Sweden Report: Volume 1

I realized I did an awesome trip to Sweden and then my first blog post is a list of chores.  Sorry world!

Let's try a travel post instead?

Sweden - Why?

When I was 15 I was an exchange student in sweden.  It was my sophomore year of high school.  I lived with a family who had never had an exchange student before, in the small town of Torshalla, which is about 60 miles West of stockholm.  They had two kids, a 13 year old girl and a 9 year old boy. 

The family wanted an exchange student partly to help their daughter with her English.  Instead, I got really good at Swedish really quickly, probably in about 3 months.  I attended "Swedish for Immigrants" classes at the local adult education center, and was basically fluent before Christmas. 

Sweden - Since

I have been in touch with the family on and off since then, sometimes we go a year or two without emailing and sometimes we email more.  Andy and I visited Sweden for 2 days in 2014, and the host parents and brother came to our wedding in 2015 in the USA.  My host sister had twin boys in 2014 and a daughter in 2019 (so she now has 11 year old boys and a 5 year old girl).

Sweden - This trip 

My favourite way of connecting and communicating with people is in-person.  I wanted to see my Swedish family again, and I wanted to take the kids away for a few nights. I also wanted to leave the UK. I wanted to take the big kids on a flight. I wanted to make use of Lily's passport, which has never been used and expires in October.  

5 days - the kids clothes in the small bag, my clothes and spare room in the big bag.
Backpacks of activities for all.
I still packed too much.

Sweden - Transport

I looked into flights and saw that the second week of our Easter holidays was not too expensive. It was £120 per person round trip to Stockholm and back.  I als paid to book seats, which added £30 each ticket.  Next time I won't do this as apparently it's quite likely we will all sit together anyways (I don't think they can seat a 4 year old alone?) but I really wanted a window-middle-isle combo so I did pay for it.

The flight left at 11:30 so we took a 6:30am train from Cardiff, which got us into heathrow at 9am.  We purchased flight snacks, pulled our carryons through the airport (I was not going to check bags since that was an additional £60 each way) and had a leisurely time in the airport.

My host mom met us at Stockholm airport and helped us navigate the train back to Eskilsturna, and then we were driven back to Torshalla.  We had dinner of beef and potatoes (the kids mostly ate potatoes).

At Cardiff Central

At Heathrow Airport

Train to Eskilstuna

Sweden - The Plan

My host mom planned most of our days, and I saw a lot of people I knew 25 years ago.  The kids played at lots of play parks. We ate lots of Fika (swedish cake and coffee in the afternoon).  We stayed at the host families house. We met up with my host sister and her family, my host brother, my host aunt and uncle, my host grandparents.  The kids did great while being dragged place to place.  The weather was cold (10 C/15F, but sunny).  

Amazing park in Eskilstuna

Sweden parks were sooo good.

On the last day we went to Stockholm for the day, before staying overnight in an airport hotel and flying on home on Monday morning.

I can see why travel posts span multiple posts! I'll post again with "what we did, where we went" soon... this is volume 1.

Have you been to Sweden? Do you have any questions about Sweden, planning logistics, this trip, or any of the random things I've put in this post so far?

Reentry Report - I need a day or two to recover, and a list of house thoughts.

I had thought about booking today as annual leave to help with my return from holiday, but decided against it due to our very sparse childcare situation.  I'm using a fair amount of my holiday allowance covering childcare until our nanny can start 4 days with us in June, and I'll need to use more of my allowance to cover her holidays later this year.

I really really feel like I could use a day or three to catch up on life.

I know that there really isn't such a thing as "catching up on life" because life undoes itself at the same rate.  If I had a magic day I would do the following

• I haven't done the March photo albums (I update them monthly with a end of the month deadline). 
• I haven't finished updating budget for April.  
• I haven't gone through the photos on my phone to delete duplicates and bad ones.  
• Our house feels like it's becoming a "stuff" house and each room could use a thorough sort and purge.  
• The kids need some new clothes. 
• Our outdoor space needs some more thought and some more things and especially more seating
• The kids sand pit needs cleaning
• The climbing frame needs weeding around it
• We need a baby gate on the outdoor steps
• I need to get rid of the play kitchen in the twins room that they mostly use to close doors on each others hands
• Our bathrooms need a clean.  We haven't had a cleaner in about a year and while I am OK with the lowered standard, it is getting too low for me.
• Our whole house could use some cleaning and not just tidying
• I want to move furniture around in the kids room
• The kids need a wardrobe, they have grown out of their tiny drawers
• I need to request a new credit card as I lost our card and canceled it but have to phone to get a new one
• I have to return some clothing I ordered online
• Even though I upgraded my wardrobe last year it turns out that wearing the same things every day means clothes wear out quickly so some things already need replacing
• I need to find an american baby I can donate all our america themed baby clothes to because I don't want to give them to charity where they will probably get thrown away since it's very specific
• I would like to list all our reusable nappies for sale since I'm not using them for the twins and it's just taking up space
• There is a bag of stuff to drop off at the charity shop
• I have email to respond to from people I like

The thing is, none of those things are amazing, and none are worth a day off.  Also, without school or nursery for the twins, there is no day where I can putter in my house all day and sort stuff and feel great about it.  There are always people here.

I am taking a day off next Friday to go mountain biking.  I'm sure I'll remember that day much better than sorting the house?

Today I managed to put away 4 loads of Laundry:

The kids really enjoyed watching Bluey in Swedish:

This is what our bathroom mirror looks like.  I tried to figure out what the kids do when they spend ages "washing their hands" and I think I figured it out.

My most favourite room to clean/tidy post meals is the kitchen, but my least favourite thing in the kitchen is putting away the dishes from the drying rack.  These dishes are left over from this morning and also added to this evening because I just... don't.

I did manage to get L her summer school uniform before we went to Sweden.  In the winter they wear pinafore dressed with white shirts, in the summer it's blue checked dresses.  Helmet and cycling gloves are optional.

Another random Sweden photo - bathroom selfie on the way home.  the 7:40am flight was a bit rough.  The kids were a mess before they started.  But we made it!

What would you do with a day off? What does "day off" mean to you? What did my kids do to my mirror and when do kids stop touching glass all the time? 

Posting from Sweden

 

Posting from Sweden, via my phone. Apologies for any terrible typos (as usual)

I am nearly at the end of 5 days in Sweden with the two big kids. I was visiting a family that I stayed with as an exchange student 25 years ago.

