August: What I Read

Oh, August. I loved you in so many ways, but reading? Not one of them, despite my productivity in that space. I was underwhelmed by Jane Harper, Riley Sager, Kate Alice Marshall, Lisa Gardner, and Lisa Jewell this month.  But! I was proud of myself for scoring ALL OF THEM via the library! Sometimes on the DAY THEY CAME OUT EVEN. ALL ON LIBBY as either ebooks or audio reads. Talk about an old lady flex!

And. You guys. It pains me to say this, but I was also disappointed by my very favorite author in the entire world, Richard Russo. His new books was... not my favorite. I bought that one ahead of time so it would e on my Kindle the second it came into the world, and it just... was not the best.

(I have the new Liane Moriarty on my Kindle from Libby right now-- came to me ON PUB DAY you guys I am killing the library holds game.)

Here's the month in books from worst to best, with stats compiled at the end:

📱The Heartbreak Hotel by Ellen O'Clover: Why was I on the waitlist for this for so long?

📚🥳 Clutch by Emily Nemens: I wanted to like best friends dramZ book, but there was so much telling and so little showing. Or dialog. Many sentences that started with AND SO

🎧🥳Anatomy of an Alibi by Ashely Elston: I DNF'd this thriller on paper but then thought I'd try the audio book. It was... fine?

📱🥳The Unknown by Riley Sager: This is the second one of his scary books that I have NOT LIKED. 

🎧🥳The Girls Before by Kate Alice Marshall: Liked but did not love this thriller.

📱🥳The Last One Out by Jane Harper: She does such a good job of describing late stage capitalism and small scale social collapse and making the environment a sinister character. Lover her.

📚🥳Cleanup on Aisle Five: Essential Work, Poverty Wages, and the View from Behind the Supermarket Register by Ann Larson: Listen, she is no Barbara Ehrenreich, but I liked this one and liked talking about it with NGS even more.

📚🥳The Divorce by Freida McFadden: Yep. No notes.

📚🥳Transcription by Ben Lerner: I like a book that I have to read slowly and think about. SOMETIMES.

🎧🥳It Could Have Been Her by Lisa Jewell: I have not been a fan of her last 2 books, but this one was good.

📱🥳Look What You Made Me Do by John Lancaster: Ooooh, you should read this one.

📚🥳Arrivals and Departures by Amanda Eyre Ward: This was charming and delightful-- I really like this author.

📱🥳Famesick by Lena Dunham: I have mixed feelings about this book, but it made it to the top-ish of the list in a meh reading month.

📱🥳Under the Falls by Richard Russo: This book! It featured some of his perfectly flawed people and some snatches of the dialog I love so much, but it was a weird plot for him, and the emotional parts just did not land for me. I wanted to love it though.

📚🥳Ghost Town by Tom Perrotta: This was quick and fun but also sad-- recommend. 

📱🥳Into the Blue by Emma Brodie: This was extremely long. I liked it, but imagine if it were like 150 pages shorter.

🎧🥳 You'll Be Sorry by Lisa Gardner: I liked this better than the Frankie Elkin series but not as well as the DD Warren books. But! I do really like her. Gardner, Slaughter, and Cornwall are my thriller faves. Plus Louise Penny.

🎧🥳The Secrets We Hide by Karin Slaughter: YES I sure do love this Sara-Linton-free new series.

LAST DAY OF AUGUST!

 Why are we the only people who are still Very Into the pool??

New! Dance! Season! Energy! Dorothy had 10 hours of choreography for jazz company over the weekend, and she had a blast, as usual.

Ben's parents came to town, nd we celenrated Minnie's birthday one! more! time!

DOrothy missed out on Sassy COw grilled cheese, so she ate Clvers in the car on the way to dance.

We all sat in the WAY BACK, with Ben and his dad in front and Minnie and her grandma in the second row.

Unlimited milk at this place.

Seriously the best grilled cheese.

