Life Lately #25

Why, hello there. I thought I’d give this thing a spin around the block and see how it goes or if I fall off again. 

Reading: The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton. To be honest, I’ve had it on my Kindle as a library book for about a week now, and I’ve only read about a quarter of the first chapter. I’m in kind of a reading slump right now. I also have The Good People by Hannah Kent on deck, and I might just have to switch over to that. It will be my second reading of it, and I’m curious to see if I like it as much the second time as I did the first time. It’s one of those books that I *still* think about, and I read it way back in 2021.

Watching: The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch. Anyone else?? We blew through season 4 when we realized it was on Discovery+, and then signed up for a free trial of FrndlyTV to watch season 5, which is currently on tv. I’m about ready to cancel that and just pay for the last 5 episodes or so, though. FrndlyTV has commercials about every 10 minutes, lasting for 4-5 minutes, and they’re the same. dang. commercials. over. and. over. For every 35-40 minute episode, there’s literally about 15 minutes of commercials and it’s so obnoxious. But I digress. WHAT IS UNDER THE MESA!?

Listening to: A new-to-me podcast called Fitness Stuff [For Normal People]. It’s been downright intriguing, and my favorite episode so far is the one where they shred the latest notion that “cortisol” is to blame for all our weight, sleep and health issues. Episode #117, I believe.

Baking: Most recently, my own birthday cake. I didn’t make anything from scratch because I wasn’t about to spend even more time in the kitchen on my birthday, but thanks to Betty Crocker devil’s food cake mix and chocolate frosting, Smuckers hot fudge, Nabisco Oreos, and Private Selection Black Raspberry Cookies and Cream ice cream, I managed to come up with a decent ice cream cake for 1/3rd the price of a Coldstone cake. HBD to me! I’m 41 now, which is officially old enough that it isn’t fun to tell people my age anymore. 

Wishing: For this summer to be mild. Look, I grew up here in northwest Washington state, and we prayed for 75 degree days as kids. My mother wouldn’t even let us get out the kiddie pool unless it was at least 70 out, and we would wait and wait and wait and wait for that to happen. Now, it isn’t uncommon to see 85+ degrees in June, and I’m just not loving this hot cycle the Earth seems to be in the last couple decades or so. I don’t miss the trials and tribulations of constant rain and island life, but I do miss the fact that it rarely got above 65. 

Laughing at: Kilian, still. Imogen can be funny, too, but Kilian is 100% the unintentional comedian of the family. I realized that the last time I posted one of these, I was also laughing at funny things he said. He’s almost five now, and I know if he were headed to public school (he isn’t, we are still homeschooling) I’d be perpetually worried about phone calls to report that our little class clown is being disruptive again. 

Occupying our time with: As much outside time as we can, and as little screen time as we can. We had a very rainy/cool spring, which led to more television time than I prefer, and now that the weather is getting nicer, I’m kicking the kids outside and forbidding the tv remote from being touched. 

Planning: Next school year. I’ll have a kindergartener and a 2nd grader, which kinda blows my mind a little bit. I’m nervous about schooling two and giving both the time and attention they need and deserve, and wondering how moms of multiple children manage to actually educate all their children properly. I have a few ideas but prayers for all our sanity are welcome. 

Life Lately #24

Hiya, strangers!

Reading: Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science by Dr. Jeff Meldrum. He is a professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University, and he’s an expert on footprint morphology in primates. You may or may not know this about me, but I’m a HUGE Bigfoot nerd. I have been for years. At this point in my “research” (if you can call it that), I’m pretty much fully convinced that Sasquatch exists as a flesh and blood animal. So, I’ve watched quite a few documentaries where Dr. Meldrum makes an appearance, and now I’ve finally gotten around to reading his book. I’m only a couple chapters in, but it’s fascinating. 

Watching: I just finished Mare of Easttown, and now I’m an episode into The Undoing. We subscribed to HBO Max for a month, and I’m trying to take advantage of it. Side note: I didn’t realize Philly folks had a specific accent. I’ve heard it before, and just thought that person talked a little differently. Apparently it’s a whole thing, and apparently Kate Winslet is some sort of magician because she went back and forth between her Philadelphia accent and her British accent in between takes, while the rest of the cast kept the accent because they were worried they’d lose it during filming. 