I think solo travel with kids can be fun. Parts of this were a lot of fun! Parts of this were not fun. 

We are sleeping at the airport tonight (in a hotel) before flying out tomorrow at 7am.  I googled and there is a flight we could take back tonight instead, which I contemplated before realising this moment - being in a somewhat basic airport hotel, watching paw patrol in Swedish, preparing sandwiches with materials purchased earlier… this moment is the adventure. Travelling with kids is not a destination focused endeavour. Problems happened when we needed to get somewhere at some time or do something different. When we just explored, went slow, and had snacks it was fine. Sometimes good.

Being In Sweden is weird because I used to speak Swedish when I lived here 25 years ago and after 5 days a lot of it has come back and I find myself confused about what language to speak to the kids because in my mind Swedish is a kids language (because I was basically a kid when I lived here) and if they aren’t listening to me in English I can try Swedish. 

Speaking Swedish did not improve instruction following.

Anyways, it’s been a good trip. It will be great memories. And we will only get better at family travel. Practice makes… patience? 

Thursday Thoughts: I have some part time job(s)

I have a part time job as a clothing manager.  It involves having four kids, in 3.5 sizes, and rotating clothing in and out of drawers.  This week was spring clothing rotation.  Ezra has few short sleeve shirts and apparently no jumpers.  He is quickly growing out of his small three drawer wardrobe (the IKEA Godishus, if you're curious).  He now has button down shirts which could use hanging.  One pair of jeans now takes up 25% of a drawer.

*****

I have a part time job as a procurement operative.  Lily need summer school uniform and I rotated winter school uniform out of her drawers. She also somehow has run out of leggings.  I went online and tried to buy new leggings, and then I decided new clothes are expensive and so I used Vinted to order her new clothes.  For £25 she now has 6 pairs of leggings, two dresses, 5 shirts, and a new (to her) pair of pyjamas on the way. Way cheaper than buying new, but also must include the price of my time hunting for the right clothes, using the app, making the offers, putting together bundles... and eventually collecting the items. While it is a bargain it's definitely not free.

*****

I have a part time job as an events coordinator.  It involves four kids, ages 1-6. Includes making plans for sunny days and rainy days, and coordinating activities that are fun for all, but fit within the parameters of ability and nap schedules.  I keep a reserve list of indoor and outdoor activities and ensure that appropriate activities are planned to fill the spaces available.

*****

I have a part time job as a CFO.  I tally up the finances, produce a rough P&L, and monitor spend vs. budget for a household operation.  

*****

I have a part time job as a social secretary.  I coordinate play dates, I liaise with parents I like who have kids of similar ages.  I consider the weekend activities with my events coordinator and check whether any event can also become a social event.  

*****

I have a part time job as a documentarian.  I take photos of the kids, record funny things they say, and produce yearly albums of our adventures as a family and as individuals. 

*****

I have a part time job as an interior decorator.  I continually see how spaces are used, what looks cluttered, what could look better.  I suggest new pieces to fit our functional needs.  I purchase upgrades to household decor as necessary

*****

I have a part time job as a chef. I can make a pasta dish with anything in the kitchen, in under 20 minutes. 

*****

I have a part time job as a facilities manager.  I know how much soap there is, how much toilet roll there is. I know how many fish fingers are in the freezer.

*****

I have a fulltime job too.  And I have hobbies and friends.  But... it's a lot of jobs.  I also married someone with a lot of jobs.  He's a bicycle mechanic, a handyman, a cleaner, a school administrator... his list goes on too.   We are just in a period of lots of jobs.

What are your part time jobs? 

Spring Break Thoughts and Fun Plans

It's spring break here! 

The kids are off school for two weeks.  

I am in work 2 full days and 2 half days next week, then off the week after.

Everyone is off from Good Friday through Easter Monday.  

Easter Goals:

• Go to local national trust sites and do easter egg trails
• Do an easter egg hunt in the garden
• Tape bunny ears on a helmets and go for a bike ride

  

  2023

  
  
• Make Chocolate Easter Egg Nests

Easter Already Done list

• Haircuts! I've decided the boys (Andy and Ezra) get haircuts at every term and half term holiday. I do the boy hair cuts myself - Ezra's summer hair is short:

• Set up the garden for eating outside

(we still need to set up a toddler table)

The kids are off school for two weeks, and on the second week of holidays I am taking the two big kids to Sweden for 5 days to visit family.  It is very exciting and also... I haven't left the country since 2019.  Lily has never flown before. I don't remember how to pack, or travel, or do anything.  I will bring lots of snacks.  It will be fine.  It will be fun?

Do you get an easter holiday? Does it feel like spring break?

Sunday Update: Reading, Sports, Sleep

While March may not be a great month for me, April is usually better because I have moments of "this might be getting easier".  For instance, right now clothes are drying on the line and not on the upstairs landing

The big kids have been playing together and mostly not fighting for almost 90 minutes

All of us got out for a walk this morning to a historic building and ate hot cross buns near some cannons (as you do)

On the downside, Andy and Lily are both ill now, but since it took Ezra a week to get over this illness I'm not expecting any miraculous recovery from Lily.  Aubrey and Clara may be ill, but they also may just be 1.5 year old toddlers with all the associated toddler feelings.

Reading

I was really enjoying How To End A Love Story but... it's rather R rated.  I've realized I enjoy reading "curtain romance" more - where the naught bits are the literary equivalent of panning to the curtains in a film would be.  This is... not that.  However I listened to the recent Ezra Klein interview with Jonathan Haidt and now I am keen to read The Anxious Generation and The Righteous Mind - both on hold at the local library.

Sports

• Monday
• 30 Minute Upper Body with Ben Alldis
• 10 Minute Focus Flow for Riders with Denis Morton
• 10 Minute Full Body Stretch witH Ben Alldis
  
  
• Tuesday
• 30 Minute Legs and Core with Ben Alldis
• 10 Minute Full Body Stretch with Ben Alldis
• 1 hour run with run buddy (4.7 miles, 600 ft up and down)
• 10 Minute Focus Flow for runners with Denis Morton
• 10 Minute full body stretch with Ben Alldis
  
  
• Wednesday
• 1 hour trail run with ladies run club (4 miles)
• 10 minute full body stretch with Ben Alldis
  
  
• Thursday
• 30 Minute Taylor Swift Midnights Ride with Ally Love
• 10 Minute Focus Flow Hips with Denis Morton
• 10 Minute evening stretch with Matty Maggiacomo
  
  
• Saturday
• Local parkrun 5k (32 minutes, pushing the double pram for the first third)
  
  
• Sunday
• 20 minute Pop ride with Hannah Frankson

Unfortunately because the aforementioned kid and husband generic illnesses I didn't get my midday Pelotoning in this weekend.  It also feels a bit silly to be on a stationary bike for 30 minutes when I could be doing outside sport, but also I can't be doing outside sport because I'm nominally watching sleeping toddlers.  Ezra and Lily (6 & 4) are not quite old enough for me to start a peloton ride while I am responsible for watching them.  It's nice to write this review because I felt like I hadn't done any sport this week when actually I haven't done much of sport in the last three days of this week.

