Friday Favourite Moments #13 (On A Thursday)

It's the last Thursday of the month and, normally, I would link up with Holly and Patty for Monthly Musings. But this month is all about spring fashion and you all know how fashionable I am! Hahaha! When I realized my answer to "favourite spring scent" was "dirt" and my answer to "favourite spring fashion pieces" was "shoes where I don't have to wear socks," I decided to skip it :) Since tomorrow is Good Friday, I decided to post my "Friday Favourite Moments" a day early.

This was another hard week but only because I am experiencing some of the busiest weeks of work right now. I'm not sure that even the end of the school year will be this crazy. There are a few factors contributing to the stress and crazy (which I won't get into) but let's just say some extra prayers for sanity and calm for me at work would not go amiss right now.

And with that, on with my Friday Favourite Moments from this past week.

1) Our chives

I mentioned this in my post yesterday but I had totally forgotten that I had brought home chives plants from Saskatchewan last summer, solely for the purpose of having them for potato salad. I got so excited when I saw they had popped up when I was checking something else in the back yard!!! Normally, we'd have potato salad for Easter dinner but Tim & Janice are hosting this year so I'll have to make potato salad another time. But I have the chives to do it!!! Yay!!!

 

2) Extra treats at work

My principal bought too many muffins for a work meeting so offered me one, even though I wasn't a part of the meeting, and another co-worker bought me a coffee-hot chocolate yesterday, and honestly, those have been the best parts of work this week! The extra caffeine and sugar have been exactly what I've needed as I've been hopping this week.

 

3) Empty laundry baskets

While things at work are nuts, I'm actually staying on top of (at least one!) things at home. Our laundry is currently completely caught up and I could not be more excited!!!

4) Rachel did the dishes

On Friday night Dave wasn't feeling well and went to bed early. I was exhausted and also went to bed early. I asked the kids to do the bare minimum for clean up and to put themselves to bed at a reasonable hour. The next day I woke up to discover that Rachel had done all the dishes, even though I had said they could leave them. I get completely frustrated sometimes with raising a preteen and a teenager so I have to shout it from the rooftops when one of them goes above and beyond. I was so thrilled to not have to face a counter of dirty dishes on Saturday morning.

So those were my favourite moments from the week. Tell me something good about your week. And to everyone celebrating, Happy Easter! I am so ready for a four day weekend!

What's Up Wednesday: March 2024

Whew! March has been a whirlwind! We had March Break (with a cruise) and then we dove right back into the school/work/dance/etc routine. Throw in some birthdays and March has been full! When I feel overwhelmed and way too busy, I try to remember how instantly life stopped four years ago this month and I try my best to be very grateful that we are able to have so much on the go. So after all that preamble, on with this post :)

I love answering the What's Up Wednesday questions every month. I like how they help me reflect on the past month. The questions come from Shay at Mix and Match Mama and Sheaffer at Sheaffer Told Me Too.

image from here

 

What we're eating this week... Well, this month we were eating cruise food for about a week, which was awesome! In case you're wondering cruise food is...

... breakfasts of fried mushrooms, fresh fruit, and croissants for me (the non-breakfast eating person) 

and endless ice cream for Sam...

...endless pizza for Rachel (and me!) and creme brulee.

When we weren't eating cruise food, we also celebrated St Patrick's Day with Irish soda bread, vegetable Guinness stew, and green chocolate chip cookies (made by Rachel).

Dave also made a really delicious, and vegetable laden, stir fry this past weekend.

 

Honestly though, except for the cruise, and the rare occasion, this month was a lot of eating leftovers or "catch as catch can" as we tried to use up food before travelling. Hopefully, in April, we'll get into a better eating routine again.

 

What I'm reminiscing about... I'm reminiscing about how great our cruise was. We made a (somewhat) last minute decision to book it (in October 2023) so it felt a little random. However, we laughed a lot and had so much fun. I never regret family travel. I'm also reminiscing about the warmth and sun as we've returned to winter since we've been back home.

And as always, every March, I'm reminiscing about Sam and the week after he was born. He turns 15 on Saturday and I still can't believe it!!!

 Sam at two days old. So little.

What I'm loving... I'm loving any sign of warm, spring weather we've had. I'm itching to get outside and do some yard cleanup. Unfortunately, when it's been nice we've had too much on the go, and when I've had time, it's been snowing. Hopefully in April, I'll be able to put some dedicated time into cleaning up our yard. I can't wait!!!

 

What we've been up to... We've been up to work/school/dance/travel and then fitting in other things as best we can.

We checked out Can-struction, a fundraiser for our food bank.

I've enjoyed my weekly mornings with Janice.

We've celebrated a lot of birthdays this past month with one more BIG one to come this weekend :) Sam is turning 15 on Saturday so we'll be celebrating him all day long!!! 

What I'm dreading... Our spring plants were coming up nicely and then it snowed :( I am desperately hoping the snow did not kill their buds and I will still get daffodils and all the spring flowers I love. I am dreading that the snow killed them all though. sigh. Stupid, late season, snow.

