Looking back at what I wrote in last Sunday’s post, I feel like I can basically say “ditto”. As evidenced by my lack of posting, this past week also felt rather hectic.
Again, on paper it sort of wasn’t, really? So, I don’t know. I think it was mostly just that my work days were hectic, with lots of meetings and mental load. (CMS did not show up for our regulatory survey this past week, though… which means now it could be this upcoming week…argh. Let’s just get it over with.)
Also, I prefer it when my lunch breaks can include a little down time, but this week most of my lunch breaks were eaten up by other things (see below). That can make me feel a little “off”.
There were some fun things + highlights + milestones this week too, though. Let’s run through the week (and… outfits! haha.).
P.S. Today marks 8 weeks with no soda! Obviously I have not yet completely forgotten about it, or I suppose I wouldn’t feel the need to keep bringing it up here. Ha. But, yay! I’m keeping on keeping on, even though sometimes it sucks…
Sunday
Sunday morning I spent over an hour pulling weeds in our front yard landscaping. I feel like “weed pulling” takes up significant time in my life in the summer! Yet I don’t hear many people talk about this. ARE OTHER PEOPLE PULLING WEEDS?! I’m not talking about weeds in the grass (we do have a lawn service for this); I’m talking about all of our landscaping beds (which basically line the entire perimeter of our house and then other island areas, too).
At noon Ivan and I met up with my parents at a storage unit near their new house. They’re temporarily renting it to start moving some things this way that they want to personally move (vs. the movers). They got the keys and we helped them unload a whole vanload of things (that I’d helped them pack up on Saturday).
From there Ivan and I headed to another graduation party, this time at a local park pavilion.
This is what I wore. It was a hot day!
The party was very nice and we chatted with some swim families, etc. until after 3 pm.
Spent the rest of the afternoon after that doing some household admin stuff and then finally fit my gym workout in at 6 pm when Ivan went to soccer. Barely saw the boys this day because Ethan worked like 12-9! and Asher also lifeguarded all afternoon.
Monday
On Monday I was mostly expecting that CMS would show up at any time and I’d get called to the hospital.
Thankfully they did NOT show up, because Charlie had a grooming appt at 1:15. Driving to drop him off, and later pick him up, ate up any “lunch break” time that I would have allotted myself…
I worked until about 5:30 and then immediately changed and did my home cardio workout (~35 minutes) before dinner.
We got a HUGE rainstorm at night. The weather was tumultuous this past week! I think Ivan and I watched 2 episodes of El Rey before bed that night, also.
Tuesday
Tuesday morning I did an early morning gym workout at about 6:30. Full body #1. It was good, though I am grumpy because my usually quiet time slot is suddenly BUSY! It seems lots of college kids are back in town. That must be a popular time for them to work out before going off to summer jobs, etc?? 😏
Tuesday was my slowest meeting day- really no planned on camera meetings, just a Grand Rounds to attend- plus it was HOT, so I went very casual on Tuesday.
This tee actually has light grey stripes, but not sure they show up well in this pic.
Tuesday was my one day that I was “free” during my lunch break time, so I prepped dinner then- I made parmesan crusted red potatoes and garlic lemon butter salmon + a salad.
After work I was happy that both my workout AND dinner were already taken care of, so I used another 1.5 hours of the evening to PULL MORE WEEDS. 😩 Got a ton done but my back was killing me after.
Ethan was gone a lot this week wrapping up his last week of tennis, and Asher has been living at the golf course (when not working etc.) to use his new unlimited golf membership. (Technically these were Asher’s last few days of school, but all actual school stuff was already done, so he was very much in “summer mode” already.)
Wednesday
Wednesday morning I took Charlie on the long loop walk through the park. It was HOT and gorgeous out at 7:15 a.m.
I had a big meeting I had to present at Wednesday morning, so I wore a nicer sleeveless blouse on top with black shorts.
My quiet, post-“morning full of meetings” lunch hour when I was again planning to prep dinner got derailed.
I had just started chopping some onions to start a chicken + rice soup when my sister-in-law stopped by to drop something off (with her 9 month old baby). We got talking for a long while, and then in the middle of it, Asher and his friend showed up (there was an optional end of school year picnic that they left early).
Right then, a massive thunderstorm rolled through, with crazy high winds and tornado sirens. We all (including Asher’s friend and my sister-in-law and the baby!) ended up in the basement waiting the storm out.
