Perfect weekend

Well, my ~5 day blogging streak last week was nice while it lasted! Ha. I then swiftly rebounded with a 5 day no blogging streak. 🤷‍♀️ In part, I was just busy doing other things, and also, I’m not sure my “modified” Whole 30 is really quite as interesting!

I had the NICEST weekend, though!! I needed a weekend like that. The weather was picture perfect, the boys, surprisingly, did not have to work, and it had relaxation, connection and productivity all at the same time. It filled my cup!

Highlights:

Friday:

I ended work by 3:30 and decided to clean the house then, instead of our usual Saturday. This was a GAME-CHANGER! I deep cleaned the kitchen, sunroom and living room, and having that all perfectly spotless and sparkling clean heading into the long weekend felt amazing.

I talked to my dad on the phone while I cleaned and had the windows open and it was perfectly enjoyable, too.

I’m seriously considering trying to shift my work hours to more of a 7-3:30 schedule on Fridays this summer instead of my usual 8-5 and try to do this every week. (Well, we usually only really clean every other week, but could do a “house refresh/reset” the opposite week.)

Just remembering I already blogged about my Friday in my last Whole 30 post, so I guess I can fast forward- we went out for Mexican and I ate CHIPS. hahaha.

Saturday:

Ivan had soccer at 11 on Saturday, which meant I had a big chunk of the day on my own. Not complaining! He did all the laundry before he left, and I sat in the sunroom on a beautiful morning and worked on a little Copenhagen planning, did a yoga video, walked Charlie, took a shower.

Asher had asked if we (just me and him) could go out for breakfast at this local diner that he had never been to. I am not really a “breakfast food” person- I mean, it’s okay, but I never crave breakfast out at all and very rarely go out to breakfast- but the idea of something out of the ordinary + time with Asher, of course, sounded great.

This was super fun! It ended up being a bit later, more like brunch.

I got this VERY tasty egg scramble skillet with hashbrowns, spinach, cherry tomatoes, peppers and chicken (held the cheese!):

I brought my Copenhagen book + notebook along and we sat and chatted about things to do there and what he was interested in. Asher was searching “things to do in Copenhagen” on TikTok and ended up finding some super cool ideas- including a Happiness Museum!!! Definitely hitting that up.

I am getting really excited about Copenhagen. I knew almost nothing about it before we started planning, but it turns out- it looks like an AMAZING place for kids/ teens! I think the boys are going to love it.

Our waitress saw the book and got all excited and said she had been there recently and that in her opinion, “it’s the most underrated place in Europe!!” She raved about it and said it’s one of her favorite places she’s ever been! Yay! 🙂

After brunch I took Asher to the golf range to hit balls for a while.

At home in the afternoon, I spent a long time changing around my closet (winter -> summer). I tried to do another pass at decluttering clothes…. ugh. Still so hard for me. I dislike how much time in a year I end up spending fuddling around with my clothing!! (The closest switch part is just a necessary reality here because my closet is SMALL, but in general, I still feel like TOO much energy + effort goes to managing my clothes! Argh.)

I read a good tip online recently about clothes decluttering. It said: Take any “maybe” items (ie. not a favorite but ones you’re on the fence if you want to keep or not), put them in a basket and WEAR THEM right away that week. Usually one of two things will happen. Either, 1) when you go to put it on, you’ll think, eh, I don’t really feel like wearing this (which is your clue to ditch it) or 2) you’ll realize quickly throughout the day if you actually like how it looks/feels on you or not. This is different from just trying it on for a couple minutes for a quick mirror check.

I thought this was really smart! Sometimes I’ll keep an older item that “still looks fine” when I try it on, but when I go to actually wear it all day, I just feel like, I don’t know, it feels…. old and dingy and meh.

Anyway! Then I did some other cleaning up/ straightening my room, Ethan cut the grass and Ivan cleaned our master bathroom. Asher cleaned out his closet.

In the evening we ate leftovers and walked Charlie through the park, went in the hot tub and then Ivan and I watched an episode of We Were the Lucky Ones on Hulu. (Thanks Birchie for the heads up about this!) I read this book a couple years ago and it was sooo good. It’s a WWII (true) story about a large Jewish family that gets all split up around the globe during the war and is fighting to survive, so not exactly uplifting, but this limited series is also SO GOOD!! Highly recommend.

Sunday:

On Sunday Asher asked me to take him fishing early, before 8 am. This kid sure loves fishing! He set an alarm and went off on his own, not even with a friend!

