My weekend kicked off with a great reading date with Amber. We met at my pool, which was wonderfully empty, and after chit-chatting and catching up on life for about 20 minutes (mostly talking about the hopelessness of dating these days, haha. It’s so nice to have someone going through the rigamarole of dating in our thirties together.), we read for about an hour in silence. I made great progress on Disability Visibility!

My evening was a good one! I ordered in for dinner and watched this week’s episode of The Bachelorette, which was just very, very emotional. Afterward, I listened to The Popcast’s recap and I’m always grateful to them for reminding me of all the ways production manipulates the narrative.

There’s really not much to say here. This is just a cute photo I took of Lila on Friday night as she snuggled in bed with me. Isn’t she just PRECIOUS?

And here’s Ellie. This was the view that greeted me when I woke up on Saturday morning. She’s a doll.

I am very proud of myself for getting in a spin workout this morning! I nearly skipped it, telling myself I would just do it on Sunday, but I was already up and had the time to do a quick 30-minute workout so I might as well, right? And it meant I could sleep in on Sunday! So I got it done and was very happy with myself.

For Saturday’s writing date, Mikaela and I returned to our favorite Starbucks!!!!!!! This is a major return to normalcy for us. All of the Starbucks around us have been drive-thru/pick-up only for a while, so we’ve been going to Panera for our writing dates but I am not a fan of Panera breakfast. Plus, Starbucks has their holiday drinks now and I had YET to have my first peppermint mocha of the season (blasphemy!). We recently learned that Starbucks opened up their dining rooms again, so we’re back in action. I greatly enjoyed my peppermint mocha and breakfast sandwich. During the writing date, I finished up an article for work and then spent some time working on this post.

You guys, I was really bad about taking pictures during the Running of the Wieners event! Argh! I did capture video of their races, which you can view here. But the only pictures I got were of us on the way to the event. Anyway, it was a really fun time and the dogs did so well! Lucy seemed a little shell-shocked to be surrounded by so many other dogs but I was more worried that Chip would be barking at all of the dogs, and he was just happy to walk around and sniff their butts. 🙂

The race takes place in this cordoned-off area of a park where “Wiener Handlers” stand on one side and the owners stand on the other. I don’t know how long the area between the start and finish is, but it’s far enough that I don’t think the dogs can see the owners (maybe 30 feet?).

Lucy ran in the “Baby Brats” division and she tried her best! It took her a bit of time to get going, but gradually she figured out that she needed to run down the field. She made it almost to the finish line but then got confused and started running back the way she came, haha. Eventually, my mom had to rescue her.

Chip ran in the “Feisty Franks” division and he came close to winning! He was running his little heart out to us, but then he got a bit distracted right at the end and didn’t cross the finish line in time. He did so well, though! Next year is his year, I think. 🙂

My evening was fairly low-key! I ordered in for dinner (mmm, pasta!) and watched a bunch of episodes of Brooklyn 99. I spent a little time working on blog posts for next week so I feel a little ahead of the game!

I also pampered myself a bit with my nightly skincare routine and gave myself a face mask. My skin always feels so hydrated after a face mask. I love it.

I had a supremely relaxing Sunday morning. I woke up around 8, ate breakfast, and wrote my Sunday post. Then I spent the rest of the morning reading, coloring while listening to a podcast, and reading blog posts. It was so nice!

I don’t really have any photos for the rest of Sunday, aside from this adorable one I took of Chip and Lucy so I could put up a post on their Instagram page. (The trick to getting them both looking at the camera: I gave them a new toy to play with and had it in my hands while I took this photo.) The rest of Sunday was spent at my mom’s, watching football with my mom, my brother, and my older nephew. It was a good day, for sure.

I needed this extremely relaxing day because next week is going to be a busy one at work. I have some intense articles to write, a few long meetings scheduled, and a lot of “to-do’s” to get through before I’m off for Thanksgiving week!

How was your weekend? 

I woke up from my nap on Friday to this sweet face right next to me. What a doll! She often interrupts my sleeping to beg for pets (often by poking me with a claw right on my face), but I can’t even be mad at her. She’s too cute!

After my nap, I took a trip to Target. I needed to get a gift for Olive for her birthday as well as one for Mikaela who just had a birthday. I couldn’t help stopping by the books section, but I didn’t buy anything. I was good!

Once home from my Target expedition, I took a hot bubble bath that was so relaxing. The rest of my night was fairly low-key—I Facetimed with my mom, watched a few episodes of Brooklyn 99, wrote Saturday’s blog post, and read my books.

