Thursday Thoughts: Planner Debates and new planner day

Tonight turned into new planner night!

We always order planners from PersonalPlanner.com.  I love them because they're super versitible, I can change layouts every year, and I've kept a birthday list so they get printed WITH BIRTHDAYS in it that also say how old the person is (if I remember to enter a birth year).  It's great.  This is 24-25:

Last year I ordered a 13 months version, so it started in September and ends in September.

This year I decided we would go for a bigger A4 size rather than A5.  I'm excited for monster calendar... we need more writing space.  We have lots of things and lots of kids.

It's a weekly Calendar and I always do a vertical date layout.  The bottom box is for sport but we use it to plan meals.  Sometimes we use the small writing section at the bottom to add meal suggestions for future weeks. For instance, we had beans tonight and it went well, so I'll add beans to the potential dinner list in two weeks because that's about the right interval for a beans dinner.

I don't like that Saturday and Sunday share a column, but I'm hoping the A4 size will mean there is enough room for everything.

This is the cover I picked - yay! I can't wait for it to arrive.  They are sent from Sweden with free shipping (HOW???) and the company seems so cool.  I also got month tabs so I can put dividers in... a planning pro tip I did not learn for the first 5 years of ordering this planner.

The A4 size only comes in 12 months so I started it in September and it runs through August.

As I went to make the order Andy said it should start in October since our current planner already has September. 

I thought he was joking.

School starts in September.  Planners always need overlap. September (or January, or August) seems like the right time to order a new Planner.

Andy was insistent that I am the insane one because I am basically wasting a month of the old planner. 

As a counterpoint, we have things planned in September already and I feel it's a valuable use of space to have a calendar overlap.  I am happy moving these things to the new calendar.

As Andy's counterpoint, I am wasting 1/13th the price of the 13 month calendar if I just start the next calendar in September.

So, internetland, help me.  Do you do a month overlap in calendars? Would you get a 13 month calendar and move it forward every month?  Andy does have a point that every 12 years we would basically have a free calendar of single months, but also... I love a new calendar in September.  September calendars are the best.

Retail Therapy - Planners & Shoes & Kitchen Appliance Update

I've done some shopping lately. 

We ordered our new family planner!  For the last 5 years (at least) we have used Personal Planner for our family planner.  We do September start weekly layout and I just ordered the 2024-2025 version.  So excited!   It's 13 months long, and includes friends birthdays, yartzeits (date of death) and anniversaries.  I think it's pretty.  The Personal Planner website even gives you a imaginary photo of what it will look like

(I do not have fancy scissors or clothes pins.  I do have washi tape)

I also took advantage of the Ashley Shelley sale ($10 for all 2024 planners!) and ordered a 2024 weekly vertical layout for myself.  I am currently using a 2023 daily, but my days don't have much in them, and sometimes a continual blank daily is just not inspiring.  Using a 2023 monthly layout in 2024 is not very helpful either.  So for $10 I figured I could play with another layout for the rest of this year and see what it's like.  

Switching gears - I recently decided it was time to retire my all time favourite running shoe - the Pearl Izumi N3. I bought these in 2016 and I remember they were sooo expensive, but now I don't know whether that was $80 or $100.  Would I have spent $100 on running shoes in 2016?  probably not.  I loved these shoes and thought they were the COOLEST.  

However... they are now 8 years old.  And although I have been rotating through 3 different shoes in the last 8 years I finally decided it was time to say goodbye to this pair.

I still have my Merrill trail shoes from around the same time, but I have done *far* less trail running than road/combo.  I had a pair of road shoes which I threw away about 2 years ago so I've been using these as road shoes since, but shoe technology has moved on!  

I know I should have gone to a running store and tried on different shoes and checked fit, but I did the inadvisable and googled "running shoes" and bought a pair of Asics Novablast 3s since they were on sale and also had good reviews.  I've made it out for one run so far but it's amazing how bouncy and light they are.  It seems like streamlined thin-ish shoes are out and massive supportive shoes are in now.  I remember Hokas looked silly to me in 2016 but I bet a Hoka of 2016 is probably the same or smaller than these new Asics.  Either way, they are a fun shoe!

(This is not my usual aesthetic but it works for me and also was on sale for £84 rather than £135)

Finally - I decided I did need a new food processor to replace the broken immersion blender attachment and I bought a Kenwood MultiPro food processor. 

No, I have not made that salad.  I have not even used the "forever chopper" technology.  However I have used it to make Tabouleh salad, and it's pretty cool how fast it shreds things.  I also grated a whole block of cheese for mac and cheese in less than a minute!  I know it had a lot of features I haven't used yet (dough? pastry?) but I am pretty happy to have a functioning food processor.  Also, it turns out the food processor attachment to the immersion blender is a very poor substitute for a real food processor.  OMG did this thing make quick work of parsley and mint.  

And in good news, everything still fits in the same cabinet.  Also, I make hummus with the immersion blender now.  

Have you bought anything new recently?  Are you a "buy when you need it" person or a "wait and do all your shopping at once" person?