 

What I'm working on... I'm almost done with my most recent virtual walk! Whooo hoooo!!! As of last night I only had 16.9 kilometres (10.5 miles) left to finish my walk across the United Kingdom -- from southern England to Northern Scotland. It was 1,744 km (1,084 miles) total. I already have my next walk lined up and I can't wait to start walking around Wales. I started virtually walking routes during Covid and it has stuck. This is the fourth (or fifth?) one I have completed.

Rachel, Dave, and I earned our medals doing the Castaway Cay 5K and I definitely counted that as a part of my virtual walk.

What I'm excited about... I think next week I will buy my pansies and ranunculus for the season and I am ridiculously excited to plant them!!!

 

Also, I was looking at something else in our backyard and noticed our chives are growing! I totally forgot that I brought some home from Saskatchewan last summer! I'm definitely putting potato salad on the menu plan for April!!! Whoooo hooooo!!!

 

What I'm watching/reading... I've been watching Spring Training games whenever I can and I am also excited that Opening Day is TOMORROW!!! Whoooo hooooo!!! Now we just have to buy some tickets to watch some games in person!!!

As for reading, I have a couple of books which are very overdue so I've been working on reading them so I can get them back to the library. Currently, I'm reading Family, Family by Laurie Frankel, and depending on how it ends, it might be the next book I recommend to absolutely everyone! Stay tuned...

 

What I'm listening to... When I wake up in the mornings, I can hear the birds chirping and I love it! I can't wait until I can sit outside, drinking my coffee, and listening to them.

What I'm wearing... Sadly, I'm back to wearing sweaters and dress pants at work and sweatshirts and pjs pants at home. It's been cold here the past week or so, with more snow than I want at the end of March. However, our cruise included a Marvel Day at Sea so Rachel and I had special ears and t-shirts!

 

If you're not familiar with Marvel, my ears are Captain America and Rachel's are Iron Man. Her shirt is based on Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour and was perfect for her. We got our shirts and ears off Etsy. Maybe I should wear my ears to work one day to really throw everyone off! Hahaha!!!

What I'm doing this weekend... I'm really excited because we're celebrating Easter with our best friends! And Sam is turning FIFTEEN! Yeeeks!!!

What I'm looking forward to next month... April brings a lot to look forward to this year -- Passover, a big birthday for one of my aunts, Rachel's dance performance, (hopefully) good work news for me, a big school trip for Sam, being able to hang laundry outside -- did I mention there's a lot to look forward to?!?!?!?

What I bought on Amazon... I bought some new white lights to hang over our living room window after my other light string died. However, I haven't even opened the package yet and I bought them about three weeks ago. Ooops. I should put that on my list of things to do.

So that was our March. I'm off to work and hoping for some sun, although I think we're scheduled for rain all day. Still at this time of year, I'd prefer that over the snow we're supposed to get this weekend. Oh Spring -- you do test my patience.

Happy Wednesday everyone! If you're currently experiencing sun (and warmer temperatures) please enjoy a little extra for me :)

Chilling On Castaway Cay

I've hit that time of life where, sometimes, for no specific reason, I wake up in the middle of the night and cannot get back to sleep. Grrrrr. So last night (Sunday) I woke up at 1am, couldn't get back to sleep until 4:30am, and then dozed until 6:15. I'm writing this on Monday night and, if this post doesn't make any sense, I apologize in advance! Here's hoping for a better night's sleep tonight. sigh.

And how to segue from talking about "lack of sleep" to "visiting Disney's private island in the Bahamas on our cruise"? Well, thankfully, I had no sleep issues on the ship. Phew! Which was a good thing because this day I walked over 20,000 steps.

Family picture in front of the ship on Castaway Cay. Since we'd visited this island six years ago, I was reminiscing big time about how small the kids were then! You can go to this post here to see almost nine year old Sam and almost seven year old Rachel last time we were here.

I loved how gorgeous and tropical everything was.

Sam and Rachel, on the other hand, loved that the access to free ice cream continued on the island! Hahahaha!!! We all have our priorities I guess :)

We spent about an hour in the ocean as a family and had so much fun swimming and laughing. And then relaxing on the beach loungers!

Dave and I enjoying the beach! And the sun! And the warmth! This was a perfect March vacation for me.

At the beginning, and the end, of the Castaway Cay 5K. We walked it and earned our medals. Sam hung out in the teen hideaway on the island while we did this.

Some views during the 5K

After the 5K, we collected Sam, took a few more pictures and headed back to the ship.

left: March 2024; right: January 2018

Did I mention the kids were so little?!?!?!

After we got back on the ship, Rachel wanted pizza. We visited the free pizza place every single day!

And Dave and I went back to Pink, the champagne bar!

One last fancy drink for Sam and one last creme brulee for me...

... and an early celebration of Sam's birthday!

 

And that was the last night of our cruise. It was so amazing to end it with a beach day in a gorgeous spot. And I love that in the post I linked to above about our first visit there, I said I wanted a warm day to enjoy the beach and would walk the 5K. And this day I was able to live out that six year long dream! Hahaha!!! Seriously though, our day was so great and I loved it!