Happy Things Friday: 25 September

I am dragging to the finish line of this week.

There are a variety of challenging, non-bloggable things happening in our lives/the lives of people we care about lately. I’m a bit weary of writing that sort of thing out—yet again!—but it genuinely feels like there is constantly some minor (or major) challenge going on within our orbit at all times.

And, still, life marches on. There are so many good things happening, too.

Both kids are off school today, which feels… okay.

While I typically dread random holidays—and I’m still not clear what purpose today’s day off from school is serving—I very much appreciate that it lands on a Friday and provides us with a long weekend.

Tomorrow is an all-day youth event organized by our church. It’s happening about an hour away and it runs until 8 pm. THAT IS WELL PAST THE TIME I WANT TO BE SETTLED IN PJS ON A SATURDAY EVENING. Such is the joy of volunteering with teens who are hitting their stride at 8 pm.

It will be fun and exhausting and I’m both looking forward to it and dreading it in equal measure. This year, since Indy is now in middle school, he’ll be involved, too. It will be a memorable family adventure, since John and I are both volunteering and both kids will be participants.

Sunday morning is church and I think I’ve convinced everyone to only go to the 11 am service because… #Sleep.

Let’s discuss Happy Things, shall we?

TRAMPOLINE TIME

Our free hand-me-down trampoline has provided hours and hours and hours of entertainment at this point. Saturday morning found me outside far too early, freezing my feet off (I was in sandals and sadly sandal weather is apparently behind me), filming various flips and tricks in slow motion so Indy could watch them to make note of changes he should make to his form. At least I had coffee.

His repertoire of twirls and spins and flips has expanded dramatically and it’s a lot of fun to watch, even if my heart is in my throat some of the time.

MORE BATCH COOKING

Batch baking continues! I just cannot get over how quickly food disappears. A few weeks ago I made a double batch of banana bread and had oodles of muffins and two loaves and all sorts of it went to the freezer and I figured I was set for a month and it was ALL GONE within a week. One day, after school, Indy ate three muffins. And this was after finishing whatever was leftover in his lunchbox. His increasingly long legs are apparently hollow.

So I made a double batch of pumpkin bread (converting most of it into muffins because they’re easier to transport to school), a GIANT double batch of high-protein waffles (and had about 25 by the time I was done), and a batch of cinnamon muffins. Much of it went to the freezer, and no doubt a week from now, most of it will be gone!

*Update: I’ve already made more pumpkin muffins.

FESTIVE DECOR

I tend toward minimalism when it comes to seasonal decorations (with the slight exception of Christmas, but even then things are relatively understated in our house), but I wanted to add a few little things to mark the shift into fall.

I bought a leaf swag and wrapped it around the chandelier hanging over our dining room table. I put up the wooden garland I bought last year for the mantel, and set out a few other things I was too lazy to photograph for the purposes of this post.

My favourite decoration this year is the set of paper pumpkins Belle bought at Dollarama (the set was $4). They are absolutely adorable in person and I’m tempted to go buy a set for myself. Bonus because they’ll accordion fold back down to almost nothing in terms of storage.

More generally, her room is a festive explosion of fall/Halloween decor. She is ALL IN. And the instant Halloween is over, she’s ready with Christmas decorations.

STARBUCKS DATE

Our foray to Dollarama for those festive accents was followed by a trip to Starbucks. I got a pecan oat latte, and Belle treated us both to a piece of cinnamon coffee cake, which felt very seasonally appropriate. It was absolutely delicious.

I thought these Peanuts-themed gift cards were adorable!

FUN FRIEND TIME

Belle and I had that stretch of time alone together because Indy was off having fun with a friend. They were gone the entire day: first to an outdoor wildlife reserve, followed by mini golf. He was living his best life. (John was gone all weekend at a men’s event.)

When the mom brought Indy home at the end of the day, the boys proceeded to jump on the trampoline for over an hour while we chatted.

