Weekly Round Up: Classic Round Up Edition

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  For the first time in a long time I have an old school traditional round up!!! I've got a new way to prep tofu, surprising fitness news, the latest in hot couples TV shows, and a 😻😻😻 book that's making me very happy.

Weekly Round Up: Christmas in July

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads plus puppy and werk talk.  Let's start with a dose of cute.  The reason why Doggo is tearing into Santa Claus in July is that the pet store had Christmas toys on sale for a steal.  She already "opened" the present, but Santa is holding strong.

Let's Catch Up: Books

 

Sigh, vacation is over and it's time to return to our normally scheduled blog content.  Let's ease our way in with a cheesecake-ish pic of Doggo and talk about books!  Soooooo many books.

Let's Go Places: MegaVacay Wrap Up

 

Oh friends, we've had such a wonderful vacation but all good things must come to an end.  It's now Sunday, and we're going home on Monday.

Let's Go Places: Spring Green, Wisconsin

It's now Friday and exactly one week into MegaVacay 2024.  Our travels are now taking us about an hour west of Madison to the small town of Spring Green.  How small?  Population 1,500.

What's in Spring Green you ask?  If you said Frank Lloyd Wright, then give yourself a gold star.  His ancestors emigrated to the area in the 1800s, and ended up owning a bunch of land here.  In 1911, FLW moved here and built his dream house on a hill, which is called Taliesin (Welsh for "shining brow" as in "the shining brow of the hill that the house is built on").  Spring Green is the ultimate FLW destination.  But wait, there's more...so much more.

Let's Go Places (And Meet People!): Madison, Wisconsin

 

Picking it up from last time...we're on MegaVacay 2024 and it is now Wednesday afternoon.  We're zeroing in on our final home base of the trip.  But it's only Wednesday and we're not going home until Monday, so we've got quite a bit of stuff left to see - and people to meet!

Let's Go Places (and Meet People!): St. Paul/Minneapolis, Minnesota

 

Let's pick up the story of MegaVacay 2024 where we left it last time.  We were headed somewhere four hours away from Two Rivers, Wisconsin.

Specifically we're going across state lines to the twin cities of St. Paul & Minneapolis, Minnesota.  But why?

Let's Go Places: Two Rivers WI

 

Friends, it's time to continue with the story of Mega Vacation 2024.  We've just spent a few days in Rockford IL and now it's time to go three hours north to the town of Two Rivers WI.

One of the hardest puzzle pieces to fit into place was the Still Bend Schwartz House in Two Rivers, WI.  Two Rivers is about 90 minutes north of Milwaukee, and it is only open three days a week for tours, so I couldn't fit it into my Milwaukee trip last month.  The only reason that I was able to go on this trip is because I had an entire day to devote to getting there and moving on to my next stop.

I had driven too far not to go there, but also I didn't want to go to Two Rivers just to see one Frank Lloyd Wright house.  I hoped that I would find something else to do there as well, but there were so many moving parts to this trip that I had planning fatigue and didn't do any research before I got there.  Spoiler: in this case failing to plan did not mean planning to fail.  I found that special extra thing to fit into the trip.

Let's Go Places: Rockford, Illinois

 

Friends, it's time to start dishing the deets on Mega Vacation 2024.  If you're new here, the rest of my family spends all of their spare time at Boy Scouts, so I have a lot of solo time on my hands.  When they go camping, I go "glamping" - aka I take solo trips.

In the summer they go on an extended camp, so for the second year in a row, I've gone on an extended vacation.  Last year I did an island bender, and this year I'm doing a Frank Lloyd Wright Binge/Cool Blogger Meetup in northern Illinois and Wisconsin, with a bonus stop in Minneapolis.

Weekly Round Up: Vacation Mode

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads or at least as many of the above as I can coherently tell you.  The big news is that Mega Vacay 2024 is underway!  On Friday morning I kissed Hubs and Doggo goodbye, loaded everything and anything that I could possibly need for the next week into my car, and hit the road.

Weekly Round Up: The Graduate

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, reads, plus the usual puppy brags.  In this week's edition we had a family party, I'm reading the latest It Book, and everybody in my house now has a diploma.

Weekly Round Up: The Life of the Party

 

A weekly round up: it's supposed to be eats, workouts, watches, and reads but in this stage of puppy life it's puppy updates, workouts, watches, and reads.  This week Doggo achieved not one but two huge milestones, Hubs and I saw a cute date night movie, I've got books to dish on, and I need your recommendations.

Let's Go Places (and Meet People!): Racine & Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Last weekend was Boy Scout camp weekend in our house.  You know the drill: my family went off to the woods, our puppy went off for boarding at our vet, and I hit the road in search of adventure.

Normally I don't talk about my travel plans in advance, but I need to tell you what I have planned for June in order to explain this trip.  Just like last year, the rest of my family has a Mega Boy Scout camp trip, and I will be taking a Mega Solo Vacation (though not at the same time as them because of the puppy).  In June the only member of our family who will spend every night at home is the puppy.

The location for my June Mega Solo Vacation is northern Illinois/Wisconsin and the primary agenda is a massive Frank Lloyd Wright bender.  However when I started planning the trip, I realized that there was too much FLW stuff to cram into one visit.  Clearly this needed to be two trips, so last weekend I focused on the Racine/Milwaukee (MKE) area and in June I'll tackle northern IL/central Wisconsin.

