Week in Review: Not Really Knowing, Not Really Teeth, and Not Really Resolutions

The first full week of 2025 was sort of...boring? ordinary?...and it felt really difficult getting back into the normal schedules after having two full weeks off.  What a luxury those weeks were.  Now we're back to track practices/meets and swim practices and violin lessons and piano lessons and basketball practices/games with a bunch of dentist appointments and evening meetings thrown in.  Ya know, life!  I miss Christmas already :)

One Christmas gift that I forgot to talk about was the book I made for Andrew:

This link should allow you to see the finished project, a labor of love, and one that I thoroughly enjoyed putting together bit by bit each week as he emailed me updates and photos.  I used Mixbook to create the scrapbook because it allows you to copy+paste text from an email right into the book so it's all in his own words.  After my own semester abroad in college, I had to print photos and start scrapbooking my adventures from what I could remember, and I never even finished the project.  I'm so glad to be able to give my kids this finished book right after their semester is over that they can cherish forever.  

JP sent me a TED Talk that both validated our family rules re: screen time and social media, and also made me think a lot about what I'm doing with the time I have on this earth.

 

I think the issue is that we never know how much time we have left in life, and if we did, what would we do different?  If I knew I had one year left to live, I would quit my jobs, eat whatever I wanted and travel and spend all my time with family and loved ones and volunteer.  But if I knew I was going to live until 100 years old, I would eat as healthy as possible, exercise daily, save money during my working years, etc.  Since we don't know "the day or the hour" I'm coming to the conclusion that we have to find a balance between those extremes.  Which leads me to a question - would you want to know your last day on earth?

(The planner in me would want to know, but the anxiety in me would probably have a terrible time living with that knowledge.)

 Alexander has been working on his science project this week.  He is studying the effects of soda and juice on teeth enamel,  soaking eggshells in place of teeth because that would be, err, difficult.

I didn't really make a New Year's Resolution, but I am eating gluten-free this month to see if it helps with any bloating/loud stomach noises.  As with anytime I remove one thing from my diet, I just replace it with too much of something else, so chocolate and I might need to break up in February.  How am I going to determine if the bloating is better while I'm gaining weight, ya know?  

I'm also trying two new habits to see if they stick.  One is taking Nutrafol because the people who take it swear by it (I'm looking at you and your hair growth Suz and Nicole).  It's expensive and so I've been dragging my feet on it but 2025 is the year of the hair investment for me.  The second habit is wearing socks each day in the winter.  I'm notoriously a barefoot girlie because I mostly wear flats to work, but since I got my Uggs and then ordered this pair of shoes, I can wear them with socks and it's making me so comfortable in a way I didn't realize how uncomfortable I was before.  I also found some super soft socks at Walmart on clearance that are just the best.  It's the little things.

Speaking of little things...do you have a cardigan or blazer that is an open style and you find yourself constantly readjusting it over your chest so it hangs properly?  Well I found a solution!  These clips keep it secure and add a cute detail:

Sadly for us but happily for him, Andrew is heading back to Franciscan on Sunday which also means that I start teaching online classes on Monday (I have two this semester - Financial Accounting and Managerial Accounting).  We are hoping to visit him for Easter and Brendan is already keeping a countdown on the whiteboard in our kitchen :)

We are praying for the victims of the fires, it is so terribly devastating and I can't even imagine what they are going through.  I hope everyone takes a minute to donate help in some way if they can.  I prefer to donate to an individual in need rather than an organization, and I found a friend of a friend that is a single mom of six with the same last name as us - that one felt perfect.  

Hug your loved ones tight and have a wonderful weekend everyone.