Low priority personal goals and a photo collection of random things

Recently my "to do" list has become full of things so low priority, it's hard to prioritise any of them and easy to work on none of it. Here are a few of the things swirling in my head:

I've been thinking of making zucchini brownies for over a week and yet the zucchinis still sat in the fridge (and I've started to eat through other less good chocolate in the house).  

I haven't done the April photo albums.  I usually update the family album and each kid albums monthly, generally at the start of the month.  The kids albums take about 15 minutes each to update and the family album takes a bit longer.  The whole process is somewhere between an hour and an hour and a half.  And can be done in small parts.  And I haven't started it.

I've thought of and forgotten a lot of blog posts

I have baby clothes to list on Vinted and try to make some extra £££

I have blog comments I keep meaning to make!  You all write such interesting and thoughtful things.  

My office is disorganised, but I rarely go into my office.

I want to draft out an ideal week plan but haven't started.

I want to read and enjoy the Modern Mrs Darcy summer reading guide

As mentioned earlier, I don't have much free time right now.  I don't know when I'll get a one hour chunk of time to do any of the above.  Or two hours.

And also, are any of the above worth one of my very valuable one or two personal hours?  I am not complaining about lack of Rachel Time here - I've managed to get my hair both cut and dyed last week! I have a massage booked in 3 weeks! But through indecisiveness I haven't started any of the above.  

Maybe I'm lacking low value time? 

I realised with a low priority to-do list I may as well pick something and do it.  So tonight, after the kids went to bed and before I tidied the kitchen, I made the brownies.  They are delicious.

And then I cleaned the kitchen, went to the shop to buy potatoes for tomorrows dinner, and wrote this blog post.  

Tomorrow maybe I'll do one of the other things on my low priority list. 

Here are some things I've done recently, but not from my to do list:

I bought 4 used (but like new!) bibs for £6 from Vinted:

I bought a container of dinosaurs for £6 from our local charity shop:

I have super enjoyed making Isaac packed lunches in his PlanetBox Lunch Box

I made baby muffins for the twins.  Baby food is my wheelhouse - these ones are egg, butterbean, cheese, milk and self rising flour.  I love inventing recipes that adults will never taste:

I painted my nails badly.  One of my goals is to paint my nails more.  I had 5 minutes and I decided to just go for it.  It doesn't look great, I'm not sure I like the color, but I do like not putting it off and waiting for the perfect nail painting time, since the perfect nail painting time didn't seem to happen:

I taught the twins to read:

Okay, just kidding.  They can't read.  Also, in case you are curious, Nora has a Strawberry Nevis mark on her head which came out after she was born and will probably disappear at some point.  It helps me tell them apart quickly (that and the crazy size difference).

What's on your low priority list?  Are your nails currently painted?  

Comparison is the thief of joy, and other life reminders to me.

The guest on this week's Best of Both Worlds podcast is a productivity expert with three kids under five years old.  I, of course, love productivity experts.  During her "day in the life" segment I had a pang of jealousy as she described making a cooked breakfast for her kids, then having her kids get ready with the ding of a timer.  She also laid out crafts for them in the morning to work on while she made breakfast, and she woke up before the kids to meditate, read, and/or sit in silence.

This put my brain on a whirly thought spiral... maybe I need to be putting out kids activities for my little ones the night before? why does her morning seem so relaxed and she nurses a baby and works out before starting her job at 9am.  I'm on maternity leave and I only work out three times a week at the most.  Am I just rubbish? 

This was a somewhat unusual thought process for me.  Usually I think we are doing pretty well for having the age and quantify of children that we do.

I started thinking more about the guest's morning.  Her kids get dressed by themselves to a timer at 8am. Mine don't do that... but also we don't always have to be out of the house at 8am.  Sometimes we leave for school at 8:40.  Sometimes 7:50.  I like the flexibility to leave when we want to, and when feels good for us.  My kids can get dressed by themselves (with reminders from us). That's not bad for a 5 and 3 year old.

The guest's habit of putting out activities for kids is a great idea and totally necessary for little kids.  I would do this too if I had younger kids.  Right now my kids can come downstairs and entertain themselves, and that's awesome.  I don't need to set out their crafts, they chose what to play with.*

Cooked breakfasts are great. We do them sometimes.  We do cereal other times.  It's fine.

And as for the quiet time and workout?  It's awesome that her baby sleeps till 6:30am.  This morning I spent my Rachel time (which was at 5am, after the twins 4:30am feed) trying to find a pedicure appointment that fit around childcare and twin feeding. I spent half an hour doing this.  If I wanted to meditate and have quiet time I could have done that instead.  And I went for a run at 5:40, which is when it got light! [As an aside, my last run was last Thursday and I am half way through an 8 week couch to 5k program that I started 3 months ago.  If I only read my blog and didn't live my life I would think I was out running all the time.  I am not out running all the time].  

Anyways, my end thought was that it's great hearing how other people do work and life and kids.  And that other peoples choices are great for them, and often are made to suit their needs.  My choices are here to suit my needs. When my needs change, my choices will change.  And also, I am only ever seeing a snapshot of someones life.  I should know this isn't the whole picture since I am literally writing a blog that is a snapshot of my own life.