Right now, we are in lovely Eau Claire moving Harry into his JUNIOR YEAR on-campus apartment. He did not want to live off campus or in the 12-month campus apartment lease options because he has previously adored his summer pool manager job and wanted to be able to come home without worrying about a sublet. But that left weird housing options, so he is going to see how this year is shaping up and be more proactive about meeting future housing deadlines. He is very excited to have his own bedroom after a dicey roomie sitch in suites last year, and he is excited to have a kitchen to flex his new Costco membership.

The kids and I start our school year THIS WEEK, and that wonderful new season energy is buoying us all.

Up next: trims for Minnie and Dorothy (rescheduled because Jack's move in changed, so our long-held appt had to move, meaning they have two different appointment times. Minnie's is actually right before bedtime, so maybe she can just wear a shower cap and have a fresh blowout for the first day of first grade), the beginning of Coop's new dive club life, and a slow ramp up to the busy season-- that will last until JUNE.

Ben and I have big plans to put together an easy dinner rotation plan so we can have a smoother meal planning experience for this school year. Cooper, Dorothy, and Minnie all still eat like kids, so it's weird to have just the two of us to want real food. I see lots of dinner bowl options.

SPEAKING OF BOWLS. We haven't been eating leafy greens because of the whole screaming diarrhea thing-- that is not getting better but is being reported on less frequently. NGS suggested using green beans instead in salad, and we have really leaned into that for salads, adding beets, too. It's been wild to have mostly cooked veggies all summer long, but I think we are settling into a rhythm, and grilled veggies/ roasted veggies eaten cold in bowls will actually be delicious. I hope to get into an easy veggie prep routine a couple days a week. 

SPEAKING OF ROUTINES. I am kind of dreading our 4-8pms, especially as the weather turns. I am tryin g not live at the precipice of a slippery slope fallacy, so we are taking each day as it comes, instead of thinking about the mid-week slog stretching out from September to June. Ugh, I shuddered after typing that sentence.

Wrapping up Summer

We had a fun adventure yesterday searching for a shirt for Dorothy to wear on the first day of school.

 Earlier in the week, I took all3 kids to the mall, thinking Cooper and Dorothy could both find something at American Eagle, mostly because I am s sick of seeing Cooper in the plain brown Hollister t-shirt he wears almost every single day. 

Joke was on me, though, because American Eagle was closed for a remodel (!!!!). Dorothy looked at Aerie, Dicks, and H&M, plus Charlotte Russe and the juniors section at Von Maur and found NOTHING she liked. Neither kid liked Lucky, and Dorothy turned her nose up at Dry Goods, which I actually think is cute. My fault for going to the mall by our house and not the mall with Lulu a teeny bit further away.

Cooper eventually found a SINGLE PLAIN DARK GREEN T SHIRT are you kidding me at H&M, and Minnie got a set of donut earrings and a head band at Claire's. We even stopped at Target on the way home where Dorothy tried on every XXS item in the Wild Fable line with zero success (and increasing attitude).

Yesterday, she told me she wanted to check Free People (at the other mall), which was a total lightbulb moment because Madison has the whole Urban Outfitters Inc line-- Anthro, FP and UO. I had to buy donuts for my meetings today and I wanted to check out the parking accommodation I got for garage renovations (YAY!), so I suggested we try Urban Outfitters on campus. IT WAS PERFECT (and there is a Pitaya right by my office I think she would like and Free People is on the way home.

(UO is right next door to Potbelly-- score!)

We also ventured to the east side to try a new vegan donut shop that was a little disappointing (and did not yield donuts for the meeting because they charge FORTY DOLLARS a dozen).

Big kids! Also every dude on campus had llama hair and was wearing sweat shirts, a plain shirt, and Birks with socks, so way to have your finger on the pulse of bruh fashion, Cooper.

Success!!

Another pool night because OF COURSE. (The pool is open through 8/31, closed for T-F, and then open Sat-Mon the 7th before closing for the season **sob**)

How Dorothy does back-to-school

OMG. The girls helped me make 5 batches of cookie dough balls for the freezer.

Only I must have mixed up the proportions. I made a triple batch and a double bath at the same time, and I think I gave the double batch the triple's sugar and butter ad vice versa. Boo hiss.

