The Juggling Act + Life Lately

If I had to make a loose list of the things I juggle in my everyday life it would read as follows (in no particular order):

*My Job
*My Workouts
*Meal Planning
*Cooking
*My Dog + My Man (both: attention whores, I tell ya! 🙂 Juuuust kidding!)
*Family
*Friends/A Social Life
*This Blog
*Errands That Keep My Life Running That I Haven’t Outsourced (Grocery Shopping, Trips to Target, De-cluttering, Car Washes, Oil Changes, Dentist Appointments, you know what I mean right?)
*Down Time
*Alone Time (which is not necessarily the same as Down Time)
*And I’m sure I’m forgetting stuff

As it turns out, at this point in my life, I’m only skilled enough to juggle 3-4 of those things at a time.

This is a sad realization for me, but it is an actual FACT. Another important fact: “My Job” and “Errands That Keep My Life Running Which I Haven’t Outsourced” are sort of non-negotiable. This is the part where we all acknowledge the bitter truth of adulthood.

Of course adulthood also comes with perks like: eating froyo for dinner because we feel like it, and planning impromptu weekends in wine country BECAUSE WE CAN, so it’s not all bad. 🙂

Anyway, juggling those two things doesn’t leave a lot of extra time for all of my other interests/priorities lately despite finally removing things like “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” from that bulleted list above. That’s a long winded way of saying: Hi friends, it’s been a while! Let’s catch up.

Here’s a random assortment of things we’ve been up to around here:

1. Summer has basically arrived, it seems. Spring was in and out with a quickness. It’s 100 degrees today, and I feel like it’s time to just buckle in for the heat. I’m using this as motivation to tackle a large closet reorganization project that I’ve been desperately putting off, and I’m kind of feeling excited about purging and adding to my wardrobe.

2. I’ve been a meal planning BOSS and have been relatively successful at incorporating more fish into our diets. I don’t know why this feels so hard, but I’m just so much more comfortable cooking chicken, beef or pork. Anyway, we’ve been branching out but if you have a particularly awesome seafood recipe (we love the shrimp and stuff around here too) that works well during summer (ie: doesn’t involve baking at 400 degrees and heating up my whole freaking house, sigh!) pass it along, would ya?

3. I’ve become obsessed with plants, flower + candles. This happens to me in phases. There are times when there is nothing alive or fragrant in my house and then there are times where I am like “Hmm…would this candle layer well with this candle? Maybe I should pick up peonies this week instead of tulips? SUCCULENTS FOR EVERYONE!” And I’m definitely in the latter phase.

4. One of the things I do when I have a lot going on and I’m feeling like I don’t have a lot of “Me Time” is buy myself things I have no business buying, but that make me happy. Do you do this? Tell me you do this? Lately it has been in the form of lip products. Glosses, balms, chapsticks, lipsticks — I’ve bought A TON and it’s made the whole “getting ready in the morning” process feel like a Choose Your Own Adventure novel. It’s amazing how a lip color can change your outlook in a day.

5. I scored the best pinterest patience bargain the other day and I’m so happy about it. A couple years ago I pinned these shoes but sort of rolled my eyes at the price and knew I would never buy them. I found them the other week at Nordstrom Rack for half the original price, and conveniently had that EXACT amount of gift cards, which meant they were FREE TO ME! My patience had paid off, I still loved them, and I happily brought them home to live with me. You know I love a good impulse purchase, so it felt mighty victorious to get such a good deal because I waited.

6. We’ve seen a ton of friends lately, we had family visit last weekend, and we are visiting family out in Sonoma this weekend. It’s been a whirlwind of social activities and cocktails (and pork belly — OMG the pork belly!) and it has really felt nice to have some good long visits.

7. I took Buster to be professionally groomed for the first time ever, and not only did he actually love it — he came home looking like the floofiest puppy ever. It was so damn cute I want to take him every week! I know it’s not reasonable, but seriously — had it not been 100 degrees out I would have made him sleep in our bed just so I could snuggle with him. He was like a fluffy stuffed animal.

*****

We are headed out of town this weekend to Sonoma, which is basically one of my favorite places on the planet. I’m looking forward to some much needed relaxation, catching up with family, riding bikes around town, wine tasting, and just enjoying what will hopefully be a bit of a cooler climate. I probably won’t be back here until next week, but I’m going to try and include juggling this blog in my 3-4 priorities next week, so here’s to hoping that works out. Anything new and exciting with you? I’m all ears to hear YOUR random assortment. 🙂