Unfortunately, our magnolia tree didn’t survive the storm:
Our fence also sustained damage, though fortunately Ivan was able to fix that.
So much for my soup-making…. After all of that, I had to get back to work!
I ended up skipping my planned post-work workout (made the soup instead). It was still a gloomy/ rainy evening, and the boys were away (again- indoor tennis + work), so Ivan and I had a spontaneous candlelight dinner at our kitchen table! No photos, but it was really nice. Soup + crusty bread + salad + music + candles. Haha. All on a Wednesday night! 🙂
I then made lemon bars after dinner and did my monthly sort/back up of all my May photos while Ivan ran to the hardware store to get screws to fix the fence.
We walked Charlie after the rain cleared, I read a bit more of Nicole’s book Inhale, Exhale, and then caught the crazy exciting Knicks come back before bed!!
Thursday
I had a bunch of meetings on Thursday, but nothing too formal.
The World Cup was kicking off in MEXICO with Mexico vs South Africa, so in honor of that, I decided to wear my Mexico soccer shirt. 🙂 (For my meetings I just threw my UW Health black zip up over it, which is dress-code compliant! ;))
I spent my lunch break running to the pharmacy and picking up a library hold.
Unfortunately I had a meeting during the game, but I did turn it on in the rec room and occasionally peeked out at the score. They won, 2-0!
On Thursday evening, I did my skipped Wednesday home workout (decided to swap my usual rest day from Friday to Wednesday and then shift my normal Thurs gym workout to Friday.).
I also made pork tenderloin in the oven along with some mashed potatoes and stuffing. Ha. Apparently, my meal plan thinks it’s fall. 😅 (Mostly I was just trying to use up some things we had on hand to avoid buying groceries before our trip!)
I then spent almost 2 hours, until after 8 pm, dealing with a bunch of my old stuff my parents had sent home with me (that had been sitting in my van all week). Some things needed to go in my storage room, others to the attic, some in the garage, some needed to be sorted…
I was supposed to play volleyball at 9:20 p.m. (ewwww…). Thankfully, it was cancelled due to storms. The idea of playing sand volleyball in wet sand + with a bunch of newly hatched mosquitoes (after all the rain…) and at 9:20 p.m. did not sound particularly fun! haha.
Ended the evening with a quick Charlie walk with Ivan and watching some more World Cup.
Oh, and Thursday was also Asher’s official last day of 10th grade! Here’s his before and after pics:
I failed to take a last day of 11th grade pic for Ethan (and he ended almost a month ago now!), but here’s one from around his last day, at a tennis match:
On to 11th and 12th grades!! omg.
Friday
On Friday I had meetings all morning which annoyed me, because I prefer Fridays to more of a catch up/ plan ahead/ WORK day, not a big meeting day.
Felt lazy and just wore a cuter top on top and my Vuori Halo wide leg pants on the bottom. I wish these didn’t have that little Vuori symbol on the hip because it makes them look a lot more like lounge wear (which, I guess, they are… haha).
I am noticing that this was not really the most inspired week of outfits, but oh well. Could be worse.
On Friday I did my Full Body Strength #2 on my lunch hour at the gym. I like this particular workout a lot. It involves single leg leg presses which really targets the muscles differently than the normal 2-leg version.
I also squeezed in a few phone calls that had been lingering on my list all week- rescheduling a couple doctor/ dentist appts.
After work I did a quick cleanup of the house, wiped down the boys’ bathroom shower door, and dealt with storing a bunch of my off-season clothes that I had dumped on the guest room bed weeks ago. My parents were coming to town Friday evening overnight for Ethan’s State tennis on Saturday, so, time to finally clear the guest room bed! lol.
I finished all that, walked Charlie, and then my parents showed up and Ivan got home.
I threw on different clothes- the U.S. was playing their first World Cup game vs Paraguay. I do not own any USA soccer gear, so I dug out this tank that I normally only wear on the 4th of July:
It is fun that we can root for multiple teams! Mexico Thursday, U.S.A. Friday. 🙂
We went out for Mexican with my parents and Ethan met us there after tennis practice.
