I always enjoy hearing what works for other people and I like sharing things I like, it's part of the reason I have a blog. I've been doing these monthly posts for 10 years and they also provide a nice little snapshot in my life at a moment in time! See more here! Some affiliate links may be included!
Twice in one week?!?!?! When was the last time that happened?? School was closed for 3 days due to snow/cold AND we finally have a RARE day where we are home all day between drop-off and pick-up (other than a quick prescription pickup after drop-off where I was home 10 minutes after school started). Amazing what not having appointments in the middle of the day is like...
Many years ago these would have been called yoga pants and I have had some form of flare yoga pants in my wardrobe for longer than I've been a parent. I'm on my 3rd pair of unlined ones because I wear them so much they I've worn a few pairs out. (About ~6 years ago when I bought my current pair, they were VERY hard to find because everyone was all about skinny leggings then.) They are my winter pants of choice for when we are home, meaning weekends and about as soon as we're home from school pick-up (as long as I'm not going anywhere in the evening) on weekdays. I recently tried these fleece lined "leggings" and they are amazing. So now I have my unlined pair for just at home and these fleece lined ones which I will wear out of the house but also just around home (like right now). They are SUPER comfortable and cozy (I still wear a second pair of "skinny" leggings under them) and on all those snow days home from school, I wore these every day. I'd buy a backup pair but my size is sold out.
Back in November my husband bought a 3D printer. That is a whole different thing but since he was buying himself a 3D printer...I decided I could get a robot vacuum. It had been on my mind for awhile but finally got it on an early Black Friday deal. It took awhile to get around to opening it but Sam finally convinced me, we got it going and it has been life changing over the last 3 weeks. I vacuumed downstairs weekly before and would have considered the rugs/carpet relatively clean but NOW we run Eufy twice a day and it's amazing at how much it picks up (although it's decreased over these 3 weeks). The floors are cleaner and we do nearly nothing! Ours is NOT wifi enabled because I didn't like the idea of my floor plans being stored on some server somewhere. Is it still?? I don't know but I also don't need to be able to run my robot vacuum from my phone. We could still schedule it to run at 2am or something every night but usually I just start it when I'm going to bed and that works.
Our concerns were if it would go over the rug transitions and/or get stuck anywhere. It mostly does fine with the rugs and transitions (it likes to cut one corner to come into my office which has a bamboo floor higher than the main living space but it can get itself out of that in about 30 seconds). It can get stuck under our kitchen chairs (they space between all the legs is just about exactly Eufy sized) AND one part of our kitchen cabinets are low enough that it gets stuck under those. So when we run it during the day it does the full downstairs. When we run it at night we just move our kitchen trash to block the kitchen (this takes 5 seconds) and it just sweeps the front room and my office.
Also, we put big googly eyes on it because it's just amusing. I thought about this purchase for years and then it sat in the box here for 6 weeks. Very glad we finally got it going.
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I spent not a small amount of frustrated time in December trying to sync digital calendars for Matt and I. I was tired of carrying the mental load of knowing all the things that are happening and I wanted him to have that knowledge too. I eventually gave up for all the other things going on in December to finally figure it out somewhat easily in January. Of course. I switched from kinda keeping some things in my apple calendar to having Google calendar be our master calendar (as opposed to our wall calendar which is about 85% up to date but does have all family birthdays and anniversaries and my paper planner which is about 70% up to date but keeps all my tasks). I maintain 2 calendars in there, one linked to my personal e-mail (going back 20+ years to end of college) which has things mostly relevant only to me like daytime appointments, when my parents are out of town, and when I need to run payroll for work (helpful when looking ahead on trips). The one through our shared e-mail has all evening and weekend things as well as our trips and select birthdays (our family of 4, our parents, and our godchildren, too much work to add the other ~110 from our families). It has our respective Aldi weeks (we switch off) and reminders to refill prescriptions that can't be on auto-fill (also helpful when looking at trips months in advance).
I used to keep just some dates in Apple Calendar, mainly the big school break days, so when I was out and about I could somewhat confidently schedule an appointment. Now, nearly everything is in the google calendar (which I can also access from my desktop) and it's so nice knowing everything is in one place and we can both see relevant events. Plus, being able to set-up recurring tasks has been very helpful, especially for things like nearly nightly wrestling practice (that I can then go modify for meets) or things that occur on an weird rotation (every other week to Aldi, 28 day med refills, etc.). I'm glad I took the time to finally get this done.
I used to often include books in these but then did Quick Lits for many years and stopped. Now I haven't done a Quick Lit in many months so there's a book on here again! I asked for and received this for Christmas and it was a wonderful read. It was the stories of 10 women who were mothers of eventual Saints, telling their stories and how they managed to raise a saint. Nobody is perfect and reading some of the struggles these women had was very inspiring. I read a chapter a day for about 2 weeks and it was a lovely way to start my reading time. I immediately offered to pass it on to some sisters. It was fantastic.
This is another item I asked for and received for Christmas. We have a few bird feeders outside the window near our couch and Sam & I both delight in watching the birds (he loves identifying them). This feeder is definitely the birds preferred feeder because they emptied this in a day or two while others near it sat nearly full. I don't pay enough attention to know if different birds can eat at this than at the others but whatever it is about it, they love it. And it's a nice shade of blue (this makes 7 bird feeders in one section of our side yard and they have all been delightful additions). I fill these most in the winter but sometimes in the summer too. It's one of those things I always feel extra on top of things to have done, very optional but feels good to even have time to take care of feeding some birds.
What have YOU been liking lately??
