I'm happy to report that this week was much better than last week. We were all healthy, it was warmer outside (in the 40s, although it got cold again yesterday), and I was organized and productive all week. That shapes up to be a pretty good week! So I don't hate 2018 as much this week as I did last week. In my continuing efforts to be positive this winter and this year, here are five good things that happened this week.
1. I bought my first Tory Burch bag. I'd been looking for a bag in this particular size and color, and then it presented itself. I paid a price for it that I swore I'd never pay for a mere purse, but I did buy it on sale, and because of the high quality it should last for many years, even decades, to come.
2. Peter and I went out for lunch at Panera (since he was between jobs this week...::sob::...but he left midweek for California for meetings with a company he's part of). My love for Panera's Green Goddess Cobb Salad with Chicken was reinforced. I LOVE THAT SALAD SO MUCH! It's one of my happy things in life.
3. I read Costco's magazine and it had some good recipes for Energy Bites, which I've been interested in making for a long time. So I made a batch, and they turned out to be so good! I've been snacking on them all week and yesterday I finished them and made another batch. The ingredients are peanut butter (Skippy Natural Creamy is my fave), rolled oats, flaxseed meal, honey, and some mini chocolate chips. They remind me of Girl Scout Tagalong cookies (the chocolate and peanut butter ones, which are my second favorite after Samoas Caramel DeLites), only these are much healthier (and cheaper)! And they really do seem to give me energy too. I didn't have to take a power nap all week, even on a day when I woke up for two hours during the night!
4. Food apparently made me quite happy this week because here's another one. Actually this one is a drink. I saw this fancy lemonade when I was grocery shopping and decided to get a bottle. Rose lemonade gets a "heck yeah" from me.
Lemonade is one of my favorite drinks but I don't drink it as much anymore because of its high sugar content (I've been working on cutting down on sugar over the last year). But I'll make an exception for this special treat!
I felt like I was buying a bottle of liquor, which was weird.
5. Sam is starting a new reading program in which he and I have to read and discuss a chapter book sent home by his teacher. The book she chose for him is The Boxcar Children. Yay!
I really enjoyed this series when I was younger. The resourcefulness of those kids made a lasting impression on me. Ironically, I'd been thinking about The Boxcar Children often recently, wanting to read some of the books again, and I'm glad I'll get to do that now with Sam. Contrary to what you might think (from things like #1 in this post), I find a lot of appeal in using what you have and not spending money and being self-sufficient like the boxcar children had to do. I worry that things are going to go crazy in the world in the future and that we'll have to live this kind of lifestyle. That's why I'm preparing for that now while also living it up while I still can! While it would be a difficult adjustment to live like the boxcar children did, if we have to do it...bring it!
(Famous last words.)
So anyway, I'm excited to read this book with Sam.
I'm looking forward to this three-day weekend. We're going to the movies to see Paddington 2, I'm going to decorate for Valentine's Day, and I'll probably watch a Hallmark movie or two while Peter and John watch the Patriots play-off game. It might snow, and for Martin Luther King Day I'm going to show the kids the movie Perfect Harmony, a wonderful civil rights-era movie that I liked a lot as a kid (another thing that made a big impression on me). I highly recommend it!
Have a great weekend!