The bleach had finally fully grown out of his hair from soccer season….and then his tennis team decided to highlight tips in their hair for State. 😩 Thankfully, one of his teammates’ aunts is a professional hairdresser, so she did it for free. It looks MUCH BETTER this time, done by a professional (and it’s only highlights, not his whole head!!!). I actually don’t mind how it looks on him like this.
But what is it with high school boys wanting to dye their hair for sports playoffs?!
The game started while we were there:
My mom caught this funny, NOT posed pic of the 3 of us looking up at the game in identical positions. 😆
Saturday
Finally, Saturday.
The main event of this week was Ethan’s STATE TEAM TENNIS tournament!!
His first match was at 9 am, in downtown Madison at the UW tennis facility.
Phew, it was a very intense day. He and his teammate won their first match in a heart-attack inducing 3rd set tie-breaker!
It was frankly, awesome. His whole team, other parents, etc. were all cheering and yelling and it was just super intense!
This was the TEAM State event- think like, the Team Event in Figure Skating or Gymnastics in the Olympics. Between him + his doubles partner and the other singles/ doubles teams, they needed to win a combined certain number of matches to move on to the final round in the afternoon.
Excitingly, they did it!!
We had a few hours off in the middle during which Ivan ran to play his 12:00 soccer game and my parents and I stopped at Chipotle and ran into Macy’s to browse their bedding section (my mom considering options for their new bedroom).
The Championship match round started at 2 pm. It was again crazy intense.
Ethan and his doubles partner came out from the long break looking like they possibly forgot how to play tennis during their time off. 😆 They just looked flat and sluggish and were making soooo many dumb mistakes. They lost the first set. Fortunately, they came back to life in set #2 and won that one, which sent them to yet another tie-breaker set #3. omg!! So stressful.
They eeked out yet another victory in the tie-breaker set!! It was awesome. I was so happy when it was over though, haha. Just WAY too stressful!
Their team needed to win 4 of 7 matches to take the majority to win the State title. (Ethan and his partner checked off 1 of the wins.) We then settled in to watch the remaining matches that were still going on. After a couple of other wins and losses from his team, it basically came down to their #2 Doubles match and the #2 singles match, both happening concurrently. We needed at least 1 of these teams to win in order for his team to take home the Team State title.
The 2 Singles player is Ethan’s BFF, so we mostly watched him. Both matches were nail biters, going into tie-break rounds. Finally we heard the opponent fans cheering across the way at the other court, indicating that the 2 Doubles team had lost. SHOOT! Now it was down to Ethan’s friend’s match (#2 singles), still in progress. He was playing his heart out and was in the 3rd set tie breaker round by this point.
Unfortunately, his nerves were pretty shot. It was a super close and super high stakes match, and his body language showed that he was very stressed. He was up I think 6-2 in the tie-breaker though- so close to the win! First one to 10 wins the tie breaker.
SADLY, his opponent managed to turn the table and beat him, 10-7. Ethan’s friend collapsed on the court in despair- his loss meant that Ethan’s entire team took 2nd, or State Runner Up, instead of the State Champion title. 😭 (Well, not really- I mean, it wasn’t only up to him! If any of the other pairs or singles who lost had won, that would have also made the key difference! But in this moment, it felt like the final weight of it was all on his shoulders….Poor guy.)
I felt SO BAD for him!! He was in tears, clearly absolutely destroyed by this.
What a huge bummer, after being soooo close. Oh well! Such is life, right?
I’m so proud of the incredible season Ethan and his partner had. I think they only lost 1 match the entire season! He has improved so much and played so hard and had SO much fun this season! I’m sad for him that it’s over. This tennis group is the best bunch of boys ever- they’re all so close.
My parents headed home after this, and Ivan and I decided to go out on State St. to watch the Brazil vs. Morocco World Cup game. I was still full from my Chipotle burrito bowl, but Ivan ate and I joined him with not 1 but 2 Coronas, lol, and I stole a few of his waffle fries. 😝
Unfortunately the Brazil game was a little meh, just not that exciting as we’d expected. Neymar was out injured, too. They tied, 1-1.