Sleep

This time change has been great for sleep.  Somehow all the kids are sleeping somewhat reliably until at least 6:30.  I haven't woken up to the sound of crying with a 5 earlier on the clock in... weeks.  It's great.  I'm fairly sure I slept in to 7am once this week.  Overall my average is 7.75 for the week, including a night where I had to settle a poorly Lily from 10-12pm (although I got an hour of that back when we both took a nap the following day)

At nursery drop off on Friday it was "Happiness Day" where the kids could wear something that made them happy.  Andy and I remember to let Lily pick a happiness day outfit, which was apparently a goldilocks dress:

A mom showed up with her daughter and said "oh dear, is it non uniform day?" and another person said something about happiness day and I joked that I was about 1 for 10 in remembering different non uniform days.  A dad in the queue volunteered that he "doesn't keep track of any of it, that's mums job!" and I really wanted to say "yeah we employ a nanny to manage all of this for us" because if he can brag about his immense logistical privilege of offloading the school mental load onto his wife then why should I feel bad about offloading mental load onto a paid employee? But I did not say this.

I also realized that sleep is really the only thing that allows us to do this school thing.  We could not figure out the theme days days, clothes days, happiness day, odd sock days last year.  Because we had newborn twins. No wonder we couldn't remember anything.  It wasn't a systems problem (What if we wrote it in our calendar?) or a "go in the right order" problem (what if we packed lunches the night before?) or a reminders problem (what if we put sticky notes on our door for things that are happening the next day?).  It was impossible to do these things because it was impossible to do these things with twin babies.  Now that we have toddler babies and get enough sleep it is possible to remember days and pack lunches.  There's no planning or life system that replaces sleep.

Some Saturday Thoughts - Clearing The Decks, Closet Project, and Phone Thoughts

I had a bit of a "clearing the decks" Friday, and got 3 annoying things done

• Called ASDA because the booster seat I bought sent had a small hole.  We received the carseat in February and "complain about hole" has been on my to do list for a long time.  A really helpful customer service rep was able to refund me for the seat. I did not want to spend 45 minutes returning a £9 booster seat but didn't think it fair to spend £9 on a booster seat with a hole.
• Wrote to grocery delivery store about two rotten items in last delivery. I know it's probably less than £2 but I resent paying for delivery if they pick things that are already rotten.  I haven't heard back on whether I'll get any refund but at least it's not on my to-do list anymore.
• Wrote to another shop that sent me a broken travel bottle.  Again, it was a £2 bottle, but I don't want to pay even £2 for broken things

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On Friday my company published their 2024 Gender Pay Gap Report.  I emailed the global head of human resources to thank her for the report, and to ask whether they might include Parental Pay Gap reporting next year.  I have decided that maybe global heads of HR / EDI might appreciate a thank you from random people in the company.  I had a goal this year to reach out to 5 potentially career building people. Although this probably won't be anything career building I do want to get more comfortable contacting big important people.  I'm pretty sure big important people are still just people and if I wait for them to reach out to me I'll be waiting for a long time (there are 3,000 other people in the company so the odds are not good that anyone will notice me!).

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Today (Saturday) I tackled this really annoying project - CLOSET PROJECT

We have one closet in the whole house, and it's in the baby room.  I use it to store all kids coats/jackets and shoes.  It had become a nightmare:

Anytime a kid grew out of a coat or jacket or shoes I just chucked it in the closet.  Mostly because I can't actually get into the closet when the twins are around because they really love a pile of shoes and coats. However, I couldn't find anything, and the twins probably need their next size up shoes soon.  The top box of shoes was supposed to be Lily's future shoes (that Ezra had grown out of) and the bottom box was Aubrey and Clara's shoes (that Lily had grown out of)

I decided to mix it up a bit, and seperate shoes into type: Crocs, Slippers, Wellies, and trainers.  Now I have the following:

The bottom box is all welly boots.  We have enough boots for the twins since Ezra and Lily had to have 2 of each size, one for nursery and one for home.  For some reason I don't seem to have any shoes in between the size 4.5 Aubrey and Clara are in now, and size 6.  That seems like quite a jump, unless I have thrown some shoes away.  I pulled out all size 6 and below and stuck it in the twins drawers (baby sandals! So cute!).  I also found Lily a pair of summer keens sandals from Ezra, and a new pair of hand-me-down boots (no idea where her old pair went). The jackets are all ordered by size again. Mostly, it just doesn't look crazy.

On a clothing note, I always wondered why people dress twins the same.  I realized that it helps when we are at a park, because often one twin is doing something mildly dangerous while the other twin is doing something super dangerous, and I'll be watching the super dangerous twin while other people stare at the mildly dangerous one wondering where the parents are.  If the twins are dressed the same then people usually figure out its twins and not a very neglectful parent.  I have been looking for a matching coat on vinted to keep everyone dressed the same. 

*******

I've been thinking about phone use again recently, and whether I want to try to go smartphone free (or smartphone lite) again.  Although my time use isn't high (still about 1.25 - 1.5 hours a day), I am so aware most of my use is me starting into it willing it to "show me a thing to avoid what is happening".  I am also mildly put off by the number of times I pick it up in a day.  

Are there no hours in a day that I don't need to look at my phone? I'm not looking at texts, or making phone calls.  I'm googling something, or checking my email.  I would probably be happier with my numbers if I picked it up 20 times at 8am and 20 times at 6pm.  Do I really want to be touching my phone every 20 minutes all day long? No I do not.  I would like to have a different "get me out of this moment" habit.  I'm not sure what that habit would be.  Smoking? Just kidding.

Also, I blocked BBC and WalesOnline and most news sources from my phone.  I don't have social media, and so I really have to get creative when I want to waste time on the phone because there isn't much easily there.  But I still do it.  I read blogs on the phone (which is not as fun as on the computer because on the computer I can think and comment). I read some Peloton subreddits sometimes. I look at Rightmove to see local houses for sale.  All of these things are fine but none of these things add value to my life when doing them in 5 minute chunks on a smartphone. 

