The week

Argh, somehow a whole week has passed yet again since I’ve posted. 😦

This was a good week, though! It felt quite full, but I felt like for the most part, the pieces fit together decently well. (Well, besides any blogging windows, I guess.) I really tried to more intentionally PLAN the week (more than some weeks, anyway) and I do think it paid off.

Friday– Backing up… Last week was a stressful/ not-as-good week, so I was relieved to have a nice open evening + Mexican food night. In honor of the upcoming Mexican Independence Day (Sept 16th), I decided to wear my favorite bought-in-Mexico attire: this cute dress I bought in Tepotzlan.

We’ve been having HOT SUMMER WEATHER, and I actually haven’t worn this dress at all this summer, I don’t think! Gotta wear all the summer attire before the cold weather moves in (probably soon….).

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Saturday– A good day. Asher had to work at 7:00 a.m., so I drove him there and then went in and sat and caught up on my blog reading!! This was nice.

At 10 am Ethan had a soccer game, so Ivan and I went to that. It was HOT.

Ivan left at half time to go to his own soccer game. His “viejitos” league was playing in the quarterfinals. (That’s a nicer sounding way of saying “old man’s league”… lol.)

After Ethan’s game, he and I grabbed some lunch quick, and then raced over to Ivan’s game to try to catch part of it. We really only caught the tail end, but we got to see Ivan score two goals! This was very fortuitous timing, as the final score was only 3-1, and we caught 2 of the 3 goals!

The rest of Saturday afternoon was pretty chill. I made some brownies, worked out (cardio, at home), made a grocery list and meal plan for the week, did some general house stuff, etc.

At about 6 pm Ivan and I left for his cousin’s house on the West side of town. The boys didn’t join us this time…. Ethan stayed home and had his cousin sleep over at our house; we dropped Asher at a friend’s house for a little pool party.

But Ivan’s cousin + wife were hosting a little “Dia de Independencia” party, sort of. Actually, the main purpose was because Mexico City’s Club America soccer team was playing Guadalajara’s Chivas- big rivals. (And America is Ivan’s home team/ he rarely misses a game.) After that, Mexican boxing superstar Canelo was fighting a Puerto Rican boxer in Las Vegas, and his cousin was streaming the fight.

So, we went over there for the night and it was a lot of fun! His cousin made pozole (verde) and we watched both the game + the fight and chatted and hung out. We didn’t leave until after midnight (past my bedtime, but you know, people don’t actually turn into pumpkins if they stay up a little late occasionally. 🙂 )

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Sunday– A productive yet enjoyable day!

“Slept in” very moderately after the late night- ha, not really….and went outside on the deck to read for a bit. It was an amazing weather morning.

Then walked Charlie with Ivan, and we put the Packers game on at noon. I decided to multi-task and did a bunch of decluttering/ cleaning out stuff while simultaneously watching the game. It felt soooo nice to get this done!

Later I got a much overdue big grocery haul, went to the gym, etc.

Ivan made homemade nachos for dinner and before bed Ivan and I watched an episode of Emily in Paris.

All in all, a good weekend this time. I feel like I’m finally sort of “settling down” after having constant houseguests this summer and feeling a little more human again.

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Monday– I had our quarterly “in person work gathering”. We met up for coffee/ tea at this cool local outdoor place as a team, in part to welcome a new nurse/team member who just joined our team. She, her husband, and baby are moving up to Wisconsin from Florida for this job, and they were in town looking at houses for the weekend.

It was nice! We all spent from 10-12 chatting and catching up, not through a screen, for a change. Not to mention, not a bad deal to get paid to go out for coffee. 🙂

I had to actually work the rest of the afternoon. Rest of the evening was pretty standard. Walk the dog, make dinner (I made these parmesan crusted pepperoni/mozzarella grilled cheese sandwiches (big hit with the boys) with french fries and salad), Ivan did the volleyball driving and I went to the gym. (Due to work outing, couldn’t fit in during the day.)

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Tuesday-

Gorgeous morning for 7 am dog walk (our weather has been soooooooo amazing!!!), then typical work day (busy day).

Squeezed in my cardio on my lunch break, then more work, squeeze in short dog walk before leaving for Ethan’s soccer game on the far side of Madison… (~40 minute drive…). I met up with Ivan there. This basically ate up the entire evening. I’m grateful to Asher’s VB teammate’s dad for driving him home, since we were gone!

