s the little things. And this is, literally, the only decorating I do for Halloween/fall.
• I do succumb to checking out a few fall/Halloween-themed books. The one pictured above, The Witch Who Was Afraid of Witches is one of my favourites, and we’ve read it for years (in true minimalist fashion, I don’t actually own the book, we just get it from the library). We also got Arthur’s Halloween, by Marc Brown, which was the only Halloween book I owned growing up. Talk about a blast from the past.

• Last weekend was great. Church was great. Date nights were great. Sunday-morning coffee (I’m off caffeine during the week now) was great.
• Monday had a rough start with some credit card hassles (fradulent charges), work challenges, so many sets of paperwork to complete I was about ready to cry and a 1 am child wakeup. Tuesday and Wednesday were great. Busy, but productive. Relaxed in the right ways. Then Thursday hit me like a freight train. Another restless night (3 out of 4, so cumulative exhaustion), and I ended up so exhausted, so overwhelmed and frazzled that some of the jobs I usually feel very competent to handle felt onerous. I guess this is all to say – a week can really cycle through all the emotions. Onward and upward.
• I got a haircut! It had been almost a year. Between COVID and laziness, it was very overdue. It’s short. But I know it will grow out quickly, and it will be such a treat to wash and dry 1/3 of the amount of hair for a while!

• Stage 2 of renos is supposed to start next week. I’m getting nervous. I know there will be lots of decisions, we’ll hit snags, and things will take longer and cost more than we’re anticipating. But, sometimes the only way through is through, and I’m trying to take anxiety as a cue for gratitude and, on this score, I should be overwhelmed with gratitude! The renovations will make our home warmer and safer and a lot nicer (from the outside) on the eyes! After 4 years of living in a quasi-permanent “needs” reno state, it will be wonderful to have this major set of upgrades behind us. Here’s to getting through…

• Date-night supper for the kids. We feed them separately each Saturday and Sunday evening to accommodate an in-home date-night. On the menu for them this week: Cheesy omelets with veggies, dip and a ketchup smile. They were thrilled – with nary a complaint about the veggies.

love of the week: My quotes book

Since I graduated from high school I’ve been keeping track of quotes from various books I read. I’ve maintained an enormous document which – over the course of this summer and early fall – I’ve been reorganizing and downsizing. I culled a lot of quotes (and now feel slightly guilty about this!), did some basic reorganizing, and then printed off a few copies, going with the same publisher I’ve been using for photobooks (and family updates) – Blurb.

It includes quotes on parenting, spiritual growth, grief/pain, work/creativity, productivity/time management, and lots more. I’ve really enjoyed reading back through all the quotes I selected, a few pages each night. I’m often left nodding my head at some nugget of wisdom someone (far wiser than me!) dropped within the pages of their book.

It’s not going to win any awards and as soon as it arrived I noticed loads of things I wish I had adjusted. But I really did aim to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good (or the done). It’s decidedly imperfect, but it’s a great starting point. And, it’s another of my 2021 goals checked off. As a form of memory keeping (my reading history over 20 odd years), it also aligns nicely with my values!