Weekly Round Up: In the Wild

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  This week marked the last week of winter break!  The boys are back at school, I'm sitting at the airport waiting to take to the skies, and Hubs and Doggo are holding down the home front.  Let me tells you the tales of the last week of home life.

Eats

Not much to report.  I had squirreled away the leftover turkey from Thanksgiving in "chicken pot pie" sized portions, and finally got it all served out.  The fellas loved getting a turkey pot pie the week before Christmas and also this week.  As you may know, I detest both chicken and turkey so I had other things on those nights, but making pot pie is always a win b/c it makes the fam happy and it's very easy when the store makes the pie crust and someone else cooks the poultry.

Workouts/Wellness/Weather Report

We had a warm up this week, so I took advantage and hit the hiking trails.  There were a few days when it was nice enough to bring Doggo along.

It was very warm by the weekend, leading to this green and moody shot.

And then by Sunday it was like this again:

Sleep wise, I tried two new things this week.  I took CBD gummies on two nights.  The results were pretty near identical to melatonin: the first night was great, the second night less so but at least not as bad as if I had taken nothing.  I felt a bit groggy both mornings after.

Then the magnesium that I ordered came in, and I had a few decent nights of sleep from that so I will keep taking it.  Bonus points b/c I woke up very clear and alert on those nights, though that could be due to having less of a sleep deficit.  But before we get all "happily ever after", I slept terribly last night so the jury is still out!

Speaking of the magnesium, the bottle came with no instructions so I went to its page on Amazon to get some insight.  I started reading reviews to get the info that I needed, and I happened to see a review written in Spanish.

You guys I understood the review without translating it!!!  I guess something is happening with all of the Spanish lessons after all.

Watching

I had the random inspiration to pick up the Outlander series again.  I'm in the middle of episode two of season seven.  I don't remember how many years it's been since I saw season six, but it has been years.  I had no problem getting back into the show, but I don't remember all of the subplots so I'm going to try to catch up with Youtube recaps.

Reading

We have a lot to talk about!  I hope that no one minds...

I'm almost done with Q is for Quarry by Sue Grafton, and liking it.

It came to my attention that book club is at the end of the month, but like I said I haven't finished Q and I have another book checked out already on my Kindle so it felt tight to start reading another book.  Then I remembered my list of book resolutions, which includes "reading" more fiction on audio.  As you know, I have a lot of listening time on the trails, so I'm now well into my book club book.  It is Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks.  When it's the 1660s and you're a widow with small children and the plague comes to town.  It's very good, though as you might imagine also very sad.

I had run out of podcasts(!) and as much as I love the plague book, I did need something else to lighten the load of the plague so I went ISO another nonfiction book.  Does anyone remember the time that I went to Pelee Island in Canada?  Well, it turns out that someone wrote a book that had my name all over it: The Pelee Project: One Woman's Escape from Urban Madness is a memoir by Jane Christmas.  She was having a moment where life was too much, so she moved to Pelee for three months in winter in 2001.

I'm glad that I didn't read this before I went to Pelee, because I can tell that a lot has changed.  She writes about a grocery store, a convenience store, and the co-op, and when I was there in 2023 the only one of these that existed was the co-op.

Let's Close it Out with a Funny Dog Story

Doggo and I go outside together first thing in the morning.  I always leave my coat by the kitchen table so that we're ready to roll, and I always keep my gloves in the pockets.

One morning this week I put my hands in the pockets and only found one glove.  I knew that the most likely explanation was that I had dropped it in the yard the night before.  But it had snowed, so all I could see was a white blanket on the ground.

Ms Thing of course had no difficultly at all in finding a glove buried in the snow, and she latched on to it and started playing with it.  When we went back inside, she carried it in her mouth and was not about to give up her new toy.

I was able to buy it back with some treats.

What's Next?

I'm headed off on my first adventure of the year!  The next time we talk, it will be from New Orleans!

How was your week?  Any recommendations for New Orleans/Baton Rouge?  At a minimum there will be a swamp tour.