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Wednesday- This is Ethan’s late start day, so he gets to sleep in. This makes it a good day for me to do a morning gym workout. I did Legs from 6:30-7:30, walked the dog/ saw the kids and then opted to skip a shower (for now) and just get to work.

Rest of the day was just work, as usual, with a quick lunch time shower break.

At 5:00 I had to leave with Asher for his home volleyball game. It was Parent’s Night, so Ivan met us there. It unfortunately wasn’t their best game (probably the worst I’ve seen them play so far, actually! Oh well, it happens).

We ended up stopping by McDonald’s for 50 cent double cheeseburgers on the way home (some sort of special in the app for the day- they are usually not 50 cents!). We went to the one the boys work at and they gave Asher some free fries. 😉

By the time we got home it was after 8 pm, so, felt like the day was basically over and I was losing steam fast.

However, Ivan and I still took Charlie out for a walk. It was dark, so we used his NEW light up collar that was so sweetly and amazingly sent to me by NGS!! This made my week. She had mentioned light up dog collars on her post recently, and I commented that I wanted to get one for Charlie, so she bought me one and had it shipped to my house!!!! How incredible is that. ♥ Blog friends for the win. Seriously!!!

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Thursday- The most aggravating day of the week, because despite trying to start working earlier than usual (due to an afternoon haircut appt), I found that our internet was totally down.

I spent way too long attempting to fix it, on the phone with the internet people + router support… basically to find out that it was a router issue. But, our router was out of warranty, so if I wanted any “tech support”, I could have it… with the purchase of a $100/ year tech support plan. Hmm. How much does it cost to just buy a new router?!

Long story short, Ivan was my hero yesterday. Possibly just out of annoyance by my frequent texts/calls to him at work, but he drove ALL the way home from work (opposite side of town), went to Best Buy, bought a new router, came home, installed it all, and then went back to work! Therefore, I was able to attend my important noon meeting!! Yay!!

It was a rather wonky day, though, since I had a 3:30 haircut/color appt.

After driving Asher to VB at 5:45, then making air fryer salmon/ mashed potatoes/ green beans and walking Charlie, I ended up logging back on to work for a while later in the evening.

We’ve been watching an episode of the newest season of Emily in Paris most nights for the past couple weeks (feels SO NICE to be back to watching a little TV… we really didn’t watch any while Ivan’s mom was here, and I truly, truly love collapsing into bed at night and watching a show in my dark, comfy room before bed.)

Sadly, we just finished the final episode last night, so now we’ll have to wait… what, another year or more before Season 5 comes out?? 😦 I kind of wish they would release them one episode per week, ala original TV style. When they come all in a big chunk, it’s too easy to basically binge watch and then they’re just DONE so fast!

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Friday- And now, it’s Friday again!

Working today, obviously, and then tonight Ivan and I have tickets to the UW Badgers women’s volleyball game! A friend was giving them away so I scooped them up.

Ethan is heading out of town at noon with his soccer team for an overnight in Milwaukee area, and Asher is going to the high school football game tonight. It’s his high school vs the other HS from our city- so will be a packed house and exciting, I’m sure!

We have ~today and tomorrow left with 80+ degree weather before we’ll finally dip our toes into fall weather. Looks like a long upcoming stretch with highs in the 60s and low 70s.

Maybe I’ll actually put up some fall decor this weekend. I have NOT felt in the fall headspace at ALL, since it’s been full sunshine and 85 degrees every day. Sunday though it’s supposed to be cooler and rainy, I think- definitely more fall vibes!

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Friday Funnies:

And, a few things I saved this week that made me chuckle:

This weekend…. I have a list of about 5,000 things I want/need to do, so, check back next week to see how that goes. LOL.

#1 on the list is to figure out a dress for my niece’s quincanera!!!! I have literally zero desire to do this, but alas, it must happen. Also, I leave for Nashville a week from Monday, and have just various things to make happen before then, too.

I also feel just mildly tired right now- we had a lot of busy evenings this past week! And we are headed out again tonight. Hoping maybe Saturday night can be a chill night tomorrow??

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful to NGS for sending the light up dog collar! Charlie looks SO CUTE with a fluorescent green ring around his neck, and not to mention, it’s so much safer to have him lit up!! Thank you Engie!!!