Reading

‘Life After Life’ by Kate Atkinson.  Right now I’m still getting into it.  I picked it up because I thought the plot was interesting and I was curious as to how the author was going to handle it.  Basically, Ursula dies over and over again.  She is reborn and then typically there is at least one change that she makes that avoids the death she originally had… only to die again in some other way.  Right now I feel like there is a lot of repetitiveness (which I suppose should be expected), so I’m hoping as it continues it will get more interesting.

Watching

The most recent movie we saw in the theater was X-Men: Days of Future Past and it was awesome.  There were a few really great moments, and overall it was just very enjoyable. I like that it kind of fixed what happened in X-Men 3.  As far as rentals go, we just watched ‘The Monuments Men.’ I loved the cast, and thought the story was really interesting.  It was a tad on the slow side at times, but had more emotion to it than I was expecting from the previews.  As far as how true to life it was… well, its film, they change things… it happens.  I enjoyed it, but don’t know that it’s one I’d add to the collection.

Right now I’m looking for something new to watch.  I just finished Season 2 of Orange is the New Black and while we still have our usual shows we’re working our way through, all of my other shows are in between seasons. I should probably take this time to not watch TV, but what fun is that?

Eating

We have a new Chinese restaurant in town (woot!), which is a big deal when you live in a small town and there are only like two places to go for take-out.  I’m hoping they’ll eventually do delivery. Overall their food was pretty good considering as soon as they opened the entire town showed up. The rice was a tad overcooked, but I’ll forgive that since their wontons were decent.

Loving

Summer!  While we’ve gotten more rain than we can handle, I also love that we haven’t had to turn on the sprinklers yet, so that’s saving us some money.  In general, I just love warmer weather and longer days.

Thinking About

Getting healthier… I feel like I’ve said that about a thousand times, but this time I’m actually going to make it happen!  Ha ha.  I signed up for an online 12 week program that I’m hoping will work out okay for me. My biggest issue is my umbilical hernia and mild diastasis recti – thanks pregnancy!  So because of those two things, not all typical ab workouts are good and can make the problems worse.  For a while we were doing pretty good with not buying processed foods and doing a weekly meal plan, but that kind of fell by the wayside. So, we bought a new blender and are making more smoothies, and now my goal is to start doing the weekly meal plans again and keeping us all healthy.  Enzo has been talking about bikes, so I think we need to go on some family walks in the evening (if we can keep the mosquitoes away) and just adjust dinner and bedtime as we see fit.

I’ve seen other bloggers do a variation of what they are currently up to, so I thought I’d do the same thing since often it doesn’t fit anywhere else.

Because baby butts are cute… plus, those eyes!

Reading

I’ve just recently started reading ‘Divergent.’ So far I’m a little on the fence, and I kind of hope the movie will be better than the book because I’m not quite understanding why it’s gotten so much hype as of yet.  The plot is a little silly so far, and while I do know to take YA fiction with a grain of salt… the premise is more than a teensy bit ridiculous.  Still… I’m going to finish it and see what happens because so far I’m waiting for what I hope is the real story, to begin.  The whole “Divergence” thing is a little weak as of yet and not making sense.  I won’t get into details, though, because I don’t know who has read the books/seen the movie.

Watching

Well, ‘Call the Midwife’ is done for the season… sadness, as are most shows. I find myself watching ‘Once Upon A Time’ for some reason now and then even if just to just roll my eyes a lot and marvel at the way they’ve ruined characters and stories. Drunk History is also something we recently started watching occasionally on Amazon Prime.

As far as movies go, we watched ‘Philomena’ not that long ago, and we both thought it was well done. Josh wasn’t that keen on watching it because it’s just not typically something he’d choose, but he agreed to watch it.  I think we were both affected by the movie in different ways, but I think we both found it to be an emotional film, and there were times when my blood boiled and my heart broke for Philomena. Becoming a mom has definitely made me more emotional and so many movies hit harder than they ever would have before.