I don't post on the hard days, because I don't have the energy, and because hard days are busy. I often do some google searching on the hard days, asking when twins get easier, or sleeping questions, or just google questions.  One thing I've recently discovered on my googling is that very few people write blogs which say "oh just enjoy your 6 month old twins! Time goes so fast! It's a great age! I wish I could go back there!"  Many people say twins get easier at 6 months. or one year.  or two years.  or survive till 5.  Even people with older twins seem to look back on this period with fondness... but a fondness that comes from not wanting to do it again.

*one of the kids favourite morning activities is dressing up with costumes.  Here is a 6:45am Isaac creation:

Plans, Routines, Adjustments

Today we are 7 week into this twin baby thing.  

I was told that twin families are exceptionally organized and I thought "hey, I can do that!" but some of the things we've had to change actually involve less organization.  Here are some recent changes:

FLOM: we don't have evenings anymore (I feed babies at 6pm, come downstairs to help with clear up at 7, and go to bed at 8) so we do a truncated FLOM on Thursdays.  We also use FLOM to review everything we can't in the week since we so rarely get a chance to casually sort out anything midweek.  So the Any Other Business topics can range from "should I buy reduced sugar ketchup or regular ketchup (sweeteners? Sugar? chemicals? akk!)" to "What is the plan for Christmas"  

Lunches: Isaac loved packed lunches.  I think it's partly due to the hip Planet Box lunch boxes we bought, and partially because school lunches included vegetables.  In Wales they brought in free school lunches for all primary age kids this year, but when Isaac requested packed lunch we started packing lunch in the  morning.  Turns out, it was too much.  Last week I told Isaac he was having school lunch now.  Not packing lunches has massively improved our morning

Hummus: we eat a lot of hummus. I like to make my own because it's super easy and fairly cheap.  Tahini, Chickpeas, Garlic, Lemon Juice, Salt, Olive Oil.  I could make hummus in less than 5 minutes.  I didn't mind if the kids ate it by the spoonful.  However... it was too much. So now we buy store bought hummus.  It's got a few more ingredients.  It's ok.

Laundry: Everything goes in at 40 now.  Everything gets tumble dried.  If it doesn't survive... oh well.  I only wear breastfeeding tops anyways now and this is the last time I'll need them and I only plan to wear them for another few months.  We do 1-2 loads a day (1 if by myself, 2 if I have help).  I don't have time for sorting or hanging.

Meal Plan: We don't plan meals to days anymore.  Every day is something from the freezer (We are still eating food provided by friends, and our meal box from Cook), and once a week Andy *maybe* makes something like pasta carbonara or scrambled eggs.  Kids are eating the following on rotation for every meal:
Starch: Potato/Pasta/Bread.
Protein: Fish Fingers/Chicken Nuggets/Beans/Eggs. 
Other: Fruit.

Hair: I'm not going to even comment on my current hair situation. Lilah captured it pretty well in this drawing:

(also, proofreading.  I wasn't great before, but thanks for sticking with my atrocious typo-heavy blog!)

Thursday Thoughts

I always find it funny when people say "Thank God It's Friday" At work because I don't usually feel that way.  On Friday I usually feel like I wish I had gotten a little more done or was a little more focused.  Or I feel thankful for having some down time to get a little more done and be a little more focused.  But I definitely feel a "Thank God It's Thursday" vibe right now.  I have one more day of work before the weekend.  

I have fun plans this weekend, mostly play dates and being as social as possible.  On Saturday we have THREE social engagements.  On Sunday we have just one social engagement, which is good because the kids are both fairly shattered from the new school/nursery schedule.  

This morning I saw my breath for the first time this season - Autumn is here.  Maybe this weekend I can get the candles out and put up the autumn tea towels and work on the cosying of the house.  Fall is my favourite season.  

This week the meal plan was far too aspirational and I spent too much time cooking during work hours.  In order to pick up Isaac by 5 and have dinner ready by 5:30 I had to leave work every day at 4:30... which is fine but not ideal.  Andy has been going back into the office which is great for him but I think we need to get better at weekend food prep.  We also need to get better at not running out of food on a Thursday.  I'm starting to worry that we will need to shop for groceries more than once a week soon... the fridge was STUFFED on Saturday after delivery and now it's mostly empty again.  We're down to 6 eggs after ordering a tray of 30 on Saturday.  

The aspirational meal plan was:

Saturday: Thai Green Curry

Sunday: Afternoon Tea (too full for dinner)

Monday: Veg burgers & chips & Kale

Tuesday: Pad Thai (from a kit)

Wednesday: Meatballs & Spagetti and Salad

Thursday: Eggs and Waffles

Friday: Tacos

The only thing I really had to make was meatballs... but I still feel like I spent way too much time this week prepping and cooking food.  None of these meals took more than 30 minutes to prepare, but that's still 2 hours of my week (Mon-Thurs) which is a lot of food time.

I think we need to get better at cooking things that can be doubled and then putting cooked meals in the freezer... but also isn't that basically just for lasagnes and enchiladas?  And also... we don't have a huge amount of freezer space.  