I puttered around a bit more reading stuff about Copenhagen, and then at 10 am Ivan and I started some yard work. We had to prep the ground and plant a bunch of grass seed in a big area in our front yard (plus some other smaller spots) where the grass.will.not.grow. We have a big, beautiful tree, but it’s just TOO shady and dense. A mulch/island wouldn’t really work there, given the layout, so it’s very frustrating!

We spent about 2 hours out there working but got it done. Happy to check that off. Now, praying some grass actually grows…. please…..

While we did that, the boys each cleaned the other two bathrooms.

Then we continued on our “no cook weekend” 🤣 and decided to all go to Chipotle. It’s rare that both boys are home on a weekend at lunch these days! We all went and this was great. I got a 1/2 chicken, 1/2 steak burrito bowl (no cheese) with brown rice, lettuce, salsa, peppers and a little guac.

From there, we stopped at Dick’s Sporting Goods. Ivan had a return, Asher did a simulator to try out new golf drivers, and I tried on my two front runner choices for some Adidas Spezials that I had been eyeing online.

They had both in stock!! I actually love them both- and I really do love the light blue ones….. but I think I’m going with the black stripes. I already technically own a couple of lighter, neutral sneakers (I have white Nikes with a baby blue swoosh) and could use some that coordinate better with black. Eh, who knows, maybe eventually I’ll get both. LOL.

We then made an impromptu stop at Old Navy. Ethan needed jeans for his new Panera job. He actually did not even own jeans, because he basically lives in sweatpants or shorts and has no desire to ever wear jeans unless he has to. (He does have khakis and black pants.)

Jeans are kind of the bane of my existence, so it was amusing (and a bit annoying) to see him try on our first guess at his waist x length size, in the very first style he tried (90s Straight) and have them fit absolutely perfectly. Ha. One and done. Ohhh must be nice.

Asher ended up getting some new jeans, too.

We then swung by the grocery store so Ivan could buy beer for watching the big soccer game final at night, where we ran into an old coworker/ friend of mine and her boyfriend, who I’d never met but had heard a lot about! We all stood in the parking lot and talked for 20 minutes and it was a delightful surprise.

Saturday evening Asher went out fishing again (this time a friend picked him up) and Ethan went to a movie with a group of 5 friends!

I went to the gym (empty and wonderful), walked Charlie and then at 8 pm we watched the América (from Mexico City) vs Toluca game (sadly, América lost 0-2, but on the plus side, it made Ivan feel relieved that he did not splurge and fly down for the games, as he was contemplating. (This is kind of equivalent to like, the Superbowl of Mexican soccer.)

Monday:

Monday the weather was just gorgeous. I was so relieved to have this 3rd day off. These low key long weekends always make me reeeeeeally wish I could work just 80% FTE and have an extra day off each week…. sigh. Everything felt better with 3 days off! 2 just goes WAY too fast, trying to squeeze in chores + laundry + groceries + family + activities + exercise + oh, yeah, some relaxing, too…

We had tea/ coffee out on the deck with Mr. Charles enjoying the sunshine, too.

By 10 am though we packed up and headed out. We had plans to meet up with Ivan’s cousin + others at a nearby State park.

We spent the whole day on the little beach area, which, when we arrived, was surprisingly totally empty!

The weather was a tad cool- upper 60s to start, probably, but upwards of 70 later- but plenty warm (even hot feeling sometimes) in the sun.

We’d all packed coolers with sandwich fixings, and some people brought chips, fruit, etc. Low key and easy!

I snapped these cool pics of Asher fishing:

Later he took one of their two kayaks out to the middle of the lake and came back with a fishy!

Ethan kayaked too, and later I took a turn.

Quick shoutout to my LL Bean Camp Vista joggers. I feel so passionately about these pants! They are THE BEST for outdoor activities. Super lightweight and cool, yet durable, comfy, and they dry in about 5 minutes flat. I bought them for Costa Rica and they are so good. They come in full length, jogger, crop and even shorts. (The joggers are more of a crop length on me, but oh well.)

It honestly felt SO GOOD to be out in nature, on the water, in the sunshine. It had been a long time since we’d really done anything like this! Especially coming off the cold winter. It really refreshed my soul!

The boys played a lot of random soccer and volleyball and we hung around with the adults.

At one point Ivan and I took a short walk:

Here are Ethan and his cousin on the paddle boards:

We were home sometime between 5- 6 pm, I think, and walked Charlie, watered the grass seed, then went in the hot tub again before watching another We Were the Lucky Ones. After that we watched a Ted Lasso ep with the boys (we dropped off after London and need to finish up end of Season 3!) before bed.

It was such a lovely weekend!!! 🥰🥰

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful for a day spent outside.