Spring Break Ahead

We're in countdown mode, 3 more days until Spring Break. I have taken the whole week off with the kids, Shawn has taken off 3 days, and Shan (my manager) will also be off the entire week, so it really feels like a full-stop vacation. We're headed to Florida like most of Cobb county, so we'll see everyone on I-85 south, I guess. Pensacola is an atypical stopping place, however; most cars will have to go over the bridges or further south to the beaches, but not ours. I'm so looking forward to being at Mom and Dad's house for a few days.

The Cousins will be in school, unfortunately. But I'm hoping for some outdoor playtime with them on Sunday. After that, I suppose it will be up to us to entertain our kids somewhat. Ideas so far include:

• A trip to Destin, to the outlet mall there (Kate is FOR and this is the only thing we've promised)
• A visit to Pensacola Beach, maybe (I do think it's supposed to be cloudy and not warm enough for swimming, though my kids might disagree)
• Blue Angels practice on Tuesday morning at 11:30 (FREE, but will it be crowded? Possibly, and it's always a little scary (in my mind) to drive onto the Navy base)
• Historic Downtown; Dad particularly wants to take the kids to the main museum, but I always thought it was boring. The only memorable thing to see in that museum is a petrified cat. I also worry about my Dad walking so much. On the other hand, downtown has been restored quite a bit since I was there, and I know there are some fun restaurants we've never tried.
• UWF trails. The university has a well known, woodsy walking trail and it might be the right time of year to be outside in Florida (i.e., not too hot). Plus, I want to plant the idea of touring around college campuses in Alex's head, since that time of our lives is fast approaching! 
• A movie. There's always a Marvel movie playing that some of us want to see. 

I'm not trying to cause stress during a week off, but I do want us to do some interesting things and not just sit around, for the kids' sake (sitting around would be luxurious and welcome for us adults... or at least for me). 

Until then, it's a typical work week. At my work, "typical" means we've had 3 new people start jobs, including a new General Mgr. for the U.S. — and 2 fairly significant people resign. It's always fun here. Meanwhile, I've just celebrated my TENTH anniversary. HAHA! I must be doing something wrong. Truly, I've asked myself, "Why, with all the nonsense, am I never motivated enough to leave?" I'm sure I could be paid more, elsewhere, and I've certainly had my moments of utter defeat, where I've firmly resolved to get out.... and then not gone. I guess the pros still outweigh the cons: Okay pay, flexibility when I need it (though not too much), location location location, and now, gosh, I'm invested. Might as well stay. At this point I'd like to see the company's return to Success, since I've been through its Hard Times.

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What are we eating this week? Some good stuff, actually: 

Sunday: out. We went to Taco Mac and watched the end of the Duke/UCF basketball game which was spectacular fun (if you like Duke)

M - Breaded chicken breasts, mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli

T - Homemade sloppy joe's, salad and fries

W - Rigatoni and meatballs, although I'm not making any of it from scratch. I do, however, have some parsley which I will sprinkle over the top to make it look fancy. ;)

Th - Baked potatoes with the rest of the sloppy joe's meat sauce, if desired, or cheese/bacon/sour cream like normal people.

Because we're going out of town, Friday is a "clean out the fridge" meal or cereal, woo hoo!

Always Grateful for a Slow-Start Monday

9:50 a.m. and I just got settled at my desk, after working from home this morning because Kate has a day off from school. She slept until 8:00. So lovely, a child getting extra zzzz's and waking up fuzzy headed and sleepy. Awww. Her friend's mom, of the stay-at-home persuasion, offered to a couple of us working-persuasions to take in our girls today -- how sweet. She's always available for weekday play dates and I'm so thankful for her. And for a slow start, myself, so she wouldn't have extra kids in her house before 9:00: Coffee and a cooked breakfast at home, email checking, clearing up dishes and other little chores. Ahhhh, so nice. I wish every day could start like that.

I narrowly missed getting stuck behind an accident this morning after dropping Kate off, so the bliss was short-lived. A lady in the left lane merged right without even looking, and hit a car in that lane. I was in the far-right (three lanes total) and juuuuust skated by. If I'd been 1 minute behind I'd have had to stop and wait. Eeek. I hate driving. 