Maybe this meal planning rut is because of the change of season and it's time for a change of menu. I think I need to make a list of winter foods... time for roast dinners!

Mid Year Planner Update

Last year I bought an Erin Condren Daily Duo, which I love.  It's a gorgeous planner, with gorgeous paper, and really lovely goal setting features.  It is big - this is January-June - but I have really enjoyed using it.

However, it was a sort of "too much planner" for me during first Trimester fatigue.  My daily schedule and goals were "survive".  I didn't feel well, which meant I didn't feel like tracking or planning for the future.  I didn't have energy to prioritize my day or work towards goals particularly.  

I feel much better now, but after 6 months in this planner I decided I just needed a switch.  I stuck the July-December on Vinted (where it still sits... EC has such better resale in the US!) and switched to an old school blank paper notebook:

I bought a bunch of these for £1 each ages ago, when I first started playing with planning. They have about 40 pages, so one lasts a month.  On the first page I write out my monthly goals:

And then I use one page a day after that.  I usually do a daily timeline, or at least a list of activities to do.  I also do a daily to-do list.  I haven't done any sort of habit trackers but I easily could.  Some days I take notes in it. Some days I don't write much.  I'm enjoying the free-form.  I used to do my daily page the night before, which would have spaces for reflection and tick-boxes for tasks, but now I've been pretty casual about what I include.

I'm enjoying the shift so far.  I think an old school notebook may suit better for after babies - daily planning is too overwhelming with newborns.  Maybe I'll be ready for another daily planner by January.   I'm sort of missing the bullet-style journal I used for the last few months of 2022, so I may get another one of those next year / after babies / when I decided this notebook is a bit too basic for me.

We also ordered a new family planner! We got our first planner in October 2020 (I had to check my email - what an odd time to get a planner!) and I loved the customization of Personal Planner.  I initially found it through AndreaDekker.com.  I've always selected our planner layouts, and we eventually started running them Sept-Aug in prep for being in the school year. 

2022-2023 I chose a column layout for the week with split sections.  I really liked the idea of having hours running down the side, but there wasn't an option of having the hours take 2/3 of the page and I knew I needed a section for tasks/non scheduled notes.  This is the layout I picked:

As you can see, we don't use the bottom section as much as expected.  We also don't do anything starting after 9pm so that turns into our little meal plan section.  Overall it works well for our family planning.  

This year Andy decided he wanted to pick and order the calendar.  Personal Planner has so many options but we/he eventually decided on this one:

Hopefully we are in the habit enough of writing things in time order that we can keep the order without having the hours on the side, and this way we have a bit more flexibility with space on the bottom of the daily.  I'll probably still write food at the bottom, and we will probably also add daily things like Nursery drop off/pickup in the bottom section.  The planner is A5 size and I would probably order a larger one if they made it but I couldn't find one this year.  

Do you use a specific planner or planning system?  Does your calendar start in September or January?

Bank Holiday Weekend

Now *that* was a bank holiday weekend!

On Friday I went out to dinner with my mom friends, to a tapas restaurant.  We vastly over ordered.  I am super basic and I love Patatas Bravas.  Spice and potato is my friend.  

On Saturday we had a family play date with friends we have been trying to see for ages.  Our kids are roughly the same ages and they played together so well.  Family play dates are the best.  In the afternoon we ate scones (savory and sweet!) and watched the coronation.  So many lovely hates! 

On Sunday Andy went biking in the morning and Isaac and Lilah played so well at home.  Is 3 and 5 going to be a magic age of playing?  I got house stuff done while watching kids, which is a total anomaly for me.  I also made a massive task list of to-dos for the afternoon.  In the afternoon Lilah took a nap and Isaac went to Grandma's house and we finally got house chores done.  

So many house chores.  We now have three bags ready to go to the charity shop, and a sofa, a Roomba, and a Kallax listed on gumtree.  If they don't sell in a week the sofa can get picked up by the furniture charity shop.  

We also assembled Lilah's toddler bed in an attempt to transition from her crib.  She was so happy but has so far not slept in it and instead slept in her crib.  I hate sleep transitions.  It is not my strong suit.  I love the idea of kids sharing rooms but on Saturday (and Sunday) she ended up back in her crib.  Isaac stayed in a crib until nearly 3, so maybe I just have crib-loving kids.  

On Monday we took the kids to Soft Play, which they loved.  Isaac has been to soft play when he was little but because of Covid it was all closed or super when Lilah was 0-1 and she hasn't been much.  They both loved it and ran for 90 minutes straight.  

Our friends visited from Bristol and we all came back for lunch, which I managed to smash out that morning.  I made a quiche!  Quiche is such an easy make-ahead lunch food for short notice lunches. We also had the Oh She  Glows Chickpea salad, which is also a super winner and I need to make more often.  In the afternoon we all took naps (ie, even our friends) and then did some playing in the house before having home made pizza.  

This week is a short week due to the bank holiday.  I still need to list my road bike on Gumtree and actually take the charity stuff to the charity shop, but I feel our house is progressing towards order again.  Which is good.

