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Pandemonium

It was utter pandemonium this morning as I rolled out of bed (I mean the couch) five minutes before my shift begins. Since the AC wasn’t working downstairs last night, I slept out on the couch. The upstairs AC keeps the family room much cooler than our room. I’m not sure how I slept through my multiple alarms, but obviously I needed to sleep.

I went in to work feeling like I had run a race to get there despite the fact my office is in my room. Nevertheless, the late wake up call coupled with the lack of AC in my home office didn’t make for a good start to the work day. It was super rushed. Now somehow I managed to order my coffee via Uber Eats before falling back asleep. Who knows how long it sat outside my front door before I finally picked it up.

Meanwhile, the Hubby had arranged for an AC guy to come this morning. Obviously, this was very much appreciated, but it did add to the pandemonium of the morning. As is always the case, the AC guy didn’t show up until I got on to a phone call. My cell was blowing up with messages from the Hubby and the AC guy checked out our outside unit. Honestly, it was more stressful than it needed to be, but in the end it was worth it since the AC now works.

I’m still dealing with the cold, which sucks balls. It’s gotten a bit better each day, but my appetite is gone. Moreover, food isn’t going down too we’ll. Fortunately, it’s well time given I was starting the Fast 800 Tuesday anyway. After two weeks, I’ll transition to the 5:2 intermittent fasting model again. At any rate, hopefully I’ll lose some of more of this thyroid weight.

Here’s a list of our day’s activities:

*I’m started reading the Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy last night. This is quite the departure from the world of Queen Asa.

*I’m still under the weather. Consequently, I took another rest day today.  Unfortunately, there will be no rollicking or running until I’m better.

*We’re tracking the Tropics here in Florida. Tropical Storm Fred Tropical Storm Fred or Depression 6 (whatever it is when it finally gets here is) should be here Saturday. There’s also a system behind TS Fred that could also come out way.

*I ordered Dunkin’ via Uber Eats apparently in my sleep this morning. We definitely need another car since Goalielocks has to drive to school.

*For dinner, the Hubby made breaded chicken. This week I’m strictly limiting my carb intake as part of the 5:2 plan.

*My favorite surprise on the underwater cams, I watch during work, is seeing an octopus. Today I watched the safari cam, which never disappoints.

*Today’s word of the day is terrified. I’m a bit terrified at the prospect of how much rain two back to back tropical systems could bring South Florida. 

*I took my puppies including sweet Anakin for a walk. Today he didn’t pull my arm off or anything like that. I put on his harness

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First Day

It’s the first day of school! Yay! The day is finally here. For the first time since March 2020, I had the house to myself during the day! Oh and naturally, the kids went back to their physical school for the first time in 18 months. In fact, today was the first time the Mayor set foot on his high school campus as a student.

Needless to say, I’m thrilled their back to in person instruction. It was awesome working the whole day with no interruptions or distractions. I was happy as a honeybee working uninterrupted for the first time in 18 months. The puppies sat quietly in my room most of the day. Thankfully, the peacefulness of the house translated into a very successful day on the phones. Truly, today was the polar opposite of yesterday from a sales perspective.

Colin’s first first day or school and his last first day of school

Of course today brought with it some emotion as we sent Goalielocks off to his last first day of school. I can’t believe how fast time has flown by. It seems like just yesterday he was heading to kindergarten. You’ll notice in the first day pictures that some things never change. Who knows if he’ll ever cooperate when I want to take his picture.

Here’s a list of our day’s activities:

*I’m reading the Raider Bride. This is the third book thing the Norse Queen series. I love the world of Queen Asa.

*I’m still under the weather. Consequently, I took another rest day today.  Unfortunately, there will be no rollicking or running until I’m better.

*I ran to Dunkin’ to get my own coffee this morning. Just kidding, I had it delivered again. 

*For dinner, the I made myself chicken noodle soup, which is good for the soup and a cold.

*My favorite surprise on the underwater cams, I watch during work, is seeing an octopus. Today I watched the safari cam, which never disappoints.

*Today’s word of the day is grizzle. Yesterday afternoon there was a raccoon with a grizzled face in our avocado tree and it was quite the vision. 

*I took my puppies including sweet Anakin for a walk. Today he didn’t pull my arm off or anything like that. I put on his harness

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School Eve

It’s school eve and I couldn’t be more excited. For the first time since March 2020, our boys will be attending school in person. In fact, tomorrow will be the first time the Mayor sets foot in his high school despite being a sophomore. He’s in good company as everyone else, but the senior class, has barely set foot in the school.