Weekly Round Up: Poetry and a Twist

A weekly round up.  Normally I say that the round up is "eats, workouts, watches, and reads", but this time around it's going to be "puppy poetry, watches, a lotta reads, and...hmm...there's something else that's new...huh there's something else that's happened that I need to tell you but I can't remember what it is right now...let me start writing the post and maybe it will come to me".

Let's Go Places: Indianapolis, Indiana

 

Here's what happened for Boy Scout Camp weekend in March:

• My husband and stepsons headed out for the woods
• Our lovely puppy headed off to the vet for boarding.  On arrival she recognized the vet tech from her previous stay and greeted her like a long lost friend.
• Yours truly packed up the car and headed off to the fair city of Indianapolis.

Weekly Round Up: Squad Goals

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition we had a family Taylor Swift girls night, a family eclipse viewing, and Doggo started school.

Weekly Round Up: Journey's End

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  This week I tried a new-to-me tofu product, I finished my hiking challenge, I've got book stuff to talk about, and I'm sure there will be a few puppy pictures as well.

Weekly Round Up: A Doctor in the House

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition someone in my family was awarded a PhD and a celebration ensued, there was puppy madness, and what else is new - I have books to talk about.

Weekly Round Up: Snow Snoot

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads, or at least as many of the above as I can remember with the puppy distraction.

Since we last talked we had another round of Boy Scout camp, which means that the family all went off on their own various adventures (camp for the fellas, boarding at the vet for Doggo, and a long weekend trip for me).  I'll be back with that story in a few days.  Today I want to show you a cute pic of my puppy in the snow and tell you about an incredible book.

Weekly Round Up: A Breed Apart

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  The big news item of this week is that the results are in on Doggo's DNA test!  

Weekly Round Up 2 of 2: Food n'Stuff

 

A weekly round up:  eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  Picking it up from part 1, lemme tell you the usual stuff that I talk about in these roundups.

Weekly Round Up 1 of 2: The Great Catch Up

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  I've got a lot of stuff to catch up on, so let's split this up into two posts to keep it manageable.  Today I'm going to tell you about our winter getaway and the dog, and then I'll come back tomorrow with food, workouts, movies, and books.

Weekly Round Up: It's All a Blur

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, reads, and Doggo.  It's a dog's life when you have two balls and you can't figure out how to bite both of them at once.  Let's see if I can remember anything about this week besides Pup Life.

Weekly Round Up: The Days are Long

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  This was a week of long but delightful days with our new puppy.  In other news we tried a new stir fry, I've got workout musings, and a read-the-book-or-see-the-movie went down.

Spoiler alert: I will be discussing the book/movie On the Beach.  I can't figure out how to do it without spoilers, but I've kept them as vague as I can manage.  Skip that section if you don't want the deets.

Weekly Round Up: The Future is Now

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads. If there is one update that I did not expect to be giving you this week, it is that the future is now.  We were adopted by Future Dog!

Let's Have Fun With Vinegar: A Cleaning Success Story

Friends, we're here today to talk dirty.

Or clean depending on your point of view.  This is the story of how our master bathroom went from looking shabby to spiffy thanks to a $3.79 investment in a gallon of distilled vinegar.

A Matter of Planning

Hey Friends, today we're talking about my understanding of planners and bullet journals.  This post was inspired by Anne's comment on this post (PS here is the link to Kae's blog that she mentions).

 

Takeaways:

• Yes we need a central Cool Bloggers Forum to discuss Cool Blogger Stuff in detail.
• I wanted to tell Anne more about how I organized my "I made it up myself" Excel sheet, but it was too bulky for a comment.  Is it enough material for a dedicated post?  Let's find out!

Weekly Round Up: Let's Not Go Places

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  This week a winter storm meant giving up the weekend that I planned for the weekend that I was meant to have.

We have quite a bit to talk about just for the normal "weekly round up" and I've got at least two posts' worth of other stuff to dish on, so I think we're looking at a Monday - Wednesday - Friday posting schedule this week.  The extra topics are planners and cleaning.  Hey come back!  I'll do my best to make the cleaning one interesting.

Today let's talk about my winter weekend at home, epic food, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the hot new documentary that rubbed me the wrong way, and books books books books books books books.

Heads up: I will be discussing (and dissing) a show called You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment so skip the watching section if you don't want the spoilers.

Tales of the Sheprador

 

The biggest criticism that I have of blogs in general and mine in particular is that there is not nearly enough dog content.  Today I am here to do something about that.

ICYMI Stepdog passed away in November after a mercifully brief battle with cancer.  When I wrote about it I said that I would come back later and tell the story of everything that came before.  This is the promised happy post about this wonderful dog's long and healthy life.  

Her backstory.  How she went from being my husband's ex-wife's dog to my stepdog.  What she meant to each member of the family.  A Day in the Life Pre-Pandemic Edition and a Day in the Life Pandemic and Beyond Edition.  Her many nicknames.  A bunch of random dog stories, lots of pictures, and some Sheprador Poetry.  Her Dog Ambassadorship which led to many of our friends and family adopting dogs. 

Weekly Round Up: Currypalooza

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition I launched Currypalooza 2024, cooked up a bunch of seasonally appropriate eats, and as usual I've got movies and books to talk about.

Weekly Round Up: Hello Winter

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition the weather outside got frightful so we made chili, I've been hiking up a storm, and I've got lots of TV and book things to talk about, including an old book that is very much in today's headlines.

Weekly Round Up: Goal Digger

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  In this week's edition we had a very random dinner, I found something to keep me busy on the fitness front, I've got a new book to talk about, and no one is saying that I'm a goal digger but...I've got a few things to share on that front.