Also, this morning I was listening to Cal Newport's Deep Questions and was SO EXCITED to hear Sarah Hart Unger as a guest!  It's a long episode but great so far, and exactly what I needed to listen to on a time when my planning has gone a bit off kilter.  

How was your weekend? What is your favourite quick and easy lunch share?  Do you prefer savory scones (like cheese?) or sweet scones (like berry?)

Sunday Thoughts, Plans, & Meal Plans

This was a busy week.  I had two days in London, which was excellent for meeting colleagues and getting to know people better, but was exhausting in its own way.  

Lilah was off nursery all week with Hand Foot and Mouth, a disease I had never heard of in the states but which seems to be the chicken-pox of the UK. Except, unlike chicken pox, there isn't a vaccine I can buy for it.  So she stayed home, spotty and dopey, and we split childcare between Andy, me, and my mom.  Luckily she took 3 hour naps every day which helped for getting work done.

I got back from London at 9pm on Thursday and had arranged a 6:30 am breakfast with a friend on Friday.  This was rather optimistic scheduling on my part.  When I got back home Isaac seemed tired and dopey so both kids and I stayed home, which of course meant all the work trip debrief/unpacking/house sorting was put off until later.

In other optimistic scheduling, we had planned dinner with friends on Friday since we have mom-childcare.  I had offered Friday or Saturday options but our friends picked Friday so off we went.

Quick question, readers... does anyone like doing things on Friday?  Why?  

It was nice to see friends, nice to have dinner, but it did mean we were exhausted on Saturday.  Saturday was a hard day.  I took a nap while Lilah napped.  I complained bitterly about staying up on Friday.  I let time drip through the day and willed it forward to bedtime.

We did get a FLOM in the evening, which was good because next week is another complicated one with Andy away for 2 days, my Uncle visiting from the states, and kids hopefully in nursery but that's always questionable.

I was in bed by 9pm on Saturday and asleep by 9:30, and I already feel soo much better for it.

Maybe I'm just not currently at a place where doing things in the evening is feasible?  Everything just seems so possible with sleep.

Meal Plan next week:

Sunday: Beef Wellington, Potatoes, Broccoli, Carrots

Monday: Ham and Pea soup

Tuesday: Slow cooker pumpkin chili 

Wednesday: Roast veg and haloumi wraps with hummus

Thursday: Vegetarian Curry (ordered)

Tuesday is Pancake Day in the UK!  While the UK has lots of rubbish things like Hand Foot and Mouth, they make up for it with entire days of pancake eating.  Since the kids are off nursery on a Tuesday I think we will do Pancake lunch - British people usually make Crepes but I may do chocolate chip pancakes.  

What is your favourite pancake?  Have you ever hear of Hand Foot and Mouth before?

On illness & resilience

The best part of being ill is being not ill anymore.

On a recent Thursday while working from home when I wondered why it was so cold.  I checked the thermostat and it was not cold.  It turns out, I was cold. Or rather, I was warm.  

I told my colleague on teams that I was going to take a nap for an hour as I wasn't feeling well.  

I finally got out of bed on Sunday.

I have not been that useless in a while.  I looked at a planner page as if it was Japanese (not tho Hobonichi kind of Japanese, but actual illegible Japanese.  My daily to do was blank.  On Sunday I got out to the grocery story, then had to lie down for another hour.

I didn't think about the day ahead, the week ahead, or the hour ahead.  It was very unlike me.  

Thankfully, after some sleep, I returned to the world of the living.  

I had decided on a word of the year this year - "health" - but I'm going to make a January pivot.  I'm going to chose "resilience".  Because I am not going to be healthy all the time.  

I'm not going to be able to make a perfect sports schedule but hopefully I can have a resilient one.

I'm not going to have an idea social calendar but hopefully I can find space for people I miss on illness weeks.

Maybe it's the damp climate, maybe it's the fact that I'm not from here and I have two young kids.  Maybe it's the weekly enclosed train ride or the open plan office, but I get ill a lot. Normally, the runny nose or mild cough variety.  But so far this winter I have had three fever and "in bed useless" illness varietals.  

I am thankful to be feeling better now and hoping that it lasts a while!

2023 Planning: Holidays & Adventures

We put the kids in nursery today because it was raining AGAIN and also because nursery was open and we are paying for it and we had some house things to do.   For instance, we organized our "pantry":

IN addition to generic organizing, having a day to ourselves was generally a very good decision, especially after driving my brother to the airport at 5am.  Yay for brother visits, Waah for returns home.  It was great having him here, and I am very aware that flying from a rainy part of the US to an even rainier part of the UK to spend a week with a 2 and 4 year old is probably not the ideal fun way for any person to spend their Christmas holiday.  I am glad that my brother puts up with it.

Back to today - Andy and I went out for coffee/midmorning snack and did some 2023 planning.  The primary victory was a rather comprehensive holiday schedule for the year.  2020 was supposed to be our year of awesome before Lilah was born but it was definitely not a year of awesome.  It's a bit galling that it's taken 3 years to get back to awesome, but travel is much harder with two kids than it was with one.  Also, pandemic.