We celebrated the end of summer with wings and pizza. Post dinner, the Mayor and hubby ran out to get haircuts and some school supplies. As for me, I’m chilling on the couch watching The Office. My summer cold is still hanging on, which sucks. Today brought major back pain to go along with all the misery that is a summer cold. Since it’s school eve, aka the night before school, we’ll all be getting to bed a little earlier.

Here’s a list of our day’s activities:

*I’m reading the Raider Bride. This is the third book thing the Norse Queen series. I love the world of Queen Asa.

*I’m still under the weather Consequently, I took another rest day today.  There will be no rollicking or running until I’m better.

*I ran to Dunkin’ to get my own coffee this morning. Just kidding, I had it delivered again.

*Tonight I worked on a newsletter for our Pancan affiliate. Sometimes working in Canva makes me feel like a schmo, but it’s such a great tool. I definitely need to spend some more time playing around with it. 

*For dinner, the I ordered pizza and wings from Sal’s.

*My favorite surprise on the underwater cams, I watch during work, is seeing an octopus. Today I watched the safari cam, which never disappoints.

*Today’s word of the day is vision. This afternoon there was a raccoon in our avocado tree and it was quite the vision.

*I took my puppies including sweet Anakin for a walk. Today he didn’t pull my arm off or anything like that. I put on his harness

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Last Sunday

It’s the last Sunday before school starts (in person) here in Palm Beach County. Like many parents, across the world, I’ve been waiting for this day for almost eighteen months. Their return to school is long overdue! Oh yes, it’s been far too much together time for this mama bear and her Cubs. Not too mention I don’t think the virtual school was effective for any of the parities involved. Obviously, I’m super excited for the kids to be back in session.

As excited as I am on that last Sunday, my excitement continues to be dampened by my damn summer cold or sinus infection. Whatever it is, it’s super annoying. I’ve continued my regimen of turmeric, vitamin C and D, and zinc. Hopefully, it will put a quick end to this misery. I am, however, feeling a bit better than I was yesterday.

This morning we ventured out to the Wellington Mall as soon as it opened for school shopping. Thankfully, the mall was pretty empty the entire time we were there. We made stops at just a few select stores before ending our mall trip at the Boba tea store. Fortunately, the boys knew exactly what they wanted to it truly was a quick trip. The most arduous part of our trip was driving home through the blinding rains.

I spent the rest of my last Sunday before school doing absolutely nothing. It felt pretty damn good. After all, hockey season will soon be in high gear and down days will be hard to come by. We binge watched all of Vice Principals this afternoon, which was awesome. Danny McBride is hilarious. Once we finished the show, we went back to watching Curb.

Here’s a list of our day’s activities:

*I’m reading the Raider Bride. This is the third book thing the Norse Queen series. I love the world of Queen Asa.

*I’m still under the weather Consequently, I took another rest day today. 

*The Hubby ran to Dunkin’ to get my own coffee this morning. It was nice to not have to leave the house. 

*Tonight I worked on a newsletter for our Pancan affiliate. Sometimes working in Canva makes me feel like a schmo, but it’s such a great tool. I definitely need to spend some more time playing around with it. 

*I finally straightened out the AirBnB snafu on Friday. AirBnB had listed the property in error. They had placed the listing as live when it wasn’t supposed to be yet. Lastly, they’re no longer keeping my deposit. I love the new property I booked.

*For dinner, the hubby grilled steaks and potatoes. They were super tasty!

*My favorite surprise on the underwater cams, I watch during work, is seeing an octopus. Today I watched the safari cam, which never disappoints.

*Today’s word of the day is moot. My concerns over virtual school are no moot since school is in session.

*I took my puppies including sweet Anakin for a walk. Today he didn’t pull my arm off or anything like that. I put on his harness

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Reality Bites

Reality bites isn’t just the name of a great 90s video, it’s also the universe’s way of balancing our existence. Naturally, I had high hopes for Tuesday after such a great Monday. However, reality kicked back it and reality bites. It started off innocuously enough with Goalielocks assuring me he was awake and attending class. Meanwhile, the Mayor was ready to go well in advance of the first bell.

My day was a bit stressful because I had to take the health insurance licensing exam this evening. Consequently, I dedicated the vast majority of my day to balancing work and studying. In fact, I only left my office for lunch and coffee. While I toiled away in my room, the boys were busy attending school.

