I painted my own toes and more silly saver things

Turns out when you are an irresponsible spender who is looking to clean things up a bit for a spendy month, there is much fat to trim. WHO KNEW.

 I usually get a pedicure every 3-5 weeks, depending on how things are looking, so my feet were in pretty good shape, but I gave myself a polish change for free at home instead of paying someone $50 to do it for me. Will this happen on the regular? Not during sandal season. Did I hate it? Not at all!

I have also been challenging myself to have several buy nothing days a week, which when you spend about a thousand dollars a week on GROCERIES MY GOODNESS is not actually hard. WHAT ELSE DO I NEED? Turn out, not a whole lot. A water filter for the fridge. A bottle of Draino. Hamburger buns. It has been VERY EASY to just stop buying random stupid crap (I did buy a carton of gum balls from Amazon the other day, so it's not like I am a new person or anything).

You know what I  for sure do not need? MOAR books. I cleaned out my Kindle library and discovered I have-- wait for it-- FOURTEEN BOOKS in there that I have not read through the Amazon First Reads program-- dating back to 2023! WHAT. I am going to read these BEFORE I buy more books. (Obviously if they are terrible, I will abandon them-- what a great time to practice DNFing!-- but I think they will be FINE FINE FINE for the pool.) (Now cross your fingers that I randomly find Whistler on the walk in shelf at my library).

(Also, organizing my Kindle and adding all the unread books to my Storygraph pile was so fun. But it made me think of the productivity company in Annie Knows Everything. The characters work for a planner app and there is a bunch of funny, snarky commentary about how the app just makes people think they are getting work done when really it's just another digital time suck, and I was like OMG this is meeeeeeee).

But really! The biggest thing we have done to stop spending like drunken sailors is to STOP EATING OUT.  This, too, feels like a seasonal saver thing because when activity season hits, I will absolutely need to rely on food not made by me. But for now? It is a healthy and delicious perk of a slower pace.

Did I still buy Minnie fast fashion to wear for rainbow day at school? I MEAN. I AM WHO I AM YOU GUYS KNOW ME.

Speaking of fashion. Ok. I have a dance recital and a graduation to attend in the next couple of weeks, and I think I am going to... re-wear a couple of dresses. Usually, I buy a new dress to wear backstage and after the girls dance, but this is dumb you guys. I AM NOT ONSTAGE. Graduation? Not sure about this one. Part of me wants a new dress just because. But the other part of me me knows I have a TON of summer dresses in my closet and should probably just, um, pull one off the hanger.

I am also thinking about wearing the dress above (that I bought for Dorothy's dance nats team dinner cruise last summer) to Dorothy's dance nats team dinner cruise this summer. Last summer was a flapper theme, and this dress was a gentle nod toward it. This summer the theme is "Chicago shimmer," and, again, this dress works enough. Probably will wear the flat sandals again, too. 

OH! One more thing! I stopped getting coffee out cold turkey. This habit is a creeper for me. It starts with an espresso before class. Then it's that plus also maybe a coffee before my Wednesday class and also a "Friday coffee" with Dorothy and Cooper. Then the Friday coffee happens also on Tuesdays and includes breakfast sandwiches and suddenly we are talking about $100 a week that I don't even really notice as money spent. SLIPPERY SLOPE you guys.

So there you have it-- some simple ways we are spending less in a month of trips and sign ups. What about you?

Let's catch up on the cusp of a busy weekend

 I am writing this on the cusp of ZONES!! for Cooper (in Iowa City) and dance recital weekend for Dorothy and Minnie. Ben and Coop are in Iowa right now getting ready for the competition. Cooper needs to place in the TOP THREE in his categories to qualify for USA Diving Nationals in West Virginia at the beginning of August. I know that he is super nervous, which. makes me super nervous, and I do not have any chill on a day that I am not nervous, so that's why I'm not the dive parent.