Here is the rough plan:

January: Forest of Dean long weekend

March: Bournemouth long weekend

April: Forest of Dean 1 week holiday

May: Cotswolds long weekend

June: Camping long weekend, or possibly week holiday at home

I've also scheduled in my work Trips for the first 3 months:

January: Manchester

February: London

March: Edinburgh

The March trip may include a second visit to best friend in Cumbria, which would mean leaving the kids with Andy for 5 days.  As Andy said "how hard can it be?"

Have you planned any trips for 2023?  Do you want to come visit Wales?

Monday - meal plans and bedtimes.

I have often been accused of burning the candle on both ends.  “But why not?” was my often reply… “a candle burning at both ends burns twice as bright!”

I have since realized that Is exactly the answer a twenty something would give.

On Friday I was tired.  I knew it was a night to get an early bedtime, and recover on the busy week of suboptimal sleep.  But then, the book was too good.  So instead I read it all. Until 11:30pm!   On Saturday I was tired.  On Sunday, I was tired.  On Sunday I went to bed at 8:30pm.  Which was good, because the biggest little is really into his 5:15am wake ups at the moment.  

Today, I went to Bath to have Christmas lunch with my new team, and this evening I’m going to the local indoor bike/bmx center to play on BMX bikes with my mountain biking buddies.  I love a ladies night at a BMX center, and haven’t been since 2018.  It was the one biking hobby I gave up quickly on becoming pregnant, mostly because it was the only biking hobby where I have ever actually flown off a bike and landed on my stomach.  

Tonight I have low expectations for my skills and fitness, and high expectations for fun.

My meal plan this week is underwhelming:

• Monday: ?? Andy food
• Tuesday: Tacos!
• Wednesday: Sweet Potato & haloumi tray bake, or maybe sweet potato fries with veggie burgers?
• Thursday: Out to dinner for Andy’s work Christmas party!!
• Friday: Salmon and Potato

One of our lovely pumpkins has gone mouldy and we need to eat it soon.  I made pumpkin soup with the last one, so am thinking a pumpkin chili with this one?  Or possibly a savory pumpkin pie (pumpkin and chorizo?

Do you have any favourite pumpkin based recipes?

(Photo is Bath, outside the train station, decked out for Christmas.  I love it.)

Season Fun: Winter Fun List

Here's my quick seasonal fun list for Winter:

• Go Indoor Swimming
• Visit a Christmas Market
• Do a Valentines craft with the kids
• Visit the community farm
• Visit a castle (one with a roof if it's raining)
• Order a new Almanac, then look at the year ahead
• Barre3 workouts and indoor yoga classes
• Imagination Play with the kids (at imagination play centers)
• Look at Christmas lights
• Light candles and use a diffuser to put good smells in the house

Not all of those are applicable after December.  But hopefully I can plan some swimming, castles, and community farm trips in February.

Bird Watching from Indoors at the wildlife center:

Week in review - Plan on Fridays

This week was BUSY.  

Monday night Andy and I made our holiday card - we gave up on waiting for a family photo and went with:

I couldn't find a "happy holidays" card that I liked enough - I really enjoy "Joyful" layouts they are all a bit to far towards Christmas.  Not in a way British people notice, but in a way Americans definitely would.  

(once my British friend told me that a santa was non-denominational.  He had a point, but also no.)

Tuesday I did Breakfast club AND writing club.  So much social.  You know what I missed a lot in the last two years?  Hanging out indoors with people I really like.

Wednesday I went to the office.  It was gorgeous and icy on the ground and I saw the sun rise out the train window.  I did Circuit Training at lunch with my new team, then invited some colleagues out for drinks, which turned into dinner, which turned into me *almost* missing my train home.  For once, a two minute train delay was substantially in my favor!

(side note: after two drinks I really wanted to talk about plans and making plans and goal setting and that wasn't really a popular topic of conversation)

Thursday andy was out biking in the evening and I finally got an IKEA order done!  We are getting one of these, because we are a cliche.  

We are still contemplating putting both kids in the same room.  It might go terribly.  

(side note: we tried to order this bed back in September but then the queen died and the king came to Cardiff and so the order got canceled because they couldn't deliver in king-traffic.  Living in the UK is sometime too weird.)

Friday Today is a quieter day of normal working from home.  I am very tired and definitely need an early night.  I did mostly manage bedtime before 10 however I'm edging towards staying awake too late reading this book because it's both good and getting better and better: 

I hope you all had a great week!  Did your week go as planned?  

Sunday Thoughts & Family Photos

I don't know what this is a picture of but I love it.  I know every parent thinks their kid is brilliant but seriously, look at this drawing!  Look at the emotion!

Last night I forgo-ed (forgot? didn't go to?) the pub in favor of an early night in bed and some reading.  I definitely didn't read much in November so it was good to kickstart my December reading.  I also feel much better this morning having gone to bed at 9:30 than staying up until midnight.  

Also, I'm not sure if it's a sign of age, but I just don't sleep well after a pint or two.  And my back hurts and these kids are too noisy.  