Baking: Not exactly baking, but I’ve been making a lot of caramels lately. I’m trying to perfect them but I may have to give it up til fall, because the heat we are having combined with no air conditioning means they don’t set up correctly. On a related note, it is supposed to be 100/108/108 on Friday/Saturday/Sunday and WHAT THE HECK. Pacific Northwesterners do rain and snow. We do not do extreme heat. 

Wanting: Central A/C. *sob*

Drinking: Tazo Passion Tea Lemonades a’la Starbucks, but made at home for a fraction of the cost and calories. Get some Tazo iced passion tea bags and a jug of low cal/light lemonade and go to town. Trust me on this. 

Eating: PEACHES. I can’t get enough of them lately. Ive been having one for a mid-morning snack almost every day lately and I’m still not sick of them.

Making: Soooooo many DIY birthday party decorations. Imogen has requested a jungle-themed birthday party and even though it’s hard to be motivated to really go crazy for a party where exactly one person is invited (my mom), I know she’d be disappointed if I didn’t do something. So, who wants to come help me cut 20 Monstera leaves out of construction paper and blow up 150 balloons for a balloon garland? 

Mad at: The housing market. Holy crap, guys. A modest 3 bedroom, 2 bath fixer-upper should NOT even come close to costing a half a million dollars and yet, here we are.

Thankful for: The grace and ability to keep two kids alive for the last 4 and 2 years, respectively. 

Laughing at: Kilian and the way he pronounces certain words. “My turn” is “why turn”, every single time. It doesn’t matter how many times I make him say “my” correctly, the minute that word is combined with “turn”, it comes out “WHY TURN!!” I’ll be sad when he stops saying it incorrectly because it’s just so funny.

He also had a piece of cheese the other day, took it to the living room and ran it over with a toy tractor, then came running and told me “Tractor take it from me!” when I asked why the cheese was stuck to the tractor’s wheels. 

Life Lately #23

 Reading: Currently, I'm about 3/4ths of the way through American Predator. It's pretty fascinating but definitely not for the faint of heart. I'll definitely need something a bit more light-hearted when I'm done reading it! Unfortunately, I think next up is The Last Year of the War by Susan Meissner. I definitely didn't think this through.

Watching: Kid shows. Always kid shows. Also, the new season of Expedition X just started back up on Discovery+ and Isaiah and I love us some Josh Gates.

Baking: Krumkake! I got my krumkake iron! In a really unexpected way, actually. Recently, a coworker of Isaiah's asked if I could make him and his wife a chocolate pecan pie if they paid me. I said of course, and all I wanted reimbursement for was the few ingredients I'd need to buy that I don't normally just keep around the house on a regular basis (semi-sweet chocolate baking bars, pecans, and light corn syrup). Long story short, I made the pie, they paid me for the ingredients, and then asked Isaiah if they could get me an Amazon gift card or something as extra thanks for my time, or if there was something I'd been wanting. Isaiah told them I'd been wanting a krumkake iron and they definitely did not have to, but if they wanted to get me a $10 gift card or something to put toward it, they could. Then, one evening last week, Isaiah shows up home from work with a big box. They bought me the iron. The whole thing. To say I was shocked and a little bit embarrassed is an understatement. Thrilled, of course, too. Anyway, as a thank you, I made a whole bunch of chocolate-dipped krumkake over the weekend and sent a bunch of them to work with Isaiah to give back to the guy and his wife that bought me the iron. So that's the semi-short version of why I've been making krumkake. 

Wishing: That kids never got sick. It's just so sad, for all involved. Their sanity, my sanity...

Wanting: Nothing much at the moment, but as soon as I think of something you'd better believe I'm going to have Isaiah drop the hint to his coworker the next time I bake them something. KIDDING. I'M KIDDING.

Drinking: Iced matcha tea lattes!! I don't know why, but I recently had a huge hankering for matcha. I ordered some matcha powder on Amazon, and have been making myself a big iced matcha latte every day while the kids nap. I do 2 cups of unsweetened almond milk and 2 teaspoons of matcha powder in the blender, plus a bit of sugar-free vanilla syrup to sweeten it. Blend it up nice and frothy, pour over ice. I've been trying not to make myself three of these a day, but it's been hard. 

Eating: Nothing fun, that's for sure. I'm doing a certain diet (after falling off the proverbial wagon for the last...4 months?) and I won't talk about it here, but let's just say it rhymes with schmeto. 