GOLD STARS (NOTE THE PLURAL) FROM MY TEEN

For the most part, I’ve taken an increasingly hands-off approach with overseeing cleanliness and order in Belle’s bedroom. She’s a teenager and can and should be responsible for maintaining that space. To her credit, for the most part, things never get too out of control. But her sheets needed to be washed and she also gave me “permission” to clean her room. (In other words, she loves to have a clean space, but didn’t want to necessarily do the work.)

It didn’t take very long—maybe 10 minutes total—to clear all the socks off her floor (are they clean? are they dirty? NO ONE KNOWS, so I took it upon myself to wash them all), dust her desk and side tables, and strip off the sheets, and vacuum the floor.

After everything was done, I sent her a text message awarding myself a gold star. And she gave me double gold stars. Praise can’t get much higher than that at this stage of parenting.

HAPPY THINGS IN BLOG LAND

• In case you missed it, I was a guest over at The Frugal Girl earlier this week! A huge thanks to Kristen for hosting me in her lovely corner of the internet.
• Catrina ran her first sub-90 half marathon. AT 58. This result is wildly impressive!!
• I thought Melissa’s travel hack of heading out on a food tour during a very long layover in Singapore was truly genius.
• This poem (and original art) by my friend Jan made me smile.
• Diane’s annual family trip to the Renaissance Faire always sounds delightful!

• When I posted a picture of my new mug, my friend Jana took special interest in it and asked for the brand name (10 Strawberry Street) and then promptly ordered one off eBay! She has a special affinity for blue and white (check out the tile on her kitchen floor). We’re now twinning (fraternal, not identical) with our pretty mugs!
• Who doesn’t love celebrating a dog gotcha day?? Lindsay’s adorable puppy—Maysie—has been with her family for a year now.
• I thought Laura’s Substack article about “Send show notes for life” was a brilliant idea.

• I used to check our mail almost daily, but these days we’ve been stretching it to almost a week. The unintended result? There’s almost always something “fun”. This week, an absolutely touching handwritten message from blog friend Maria, and a very special postcard signed by Michelle, Kyria, and Birchie! I’m sad I wasn’t able to join them in person, but receiving a postcard in the mail was the next best thing.

BONUS HAPPY THINGS

• This one made me laugh. Indy was playing a mini-basketball game with a friend on the floor of his bedroom when one of the balls rolled under his dresser. I happened to be walking by so I helped them pull the dresser out and BEHOLD: half a dozen empty granola bar wrappers. Busted. He was like: Oh, that was from back in the stage when I was really into granola bars. They’ve probably been in this little hidden nest for several years at this point.

• We were in the middle of a spray-painting project when our existing can ran out (there was still a bit of paint left, but something got clogged and all our tricks to get it working again failed). I popped into the local hardware store and managed to get the LAST can of the particular brand/shade/finish.

• And, over the weekend, since I had the spray paint handy, I touched up the paint on our dryer vent and a few other exterior things. Most of these sorts of things don’t come standard in black, so we spray painted them black years ago. And that paint has slowly flaked off. If I’d had more time I would have spent more time scraping off the old paint, but that can be a next summer job. Now that the paint has been touched up, it’s clearly time to focus on clearing all the cobwebs off our siding!

• A Use Up Our Leftovers salad. I chopped up the end of the romaine lettuce that’s been languishing in the fridge for ages, half an avocado, corn on the cob, a few croutons, and some thinly sliced pork tenderloin, also left over. SO good!
• I met up with a mentor of sorts this week; she was my first boss in my first job out of grad school and we had mostly lost touch (waving in passing if we saw each other). I was on a walk with Joy last week when we bumped into each other and decided to get together for coffee and to catch up. For context, the last time we had any significant conversation, Indy was a BABY. A lot has happened. And it was delightful to see each other again.

That’s a wrap from me. Happy weekending, friends.

Your turn.

• What are some Happy Things in your life this week?
• What is your least-favourite laundry item to deal with? I also dislike matching socks. Oh, and stuffing liners back into sports bras. Ugh.
• Do you decorate your living spaces for changing seasons?