What's Up Wednesday: August 2021

Welcome to What's Up Wednesday for August 2021. As always, I'm linking up with Shay at Mix and Match Mama and Sheaffer at Sheaffer Told Me To to talk about what we've been up to lately.

For the past seventeen months I've started my WUW posts with a Covid update. Well, I live in Canada, so while cases are on the rise (slightly) in our province, we have a significant portion of our population over 12 doubly vaccinated and so life is (somewhat) normal. I mean, we still have mask mandates and distancing but we don't have a lot of restrictions right now which is so great. We're looking ahead to school starting in two weeks. The kids will have to wear masks but it seems like extracurricular activities might be an option and it sounds like the school libraries will be open too! We're slowly getting back to "normal."

image from here

What we're eating this week... The end of August contains some of my favourite eating of the whole year. We're in peach and tomato season around here and I've been consuming both like I'll never eat them again! Sam also convinced me to buy some plums so he's been working his way through those.

What I'm reminiscing about... We went to visit my parents' in Saskatchewan earlier this month. My cousins and aunt from Alberta took a little road trip to visit us. I am reminiscing about how great it was to HUG them (!!!) and we made a Low Country Boil to eat with them which was so fun!!! We also laughed and laughed and laughed. I LOVED seeing them.

What I'm loving... I'm loving how independent our kids are getting. They spent some time on their own at the pool earlier this week and Dave and I have gone for a few outings on our own while they stay home. We just suddenly seem to be in a new stage of life where they don't need us 100% of the time and it feels pretty great!

What we've been up to... Rachel worked really hard last week and completed her dance exams which had been postponed from the spring. Sam finished off his baseball season for the summer.

 

We decided to eat ice cream for three days in a row...

 

... and we watered the garden at our school and found a really unique looking sunflower.

   

 

We've been enjoying the last of summer and gearing up for fall.

 

What I'm dreading... Well, I'm currently working at a school which is about a fifteen to twenty minute walk from our house and, for the next few days, we're under a heat warning. Ugh. It's supposed to be a humidex of 40C (104F) at the time I'm supposed to be walking home and I don't do well with heat, so I'm dreading that. It's almost September, people -- it's time to cool down a bit! And all you people who live in the Southern US are laughing so hard at me right now :)

Also, I think "humidex" is a Canadian thing so you can read about what exactly it is here.

What I'm working on... My summer vacation ended with less than 24 hours notice so I've been working full-time since last Wednesday. Thus, this past weekend, I tried to start getting ahead of all the school things. Both kids got new lunch bags and we made sure they both have good water bottles. I've ordered some new masks for the kids and basically, I'm just trying to get ahead of the "back to school/fall activities are starting" chaos. Wish me luck!

Realizing Rachel needed all new dance shoes and tights for September. Ack!

What I'm excited about... In and among the new lunch bags, I decided to stop using Sam's Kindermusik cooler from when he was one and I bought myself an adult lunch bag!!! Whooo hooo! It's so pretty and I'm so excited about it!

The Kindermusik cooler bag I used all last year on the left 

and my new "adult" bag on the right.

  

Dave said I should call it a "grown up lunch bag" rather than an "adult lunch bag" because calling it "adult" makes it sound like it has naked people all over it! Hahaha!!! No naked people here, just flowers :)

What I'm watching/reading... I started a new virtual walk so I'm currently walking the North Coast of Scotland (virtually). I've been doing lots of walking/running lately so I'm watching my progress on this walk which is really exciting. This is the third virtual mission I've done through this app and I love that's it's gotten me into consistent exercising. If you're interested in checking it out, you can see it here. (This is not sponsored -- I just might be addicted to doing these virtual walks! If only I could actually do them in real life.)

Sadly, since I've started working, I don't have as much time to read. However, I read Kate Quinn's The Rose Code a few weeks ago and then I checked out a bunch of the books from the library about Bletchley Park, code breaking, the Enigma code, and all that fun stuff. Yes, it's very random but I find it soooo interesting. And after the disappointment I felt reading Quinn's second novel, The Huntress, I was thrilled to love The Rose Code as much as I loved The Alice Network.

What I'm listening to... Right this moment, I'm listening to my husband washing the dishes.

 

However, the night before I started back to work, our smoke detectors went off at midnight and woke me and the kids out of sound sleeps. We couldn't find any smoke or issues, and after talking to the fire department for advice, we went back to bed. (Dave was still awake.) About forty minutes later, they went off again. Ugh. So heeding the fire department's advice from earlier, we vacated our house and called 9-1-1.

 

A fire truck arrived and a team of firefighters went through our house with sensors checking for smoke and carbon monoxide. They didn't find anything and suggested that the issue might be that a few of our detectors had expired. Dave replaced them the next day and we've slept through the night undisturbed since. So let this be your PSA -- check your smoke detectors' expiry dates or you too could be listening to middle of the night alarms.

Just a little excitement at 1am!

What I'm wearing... A couple of weeks ago, I decided to give the Couch to 5K program a try. It's become a bit of a family affair and Dave and Rachel have joined me on every run. Sam came out for the first one :) Thus, I've been wearing running clothes lately. Other than that I've been wearing work clothes, interview clothes (I'm interviewing for permanent hours), or pajamas. Fun times!

This picture was taken at 6:10am yesterday morning. Rachel, Dave, and I got up early to go running and the sun wasn't quite up yet. Thus, you get a grainy picture of a tired looking me!

 

What I'm doing this weekend... I don't know yet. We're going swimming. I hope to catch up on some blogging -- both writing posts and reading blogs. I don't want to set an alarm either day, which will be a nice change. It's probably going to be a quiet weekend and that will be perfect!

What I'm looking forward to next month... I'm so excited about September!!! The kids are going back to school, I'm going to buy sunflowers and chrysanthemums, Rachel gets to return to in person dance, we're probably going to be able to go to church in person for the first time since March 2020 (!!!), and we're going to an IN PERSON TORONTO BLUE JAYS GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Aaaaahhhhhh!!! We really didn't think we'd get to see our beloved Blue Jays play live during the 2021 season so I'm thrilled that, not only did they get to return to Canada but, we get to go see them!!!!!!!!! I can't wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What else is new... We spent quite a bit on flavoured sparkling waters this summer so the kids convinced Dave and I that we needed a Soda Stream. We've been having fun making fizzy water and drinking it with a little lime or lemon juice added. Yum!!!

So that's what's up with me (us) this last Wednesday of August. Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to make some time to read the other posts in this link up. Until then -- heigh ho, heigh ho, it's off to work I go.