Have you tackled anything annoying lately? Organization Projects? Would you complain about receiving rotten fruit or a carseat with a hole in the fabric?

Goodbye March - A random review

March is not my favourite month.  Maybe this is the introspection of round number midlife birthdays, but I've realized that I almost never have a great March.  This also might be affected by recency bias (we put higher cognitive importance on recent things than historical things).  

Kyria gave an awesome rundown of her various March adventures on her blog and it got me wondering if I had any trends with March.  Read Kyria's blog for exciting adventure, read below for... the opposite:

March 2024 I had 6 month old twins.  6 month old twins is not fun.

March 2023 I was feeling terrible and wondering why I was gaining weight so quickly and so early in pregnancy (spoiler - I was pregnant with twins, which I found out in April. reading my line a day it seems very obvious now). 

March 2022 Things at work were getting weird, I felt like my career was going nowhere and weird stuff was happening.  The kids were 18 months and 2.5 and both ill a lot.

March 2021 I was still under lockdown and at home every day with a 6 month old baby, people were still banned from visiting or socializing (Also will take a moment here to remember that Wales had one of the longest and most restrictive lockdowns... which has almost zero effect on covid mortality as compared with the slightly more open England)

March 2020 Lockdown started and I was 3 months pregnant and had an 18 month old and was working from home full time.

So.. March is not my favourite.  Here's a short summary of this March, which was far better than most of the above!

Weather (first, because I'm sort of British now so everything is the weather): 

It was very sunny this March, if cold.  That was a nice change from rain

Sport:
Days I did some exercise: 28 (this includes walking, walking is exercise)
Cardio Sessions: 14
Strength Sessions: 9
Yoga/Stretching: 12
Days where I walked outside: 23

Other good things:
+ I have done 31 strength workouts this year of my 100 goal - 31% complete with 25% of the year over.
+ I did my 100th Peloton ride
+ I joined a local ladies running club

Budget:
I know this is a random one but I must confess that we are, for the first time ever, doing pretty bad against budget.  I realized that historically Jan-Mar are high spend months for us (not sure why? My birthday? New year energy? Time at home to fix house projects?).

This is a sort of useless graph of our cash float (basically a snapshot of bank account, so kind of useless because when we do things like pay down mortgages or pay off student loans it shows as a massive dip) but I can see that generally we lose cash in Q1, though not as fast as we have lost cash this January Q1. 

It's not a huge problem (yet, thankfully) but some of our budgets were clearly under-budgeted. For instance, we planned to spend £200 a month on house maintenance and improvements, then spent £600 in January replacing a bath panel, fixing our breadmaker, buying a new waffle iron and toaster, paying the window cleaner, some new hedging for the garden... it turns out being an adult homeowner is expensive.  It does mean that I'm trying to intentionally be a bit leaner in spending for the next quarter.  We are also saving money on childcare right now, which is our single biggest expense, so hopefully we will be in a better position in Q2.

Andy Adventure:

One of my goals this year was to have an Andy-Rachel adventure every month.  This month's adventure was going to be a trip to the bike park! Unfortunately it was not to be as Ezra was ill that day. Instead we added a store-bought takeaway to our grocery order on Saturday and had a curry night at home after the kids went to bed.  It was still very nice.

Other Goals
In March I took the kids to see a children's ballet.  I had a goal to take the kids (or Andy) to the theatre and I did.  It would be fun to see a theatre show with Andy still, but I need to keep an eye on shows and then buy tickets so it's a big project

I hung artwork in my office.  You know what looks better than art hung stacked on a bookshelf? Art hung on a wall.  Also, 100% love command hooks.  Also, that's where another £20 of house budget went.

In Summary

Was March the best? no. Was March the worst? no.  It was a month with lots of changes, but it feels like a pretty good foundation month for what's looking to be an exciting (and possibly chaotic) April and May.

How was your March? Do you have high-spend times of year? Have you ticked off any yearly goals for 2025 (if you do that kind of thing)?

Sunday Update: Reading, Sports, Sleep, Media

The experience of taking four young kids to the bike park
is the exact opposite of how casual I look here.

Hello! Happy Mothering Sunday for UK people! If you are a mothering person this is a day where you get to....? Do mother stuff.  In a sick and evil twist it's also the time change day.  Obviously time change people must hate mothers which is why they put the clocks change on mothers day. 

As a kid I used to hate this time change because I "lost" an hour of sleep.  However as a parent this is a great time change because this morning I woke up and there was a 6 on the clock!  Of course it was 6:15, which. means yesterday's 5:15, so not really any great feat.  Why can't we all just agree to leave the clocks the same time and just get up earlier in the summer? Anyways, this is a completely different rant than I was intending.

This week was a lot.  Ezra was home ill.  Andy and I did a lot of childcare-work-swapping. I didn't feel great and thought I was getting ill. Maybe I am ill? My diet has been 70% bread, 20% cheese, and 10% cake and chocolate.  It's not ideal.

But, it's a new week! And a new month. 

Reading

In exciting news, I got a libby copy of How To End A Love Story and of course I am enjoying it.  It has been a hot minute since I read some chick lit so it's nice to have my familiar narratives back.

I'm still reading Meditations for Mortals as well.  Oliver Burkeman is smart and I have to think about his books and I have been to tired to think, so it's going slowly.

Sports

On Monday I did my 100th Peloton ride! I was so excited that San was able to ride with me.  It felt really fun to have my Peloton friends with me - my colleague joined as well (we were both on lunch break) and  my local sports buddy, and I got loads of high fives.  

• Monday
• 30 Minute Intervals and Arms with Hannah Frankson
  
  
• Tuesday
• 1 hour gym with gym buddy (upper)
  
  
• Friday
• 30 Minute HIIT and Hills with Cody Rigsby
• 10 Minute focus flow with Denis Morton
  
  
• Sunday
• 30 Minute UK Mothers Day ride with Leanne Hainsby-Alldis
• 10 Minute climb ride with Denis Morton
• 5 Minute cool down ride with Denis Morton
• 10 Minute core Strength with Adrian Williams
• 10 Minute focus flow: floor poses with Denis Morton

When I do live rides on Peloton I always filter to the twin moms and give out high fives because twin momming is a lot.  I was rather sad to see that there were no twin moms or momof4 on the Mothering Sunday ride today:

This only shows what people tag themselves, but of the 400 people in the live ride, this seemed to have a smaller percentage of self-tagged moms than other rides I've done.  