Thankful for: The gorgeous weather we've been having lately!! It's slowly been getting warmer, to the point that this weekend is supposed to be almost 80 degrees. It's going to slowly cool off again, it isn't full-blown summer yet, but we've been spending part of our mornings and evenings outside in the backyard or at the park, and this weekend we're going to drag out the water table for the kids to play in. Summer is on its way!

Laughing at: This meme. I'm sorry, I can't help it. I simply don't care about your vaccine or how many months it's been since you hugged someone.

On Social Media, or the Lack Thereof

I deleted Instagram the other day. Well, I didn't delete it, but I deactivated my account and deleted the app from my phone. For anyone who has known me for a long time, this isn't a new phenomenon. I've been known to be very fairweather friend-ish with my social media accounts, and even this blog. I've probably deactivated/reactivated my Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at least 3-4 times each. I've had at least five different blogs - with different titles - that I can think of off the top of my head, spanning a decade and a half. Generally, something will happen that frustrates me or otherwise annoys me, and I'll swear off any and all forms of internet social contact for a while. It's never been a thought-out, intentional act of defiance, more like...what am I even getting out of this, anyway? Meh. Bye.

My philosophy with social media is this: If it isn't benefitting you in some way, or otherwise enriching your life, then say goodbye to it. I deactivated/deleted Facebook (again) a while back for the same reason, and I haven't gone back. There were a few things that were helpful, like access to Marketplace for selling outgrown baby goods or a couple different groups I was in that were fun to peruse and contribute a comment to here or there, but overall, it was just a big source of stress.

Family members who don't care to actually have a relationship aside from occasionally "liking" a photo of my kids - or worse, intentionally ignoring them. Friend requests from people who weren't even really true acquaintances over a decade ago, just family members of classmates I never actually hung out with outside of required college functions. Mom groups full of photos of rashes and fights over things like organic vs. not or whose mother-in-law is the worst. Christian groups that are decidedly not very Christ-like, third-party-app-specific groups meant more for those who are drama-hungry than people actually seeking help for how to use the app, and so on and so forth. 

I wasn't getting anything out of it anymore. Anyone I care to stay in contact with, I already have their email addresses and phone numbers. I'll find another way to sell Kilian's outgrown infant car seat. 

Instagram started to feel the exact same way recently. I'm usually not the type of person to be insanely jealous of those who own homes and have money to remodel them (that'll be me again someday, just not today). I don't look at a perfectly curated photostream and compare my own life to filtered photos of just-cleaned gigantic living rooms and five acre perfectly mowed lawns and pristinely dressed children because I know that probably lasted about 4 minutes before the kids were fighting and someone spilled juice on themselves and mom lost her temper with the four-year-old and the dog barfed on the carpet for the third time that day. I am envious of, but not (too) discouraged by photos of women who bounced back to a size 4 after their fifth pregnancy. I don't begrudge married couples with kids who have an army of friends and family at their disposal so they can post monthly sans-children date-night photos - I'm envious and it makes me sometimes sad, but it doesn't anger me.

I don't have a terribly hard time keeping things in perspective, let's just say. I don't say that to brag about my emotional fortitude - just that my struggles are not anyone else's struggles, and theirs are not mine. And that's okay. There are other things about social media that do frustrate me, it's just in other ways than jealousy.

Also, people who are not actual, real-life friends likely don't refresh their feed three times a day hoping to see yet another photo of my children. People who don't know me don't care about my story feed where I'm baking another loaf of bread or posting another funny-probably-only-to-me meme. And, if I'm being completely and transparently honest...the same goes both ways. I love that my online acquaintances have kids, but I don't need to see three photos of them a day. I love that someone I met via blogging five years ago moved into a new house, but I never talk to them outside a photo "like" here or there and I have no personal investment in their renovation projects. It starts to feel like I'm spying on people and being spied upon, even though I know it's all completely voluntary. 

(Just to clarify, none of the above examples are referencing a single person in particular - they're just general examples of things that have crossed my mind. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.)

I don't tend to be an oversharer. I have struggles and things that upset me and family situations of my own, but I don't talk about them online. I may share via blog occasionally, but I feel like that's a better outlet than an easily misunderstood snippet via Instagram or Facebook. I'm already in regular outside contact with people I care about. I don't need multiple apps on my phone to help me check in with (or check up on) friends and acquaintances, and I especially don't need them to help me check up on people with whom I have absolutely no relationship.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating for deleting social media accounts simply so there's no accountability for keeping in touch with actual friends and family members. As I said, people with whom I have a true relationship, I have all their contact info and we regularly check in with each other. If social media isn't benefitting you, delete the social media - don't delete the people out of your life. That's not what I'm saying at all. This isn't about cutting out "toxic people" or however that phrase goes. 