First day of class!!

Minnie has been making makeup tutorial videos on her iPad. 

POOL DAYS FOREVER.

THE BEST running weather

Park nights

Annabel, preventing me from changing the sheets because how could I disturb her??

 

Mini season week 2/2

 Con: MOVE IN on campus, and all roads there SUCK. 

Con: Plus also my parking garage is getting a facelift. It was built in 1999, so when I came to campus in 2003, it was still new and amazing and called the Taj Garage by people lucky enough to score a pass to park there. But! You guys! That was 27 winters ago. SO, if needs a bit of work and is getting some car chargers near all the gates. During construction, we have to use a basement entrance around the corner from where I usually enter, and there will only be a single gate for all incoming and outgoing traffic. And one lane access up and down the ramp. WHAT THE ACTUAL EFF. I estimate an extra 15 minutes each way no joke.

Con: Ben has a slightly different schedule to accommodate his campus welcome week, and you know that change discombobulates me.

Pro: Not as many meetings

Pro: POOOOOOL DAYS

Pro: Maybe getting dance team placements? LOL. Probably not. The jazz company list did come out because there is choreographer coming this weekend, so that was fun.

Plans for today:

EMAIL TRIAGE MY GOD IT IS A DISASTER IN THERRRRRE

Various admin tasks

Prep for Thursday/Friday meetings on campus

Make a quadruple batch of cookie dough and freeze little dough balls so I can make cookies anytime

Speaking of cookies-- this cookie granola is amazing.

The only school supplies I need

Ben and I had a schedule meeting and hammered out the whole first semester. We both have schedule anomalies that require the other person to do a little juggling, and it was great to look at everything at once. Also Ben realized that he maintains 2 totally separate calendars which explains why so much is falling through the cracks. We had a little lively discussion about how it is maybe not my responsibility to manage that but perhaps his to subscribe to his personal calendar via his work calendar or vice versa. Honestly not sure where we landed on that and typing this out makes me think that I need to follow up.

Have I mentioned that we still don't know the after school activity schedule?

Lots of mermaid tails and painting and saggy baggy birthday balloons over here.

Bradley move in

 You are looking at the last picture of all 5 kids before THANKSGIVING

 

We also took one the night before

And then forced 4/5 of them to go out for dinner (Cooper went to his first HS home football game with friends) (Dorothy was late to a sleepover and made Harry leave dinner the second she was done chewing and take her)

We started the big day at my mom's to celebrate our 6 year-old again

Did I mention that Dorothy and Coper stayed home and Harry had to work all day? Well, that's what happened. Dorothy and Cooper actually ended up spending about 6 hours at the pool with friends while Harry worked at the other pool which was a slight miscommunication on my part, but whatever. They were mostly fine.

Also, most of Jack's stuff was already in Peoria, so that was SUPER HANDY. We had to bring over a few more things and then actually unpack all his stuff. He timed it well, and his roommate was already unpacked and out to lunch wot his parent, which meant the 4 of us could descend upon the room and make magic happen.

Minnie loved stacking sodas and filling up the keurig pods

Jack loved organizing his desk

Cutest little room!!

Only time this vacuum will be used

Love that bedside table-- you gotta get one for your college kid.

Only time this bed will be made. And it was very hard for this old lady to climb up there and do it. When Minnie goes to college, I will be 60, and she may be SOL.

Next up, I made everyone pose with my favorite iron lady

YOU BET I expect a first day of class pic with her.

We went to a very cute legacy family lunch at the alumni center featuring our favorite sandwiches from a restaurant that used to be across the street from campus-- an adorable touch

And then. We just... left him there, which is SO WEIRD. We are going to miss Jack so much. We have 2 visits planned in September, and he will come home for fall break in October. But still. It's the end of an era for sure.

Jack and Lydia in 2016

What I picture Jack like as he drives around Peoria in his actual little red car

Jack in a Bradley Hall classroom in 2010

Jack and Lydia 2014

Jack and Lydia 2016