Today on the docket are two main tasks: Write up a Talking Points document for our sales team, and edit 2 or 3 articles. Not too demanding, which is perfect for a Monday. My new-ish role -- I'm now solely focused on U.S. marketing, with yet another title, did I tell you? Marketing Communications Specialist, whatever that means (but it's better than Marketing Coordinator, which made me angry 6 months ago when it was given to me; honestly, a person working as long as I have has earned the right NOT to be called a "coordinator") -- anyway, my new-ish role means new responsibilities, many of them recurring tasks. I'm now charged with: 

• Monitoring several of our accounts online (social media, mostly), and reporting on who's doing what (Spy duties! haha!)
• Scanning U.S. healthcare news and adding it to a content calendar
• Boosting social posts and/or creating campaigns
• Maintaining B2B content, which hasn't been updated in at least 2 years

I don't know yet if it's better or worse than what I was doing, but it's slightly different enough that I feel a tiny energetic lift from it, especially here at the beginning, while I get used to the new routine. 

After work, it's at-home yoga and then dinner. I planned a menu this week! It feels monumental after the last several of phoning it in (or going out of town and making Shawn do it). 

Last night, Sunday: Dinner Salads. Alex doesn't eat salad; however, he is away on Sunday nights for church youth group, and he eats there. So last night Kate and I cut lettuce, tomato, cucumber, carrots, and added shredded cheddar to a big salad bowl. We offered leftover taco meat with salsa, or cubed ham with hard-boiled egg, your choice of dressing and tortilla chips or croutons. I thought it was perfect and wish I could serve dinner salads once a week, both for ease and for health.

Monday, today: Oven Chicken Fajitas and yellow rice. I'm so excited about this. I hope the kids will eat them. I won't add the cayenne pepper but we have a giant jar of pickled jalapenos with which to make ours spicier. >>UPDATE: Everyone liked this! Even Alex! He even dared to eat a piece of onion and a bell pepper strip! Woo!

T: The ever-popular smoked sausage, mac and cheese, and green beans simple dinner. 

W: Don't kill me, Shawn, but it's make your own pizza night. I have had the prepared crusts in the fridge for a while and it's time to use them. 

Th: Chicken Picante (yes, chicken two times - we had pork the last 2 weeks in a row), black beans and corn. I used to make this all the time and got really sick of it after a while. The timing was fine because the kids wouldn't eat salsa in those days, anyway; but now I think they might be open to trying it. I bought mild salsa of course, and we'll see how it goes. I predict they'll scrape it off, for the most part, but I also know Shawn loves this dish.  UPDATE: Kate gave it 2 thumbs enthusiastically up, and Alex gave it a "so-so" teetering hand but said he would eat again. LOL these two.

F: Leaving it open for whatever. Our church also does a Friday fish fry during Lent, and that might be something we attempt this week. Kate mentioned wanting to go. 

In the beginning of March, I thought it would be fun to actually MAKE a dessert one night a week, and I set it as a monthly goal in my planner. It hasn't yet happened, but maybe I will whip up a box of brownies at some point. I like the idea of it -- normally I don't make desserts, we just eat ice cream or cookies if we have them. But I feel like making and presenting a dessert would make me feel good, and would be more festive. Plus, I'm on a mission to get my family interested in pie. (WHO doesn't like pie?? My family.) Brownies aren't pie, but they're a start. 

My Social Media fast

For Lent this year I decided to go big or go home, and I gave up Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Except for work purposes. ("And maybe a little on Sundays, heh" as I wrote in my farewell post.)

I had found myself clicking on it SO frequently, and SO mindlessly; not just on my phone during downtime, but also anytime I finished a task at my work computer. Or many times when I hadn't finished the task, but the task was uninteresting. Sometimes I would do that thing where, I would close out the app, having learned there was nothing new to see or read, only to go back and re-open it 10 minutes later! WHY!? Dopamine, I guess. Addiction. It was time to quit.

I see this same behavior in my kids, particularly Alex, and it upsets me. I was naively hoping he/they would take my cue and give up social media as well, but that didn't happen. (They both gave up soda.) Still, perhaps they'll learn by osmosis.

It has not been easy. I'm grateful that on Day 2 of the experiment, I left town for a business trip. I had a book with me because of traveling, which I think helped. Actually that's one thing I'm hoping to get out of it -- more time spent reading actual books. 

I'm still reading news online, and therefore seeing some of the trending stories. Yesterday I checked FB for just a minute because one of my closest friends had posted "after a long time," (I got an email, thanks, FB) -- turned out it was a birthday photo of her now-15-year-old, and I'm glad I got to see it, but I was careful NOT to continue scrolling after that.

Anyway, I'll keep you posted. 

