Happy Wednesday! Thought I’d just pop on here and share what I’m watching, reading, and doing this week.

Watching

Believe it or not, I’ve not had the TV on much this week. Well, actually that’s not true. I guess I should say I’ve not watched too much of anything specific or planned on the TV. The past two days I’ve left the TV on as ambient background noise. Keeping an eye or ear rather on the news.  Yesterday, I watched a bit of Live with Kelly and Ryan as well as a snippet of the Wendy Williams show.

And of course, last night I watched the season premiere of Prodigal Son. So good! Wish I could get my husband to watch that one with me. After watching season 1 of the series and the premiere last night, I’m convinced The Walking Dead wasted Tom Payne’s acting ability. And Michael Sheen is so fun as a serial killer. Really, I’ve not seen a more perfectly cast drama series in a long time. Will someone please watch this show with me?

When I’m not watching TV (really I’m listening to it more than watching), I’m looking at the birds out the back door. I’ll share more about my birds on Saturday like usual. However, I’m happy to report the score so far: New Birdfeeder: 2 Squirrels: 0.  Chickadees were first to embrace the new feeder, followed oddly, by the red-bellied woodpecker!

What are you watching lately? Or are you doing more reading?

Reading

I’ve not glanced at either of the books I mentioned struggling to read on Monday at all this week. However, I did download Tuscan Dreams at the Cornish Confetti Agency and started reading it at J’s lesson and a bit in the afternoons.

Mostly, I have been glancing at my magazines. I get the HGTV magazine and stumbled across an IKEA desk from the cover I want for my reading nook corner of our bedroom.

Also, not sure if it counts as reading, looking at blogs and Pinterest. Seem to have the home décor bug. Think it might be a January thing? Anyway, I’m a bit obsessed with the Scandinavian style lately and this blog in particular. Trying to figure out how to convince my husband we need to go this direction in our ever on-going bedroom remodel.

So when I’m not watching TV or pretending scrolling through Pinterest counts as reading, what am I doing?

Doing

Honestly, not that much. Trying to over-see J’s on-line schooling. That’s going about as well as I expected. Still searching for balance. And completely fed up with these teenagers and their bizarre sleep schedules. Trying to not bristle too much at my husband’s random suggestions when he’s happily off at work and I’m turning down work to be here and oversee things.

In less gripey news, I’ve been working on my little corner nook area of our bedroom. Can’t do much as the walls and floors aren’t quite complete. However, I can dream. And clear out a bit of clutter, the usual January stuff. A trip to drop off at the thrift store should happen today.

Cooking dinners with mixed results. Tonight, however, we’ll eat leftovers instead of what I planned. Choices of taco meat (from Saturday), chicken legs, sausage & vegetables, or a battle over one porkchop with turnips. Funny note: White wine vinegar is not the best substitution for white cooking wine. My cooking level of experience remains “medium.”

In homage to my word of the year, I plan to spend today simply doing one chore in each room of the house and without hurry or worry.  Thankful for today’s nice weather, I’ll be attending a fire pit meeting with friends later. Though I’ll bundle up in layers as the temperature drops quickly in January (any month) once night arrives.

What things have you been doing this week?

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Thought I’d share my to-do list for today and what I’ve been up to the past two days.

Still focusing on my 2021 word of Less, I only wrote 5 things on today’s list. Most of them already accomplished, the last 2 in progress as I take a small break to start this post. And that list of errands at the bottom? I crossed them off my list, saving them for the weekend.

Should I share my thoughts about yesterday?

I go back and forth. The desire to not comment on politics versus the internal need to say something. I heard about the storming of the capitol while I was happily visiting Narnia via Disney plus. Seemed surreal and I returned to Narnia for a bit. Personally, I think former George W. Bush gave the most eloquent statement on the disappointing display within our capitol: if you want, here’s the link to his words. 

Surely, I’m not alone in missing a country where politics didn’t drive people apart from one another and incite them to violence. So much more we could focus on doing within our own states, neighborhoods, and homes than shouting at each other over the “leaders” of the moment. Also, though I’ve chosen less for my word, can we all strive to be more?  Let’s be more than one issue/one party voters (something I have never understood).  Show more kindness to one another.  Strive for more understanding of different points of view.