It is a sign of age.

Today we are going to a local open air museum to try and get a family photo.  I should have washed my hair, but I guess I can stick with a classic braid.  I used to read the amazing Putting Me Together blog which had great ideas for coordinating, but today my goal is to get something better than this:

If we can't get a good photo today we can just use Isaac's family portrait:

Andy is making a Pie for dinner and then we need to confirm our food plan for the week.  As it stands:

Monday: Roast Veg and Fish Fingers

Tuesday: Tacos

Wednesday: Jacket Potatoes

Thursday:  Spinach Mac & Cheese (because I messed up a spinach at Thanksgiving so I'm going to try and salvage it into Mac & Cheese)

Friday: Fish

Happy Sunday? Have you taken a family photo recently?  What's on your meal plan this week?

How we organize everything: the F.L.O.M. (Family Logistics and Operational Meeting)

I wish I could ask every person how they organize their lives.  I am so curious – how does it work? What do you do?  If you are in a partnership, what does your partner do?  Every single person lives a life every day of the same number of hours and yet has a vastly different experience of those hours.  When it comes to families there are fundamentals we all need to follow: we all get food ready, we all maintain a home to a liveable standard, we all clothe ourselves and our kids.  We think about school and leisure.  Every family has 70% of the same things on our plates and we spend almost no time talking about how we manage it all.

A year ago my husband and I started having planning meetings.  They’ve evolved over the month and will surely continue to evolve.  Our current agenda is as follows:

• Short review of the week – specifically kids and food plan.  Did the week go well?  Was it hard?  Why?  Can we improve things going forward?  Lots of weeks repeat – I’m in para-finance so my months consist of regular 4-5 week intervals of busy to less busy.  If a busy week went bad, what can we do to make it better next time?
• Look ahead to the following week
• Food plan: go through each day and decide who will make dinner and what we are having
• Nursery run: who is doing drop off and pick up at nursery? Usually whoever does drop off makes dinner.
•  Nursery Cover: Who answers the phone if nursery calls to send a kids home, and who can take time off work to watch any sick kids that week
• Sport/Hobbies: do each of us have enough time for our scheduled sport/hobby in the calendar?
• Family Adventure: do we have at least 1 family adventure planned in the week, or enough family time in general?
  
• Shops and Driving: Do we need to go food shopping?  Anything else we need to drive to?
• Any Other Business: We have a FLOM notebook where we write AOB items in the back, things we need to discuss that we don’t get time during the regular week.  Often this includes holiday planning, potential trips, division of labor (a few weeks ago my AOB was “I don’t want to do all the laundry anymore).  Sometimes we have AOB items that stay there so long we have to schedule a new time to address them, like “pick out cabinet unit for dining room” which has been on the list 6 months and we finally scheduled a time to do it together because no one had the energy for that on a Friday)

We have additional items during our End of Month and Mid Month meetings as follows:

Mid Month:

• Looking at the month ahead to see if there are any scheduling issues
• Allocating days we will be away with work (we both do one to two nights away per month with our jobs)
• Scheduling bigger events like Christmas fayers, long weekend adventures, playdates with friend we don’t see enough

End of Month:

• Reviewing the family budget
• Making monthly family goals / reviewing the month

And that’s our current logistics system.  I know it will change again, and it is a lot of work to maintain, but it also means that hopefully when things start veering off course (as they usually do) we can at least right it in a week or two rather than waiting until everything implodes.

Yoga and other adventures

I did Yin Yoga last night.  I am not a person who meditates, and I don't think I find meditation helpful.  I know studies say that 60% or 80% have improved lives through meditation, but that means 40% or 20% don't, and I think I'm in that group.

However, yoga is great.  Yoga is moving and thinking/not thinking.  The setting was great, the studio was great, and just being back on a mat was great.

During my yoga class I solved my scheduling problem... I'm not going to worry about it.  I'm going to fill each week with things I want to do, and if something doesn't fit then it goes in the next week.  I'll plan with people who are keen, and let other people drop if the plans are too hard to maintain. 

This morning the little was a total mess, she's not had enough sleep recently and she was oh-so-tired.  When we got in the car to go to nursery the fan didn't work - it's been on the fritz for ages but has now died.  This wouldn't be a problem in the summer, but with darkness and cold and foggy windows I couldn't see anything and couldn't drive.

We all headed back into the house.  Littlest continued to lose the plot.  Andy took big to nursery on his bike.  My mom took little on a walk so I could get some work done.  Then we had eggs and kimchee on toast (little just had eggs on toast).  She went for a nap at noon and is currently snoring at 2:30.  

I used the free time for a bit of me time, I finished all the October photo album pages for the kids and the family. I'm getting through my November goals - October is a weird month because it feels like time to give up and count down to the new year, but actually there's so much of the year left.  Now, in mid November, it really fees like the year is winding down... but we still have 10% of our time left.  

If the year was an average lifespan then November 17th is the equivalent of being 70 - plenty of time left to make plans/goals... or run for president?

On Schedules and Plans

I am really loving Tranquility by Tuesday.