Overall, not the best week for sports.  I'm hoping this week I can do more strength training.  I didn't want to ride on Friday or Sunday, but I thought to myself "not because I want to, because I can" and then after I rode I felt much better.

Sleep
The good news is, when the going gets tough, the tough... fall asleep.  Because I averaged 7.5 hours of sleep this week, including the time change.  I guess in some future world it would be great if I could eat a vegetable or meditate or walk outside when life gets hard, but at least I can still go to bed early when life gets hard.

Media

So I have been really really into Taylor Swift recently, which is sometimes a sign of stress and turmoil (last time I was so into T Swift was November, which was the worst month in a long time) but also maybe her music is just really really good?  I am especially into the midnights album.  So so many great lines! So many great songs.  Blarg I just love the whole album.

There was a good Before Breakfast Podcast called "you'll regret it, and that's OK". I feel like almost every decision we make right now turns out to be the un-ideal one, but is also the correct decision based on the information we had at the time.  I'll regret it, and that's OK.

Do you like the Spring Forward time change? Do you celebrate Mothering Sunday or Mothers Day? Do you sleep more when life is hard?

No Typical Weeks - Routines and Logistics Meetings

Laura Vanderkam writes "There Are No Typical Weeks" and it's kind of fun to know two things are true: I'm planning a week, and weeks never go to plan.  This week was such a perfect rendition of a not-to-plan week, but I still made it to the office, we still ate food every night, and I still slept 7+ hours.  

Our general weekly routine is as follows:

Monday: Andy cycles with a cycling club
Tuesday: I do sport with my sport friend (Yoga/running/climbing... something else)
Wednesday: Logistics Meeting
Thursday: Andy runs with his running club
Friday: Grocery delivery and hang out at home

This was all fine from a hobbies and equity standpoint as I also had gym morning on Friday, but I've recently started running with a running club on Wednesday (on the few days we did logistics on a Tuesday) and I felt I was giving up 2 of 5 weeknights for family logistics/food which seemed a lot. 

The benefit of a Wednesday logistics meeting: 

• Friday evening grocery delivery worked well - we could get groceries just after the kids went to bed and put them all away so quickly (vs trying to put away groceries when kids are awake on saturday morning. Groceries need to be ordered by 9pm the previous evening). 
• Thursday was a great day to send some low key texts about weekend plans.
• Andy goes to the pub after run club on Thursdays and sometimes stays awake too late and is tired on Friday
• I sometimes get "that Friday feeling" on a Thursday and stay awake too late and am tired.  Friday is like a mini weekend because I have childcare (even though I'm in work, but that's easier than watching kids)
• Friday is tiring and we used to struggle to keep momentum to plan another week right at the tail end of an existing week

 Benefits of a Friday meeting include

• We already spend Friday evenings together so may as well do logistics
• I want to do run club on Wednesday (and another friend would probably do it with me, which would be great because I really like this person but haven't had space to actually make a viable "bid" for friendship, ie a thing we both like doing and works for both our schedules)
• One Tranquillity by Tuesday rule is Plan on Friday.  I can see how it's good - we could make a firmer plan for the upcoming weekend and a lighter plan for the following weekend.

I mean, on balance the Wednesday meetings work pretty well, but the balance is me not going to run club, so we are going to to switch to a Friday plan.  And grocery delivery on... Saturday night? Sunday night?  We haven't quite worked this out.

On a different note: here is a minor house improvement I made last weekend.

The upstairs landing was driving me crazy:

I know it's sort of cheating to just take down the drying rack, but we also were storing way too much in that space.  I've been trying to find areas of the house that we aren't using as much as we should, or where we are using it to store things that shouldn't be stored in valuable house floor space.  See the pile of boxes on the left? That's the Vinted packing shop.  It doesn't need to be out all the time.  I donated a pile of clothes to charity, put the boxes in the attic, but the gift wrapping things in our bedroom, put the Vinted "shop" in my office, and cleared out the entire back corner

When we first had kids we used Kallax furniture in every room.  The Black shelf on the right is our third to last Kallax and I think it's time for it to go to the charity shop as well.  It's just, bigger than needed.  Sometimes lots of storage just accumulates lots of stuff.

Does your week have a repeating flow of events and activities?  Do you have a structured time for personal or family logistics?

Thursday Thoughts: Flying Too Close To The Sun. Project Icarus. I chose to blog rather than Peloton

Andy and I keep telling each other that we are flying too close to the sun.  I call this stage of life "Project Icarus" Fundamentally, we don't really have enough childcare to cover the work we are doing, or the hobbies we have.  We will have enough childcare in June, but we are leaning heavily into using flexi time, using compressed hours, annual leave, and a shifting assortment of days and hours to get our work life done.

I'm never sure where the balance of "being flexible" meets "give up immediately".  Sure, I love having a structure and a plan and goals, but I can also really quickly abandon all of it to watch kids.  On Monday we ended up home with everyone after Ezra had a tummy bug at night.  Thankfully Lily was in nursery all day, so we were just managing 3 kids and via swapping get everything done in work.  On Tuesday we sent Ezra to school, where we were told at 9:05 to come collect him as he was on a 48 hour sickness exclusion (I thought it was 36 hours, oops!).  Now we had 4 kids at home all day, so I spent my day helping and working and helping and working and waiting for the next chaos. It was pretty hard to focus on work, or on kids.  I caught up on work in the evening instead of a sports date with my friend.

On Wednesday I went to the office all day. I have not been to the office since December.  It was good to go and see people, but I got basically no work done.  Andy said that one of the weird things about being mostly remote is that when you go to an office every day you get used to doing work in an office, and when you go to an office almost never you get used to the office being an unproductive social day.  This is probably very true - I bet people in the office more were accomplishing far more work than I was. My in office day was definitely less productive than my least productive work from home day.

Today Andy and I were supposed to go mountain biking (we both booked annual leave for our March adventure - a double date actually, with a couple we get on with super well) but unfortunately Ezra wasn't healthy enough to go to school.  Our nanny was here with Aubrey and Clara and Lily, but we couldn't really leave her with a poorly Ezra as well. At the last minute we changed around and Andy went biking while I un-bookd my day of holiday and went to work instead, while Ezra napped and read next door.

New stage of life unlocked: when sick kids lay around entertaining themselves rather than needing to be continuously held/snuggled/entertained/medicated.  Obviously I don't like having sick kids, but this version is much preferable to previous iterations!