I asked the Mayor to do the dishes on lunch break since Goalielocks has been down for the count with a back injury. You can imagine my dismay when I open the running dishwasher to find it half full. You can contrast that with the view off full sink and countertop. Needless to say, I was not impressed. Fortunately for him, I was consumed with trying to work and study, so he got off easy.

Tonight I passed the exam in about 25 minutes. I’ve crammed the last few weeks for the test. I knew, despite my nerves, that I was well prepared. It was also a good preview of what the real estate exam will will be like. Obviously, as soon as I passed a weight was lifted from my shoulders. All my hard work paid off. Afterward, I had a nice dinner cooked by my hubby.

Lastly, I worked through some stretching with Goalielocks, who has had severe lower back pain the last two days. Hopefully, the stretching we did will alleviate his pain. Now we’re watching hockey waiting to see if Tampa Bay will seal the deal tonight. Oh and in case you were wondering, Goalielocks didn’t make it to first period.

Here’s a list of our day’s activities:

*I read A Room With A View by E.M Forster

*It turns out their are unique challenges to managing a U18 team. Thus it seems we may have a caravan to the Carolinas in our future.

*I ran two miles and walked a mile today.

*While I took my exam, my hubby stayed home and cooked a wonderful meal.


*After today, my running streak stands at 7days.

*I learned a new word today: ichthyophagous, which means to eat seafood.

*BBG 3.0 week 2 day 2: cardio and yoga! Today’s run was two miles! It sucked!

*I took my puppies including sweet Anakin for a walk. Today Anakin is wearing his bow tie and it doesn’t seem to be bothering him.

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Day Four

Day four of virtual school was one for the history books. Particularly, if your history books focus on dumpster fires or shit shows. If so, this day was legendary. We all knew it was coming, didn’t we? I mean, I think we’ve been waiting for the shoe to drop. And today that mo-fo of a shoe dropped. This means the low expectations I wrote about yesterday came to fruition today.

First of all, my thyroid is raging. I’ve been so hot at night I can only manage with one light blanket and the thermostat at 72 degrees. My doctor will be adjusting my dosage down a bit come next Tuesday morning. It also means that falling asleep and staying asleep has been a real challenge. For some reason, I don’t fall into a good deep sleep until early in the morning. Anyway, I remembered to get up to take my thyroid meds, but I slept through my alarm to wake up the boys. Fortunately, this wasn’t an issue for my Mayor, who was ready to go to school by 7:00 am.

On the other hand, this was a problem for Goalielocks. As soon as I woke up, which was still before school started, I ran upstairs to make sure he was awake and ready to attend class. He sat up in his bed, grumbled, and laid back down. I proceeded to repeat my message; i.e. get out of bed and get ready for class. This time he sat up. He told me he knew he had to be up and asked me to close the door so he could get dressed. I shut the door, albeit it not tightly. He then yelled at me for not being able to close the door right. Teenagers are so pleasant in the morning. Aren’t they?

Thinking he was up, I headed out to grab my coffee. As you may know, Dunkin’ coffee is essential to my ability to function as a human being. Afterward, I took the dogs out and went to work. It was a long commute to work from my couch to my room, but I made it safely and without incident. I got some work done before going to yoga via Zoom. It was at that point I realized I hadn’t heard my middle child moving around upstairs. Before relaxing into child’s pose, I texted him and added a find my iPhone alert. He responded pretty quickly asking why nobody had woken him up for school. Seriously?

Obviously, he made me mad. Since he was now up and attending class, I continued with my yoga class. I was hoping that the beautiful yin class taught by Jennifer would help calm me. Fortunately, I finished the class feeling like a new person and completely calm. At least for a few minutes. Naturally, the calm left me after interacting with my two star pupils, who were in stellar moods today. How lucky am I that both were in a piss poor mood? At dinner, Goalielocks was still insisting nobody walked him up. This despite the fact I had a full conversation with him this morning at 7:15. Anyway, today was the type of day I have dreaded. Thankfully, we only have one day left in the week.

Here’s a list of our day’s activities:

*I read Mary Barton, by Elisabeth Gaskell. It’s really getting good now! We have a murder mystery on our hands.

*Yin with Jennifer at Open Heart Yoga Studio

*It’s only day four, but I was feeling inspired. Consequently, I wrote a poem about the first week of virtual school. While it’s no The Raven, it gets my creative point across.

*I ran two miles and walked a mile today. Naturally, I listened to Metallica and watched Curb throughout my run. I am basking in the joy of accomplishment.

*I survived day 3 of virtual school. I am keeping my eye on the prize aka the weekend.