I am lying in bed listening to the rain, wondering when the heck I am going to be able to go for a run, and placing a couple of grocery orders so I can pack some backstage snackle boxes, make cupcakes and brownies, and throw together a post-recital Sunday lunch, plus a Saturday night dinner for visiting recital-goers. (Metro Market, Target, and Whole Foods, plus an in-person Aldi run--phew!)

Minnie reads to me during adult swims, and it's the cutest.

I took this picture and immediately worried that Annabel has ticks even though she only goes outside with me to run and walk and never plays in the grass (see: not chill ever, above).

Chaperoning the all-school splash park field trip was not the best idea I've ever had.

Things I do to remember my shopping list (the Aldi run I have mentioned above is my second since my big Sunday shop last week **eye roll**)

Instead of ditching his old grill, Ben turned it into a planter. Next summer, I am going to make it a burger topping mini-garden (onions, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber).

Kindergarten forever, please ("S" for summer birthdays for the end of school alphabet countdown)

Dorothy made her stage debut in her middle school production of Too Many Detectives at the Murder Mansion. The play had 2 casts, and she got to be a different role in each, so it was fun to see the show twice in a row! It will surprise no one to hear she is fabulous onstage.

Cooper as a baby at the pool and Cooper working his first shift at the pool (he works the front desk and has to take out the trash at the end of the night).

Minnie's school had a family night with a traveling petting zoo-- OMG THOSE POOR ANIMALS THO

Dorothy's hip hop supergroup performed at Madison's third tier pro-soccer team's game-- so fun!

OK-- that's it. Everything we've done lately. Excuse me while I spend the rest of the day obsessively refreshing the dive app and texting Ben-- see you on the other side of a HUGE weekend.

Season 2: SUMMMMMMMMA

 Oh, do I love summer!

The relaxed mornings!

The pool!

The light reads by my favorite, most reliable authors! 

Minnie and I put together a light summer structure that we are super excited about since we are continuing to be camp-and-childcare-free.* Here's what we got:

Make it Monday (baking or crafts, weather dependent)

New park Tuesday

Sweet treat Wednesday (stole this years ago from Kelsey Wharton)

Library Thursday (this one is mainly for me because I need a regular day f I am actually going to read my books).

Fun Fun Friday

Here's Minnie's Friday bag of destiny:

Besides that, I have a few other goals for this fleeting season:

Celebrations:

We have 8th grade promotion, high school graduation, our 15 year house-iversary, our 21st anniversary, Harry's 20th, and Minnie's 6th-- I want to make them all special and memorable. We will also celebrate TWO college move-ins this summer and dance and dive nationals season. Phew!!

Fitness:

Increase my daily run from 30 minutes to 40

Take a barre class

Take a hot yoga class

Household:

Trade out some of my daily cleaning products for less toxic versions. I will still use bleach spray in the bathrooms when they need it, but my everyday wipe-down cleaner could be something gentle not lemon bleach-free Clorox, for example, that makes me cough and cannot possibly be good for us.

Use baking soda and a toothbrush to clean the sink when I am putting the kitchen to bed

Personal/professional development:

Work on an intentional email check in routine instead of the avoid and dig out shuffle I have going on now

Use my planner every day

Write in my one-sentence journal every day-ish instead of doing a binge

Do 2 no-spend days a week

Observe Christmas (shopping) in July

Fun:

Visit our town's James Beard nominated bar

Go out to dinner with Ben

Order pizza at the pool

Drink Tito's and lemonade by the pool (literally does not feel like summer until I do this)

Cultivate a yes-and mentality as default summer mom mode

Do a Girls rewatch while I lift weights (this show is freaking hilarious now that I am basically Hannah's parents).

*Cooper and Dorothy both have diving from 10-11:30. Then Cooper dives again from 2-5. Plus Dorothy has 12-ish hours of dance a week. And Cooper works at the pool's front desk in his off time-- they are SO BUSY that they really don't have time for anything else. Sports ARE their "childcare" and they are both old enough to BE my childcare for Minnie, so this is not the flex it used to be. 