Eating

I kind of love peanut butter right now… so much so that I keep a jar at my desk at work and sometimes just eat it with a spoon.  The Earth Balance coconut & peanut spread is kind of awesome.  I’m also really addicted to the Everything Sesame Sticks from Nature Box. It’s a good thing we only get one bag of these a month, and that I can’t just go buy more at Target… or I would.

Loving

Our family photos, and the pictures the kids got at day care.  I didn’t think we’d end up with so many great pictures to choose from!  I’ll have to share some later.

Thinking About

Where to even begin? There are so many different thoughts swirling around in my head that it’s often hard to know which one to go with. Once again we’ve been talking about where we see ourselves in the next few years, and what our moving goals should be, but it’s still very much up in the air. Sometimes I don’t mind Minnesota all that much and think I can stick it out a while longer, and then I try to go outside and actually work on my garden and get swarmed by mosquitoes and wonder if we couldn’t just somehow move this year. :p  I also never look forward to the long winters or the summer humidity, so while we definitely won’t be moving this year, it makes me wonder if we could make it happen next year… and then where?  There are a lot of things I miss about Colorado, but at the same time we’re kind of thinking the Northwest might be nice, and then out of the blue we’ll talk about going somewhere completely random and different.  So… we have a lot to consider and think about.

Listening To

Sigh… Frozen. So much Frozen.  It’s either listen to the Frozen soundtrack or the yelling/crying that follows if I say “No.”  Considering I now know almost all the songs by heart… I’m not sure which is actually worse anymore.

I’ve seen other bloggers do a variation of what they are currently up to, so I thought I’d do the same thing since often it doesn’t fit anywhere else.

Reading

I’m currently reading a couple of books right now. I just finished The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman, and I’m still reading Jo Frost’s Toddler Rules, as well as starting up The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times by Jennifer Worth. I’m addicted to Call the Midwife on PBS, so it only makes sense that I read Jenny’s memoirs. As for the other books… The Dovekeepers was a good read – a long one, though. Considering how little time I have to read it took me a while to get through since it was over 500 pages.  I’ve always enjoyed Alice Hoffman’s books, though, and this one was good despite being a tad depressing.  We’re also trying to learn how to better manage toddler tantrums, and are doing our best to incorporate some of Jo’s tips from her book into our lives in the hopes that it will make a difference.

Watching

The usual line up: ‘The Neighbors’ and ‘Parenthood’ and ‘Call the Midwife,’ which I’m very excited about.  It’s such a good show with a great cast, and really touching storylines.  I love the historical aspect of the show, as well as the characters, and I’m interested in seeing how the show compares to the book(s).

As for movies… we’ve watched a handful lately, including ‘Frozen.’  I really enjoyed it for the most part, especially the nice Disney plot twist. It was refreshing to see them let go (no pun intended) of the standard love equation they’ve been using since the beginning. I did think there was a tad too much singing, however, and they could have done without a few songs which felt more like fluff and filler than necessity.  We (or rather I) have decided we should watch some of this year’s Oscar nominated films, so the first up was ‘The Wolf of Wall Street.’ We may be some of the only people who didn’t think this was Best Picture worthy. The acting was phenomenal, without a doubt, but it was way too long and the ending just left us… meh. The whole movie was just… meh, with a really great cast.

One movie that didn’t disappoint was ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier.’  The plot is good, it’s got some fun surprises, and it’s pretty much awesome.  Go see it.

Eating

A lot of fruits and veggies due to participating in my office’s “Score More!” challenge, which is challenging everyone to eat more servings of fruits and veggies.  Supposedly there is a reward at the end, which admittedly is a nice motivating factor, but I’m also trying to slowly get more fit and toned since it’s been almost 5 months since Phoebe was born and I’d really like to change my shape a bit. Now if only I could find more time to actually work out.  Priorities, priorities.

Loving

The change in the weather!  Josh was able to get our new picnic table put together since our old table only had two chairs, so now we can eat outside on warm days as a family, and have more seating outside in general, which is always nice. I’m looking forward to making it a relaxing space on our deck with some potted plants and some salad veggies.  We’ll have more veggies in the actual yard, but I don’t always want to go downstairs for fresh veggies for dinner.  I think we’ve all been in a better mood with the warmer weather, and Enzo has been thoroughly enjoying running around outside.