My busy Saturday began with a long walk around my apartment complex. It was a brisk 61 degrees when I woke up, and the walk felt really good. I listened to the latest episode of Office Ladies during my walk. I don’t *love* this podcast (the deep dives on random subjects are kinda ridiculous), but all of the behind-the-scenes info about life on the set of a TV show are super interesting. It’s amazing how much work goes into even a one-second scene!

I test-drove a 2021 Mazda CX-5 on Saturday (my mom came with me), and man, was she a beauty. Both to look at and to drive. I have four other cars on my list that I want to test-drive and I’m not in any rush to buy, so I’m taking my time with this research assignment and only went to one dealership this weekend. I had a really good experience with the car salesman (shocking!) and he didn’t pressure me at all to make a decision. All in all, it was a pleasant experience and made me so excited to finally have a new car sometime in the near future.

I was so excited that I finally got the alert that this book was ready for me to pick up at the library! I’ve been on hold for over a month now, which is unusual for my library system. It’s a 2020 release and I usually never have trouble getting those books fairly quickly. It just means a lot of people are requesting it, which is a good thing since this is an important topic!

Saturday was Olive’s birthday party! If you remember, Olive is my dear friend Mikaela’s baby who had a rare and aggressive form of cancer (her chance of survival was 9%). Somehow, she made it through an incredibly risky surgery and countless rounds of chemo and has emerged victorious from her cancer treatment. She’s had a few scans since she finished treatment, and all of them have been clear. Even more astonishing is that her treatment didn’t stunt her development at all! Both physically and cognitively, she’s right where she should be. Isn’t that incredible?! Warrior baby, for sure.

Olive turns two on Wednesday, and we celebrated with a very fun birthday party for her. Myself, I enjoyed chit-chatting with my friends Amber and Lynn (we wore party hats and got tatted up, as shown in the picture above) and watching Olive destroy her cake. 🙂 It was such a joyous day!

Saturday evening was an eventful one! I wanted to do a load of laundry so I started the washer and went on my merry way. The way the water was filling the basin sounded different than usual, but I didn’t think much of it.

… Until my downstairs neighbor knocked on my door to tell me that water was leaking into her kitchen. Sure enough, when I looked at my own kitchen (my stackable washer/dryer is lodged into the space across from my fridge), there was an inch of water on the floor! I immediately shut off the washer (and discovered that no water was even flowing into the basin!) and called emergency maintenance.

What a mess! I live in a third-floor apartment and learned that water had not only leaked into the second-floor apartment below me but also into the first-floor apartment and the concrete outside. OOF. I felt terrible! I know it wasn’t my fault (I’ve never had an issue with my washer before!), but damn. There wasn’t much maintenance could do for me on Saturday night. Because of the way the kitchen is set up, they are going to need to first remove my fridge so that they can move out my washer/dryer to get into the space where it sits to figure out what’s causing the leak. So I’ll have maintenance in my apartment all day today—a day in which I have three meetings, argh!

I’m crossing my fingers and toes that they’ll just set me up with a new washer/dryer since the one I have now is super old and makes so much noise. I usually can’t run my dryer if I have meetings at work or I’m watching something on TV. I’ll even turn it off when if my mom Facetimes me while it’s running. Super annoying.

Once the mess of my leaking washer was solved (at least for that night), I ordered dinner and watched a few episodes of Brooklyn 99. I was in bed a little on the early side and read my books for a bit before calling it a night!

I woke up way before my alarm on Sunday. While I despise Daylight Saving Time (especially in the fall), it was nice to wake up around 7 feeling fully rested! I spent my extra hour curled up on the couch with a blanket, finishing up Ginny Moon.

Mikaela and I had a lovely Sunday morning writing date at Panera! I set my fantasy football lineup before writing my Sunday stream-of-consciousness blog post. We also spent a lot of time talking about the party yesterday and reflecting on what an incredible day it was. Mikaela said that Olive had a blast, and I was so happy to hear that!

The rest of my Sunday was spent at my mom’s, watching football and snuggling the dogs and sneaking in a few chapters of my book in between plays. I love these Sundays so much—it’s just a low-key afternoon with my mom, my brother, and my older nephew. I cherish this time!

Of course, there’s more football to watch when I get home from my mom’s! Ellie will sometimes sit on the edge of the couch and watch the game with me. It’s always so funny when she does that! I ate a late dinner while watching the game, and also put the finishing touches on this blog post.

And now it’s a new week and is shaping up to be a good one. I have plans with two different friends and work shouldn’t be too much of a killer (here’s hoping, at least).

How was your weekend?