Instead, it's about choosing to shift focus away from something that doesn't edify my mind or spirit, and instead focus more intently on things that do. More intentional time with my family. More time reading the Bible. More time building relationships with friends and family. More time reading books instead of scrolling through feeds. More time...blogging? (We'll see about that one.) It's just too easy to start checking social media apps hundreds of times a day, hoping for a distraction from the things of life that aren't so fun or interesting. 

So, for now, I've said goodbye to both Instagram and Facebook. I don't know if I'll be back this time or not. Maybe. Time will tell. But it won't be for a long while, at least. There are at least two or three times a day I almost grab my phone simply to check in with those two apps and then I remember they're no longer there.

It's actually been quite refreshing.

Life Lately #22

I swore when I started blogging again that I wasn't going to get into the rut of "Life Lately" posts again. But, here we are again. I just don't have anything terribly exciting (or tragic) to share, and this seems to be the easiest way to share a bunch of hodge-podge topics all at once without seeming too ridiculously disjointed. I don't have a picture for this post because all the photos I've taken recently have my childrens' faces in them, so enjoy this purely black and white Lately post.

Reading: I literally just finished Brave New World by Aldous Huxley last night. It was...weird. The beginning was interesting and bizarre because of the dystopian premise, the middle was a total slog to get through (I skimmed a lot) and the last chapter or two was kind of what I expected the rest of the book to be like, and it was better. I would probably recommend it just because it's been said to be the antithesis to Orwell's 1984, and I would agree with that assessment. I'll just warn you that it's not exactly an easy or enjoyable read. Winston (1984) is at least a somewhat sympathetic character. There just isn't one in Brave New World. I hated everyone. Maybe that's the point.

Watching: The new season of The Masked Singer on Hulu. It's enjoyable if you like listening to masked celebrities sing so you can try and guess who they are, based on a bunch of clues they give throughout the season. Just once, though, I want a complete stranger to be inside the costume when they take it off at elimination and reveal who they are. I just want to see the confusion on the judges' faces when they're like, "...and who are you???" 

Listening to: This Spotify playlist. It's maintained by Redeemer Bible Church in AZ (Costi Hinn's church, if you know who that is) and I really like it. Takes the work out of putting my own "God music" (Imogen's term for worship music) playlists together. If you can call it "work." 

Baking: These lemon rolls this weekend. Isaiah has a coworker who is retiring so they're having a retirement party. It gives me an excuse to bake and not have to eat. As a friend asked me recently, "Is baking your stress release?" Yes. One hundred percent, yes.

Wishing: That the internet at large would be a little more sensitive toward moms who stay at home with their kids with no help from family or friends and who haven't had a solo date with their husband in over two years. (Me. That mom is me.) I've honestly thought about writing a whole blog post on this topic before, but I can't think of a way to express myself that doesn't come across as angry and jealous. I mean, I might be a little jealous (working on it!) but I'm not angry. I'm just sad, and frustrated. I'll leave it at that for now, because one of these days I just might get angsty enough to write that post. It's not just everyone else's monthly date nights and childless weekend getaways that get to me, it's feeling alone in motherhood in general. And I know some people have it even worse than we do - though I don't see how it gets worse than literally never getting a solo date with your husband, ever - but I'm sure it's possible. 

Thankful: That Kilian is getting better all the time at communication. We still have our typical early-toddler struggles, like crying in the car because he's hungry and doesn't understand why he can't eat now, instead of five minutes from now when we get home, but it's getting better all the time. He's starting to put two words together fairly consistently, and it's so fun. "Mommy come" and "Sissy play" and things of that nature. Now, if only he would get better at eating. He is absolutely not the adventurous eater that his sister was, and still is. That girl will try just about anything once, and insists that she is "the only girl in the world who loves spicy food." Kilian won't even put something in his mouth if he doesn't already know that he likes it. Makes for some super fun family dinners. Not.

Laughing at: The Cinnamon Toast Crunch Shrimp-Gate saga. If you haven't seen this, it is both completely disgusting and utterly hilarious. You just can't do any better than Jensen Karp, married to Danielle Fishel, finding shrimp tails in his cereal box (get it?). I'm dying to see what comes of this.