Goals: May Review/ June Preview

 To review, I had loooooow Maypectations. And! SPOILER: I did not meet them.

✅Get dressed in real clothes every day

❌Yoga every day

✅Lift weights every weekday

🟡Prepare for KID SUMMER: can anyone ever really prepare for 5 kids home all day?

🟡Date night for my birthday: day date instead-- no booze and not as fancy, but still nice.

❌A visit to my mom for Mother's Day

June Goals:

1. Run, lift weights, and do yoga before 7:30am. It's OK if I start these things before 7:30 am, but it would be even more tremendous if I could be DONE with them by then.

2. Get dressed in real clothes every day. Let's keep the momentum going!

3. Read my Book of the Month books that have been hanging around. I have The Lowe Job, Our Perfect Storm, It's Not Her, and Lost Lambs languishing on my bedside table.

4. Take a quick walk after every meal. Research says this can be really good for you, and I think it would be a better way to tell my brain we are all done eating than, say binge eating Tru Fru chocolate strawberries, you know?

5. Read all the random Amazon First Reads kindle books I have waiting for me on my Kindle before I buy new books.

6. Work outside the house 2 days a week. This is goin to be tricky with SO MANY kids travel events on the calendar, but it would also be SO GOOD FOR ME.

7. Water my gardens.

8. Attend 3 dressy events and buy ZERO DRESSES for me OR the girls. CAN I DO IT? Will I still have to buy shoes?? Stay tuned!

May: What I Read

First pool book of the season!

SKIP THESE YOU GUYS OMG

📱I Just Wish I Had a Bigger Kitchen and Other Lies I Think Will Make Me Happy by Kate Strickler: This felt like one big IG caption. Hard pass. 

🎙️ The Final Gambit by Jennifer Lynn Barnes: I do not know how I got hooked on this YA series, but the books each had really long waits at the library, so it has been YEARS. I did not love the finale and had a hard time remembering the in intricacies of the plot in the interim, but I felt obligated to see the series through. 

🥳🎙️Is This a Cry for Help by Emily Austin: Preachy and tell-don't-show- y. I don't like this author, and I will not be trying her again, unless the next book is so great that you guys are like omg you have to read it. (Did not like her last book, but the positive reviews of it and the gentle buzz of this one made me give it a whirl. Nope).

🥳🎙️Annie Knows Everything by Rachel Wood: This was a cute, breezy romance with a fairly unlikeable narrator and some serious unresolved plot issues. Plus! The author used "I" a lot when she should have said "me" (between Shannon and I, for example). Meh. 

OLDIES BUT GOODIES

🎙️The President's Daughter by James Patterson and Bill Clinton: I cannot quit these terrible books. I LOVE THEM YOU GUYS.

📱The Gunners by Rebecca Kauffman: This was slow but had a good pay off (she has a new book, and I loved her last one, so I dove into her backlist. I think I skimmed this in 2018, but it did not leave an impression).

IF YOU HAVE TIME

 🥳📓Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth: Always entertaining! Dorothy is currently reading it and also gives a thumbs up.

🥳📱How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates by Shailee Thompson: A self conscious horror/romance genre mashup that was making fun of both-- liked it!

 🥳🎙️ Don't Open Your Eyes by Liv Constantine: This was a super entertaining audiobook-- loved the premise and the characters and the twists.

SCHEDULE TIME TO READ THESE

📓The Bottom of the Pyramid by Nia Sioux: Dorothy and I both read this, loved it, and started watching Dance Moms from the beginning. Abby Lee Miller: BIG RACIST. Like, the microaggressions just kept coming.

🥳📱Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden: I flew through this memoir at a track meet-- you guys should read it. YIKES.

 🥳📓Her Last Breath by Taylor Adams: One of my fave thriller writers, and this one was a page turner.

 🥳📓Last Night in Brooklyn by Xochitl Gonzalez: LOVE this author and will read what she writes the second it comes out forever.