*We had no hockey practice tonight. It was family dinner night. I cooked pork carnitas tacos, which were awesome.

*BBG 2.0. week 12 day 4: cardio and yoga

*I took my puppies including sweet Anakin for a walk.

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Expectations

They say the path to happiness is low expectations, but I’m not quite sure that’s true. See I have nothing, but the lowest expectations for the new virtual school year. As the saying goes, I should be happy due to my lack of expectations. However, here I am lamenting the fact that my low expectations may start coming to fruition. Day one and two went pretty well in our house. Today I’m not overly confident that my middle child was awake for his first two periods. Yes, he was logged in to the classroom at the appropriate time, but he was on his phone laying in bed with the camera off. Oh yes, I saw a glimmer of my low expectations (aka worst nightmare) for the new year this morning.

Fortunately, I received no calls or emails from the school indicating he was absent, tardy, or otherwise disengaged. This evening, however, I did get two calls and emails from the school regarding code of conduct violations and using the google classroom app when using a cellphone to attend class. The phone calls I received were sent out to everyone. Consequently, I’m hoping this means that he was participating despite laying in bed. By the time the second period was over, he was at his computer desk doing his work. Thankfully, he did this on his own volition.

While the boys did their school work, I kicked ass adulting. I went to work, completed my workouts, and logged volunteer hours. This afternoon, I sent out my first Loom video (you can check it out below) to my Purple Stride team captains. Loom is an awesome tool for connecting with people during this time. As for my workout, Kayla Itsines kicked my butt in today’s workout with far too many burpees. I have said it before and I say it again, lay down burpees should be illegal. Unbelievably, I will be finishing my second round of BBG. That’s twenty-four weeks of incredible workouts. I’ve never been stronger.

Here’s a list of our day’s activities:

*I read Mary Barton, by Elisabeth Gaskell. It’s really getting good now! We have a murder mystery on our hands.

*Yin with Kaye at Open Heart Yoga Studio

*I’m trying to level set my expectations for the new school year somewhere between a total gong show and perfection.

*I ran one mile and walked a mile today. Naturally, I listened to Metallica and watched Curb throughout my run. I have to say, emphatically in fact, that I love Metallica’s S&M 2 album.

*I survived day 3 of virtual school. I am keeping my eye on the prize aka the weekend.

*Goalielocks and the Mayor had hockey practice tonight.

*BBG 2.0. week 12 day 3: arms, cardio and yoga

*I took my puppies including sweet Anakin for a walk.

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Day 2

Day 2 of virtual school brought a little of the attitude I had anticipated yesterday. I never imagined that waking up a teenager, who just went to bed, could be so much fun! In the end, it turned out okay. Both boys were up, at their desks, and online exactly when they were supposed to be online. That’s right I’m batting 1.00 right now.

As for me, I had yoga teacher training today. We covered the endocrine system, which is probably my strongest subject in anatomy and physiology. After all, there’s no better way to understand the endocrine system than having one that doesn’t work. We have little bit of anatomy left before we head into methodology. I’m excited for the methodology part of training, which we will start on Friday.

I also ran two miles since I had no strength training scheduled today. Since I started the running challenge, I’ve noticed it’s gotten a lot easier. However, I also noticed that my legs are getting a bit tired. Of course, I worked my legs yesterday, so that doesn’t help either.

Tonight my hubby made us a wonderful pork chop dinner courtesy of HelloFresh. It was mighty tasty especially since I didn’t make. I really appreciated that he cooked dinner, so I didn’t have to cut my workout short. Afterward, I mixed up some brownies for the boys since the last two days have been relatively smooth.

Here’s a list of our day’s activities:

*I read Mary Barton, by Elisabeth Gaskell. The Masters have been draconian in their response to their laborers setting up a horrific conflict. I’ve just gotten to the point where it’s all coming to a head. I’m well on my way to being omnilegent!

*Vinyasa with Jennifer at Open Heart Yoga Studio

*I ran two miles and walked a mile today. Naturally, I listened to Metallica and watched Curb throughout my run.

*I survived day 2 of virtual school.

*I had another pile of Amazon boxes waiting for me today.

*Goalielocks had hockey practice tonight.

*I’d like to thank Sue from JibberJanner for providing great writing prompts. Tonight they come to an end, but I’m grateful for all her hard work these past several months.

*BBG 2.0. week 12 day 2: cardio and yoga

*I took my puppies including sweet Anakin for a walk.

Affiliate advertising supports this blog. By clicking on the link and making a purchase, you are helping to support the blog with no added cost to you. I appreciate your support!