I have done no sport since Monday.  On Tuesday I canceled sport with my sport friend because I had spent too much of the workday helping with kids and needed to catch up in work.  On Wednesday I got back from the office at 8:15pm and was in bed by 9.  Today I had a poorly Ezra and didn't think. I could focus on exercise, although that's not really an excused because I could have carved out 15 minutes easily.  I managed to get a decent amount of work done which was good.  

I know that when things get chaos it's good to stick with routines that support, but my daily planning has not happened, my food tracking has been terrible, and I haven't taken a vitamin since monday.  My screen time was 2 hours yesterday.

Tomorrow I should be able to get a Peloton ride in.  Unless Lily is ill. Or Aubrey, or Clara, or me. Or Andy! Or someone else, or some other minor disruption. 

Today I felt so unfocused and un-present that I wanted to figure out what my priority was and I realized it was "make it through day without neglecting poorly Ezra."  Anything else was gravy.  I did two loads of laundry.  I guess I've exceeded expectations for today.

Do you lean into or out of routines when life is... destabilizing?  What routines do you keep and what do you abandon?  Have you been ill recently and isn't sickness season supposed to be over soon?

Sunday Update: Reading, Sports, Sleep

Sunday again and it's officially spring.  Every day is currently 5 minutes lighter than the day before.  Which means in 2 weeks we will get an extra hour of daylight a day.  It's honestly a bit excessive, I'm really happy for the sun to come up at 5am and down at 7:30 and never get longer than that.  I guess I probably should not have moved to Wales and instead moved to... Albuquerque. Or Tehran.  Maybe Wales is ok, even if it gets too light in the summer and too dark in the winter.

Reading

I finished All The Money in the World by Laura Vanderkam this week.  It's a really interesting premise - how does money make people happy?  I like the argument towards seeing money as a tool for happiness.  I told Andy this and he said that buying lots of bikes would make him happy so he should buy lots of bikes.  That's not really the point though, my first road bike ever cost £250 and made me so happy.  My last road bike ever (or at least, untill I become a road rider again) cost £600 and also made me happy, but possibly less happy than that first bike.  It's the hedonistic treadmill - we always tend to return to a base state of happiness and so you can't just buy lots of stuff to make you happy.

There was also an interesting chapter on how spending money on other people can make us happy.  I know it's easier when you have money to share money, but also I don't think there is a threshold above which you have money to share and below which you don't have any money to share.  Actually, there are definitely points where people don't have money to share, but there is a lot of mid ground.  Anyways, I've decided to try and be more generous with people and see if that increases my happiness (or ruins my budget - we do have a gifts budget so I can at least monitor what we are spending).  Last week a colleague who I like had a baby and I gave £10 towards her work present.  A friend of mine went into surgery this weekend and I sent her a gift voucher for a food delivery service.  Both these things made me happy.

I am still reading Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman.  It's just good.  Also, once I got used to reading physical books again I decided I like physical books.  I might read more of them.   Kindle books were great when we had babies in the room, but now that I'm not waking up at night anymore (yay!) and reading for an hour or two it's nice to stick a bookmark in a chapter book when I'm done at night.

Sports

It's been another awesome week for sport.  I am still ravenously hungry all the time but I am at least enjoying all the sport that's making me over hungry.  I also got to do a workout with San on Peloton again - yay! On Monday I am going to be a total Peloton nerd and do my 100th ride and I've invited all 5 of my Peloton friends to join me.  Maybe this time I'll get a shout out... maybe! Either way, 100 rides since buying the Peloton in October feels awesome.

• Monday
• 35 minute Peloton while watching Emily in Paris season 4
• 20 minute evening yoga flow
• Tuesday
• 1 hour yoga flow class IRL (I've done 5 in person yoga classes now, so 1/3 of the way to my 2025 goal of 15 in person classes)
• Wednesday
• 20 Minute Full Body Strength with Ben Alldis
• 5 Minute Core with Ben Alldis
• 10 Minute Upper Body with Ben Alldis
• 10 Minute full body stretch  with Ben Alldis
• 1 hour run with local run club at night (it was a sprint session - ouch!)
• 10 Minute Focus Flow - Healthy Back with Kristin McGee (because I thought sprinting had hurt my back but it was OK)
• Thursday
• 20 Minute pop-punk ride with Bradley Rose
• 10 Minute HIIT ride with Denis Morton
• 10 Minute Focus Flow for Riders with Ross Rayburn (and San!)
• Friday
• 30 Minute Low Impact Ride with Hannah Frankson (live!)
• 15 Minute FOcus Flow for Runners with Denis Morton
• Sunday
• Junior Parkrun - 2k run with the kids
• 30 Minute Intervals and Arms with Olivia Amato (live!)
• 20 Minute Queens of Pop ride with Ally Love
• 15 Minute Full Body Stretch with Ally Love

It's been a really fun week of sport.  Here's me running super fast at night:

Sleep

This is where it's less good.  My rolling average is 7 hours.  I went out to dinner with a friend and stayed up until 11pm on Saturday.  11pm!!!  Also, I've been waking up at 5 or 5:30, before the twins wake up, but without enough time to go back to sleep or do anything useful.  Usually by the time I get downstairs I can hear Aubrey talking.  Also, Andy and I watched a TV show on Friday called Severance because my slow cooker came with 3 months of Apple TV.  <----(That sentence is so mid-life middle class I can't even)

This week we have no evening activities and I'm not doing the run club due to being in the office on Wednesday so hopefully it will be a more sleep week.  Then the clocks spring forward on Saturday so that will be its own nightmare.  Since our kids already go to bed super early it's actually the easier time change for us... although let's see if I say the same thing in two weeks.  Time changes are the worst.

Are there any ways in which money has been a tool for your happiness in the last week? Have you watched the show Severance?  

Thursday Thoughts: Working Moms and Overheard at the Cafe

I heard two moms talking at a cafe.  They were both talking about their kids entering school nursery and how nice it was to get 2.5 hours a day to themselves now.  Their kids must have just turned three, and newly qualified for 2.5 hours of free school a day.  The one mom asked the other if she was thinking of going back to work

"Not really" said the mom "because I would still have to pay for wraparound, and it would be like £300 a week in childcare, so it doesn't really make sense".

I've thought about this a lot recently.  I live in a place where lots of moms don't work or work very part time.  Not in the LA "yummy mummy" way, but in the "it just makes sense for me to watch kids" way.