Thinking About

A little bit of everything, really.  Mostly I think about the weather and gardening and what I’d like to do outside. I have so many ideas, but alas, they all take money and time, and I don’t have a lot of either. 😉  Most I’m sure could be done cheaply, but the time thing is still an issue. Being a parent certainly means you never have a lack of things to do, that’s for sure. It gets easier, though.  I don’t necessarily like using the TV as a babysitter, but Enzo is at the point now where he’ll sit through almost an entire movie (like Frozen), which is so helpful when I just need some time to get a few things done.  I know it’ll get easier/harder as Phoebe gets older too.  On the one hand she’ll be less bored once she can sit on her own and then crawl, but on the other hand that could also mean I need to watch them both more carefully. Phoebe and I are both getting more use out of our carrier, though.  I was ecstatic when she fell asleep in it over the weekend. It’s so helpful to have both hands free when she wants/needs to be held. Now if only I could talk Enzo into letting me wear him on my back rather than trying to balance him on my hip. He gives a pretty vehement “No” when I suggest it, though. Alas…

Reading

I’m currently re-reading The Dresden Files series… very slowly since I don’t get a whole lot of reading time in right now.  If anything, I read blogs when I have time since that doesn’t take much time.  I’ve been getting into more of a reading mood, it’s just not something that can be easily done while interacting with a baby and a crazy toddler.

Watching

Sooo excited that Downton Abbey is back!  There are not enough exclamation points.  If you already watch it, you know how exciting this is.  I’m a little bummed that so many characters from the first three seasons are gone, and I’m not entirely thrilled with the return of one character, but I’m looking forward to this season. Sure, I could just buy it and watch it all at once, but it’s nice to spread it out and force myself to wait each week for the next episode. I also just watched the first season of ‘The Taste’ on Hulu and I’m surprisingly into it and looking forward to this upcoming season.  The only problem with these shows is how hungry I end up getting and then despondent because I’ll never come up with anything half as creative or have the motivation to do so. :p  We also just started watching ‘Eureka’ thanks to my brother’s suggestion and now have to find time for all of the shows we’re enjoying. Ha ha.

As for movies… we’ve watched quite a handful lately thanks to Netflix and often feeling too unmotivated in the evening to do anything, but sit down and put our feet up, usually in bed with the baby in between us if she isn’t up eating. Most recently we watched ‘The World’s End’, which had a lot of funny moments, and gets thumbs up from us. Also ‘The Heat’, which was pretty entertaining as well.

Eating

Attempting to eat healthier… I’m getting back into a smoothie mood, and it makes it easier that Enzo also likes smoothies and it’s an easy way that I can sneak in some veggies since he hasn’t been enjoying them much lately.  I’m going to slowly add more and more green gradually so he doesn’t suspect, plus it’s good for me too. I picked up some chia seeds and with some luck I can start losing the linger baby weight pounds.  I did, however, get an ice cream maker… somewhat counterproductive in terms of losing weight, but hello the endless ice cream possibilities!!

Loving

It’s probably not a surprise that I’m going to say… Phoebe!  Ha ha.  I love my little Toots (as in Tootsie) aka Toots McGee, Lady and Ladybug. She’s such a happy little girl, and I could eat her up, especially when she tries to laugh.  It’s funny how  much more petite she is than Enzo… I wonder if she’ll always stay petite or not.  At this age, I think Enzo was an inch or two longer than her and a couple pounds heavier as well.

Thinking About

A lot, and probably worrying too much as well. First and foremost I want to motivate myself to lose the baby weight… the hardest part is finding time to work out with a full-time job and a toddler and a baby. I already get up at 5:00am and could maybe fit in a very short workout in that time, but it all depends on if the baby ate before that time or not.  I also don’t want to work out too late at night either… so I’ll have to figure something out. We also want to eat healthier, but that can also be tricky when we have so little time in the evenings to prepare meals and you have a toddler hanging off of you because he wants a “nack” and doesn’t want to wait for dinner even though he had a “nack” 30 minutes ago. Oh, the impatient toddler.