My final thought is I hope our leaders who incited the violence as well as those who participated, face proper consequences.

Back to My To Do List Items

The laundry mountain is on-going, of course. And I had Christmas clothing in the wash so sweaters are drying.

I safely packed the Nativity away for next Christmas.

Sorted out all those candles.

Gave myself permission to feel less guilt and throw away some that weren’t entirely consumed. Especially if I didn’t like the scent. I threw away 3-4, seems okay. The rest I returned to the shelf, sorted seasonally. I need more January candles.

Cleared out the cup cabinet. Mainly, re-arranged it though I did add a pile of grey plastic cups we all hate to the donation bin.

Sneaked in a different type of project. Since I’ve decided to do a Rudolph day on the 25th of each month, I found an empty bin for projects. Quite by accident but hooray for the discovery of an empty storage bin in the basement! Had some Christmas stickers lurking in an upstairs cabinet and so made myself this:

It’s just a blank spiral notebook I took from the kids’ school supply stash. Even jotted a few ideas in it before stashing it in the aforementioned empty storage bin. By the way, did I ever share that I’m a left-handed blogger? So, I also decorated the back as I find it easier to turn spiral notebooks over to use them.

The Random Bits

I guess the left-handed part was kind of random, huh? Going back to yesterday, I made our traditional 3 King’s Cake. Kept things simple and used a yellow cake mix and can of vanilla frosting, just adding some colored sugar to the top of the cake. We typically use a cashew to represent baby Jesus and I kept that the same.

Can you believe my husband found the Jesus cashew (I hope saying Jesus cashew isn’t blasphemy) in the very first piece of cake?  I’m glad he’ll have the prosperous year and all that but it kind of takes the fun out of searching for it.

In other news, J and I have been enjoying simple hot chocolate. The kind from a packet. It’s nice. We’re down to one packet so if he wants hot chocolate after school again today, I’ll have hot tea instead. Yes, with cake. Are you a hot chocolate fan? Favorite brand? We like Swiss Miss around here.

Not much else going on, I work a full day tomorrow, my first working day since Christmas break. I’m looking forward to going back and yet still going to miss having another lazy day at home.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I hear Prince Caspian might attend my laundry folding party.

Forgot the frustrations of starting from scratch. Been a long time and now I can’t find the old tutorials I used to make So Not Organized. Still not giving up hope to have things the way I want on Jan. 1.

In chit chat news, I went inside a free standing Starbucks store on Tuesday night for the first time since well, possibly 2019. Might have ventured in one back in January of February of 2020. It’s certainly been a long year, hasn’t it?

Anyway, I needed gift cards, specifically one a for a secret Santa gift I was in the middle of dropping off at work. Turns out the grocery store location closes at 7p.m. NOT 8p.m. like I thought.

Happy news to me, finding out the free standing location was still open. Not sure when they closed, probably 9p.m. Even happier news, I could go inside the store! Couldn’t bring myself to order a gift card through the drive through. So, mask on, enter store. Still can’t meet to chat with friends but you can pick up merchandise/order coffee/buy gift cards, all inside the store.

Bought my gift cards. Then, decided since I was already there, might as well treat myself. Since it was after 8 already, I ordered a small (tall?) Chai tea latte. My new favorite Starbucks drink of choice. Onward to work to drop off my secret Santa gift since I wasn’t working the next day.

Spilling The Tea (Literally)

Drop off gift, check door to make sure it’s properly locked. Then, am I the only one? Get in car but wait, maybe I should check door one more time just in case. Do that. Come back to car. And realize my purse strap caught on my coffee (tea) cup and in a freak accident, turned it completely upside down in the cupholder.

Gravity is real, my friends. Suffice it to say not a single drop of tea stayed in the upside down cup. Instead it all pooled in the cupholder. A beautiful brown delicious smelling pond, no longer fit for consumption even if I’d had a straw handy.

Almost sums up this whole year does it not?