MUST-READS THOUGH FOR REALZ

 🥳🎙️Big Time: A Simple Path to Time Abundance by Laura Vanderkam: You know I like a good reframe. I listened to this one but wish I would have gotten the physical book because I kept wanting to go back and take notes on a specific part, and that is not super intuitive for me when I am dealing with an audiobook.

 🥳🎙️ Once and Again by Rebecca Serle: Some light magic and time bending-- which is what I expect from her. Loved this, even though (because) it was sappy and indulgent.

 🥳📓Go Gentle by Maria Semple: After Bernadette, she can do no wrong for me. I LOLed quite a bit reading this one.

BOTY

🥳📱The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout: I mean. Of course every word of this book was perfect.

🥳🎙️The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett: THIS BOOK WAS WONDERFUL. I really, really loved it. So entertaining and such great characters. Maybe my favorite book of the year. I have to say, the (mostly positive) NYT review kind of pissed me off -- here's the gift link, so you can read it, too. (The part about "Stockett’s portraits of good and evil, of rich and poor, of women with class and those who can’t afford it, can be uncomplicated to the point of cartoonish, but the point here isn’t so much moral complexity as it is pure, hell-raising entertainment." was kind of patronizing. They never say that about Jonathan Franzen, and his books are the same only less fun to read. Bah.)

STATS

My kid-free sliver of summer is coming to an end

 

The girls' dance studio had photos week this week, which threw my routines into a tizzy (which is actually FINE because I am treating this month as an epoch in between seasons, so I have sort of embraced the no-routine routine). My reward for the chaos, though, was watching Minnie's classes perform in their costumes after their group pictures. OH MY GOSH IT WAS SO CUTE. Like, I do not know why the ballet dance has a monent of butt-shaking, but I AM HERE FOR IT.

And she's such a pretty little ballerina

In sad news, she does NOT want to try out for the dance team this summer, but I am definitely going to sign her up for at least one more rec class next year because I love Dance Minnie so much.

Dorothy got her summer dance placements, and she is going to be in the studio for fewer hours than she was last summer because she is taking only one set of hip hop classes (last year she was on the bubble level-wise, so she took 2 sets of classes-- tech class and choreo class, for a total of 4 core HH classes a week). I also dod not sign her up for any extra credit classes this summer (except for 1 HH combos class that all her friends are taking **eye roll*). She also decided to stop taking tap **sob again**.  Each week this summer, she has 3 hours of ballet, plus 30 minutes of pre-pointe and an hour of modern. She also has a strength class for an hour, three hours of hip hop, one hour of jazz tech, and 45 minutes of jazz choreo. Phew! She also wants to dive for summer league because she is thinking about doing dive team in high school-- sooooo, I feel like her summer is all set.

We did a crazy kid shuffle at dance on Tuesday this week, and thank goodness Ben was home on a random Tuesday to help drive all of the places. He also got to see Minnie in her jazz glory, important since he is going to be at USA Diving zones with Cooper during the dance recital (this summer is PACKED YOU GUYS-- PACKED).

I have been hard at work on my summer season intentions, since my mom sabbatical comes to an abrupt end in a few days (June 10 to be exact, but the last couple weeks of school have tons of interruptions and events I have to attend, so this feels like my last real week). AND I read some really excellent books this month-- both things I am excited to share more about next week. For now, though, you can just imagine me ecstatic to have a plan-less weekend and a whole yard to clean up-- if that is not an old lady's late spring dream, I don't know what is.

(we don't use pesticides, so I have been waging a war on individual dandelions, and I AM WINNING).

POOOOOOL, dive nats, and some general complaining

 I had so much fun getting ready for pool opening last weekend. I love hauling my super giant Lands End bag out of the storage room and going through all of our pool junk from last year to see what makes the cut. Minnie is too mature for her heart-shaped goggles (**sob**), so she put those in the NO pile, along with these little stacking cups she has been playing with since babyhood and and princess-shaped dive sticks, plus these little wobbly penguin and polar bears and all her Bluey people.. This year, she is all about diving for rings and treasure, plus playing water balloons and water squirters with friends. 

