I am typing this post and feeling a bit like a zombie right now. I had the worst night of sleep last night. I didn’t stop reading until 12:30a and then woke up at 2:45 and could NOT go back to sleep. My mind was all over the place. I read my Kindle in the dark for most of the time that I was awake so I wouldn’t go crazy just lying there and overthinking everything in life.

I finished my book, The Wife Upstairs, which was a twisted thriller that’s a modern retelling of Jane Eyre. I personally liked the book because it took place in Birmingham, Alabama and I lived there for three years in my 20s. It was super easy to read and I breezed through it in a few days.

The ending of The Wife Upstairs didn’t exactly wind me down to go back to sleep so I finally decided at 5:45a to do Rod Stryker’s yoga nidra meditation. It was wonderful for soothing my anxiety and getting me relaxed and I did snooze for about an hour after. I’ve shared this meditation many times before and I cannot recommend it enough. Rod’s voice is so soothing and yoga nidra is such a beautiful practice to do.

I also love listening to sound baths to help me relax and sleep. Here’s a link to a three-hour sound bath on YouTube and a 20-minute sound bath on Spotify.

Back to books, next on my reading list is Kristin Hannah’s new book, The Four Winds. I’m already looking forward to getting in bed and reading it tonight! It has a 4.5 star rating on GoodReads and my grandmother just finished it and enjoyed it. She said she liked The Great Alone a little better so I’m eager to see what I think.

Last thing RE: Kristin Hannah. I started Firefly Lane this week on Netflix and OMG I am obsessed. Kathryn Heigl is SO good in her role as Tully Hart. Firefly Lane is one of my favorite books ever and I think they’re doing a great job on the Netflix series. I did see in the credits that Kristin Hannah is co-producing so I’m sure that helps.

If you’re wondering what relevance the dog picture has here, I snapped this while I was watching Firefly Lane. The pups are excellent company…and Benji is so lanky, haha. I’m eagerly awaiting his coat to grow back out after a not so great experience at the groomer about 5-6 weeks ago. I’ve learned the hard way that you have to be much more discerning about groomers when it comes to the doodle haircut than the golden. I’m still trying to figure out what the perfect coat length is going to be for Benji. His coat is much more poodle than golden so we struggle a lot with matting. I’m trying to up my brushing game. I think I’m going to make it a new nightly TV routine after Finn is down.

Finn started art classes last week and he loves it! His weekly activities right now are swim lessons, art class and a MyGym class. He really enjoys his swim lessons and is making great progress. He’s almost got his front and back float down without assistance. When he turns three I want to swap his MyGym class for a weekly gymnastics/tumbling class at a nearby gymnastics gym. I think we’ll also do soccer shots at some point in his 3s too. Never did I ever think I’d get so excited about toddler extracurriculars.

We also want to get him back in preschool 3x/week in the fall. I’m hoping he gets a spot. We love our sweet preschool but they were closed this fall and opened with limited capacity this spring so we decided to wait until fall to send him back. We will ABSOLUTELY be keeping our nanny with us even with preschool. It’s only a few hours a few days a week AND she’s a modern day Mary Poppins. We hit the nanny jackpot with her.

Hoooowwwwww is this boy almost three already!? I am just adore being his mom and it’s the most rewarding and soul-satisfying thing I’ve ever done in my life. We were eating dinner together on Monday night and sitting side-by-side. He looped his arm around my neck and pulled my cheek to his and said, “oh mommy….you’re my best friend forever.”

Thanks to your encouragement, we got a kitchen helper! I went with the GuideCraft kitchen helper and Finn is a fan. He loves the shape cutouts on the side and after I put it together he said, “wow…it’s amazing.” It is MUCH more secure than the IKEA step-stool we were using and puts him at a much better height to reach the counter. THANK Y’ALL for telling me to go for it. We will get so much use out of this over the next couple of years. I really want Finn to have positive experiences helping in the kitchen and I think this will be a great asset for that.

And finally, my girlfriends and I have committed to getting back in a bi-weekly girls night dinner groove and we’re off to a strong start in 2021. We went to the new SouthPark location of Dilworth Tasting Room this week and it was amazing…food, service, ambiance, wine list…all 100%! We all agreed that it was getting a spot in the regular rotation.

Here’s a look at what we ordered. We started with a charcuterie plate and then I went to the ladies room and came back to find that Dorie and Bevin had ordered a feast for dinner! We had truffle fries (of course), pistachio-crusted seared tuna (look at all that avocado…and the tuna was melt in your mouth good), crispy pork belly and stuffed peppers with lamb, beef, chipotle aioli and chimichurri. Everything tasted great. Definitely recommend checking out this new location!

This was such a fun post to write. Do y’all like these types of posts that are kind of a little bit of everything? Sometimes I think I don’t have much to write about and then I end up 1,000 words in about day-to-day life! 🙂

QUESTIONS

What do you do when you can’t sleep in the middle of the night? 

What are you reading right now? 

What extracurriculars do your kids enjoy?