Friday Faves – Edition 22

 

Friday.

Edition 22.

Do you ever have a week that seems like a blur?

My week was chaotic. There are still so many moving parts with decisions to make, things to complete, and places to be.

However, I did find beauty in those moments. Here are some of my faves for the week.

Coffee and girlfriends.

On Sunday, I met a girlfriend for coffee.

I’m not a person who needs lots of friends, but I do need some that I consider my safe zone. These are the friends with whom I can speak freely. I can tell them about my trials in parenting, talk about the personal stuff of marriages and relationships, and the details I tend to keep private about what’s going on in my life.

Without fear of judgement.

She is one of those friends.

We decided to go to Sweet Donkey Coffee which is in South Roanoke. It’s a cute little coffee shop that always has something going on. I’ve been wanting to go since it opened (some years back), but hadn’t been yet.

Why hadn’t I been yet, you ask?

Confession time: some of you may already have guessed, but… I don’t parallel park. It wasn’t required for a driver’s license in Florida and I find it very intimidating. I did discover that there are plenty of places that I could pull along the street and just walk back a few blocks, but for that day, my friend picked me up and we rode together.

When I visit a place, I like to try something that I can’t get anywhere else. Sometimes it works out, others times not so much (like the Carbonara that I had in Paris, which I didn’t realize came with a raw egg on top).  I decided to try the lavender latte. It could have gone either way. I’ve had a lavender kombucha that was tasty, but I hated the floral macarons that I tried from Ladureé in Paris (I felt like I was eating perfume).

The latte turned out to be amazingly tasty. And we had a great time catching up on everything happening in our summer so far…so much so that it was a 3 1/2 hour visit.

Entry Deck.

My next fave doesn’t look so faveish (I don’t think that’s a real word) yet. Our home is wood frame. Wood rots over time. The wall and steps had finally gotten to the point where they need to be replaced.

Especially given that Feng Shui principles are that the entry to your home should be inviting. Rotted decking is not inviting.

The original entry was sheathed the same way as the house. The layout of the interior of the house is very contemporary and we have decided that we want light allowed through the railings. We haven’t completely formulated what that will look like.  I have been scouring through Pinterest and pinning things to my Pinterest page. I’m very excited about the prospect of a nice entry to the front door.

Reading.

Some of the books that I had on hold at the library came in…actually a bunch came in at the same time. I haven’t started this one yet, but I love the title because that is what I have chosen to do. I kept wanting to find a different house (and we will still probably downsize once we have fewer kids at home) and I have decided that at this moment I need to embrace this one.

Declutter.

I am still working on my goals of simplicity/minimalism by decluttering. I’ve found that one of the things that work best for me is to set a 20-minute timer and work diligently in that location. Then I set the timer again in a different location. I work in as many of these 20 minute bursts as I can fit in around the other plans for my day. Sometimes I work on my bedroom closet, sometimes my office, sometimes the filing cabinet, and sometimes the garage or other specific area that is cluttered. The 20 minute bursts keep me from getting overwhelmed (and thereby paralyzed and unable to move forward) with the projects in front of me.

Maverick the Goldendoodle.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BWTUferhjjL/

Of course, Maverick has kept me super busy. He had his first check with our veterinarian last Friday. Getting him at 14 weeks meant that he was behind on socialization so she told us to get him out as often and to as many locations as we can. We visited my mother-in-law and took him for a swim in the pool. He wasn’t in love with the pool, but he did love my mother-in-law (dogs know that she’d choose them over a human 😉 ).

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Loved playing in the river today!!! #puppy #goldendoodlesofinstagram #puppiesofinstagram #doodle #doodlelove #goldendoodle #goldendoodlesofinsta #roanokeoutside #loveva #blueridgeday #optoutside #theoutdoorfolk #wildernessculture #modernoutdoors #livefolk #naturalvirginia #virginiacities #lifeofadventure #neverstopexploring #rsa_outdoors

A post shared by Maverick (@maverickthegoldendood) on Jul 9, 2017 at 11:15am PDT

While I was at coffee with my friend, Miss Sunshine and the hubby took Maverick to the dog park and then over to splash around in the Roanoke River.  He did love the river! 🙂

Getting him socialized, teaching him “sit”, and potty training have consumed quite a bit of the week. Yesterday, he went in for his final distemper shot. We also opted to get him the leptospirosis shot since he will be hiking and playing in the river. It ended up making him sore and I spent the day wondering if it was the shot or if he had fallen on the stairs when I wasn’t looking. By the end of the day, he was back to his normal, crazy self.

Lemon Water.

I don’t know if it was the fried foods, the alcohol, or just too much overindulgence, but I didn’t feel great after I got home from the beach. I decided to go back to having a glass of lemon water every morning to start the day.

Yes. Even before coffee.

Pilates.

My shoulder was bothering me over the weekend, but I still decided to go to the gym.

On Monday, I went to Pilates. I take these as a group exercise class at my gym, not at a studio.

And I got called up in front of the class!

I was nervous because I wasn’t sure whether it was to correct my form or show that my form was correct. It ended up that I was doing it properly, keeping my shoulders in place and not using my trapezius which wants to take over on the specific exercise.

Yoga.

On Tuesday, I went to the new Bodyflow release (the yoga class that I take). It was release number 77, which I thought would bode well since that was the year that I was born. It was a great release, but there was a lot of shoulder work and I opted to do the “flip your dog” into a “wild thing” and finish out in the backbend. The back track also included scorpion push-ups and fireflies. I think on a good day I would have been sore because the other shoulder felt tired. But it was a little too much for the shoulder that was bothering me.

I decided to honor my body and take Wednesday off, even though I really wanted to be there.

Thursday, I felt better and went back to Bodyflow. I did not “flip my dog” and took the back track from my knees and skipped reps when I needed to skip them.

Pilates Again.

Today was Pilates. This instructor does not teach this class often at my gym. All the instructors have their own style. I knew this one focuses a lot on breath work. This is an area that I don’t work on often, but I know that it is so beneficial, so I knew that I wanted to go. It turned out to be the entire class focused on getting our breath into those spaces that we don’t often take it… into the back of our ribs, into the thoracic spine… it required such concentration that I was totally in that present moment for the entire class.

Just what I needed to realign my focus and head into the crazy life that I call mine.

Every day is a blessing. Embrace it fully.

I know I’m always hoping that your weekend is filled with sunshine, but if your days have been as hot as ours, I’m hoping for a little cloud cover 😉 But still wishing you lots of smiles and days filled with kindness.

Let your light shine!

Amy