She did keep the ancient Beauty and the Beast plastic tea cup and random paint brushes so she can paint the concrete during adult swim, so there's that vestige of babyhood at least

I have been buying either Hawaiian Tropics lotion 2-packs or Neutrogena spray 2-packs at Costco for months, so we are rich in sunscreen (the boys and Dorothy will basically ONLY use a spray **eye roll**). Dorothy also really loves this ELF shimmer sunscreen stick for her face, and Minnie uses a Cerave stick on her face. I use Hawaiian Tropics face sunscreen, and the boys have Target brand sticks, but I think they just go with a sunburn **more eye roll.** NONE of these makes the EWG cut, by the way. But a sunscreen you will USE is the best one...

In a burst of decide-once genius, we have a ton of THESE striped towels, so it's always easy to spot any that are left behind. (they are not currently in stock, and we always lose a few over the summer between the boys working at both pools and Coop diving, etc, so I guess I need to start thinking about a plan B...)

I put cash in my bag to ward off charging our account and threw some tiny bags of pretzels and goldfish in there. I also stocked up on junk food to make a snackle box for Dorothy and her rotating cast of pool  guests to eat at the tennis courts, plus I packed a tiny insulated lunch bag with cheese sticks, apple slices, and teeny frozen Hershey bars for Minnie.  (I bought a huge box of Drumsticks at Costco for $9, and I swear to you we are not buying individual Drumsticks for $4 at the snack shack-- Minnie can have a post-pool treat at home-- and we will see how long this lasts...)

Not the most popular box of the weekend:

My only beef with opening weekend (besides Cooper and Ben not being there)** is that the pool is crazy crowded, and I have to emerge from the shade tent to keep and eye on Minnie, which means I get tan despite my best efforts. I bought THESE pants to wear over my suit (SIZE DOWN YOU GUYS. MINE ARE TOO BIG, and I already wore them and just look kind of dumpy), but I think I also need a shirt, and it is HOT on the pool deck. (I might be better off IN THE WATER with a rash guard on...)

I also wore a giant old shirt of Ben's to protect my old wrinkly chest (not at the same time)

Pretty sure my face is red from being hot since I was pretty slathered and shaded. I actually LOVE Sephora water proof mascara fro the pool because it get all smudgy and I look like I maybe did more makeup-- thinking of getting it in blue, in fact).

They were (almsot) the first kids in the water!

First slide of the season:

LOL at the newly posted slide rules. Number 1 is silly-- alcohol is the ONLY REASON I go down the slide...

Day 2, more of the same:

Plus some diving board action

And a night swim

Bringing a kid home showered and pajama'ed is my FAVORITE SUMMER THING.

(Also, really, it was SLAMMED between 1-4-- like, nowhere to even sit. But I was too busy making sure my kid didn't drown to take pics of that).

Speaking of SLAMMED. We got to the pool 15 minutes after it opened on Monday, and it was SO CROWDED that we couldn't even get a CHAIR. It was, like, public pool crowded. My goodness. But! Minnie had fun, and so did Dorothy and her friend, and we all went home for dinner and came back at 6:30 when things were dead and once again closed the place down.

**Ben and Cooper were at AAU Red-White-Blue NATIONALS for dive, where COOPER! Placed 5th in 1-meter, 4th in platform, and SECOND in 3-meter!! In all 3 events, he was second going into the final dive. In the first two events, that final dive was... not his best, but by event 3, he was handling pressure like a PRO. SO AWESOME!

A few dives from the weekend:

Next up, Cooper goes to Iowa City  the first weekend in June to attempt to qualify for USA Diving nationals (THE BIG SHOW). The org has changed the qualification process this year, so it is MUCH HARDER to qualify. Please keep your fingers and toes crossed for him for the next couple of weeks.