And that’s a wrap on my week and my outfits. 🙂
Now on to a new week, which has potential to be a little wacky… Gotta get ready for vacay, leaving on Friday afternoon with NO wiggle room to get ready (literally working up until time to head to the airport… ha. I know…). CMS survey could happen at work. I’m going to Garth Brooks on Tuesday! Ivan is already making plans to watch as much World Cup as he can, including Argentina on Tuesday and Mexico on Thursday (while also still hopefully being ready for our trip…). Charlie has to get across town to Ivan’s cousin’s, and I badly need a pedicure. Still have polish on my toes from our last trip…. and my heels look like alligator skin. ha. I also need to pack.
Not sure a lot of blogging will fit in this week, but we’ll see! Have a great week, if not! 🙂
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful for the fun of watching worldwide sporting events! So fun.
GRATEFUL KAE 
OH THAT POOR KID!!! What a hard way for that tournament to end. I always have to remind myself that SOMEONE has to lose. If Ethan’s team had won, the other team would have been devastated. Still- we always wish it wouldn’t be our kids to be disappointed. And- runner up is still awesome. But yes, it doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
Ethan’s hair looks good! Meanwhile my daughter is getting ready to dye her hair a bright teal. So… consider yourself lucky.
Nice job getting your workouts in this week. It does sound like an extra-busy week, but also fun. Your outfits all look cute, and I like all the team-appropriate shirts.
I keep meaning to ask- Did Charlie lose the weight he gained last time you went away? Do you have a plan in place for this time, or are you just hoping for the best?
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I know, it was so sad!!
HAHA about the teal hair. Yeah, I think I would not want him to have teal hair for his upcoming senior pics! lol.
Charlie did seem to settle back down to his normal weight eventually. In fairness, he was due for a haircut after that last trip, so cutting off all his curls gives him an instantly slimmer look, lol. But I weighed him several times and he also was at the vet for his teeth cleaning recently, and his weight was a good couple pounds down from the peak after that trip. I think he could still maybe “ideally” be a smidge lighter, but he seems to be okay. Unfortunately, no real plan for this trip…. I asked Ivan if he could please at least TRY to talk to his cousin about the concern- like, maybe the other dogs don’t really NEED food down the entire day?? I don’t know. I actually don’t know that Charlie would just sit and eat and eat all day, either- I’m sure he’d get full eventually- but I definitely think he would happily eat like a double portion at each meal, haha. In the end, this trip is about 10 days, which isn’t super short but not like we’ll be gone for a month! So whatever happens I suppose we’ll deal with it.
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I never ever pull weeds…but I do not think you want your yard to look like mine hahaha. It definitely shows. Well, in fairness, my husband does SOMETIMES pull weeds but still we as a household definitely do not prioritize our yard looking that nice and we have a lot more weeds than we should and probably should devote a tad more time to pulling them! We live on an urban street with a teeny tiny front yard so I tell myself that as long as it doesn’t look too terrible in the front it’s fine.
State runners-up is still huge; hopefully they have a lot of returning players next year for Ethan’s senior season and can make another run at the championship??
Can’t wait for your trip recaps–I hope you have a great time! Hope the Charlie situation works out well too. I didn’t fill you in on our latest dog sitting drama from our South Dakota trip. As you know, we can’t seem to find a consistent dog sitting situation that works for our bigger dog, Uno, who really needs two long walks a day to maintain good behavior/sanity. Well, I ended up hiring the younger sister of one of my friends who recently moved back to town and (supposedly) has dog sitting experience. She stayed at our house and was fine but there were some annoyances, and my sister who lives next door had to come over every morning and evening to leash AND unleash the dog for walks and reported that basically the dog sitter seemed pretty scare of our dog? Sigh. She’s not the easiest dog in the world and can be slow to warm up to people but this seems excessive. Anyway, we have a four day trip to NYC over a long weekend in October planned and I’m already dreading the next dog sitting drama!
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Haha, well, ours just seem… very noticeable!! We have these white/ grey rocks in the front in a big bed right off the driveway, and these big creepy/ spready weeds sprout up in there and just are so visible! We get a lot in this rock area by our front patio, too, and even up between the patio blocks, etc. It’s so annoying!
For tennis next year, I’m not sure yet. There actually weren’t too many seniors, so that’s good, BUT it sounds like there’s a chance they may get moved up to D1 next year for tennis? I’m not sure how it works- Ethan said something about because their team won Sectionals, they might have to go up a level? Which doesn’t make total sense- like, you get punished in a sense for doing well? The competition at D1 would likely be harder so I am sure a State title would be a lot more difficult. But I don’t really know!