It's interesting to me that the decision to leave the job market seems often be a financial one.  However the decision to leave the job market when kids are young eventually keeps one out of the job market specifically because of the decision to leave.  Childcare costs make this decision more and more difficult - the most expensive childcare is for the youngest children.  

Childcare gets cheaper as they enter school, but if one has been out of the job market for 5 years then even cheaper childcare now can't keep up with the salary loss of a career gap and re-entering the market.

I am so glad I have stayed in work (which I obviously wanted to do as well, but I feel there is a lot of pressure against that decision here) because I can afford childcare.  I can afford childcare because I stayed in work.  When all my kids are in school I will be able to afford... other things.  

My husband and I make roughly the same salary now.  I have never heard him or his friends lament how so much of their salaries go to cover childcare.  I have never seen them calculate their take home after childcare.

I guess it's odd to me that there is financial pressure to leave the workforce when kids are small, because childcare is so expensive.

Then there is financial pressure to stay out of the job market when kids are a little bigger, because only lower salary jobs are available to returners.

Then there is financial pressure to get a job when... kids enter secondary school?  By the time getting a job makes sense, the monetary value of the kind of employment available is so low that it seems one may as well not work at all.

I wish I could more often express the sentiment that I am not *loving* the experience of childcare now, but I am *loving* continuing to develop professionally, not stagnativing my career, and making enough money to employ someone else. I love feeling like I am financially contributing to my family, and knowing that every pound we pay in childcare now will be a pound we can put into something else later.  

If I wasn't working, every pound I saved by not working would decrease in value over time - lack of earnings does not benefit from compound interest.  

There is no inflationary bonus on housework... there is just more housework.

[Obviously if you love staying at home with kids then great! Do that! But when people say "are you thinking about getting a job" I feel those people should answer "no, I love staying at home with kids and doing pick up and that's what I want to do" rather than "no it's not worth it financially".]

Sunday Update: Reading, Sports, Sleep

Happy Sunday! The sun is out but it is COLD.  It's still March.  

This week had some really good things.  For example, I had Tuesday off work and I hiked up a local mountain with a friend and it was great

On Wednesday, I was doing a cheeky midday workout and I saw that San was doing a Peloton ride and I joined her!  It was super cool to know someone I like was doing the same ride as me at the same time as me.  I don't know that I would have bought a Peloton without reading how much San loved it, and I can say I still love my Peloton rides just as much now as when I first bought it in October.  Thanks San for the eternal inspiration and I'm so glad we finally rode together!

On Wednesday evening I went running with a local ladies run club.  I'm so glad I got out with them, the first time with a new group is always scary but they were nice and I will definitely go out with them again.

I love getting stronger and knowing that I will never be pregnant again so all the work I do to get better and stronger will not get reversed soon to have babies.  I can actually see and sustain improvement.  It's great.

Reading

I started reading again.  Real books.  I'm reading both of these now:

I find All The Money In The World interesting, but I feel it might be written for me - a semi frugal middle income earner.  It's interesting to think about how infrequent big things (houses, cars) don't necessarily give us as much joy as frequent little things (lattes, meals out).   

I thought about this when we bought our most recent car.  Our previous car was £500.  Our new car was more than 20 times that.  I asked Andy "is this new car twenty times better than our old car?" It turns out it was, because our new car fits all our children (along with other benefits) which is twenty times better than not having a car we can use. Also, it brings me frequent joy to drive a car that does not feel like it's going to fall apart on the road.

I know Woody Allen is an awful person, but books like this remind me of his quotes about money:

"Money does not give happiness, but it procures a feeling so similar, that it needs a very advanced specialist to verify the difference."

"Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons"

Sports

A great week for sports again.  Yay.

• Monday
• 15 Minute Peloton ride (it was supposed to be 30 but instead it became 15)
• Tuesday
• 7 mile hike up and down a mountain. Yay!
• Wednesday
• 20 Minutes Arms and Shoulder Strength with Rebecca Kennedy
• 20 Minute Standing Core Strength with Rebecca Kennedy
• 20 Minute 90's Ride with Cody Rigsby (and San!)
• 10 Minute Lower Body Stretch with Ben Alldis
• 1 hour Run with Running Group
• Friday
• 1 hour gym with gym buddy
• Saturday 
• 30 Minute Broadway Ride with Bradley Rose
• 30 Minute Full Body Strength with Katie Wang
• 10 Minute Stretch with Ben Alldis
• Sunday
• 10 Minute Glutes and Legs with Ben Alldis
• 10 Minute Chest and Back with Ben Alldis
• 10 Minute Upper Body Strength with Ben Alldis
• 30 Minute Sundays with Love ride
• 10 Minute Full Body Stretch with Ben Alldis

I learned this week that on Peloton app you can "stack" classes and that's what I did on Sunday and it was fun.  I made a list of classes and did them one after another.  

Sleep

We have been on a sleep mission lately.  I have averaged 8.2 hours this week, which I did not think was possible.  I thought I couldn't sleep more than 7.5 hours a night.  Maybe it's because I'm doing more sport, or maybe it's because other stressful things have resolved, or maybe it's just catching up from years of not sleeping, but it's great.  On multiple nights I slept straight through from 9pm until 5am.  On Friday I slept from 9pm to 6am.  9 hours of sleep.  Dreamy.

Habits Update

Y'all wanted to know more about my flossing habits right?  Well my dentist appointment was this week and they basically said I had the best teeth in Wales.  That's not a great benchmark, but it was almost unmotivating in how wonderful my teeth apparently are.  I mean if I can undo a year of floss neglect in 4 weeks of intermittent flossing then what is the point of good dental care?  Also, is floss itself old school?  Does everyone use TePe brushes or floss picks now?  I will still try to keep this habit up.

Another habit - Food.  I have been tracking my food for a while and was suprised at how generally unhungry I am as long as I get a decent meal at 10am ish.  That all ended this week when I have been ravenous all the time. Maybe it was my hike that broke my hunger levels, but I have been eating everything.  I figure I will go back to eating like a normal person soon, but last week for lunch I had a cheese sandwich and a slice of quiche and a bowl of pasta because I was just hungry.  I pretty much eat whatever I want usually but I am trying to make sure I eat fruit for at least once meal or snack, in addition to whatever other things I want to eat for that meal/snack.  Tracking has shown me that I definitely eat vegetables every day but I have to remind myself to intentionally eat fruit.