I'm on the chapter on "creating a backup slot" and the line that got me was "anyone can make a perfect schedule, time management experts can create a resilient scheduled" (sorry, book not at hand so not perfectly recited).

I'm having trouble crafting my weeks, for fairly good reasons.  I have the following constraints/plans in my Mon-Fri:

• I like to be at home every night between 5pm and 7pm.
• I like to be home most days between 6am and 7am (kid breakfast)
• I work away 1 day a week from 6am to 8pm
• I want to fit in 1 evening sport, 1 evening writing club, and 1 other weekly social engagement which has recently been a 6:30am breakfast but may not be staying this way.
• I need to be home 1 full day a week when husband is on his work day.

It's a puzzle.  I'm not actually sure there is a solution... but I'm not sure what to do with that.  Writing club was cancelled last week because I wasn't well, this week because I was away, and next week because I was away again.  I am missing running buddy!

I'm considering moving back to alternate week engagements, although the issue with that is when you miss a week it's another two before replacement time.

I think it's time for me to start time tracking again.

The other problem with backup slots for social events is that both people need to have the same one. 

So it's a work in progress.  

Today I am trying a new yoga class, because my running club is going to end due to the fact that I despise running in the cold and dark and wet and it's now going to be all three for all the future. 

Time to get changed, get the mat, and do yoga for the first time since February 2020. Also, the 1 class I did in Feb 2020 was the first class I had done since December 2018.  And before that it was a single class in March of 2018.  So I guess that counts as a routine practice...?

Friendship and Planning

I've been thinking about friendships and planning.  As a person who plans, I am very proactive about my social life.  If I like someone I want to see them.  This is only exacerbated by the fact that I don't have a smartphone, so I don't do long form texting, I don't do WhatsApp, and I don't do social media.  If I want to know what's going on in someone's life I make plans to see them in person.  

At the same time, if someone wants to know what's happening in my life they need to make plans with me, for all the aforementioned reasons.

I find myself making more plans than I'm invited to, and lopsided friendships have always been a fear of mine.  It's a teenage anxiety that still manifests when I realize I haven't heard from someone, and I want to see them, and also that I'm always the one arranging.  

In my twenties I had a "three times invite" rule - I can't actually remember whether the rule was that I would only ask someone to do something 3 times and if they said no then I wouldn't ask again, or whether I would only instigate events 3 times and if they didn't reciprocate I wouldn't ask again.  Either way, it was such a hard and fast rule that other people parroted it back to me.  Usually along the lines of "I know you have a rule of three but I'm so sorry please don't stop being my friend"

In fact, that line, which was said to me, is probably evidence enough that people like spending time with me.

So then I started to wonder whether the people I make plans with don't feel the drive as much as I do because their social needs are more satiated digitally.  Is that a bad thing?  Am I avoiding a party that everyone else is at, then wondering why no one hangs out with me?

I am also aware that the "busy years" are not necessarily people's prime friendship years.  Maybe everyone else with one or two children under five years old is just tired, and getting through, and not planning meetups.  Maybe my wholistic approach to my calendar means that I track better when I see people and how much time has passed between meetings.  

Maybe other people are happier at home, by themselves.  The pandemic has normalized a level of introversion like never before.  I am sure some people liked lockdown, but I like people.  I liked my life before.  I never felt other people were social obligations, I feel like other people are social opportunities. 

I have a good friend, who passed away far too young.  She was living a life that I aspired to live. Before she got sick she always had time for people, and when she got sick she had even more time.  "People, not things" became her ongoing mantra.  Happiness is in people.  At the end all we have is people.

So I continue to make plans, because people are all we have.  

Bus still, no matter how old I get, I may always worry that I have no friends.

Meal Plan Monday & Reading List Update

It's Monday again!  We are all tired and potentially ill, so hoping that this week goes OK and we can set our expectations low enough to get through.

We haven't done our Family Operations and Logistics meeting yet, which is a first for us as we always do it Friday, or if not Friday then Saturday, or if not Saturday then Sunday, but we are all shattered.   I will do a longer breakdown of our planning process, but the amazing Sarah Hart-Unger covered this is her blog/pod a few weeks ago when I submitted it to her: Best Laid Plans by Sarah Hart Unger.

We did get our meal plan done, because we have to:

Monday: Lentil Curry & Naan (A)

Tuesday: Chicken Tacos (R)

Wednesday: Leftovers (A)

Thursday: Sausage and Pasta Tray Bake (R) 

Friday: Pizza (R)

Still need to work on cultivating some quick recipes but excited to try some from the comments on this post.

I finished Soulful Simplicity yesterday.  Next on my reading list is Tranquility by Tuesday, and I'm not sure whether it's a good idea to start it now or whether it will make me feel worse about the struggle season we are currently in.  I'm aware that this struggle season is mostly situational (ie illness, work stress, illness) rather than systematic/structural, but that knowledge doesn’t improve things too much. Maybe it's time for some fiction to keep me entertained?  I'm keen to read Carrie Soto is Back - I loved Malibu Rising...

As if by magic the local library has just written to tell me they’re ordering me some books I requested. Yay! I love the library.