That sucks about the dog sitter thing!!! So she was fine with the dog except for putting the leash on?? That seems kind of weird! Definitely doesn’t sound like the perfect fit if the sitter is afraid of the dog! (I assume he’s friendly/ not likely to actually bite her?) What a big stressor!! Ugh I wish you could find the perfect sitter that you could use for all your trips. Like maybe some single person who works remotely who never travels and just loves to dog sit. Haha.
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You gotta get this tool: https://a.co/d/0h8FMnf4 Makes weed pulling fun!
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Ooh, will check that out!
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I love the Friday cute top. And the Mexico shirt, of course.
Ugh yard work. My situation isn’t too bad, but my to do list for this week includes picking all of the weeds out of the driveway. They’re only growing in the crack between cement slabs, so it’s an easy job but it requires a lot of bending over. I’m probably going to designate a 15 minute time slot after the evening dog walk every night until it’s done. Fortunately most of my landscaping is “rental house compliant” aka lots of hostas and small bushes that crowd out weeds.
Booyah 8 weeks no soda!
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The weeds in the concrete are the worst! It’s nearly impossible to always get down to the root on those so half the time I feel like I’m just pulling off the top which obviously means they’ll GROW RIGHT BACK…. Good luck tackling yours!
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It’s crazy to hear that the tornado sirens went off on Wednesday! I live in SP, but work downtown and our office was at the terrace when the storm rolled in. From inside the windows, it seemed windy and rainy but not tornadic! Yikes!
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YES it was actually really scary! Asher, who always thinks there will never actually be a tornado when the sirens go off, saw the wind pick up like CRAZY out our sunroom window and made a beeline for the basement! I had never really seen winds like that either! Thankfully it was pretty short lived but lots of tree damage in our neighborhood.
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First of all, omg YES I pull weeds every single day. Every day! And because we have so many huge gardens, it’s a process. Weed and deadhead – it’s 20 minutes on a light day, but usually more like 45. Well, I have three weeks of backlogged weeding to do, so it will be more like HOURS a day this week just to get things under control. Good thing I don’t have a job! Lol. Right now the garden IS my job. In the season, I spend so much time working in it! And my weeds grow right through the mulch and the rocks. Meh, I don’t mind. I find it kind of meditative, since I don’t have my phone with me and it’s just me and the weeds. And Rex, who watches.
Second, I love this outfit recap and I may just steal the idea for myself! Once I get caught up on weeding, that is! xo
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Okay, I’m glad to know you are also doing significant weeding! Yours sounds even much worse than mine! And YES it’s SO BAD after time away…. Good luck getting that caught up! I agree I don’t actually hate it IF I have time. Where I get annoyed is weeks when I just don’t really have time to dedicate to it and it spirals out of control. Everything just looks so much prettier and nice and neat WITHOUT weeds! For me I could realistically just do about 20 minutes a day max and stay up on it, with the size of our yard etc, but I often do a big weeding session and then won’t touch it for a week or more and then it’s a whole issue. I really should try to adopt your daily method.
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As you know from our chat, I do not do much in the way of weeding. Phil does a little bit but we don’t seem to have a bad weed problem. I spend a good amount of time deadheading my hanging plants, though, which is so very satisfying for me! But overall, the yard is Phil’s domain. He really carries the load there, but I have the boys on my own quite a bit on the weekend while he does his various chores like grocery shopping, yard work, etc. So it all evens out.
Congrats to Ethan’s team on finishing 2nd – that is still a great accomplishment. I feel terrible for his poor friend, though. It’s tough to be the last match and feel like the win is on your shoulders like that. That’s a lot of pressure for a kid. It’s great that Ethan is so talented at tennis, though. What a great lifetime sport!!
Good luck getting everything done ahead of your trip! I hope the Garth Brooks concert is amazing! That’s something I would have loved to have gone to, too!
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I hate weeding and they drive me crazy and I might just let it go this summer?
You always look effortlessly chic to me. I love all your outfits!
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A lot of thanks for sharing this valuable content. We truly appreciate your effort and contribution. Your insights help inform, inspire, and engage readers while adding meaningful value to the discussion. Thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge and experience with us. We look forward to reading more of your content.
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Feel so bad for Ethan and wish that he had won. Maybe he deserves some free ice cream for his effort?
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