Do you eat fruit every day? Do you find your hunger levels vary a lot week to week (or month to month?) Have you slept more than 8 hours in a row recently?

5 Phone Thoughts on a Friday

This week I joined a local running group.  I signed up to facebook in order find the group, found where they run from, and then joined them.  When I got there I was told I needed to sign into the group with an app, which I didn't have because I generally try and avoid apps.  Luckily I was OK to run with them once and we did hill repeats and it was nice to run with some new people. 

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During the social run the social runners took a lot of photos for instagram and facebook.  Life must be a lot different when it needs to be continually documented.  I am torn though, because I do love all-female running groups, and I imagine a lot of the facebooking and instagramming makes for better community and a more inclusive running.  The group did say that they were a very inclusive club, although apparently that doesn't extend to including the app-less.  (this is a bit unfair, I think I can go back, but I probably have to figure out how to make an online account for the website for the app.  I don't think they'll be super happy if just show up without App-RSVPing again)

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There was another app-less runner in the group.  She was from New Zealand and said that her phone was a New Zealand phone and therefore she couldn't get UK apps.  That is a good reason to not get apps!

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I always find it hard to explain why I don't want to get apps, and I usually laugh and say I'm generally don't do phone stuff and app stuff (which I realize is a ridiculous thing to say).  People will very quickly try and show me things on their phones, like how easy it is.  I find it interesting that the assumption is that if I just understood how *easy* apps were then I would want to use them more.  I just... don't want to do more phone.  I wanted to run.

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We bought Ezra a secondhand coat and it has a phone pocket.  He asked if he could have a phone, to put in the pocket.  I think I might get him a pack of playing cards, because it is the same size as the pocket, and I'm pretty sure that would satisfy his pocket filling desires for now.  Lily also decided to ask for a phone, and I told her she could have one when she turns 16.  She told me that will take one hundred years.  Touche.

Sunday Update: Reading, Sports, Sleep

 It's Sunday again.  This week was a rather wild ride.  A bunch of non-bloggable stuff happened (Oh I finally get to be a vague blogger!) but all of it is mostly good or will soon be mostly good.  In addition to all the crazy stuff, normal life happened.  For instance, I took Ezra and Lily to the ballet and they got to take a photo with the dancers:

It was a children's ballet and it was 40 minutes long which is just the right amount of ballet for me too.

Also we took the big kids on a big train adventure.  They did great.  

FYI, living in a country with trains is great if you want to take 2.5 hours and spend £50 to get somewhere that would take 90 minutes and cost £30 to drive and park.  

Also, since we don't let the kids have screen at home, they really loved these feedback stations and spent about 15 minutes playing the "video game"

Reading

I finally finished The Dictionary of Lost Words.  super interesting premise.  And a bit... meh to read. The book is sort of about the production of the 1901 Oxford English Dictionary, and how the dictionary was predominantly written by men.  I can see the author's interest in who decides what words are word and how the entire dictionary is a rather classist / gendered approach to differentiating "real" words from "other words". It was an interesting topic, just maybe not the book for me right now.

What to read next though?! I want to read another Wedding People.  I loved that book.  I've started my real copy of Meditations for Mortals, but what if Oliver Burkeman's other book (4,000 weeks) was the perfect book and I already read it and this is just a worse version of that?  Like how I started reading The Plan by Kendra Adachi but decided The Lazy Genius Way was just better.

I also got a Libby/Kindle copy of Amazing Grace Adams but have not started reading it yet.

Sports

Last week I decided writing a list of my sports was boring and I wasn't going to do it anymore, and then I immediately spent a week doing barely any sport.  Perhaps my sports list keeps me going, in which case I am now going to start writing it again.  Sorry not sorry?

• Monday
• 15 Minute Arms & Shoulders Strength with Rad Lopez
• 15 Minute 90's ride with Hannah Frankson
• 5 Minute Core with Emma Lovewell
• Tuesday
• 90 Minute hot yoga with my yoga buddy
• Thursday
• 20 Minute HIIT and Hills with Ally Love
• 15 Minute Hill Climb with Ally Love
• Friday
• 1 Hour gym session with my writing buddy (I know, my writing buddy is now my gym buddy! My gym buddy was away this week and I feel like I was cheating on him but also... working out with new people is fun too. )
• Sunday
• 1 hour run (5.2 miles, 11 minute miles).  The kids were at Sunday School for 90 minutes and I went for an out and back run through a really nice part of town I never spend much time in.  It was a fun explore, and my longest run this year.

On Thursday I was in work and complaining to my colleague about things and she said "you should go do a 20 minute peloton ride" and I did and I felt waaaay better.  I've had a lot of trouble focusing in work this week, and while I definitely had days in the office where I got nothing done before, it feels weird to be unfocused at home since usually I am super focused at home.   I've decided if things get me down I need to do exercise first and complain second.  It was good advice from my colleague.

I normally go to the gym with my gym buddy on Fridays but he was away this week and magically my writing buddy was free so we went instead.  She usually does cardio machines but I brought her to the free weights area where we did some bench press and overhead press and I pushed a sled with her standing on it and it was super fun.  I love bringing more women into the free weights section of the gym. 

Sleep

On Thursday my rolling average for the week was 6.25 hours which is NOT GOOD.  Andy and I had a date night on Friday and we went out for pizza and wine but still made it back for a 10pm bedtime (being old is great).  On Saturday we had a reverse lie-in (going to sleep early is how grownups sleep late) and were asleep by 9pm.  I've managed to claw my average back to 6.92 hours, but  I will definitely be in bed by 9pm tonight.

One of the cool things about tracking my sleep is that I am aware that I am not feeling well because I am not getting enough sleep, and I am aware that I need to get more sleep soon, and it helps me realize that my life isn't going off the rails, but a few small things are not great and more sleep will help.

Other things

I made these Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal Bars for Ezra's lunches, but I substituted Tahini for Peanut Butter.  They are not as good with Tahini, but we are not allowed nuts in the school.  I thought about asking whether Sesame was OK, but since I send him with hummus every day I figure it's probably fine.

Our grocery store finally restocked canned pumpkin (they had been sold out since thanksgiving!) and so I made both pumpkin waffles and pumpkin pancakes this week.

I can hear birds in the morning now.  And it was a balmy 13c/54f today! I wore a jumper and no jacket for a while! I ran in a short sleeved shirt! Spring might come agian!

Do you like canned pumpkin?  Have you ever tracked your sleep and did you learn anything interesting?  Are you in a reading slump right now?  I feel like a lot of people are!