Blogging doesn't count as social media, in this instance. Because I said so. ;)

I went to a writing workshop at the work conference (for reference, it was a conference for young breast cancer survivors and my company was exhibiting). I thought a lot about being "a writer." About whether or not I am. (I am.) We were given a prompt, and here's what came out:

"...what I really want to say is -- my gosh, we are all feeling humans. It's interesting that you can put 30 women in a room with paper and pen, and they will WRITE. So many words! We all have all this STUFF inside that wants to be seen -- not heard, but SEEN in letters and curliques of punctuation. We write like our lives depend on it, when given the chance! The time. The quiet. We write to... continue. One day to the next. One paragraph on top of another. Poor penmanship and all, it pours, or drips, out of us. Think of the number of diary pages I have seen. God bless the pen, who takes all of our feelings direct from "where" -- deep inside -- to here, right in front of our eyes."

Yes, I can do that for you! All About Sleepovers

I don't claim to be an expert about sleepovers... not by a long shot! But I guess I have learned a few things that make hosting them easier, and I can certainly share those here.

I think Alex was six when he went on his first overnight sleepover, to our next-door neighbors' house. That was one way to make it infinitely easier -- having it next door! On the side of letting them go to a friend's, here are my rules:

1. I must receive an invitation (text message) from the parent. None of this, "Jimmy invited me to spend the night Friday. His mom said." And no, I'm not going to text his mom. That's inviting yourself over, and is impolite. Tell Jimmy his mom needs to get in touch with me.

2. You can pack your own small bag. (I let them take whatever they want, and just ask at the end to make sure they've got pajamas, toothbrush/toothpaste, a change of clothes and clean underwear.)

3. There should be a confirmed pick-up time, and if you've spent the night at a friend's, I will pick you up. (Unless the parent offers, I don't expect them to host my kid and also drive my kid home. Sometimes they offer and that's great! But if not, my kid = my responsibility.)

When I'm hosting, here's what I usually do:

1. I think it's best to do sleepovers on a Friday, because they'll be tired from school. Brilliant, right? Wasn't my idea, but I have used it with pretty consistent success. For example, Kate and her friend went to bed at 10:00 pm with no prompting from me last Friday. Actually said, "We're tired, we're going to sleep." Mwuah-ha-ha, success. I think when she was younger I usually attempted to get them to bed (ish) by 9:30, knowing they would stay up talking -- because come on, it's a sleepover, staying up late is part of the fun! However, if they're up past MY bedtime, or generally not being quiet, I have never been afraid to tell them to settle down and go to sleep.

2. Dinner: Order pizza. It's fun and it's easier. Now sometimes, if it's my kid's birthday for instance, I'll make his/her favorite meal, and I've never had a guest turn their nose up at spaghetti or chili, although I'm always nervous that will happen. I always ask the guest if they'll eat whatever I'm planning to serve. My advice is to keep it simple, though; save your spicy Thai shrimp dinner that your kids will eat for another night. (On the flip side, my kids have tried a few things away at others' homes that they never would have tried at our table: different fruits, Vietnamese food at the Vietnamese kid's house, etc., so it's up to you.)

3. YES to snacks. Not too many and not all night long, but popcorn is always a treat if they watch a movie (we don't make it often), or maybe buy a type of dessert you don't normally buy, or something fun like that.

4. Let them sleep in the guest room. Or, on the floor in the living room if you don't have a guest room. This has always been a big hit at our house because there's a TV in the guest room, but not in the kids' rooms. I don't mind; keeps them out of my hair!

5. Depending on the kid visiting, the great thing about having a friend over is that they usually occupy themselves so that DH and I can have some time to ourselves. Or.... that is the theory. More often than I would like, I get a surprising, "We're bored."  ....?!? I never know what to do with that. It is not my job to entertain them, though. Usually I throw out "board games?" "Wii Sports?" "Scavenger Hunt? (meaning, they create it for each other and then do the hunting -- just kidding, I've never been smart enough to suggest this. But I wish I had!)" "Watch a movie?" and see if that solves it. Once or twice with girls, I have stupidly suggested we paint nails. DO NOT DO this. It takes forever, and they don't sit still long enough for it to dry, but if you don't help, you will surely have nail polish all over the bathroom floor. The last several years, "making slime" has become THE sleepover activity. Ugh. But at least they do it without me, being "experts." I do try to limit the time they spend on the iPad as much as I can.

6. Breakfast -- I nearly always make cinnamon rolls from a can, or an easy muffin mix. Pancakes on a rare occasion but truly, I'm in it for EASY. I try to have fruit available as well, so they'll tell their parents they had something healthy besides popcorn and pizza, lol! Sometimes I'll take kids to get doughnuts, but not very often.

7. Don't make the experience last too long. Morning, or just after lunch, is a good time to say the sleepover ends. What I've found is that, even very bestest of friends get sick of each other after 24 hours -- that is really too long.

That's all I can think of at the moment. Hope it helps, S! :)