Sunday Post with Berls | Week of March 6th 2022

Week of March 6th 2022

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kim @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead.

News at Home

Sunday

Today was a very busy day, but a good one and I feel setup for sucess for the week. I stayed up way too late last night reading At Grave’s End but thankfully Dante let me sleep in and I woke up around 8:15 — he was still asleep. After making his breakfast – oatmeal – I got laundry going (Dante loves to help, so I try to do it with him) and tried to do some blog visiting. Tried is the operative word as I only made it to like 3 posts. Kiko was up around 10:30 so I made his breakfast – pancakes, bacon, coffee as always – and mine – sweet potato protein pancakes with 2 poached eggs and a drizzle of honey. Then it was time to go pick up groceries – I had Walmart and 2 separate Target orders/locations. Then I got gas – I’m so glad I did a price lock on Thursday with the 7Eleven app. I saved $0.36/gallon and it was still expensive. I’m scared how bad inflation is going to be in coming months.

When I got home I cleaned up breakfast dishes, cleaned out the fridge, and started meal prep for the week. I listened to an audiobook while doing my nearly 3 hours of meal prep. But I’m all ready for the week. During that time, Kiko played with Dante, took him for a walk outside to play, and put him down for a nap. After meal prep, I had about 45 minutes left in Dante’s nap, so I watched a little TV while setting up my BUJO for next week. Then it was time to get Dante up, read some stories, play a bit and then dinner. After dinner I put away laundry (while listening to audiobook), Kiko did bath with Dante, and then I cleaned up the kitchen and did my blog posts for the upcoming week. In just a few minutes I’m putting Dante to bed, cleaning the bathrooms, hopping in the shower, and going to bed myself! Hoping for a great week!

Monday

I’m honestly very tired today. I just need to get more sleep – but when exactly? Really going to get in bed by 10pm tonight. I woke up about 15 minutes later than normal, just really couldn’t get myself moving – skipped yoga and meditation in my morning routine to make up for it. Work wasn’t too busy and went by quickly. I took a lunch break walk, but only 15 minutes because damn it, it’s cold again! Fitbit says my body temperature was -2.4 degrees last night! I also spent some time on bootcamp – I did assignments I had scheduled for today, plus some youtube videos trying to fill in gaps where my instructor really isn’t cutting it. Around 5:15 I waged a mental battle – nap or gym? I knew I wasn’t likely to actually get a nap and going to the gym would give me just as much energy… so I went for a 5:30 HIIT class, which turned out to be full. So, I took a 5:45 spin class instead but had to duck out about 10 minutes early so I could pick Dante up by 6:30. It was a good class and I got to Dante at 6:27, so right on time. We did dinner and, again, theme of the day — I dragged after dinner. We always watch a tv show with dinner and play with Dante. But when the show is over, I usually hop up and start evening chores/playing with Dante (I go back and forth between him and chores). Well, I pulled a blanket up and just sat on the couch reading stories to Dante. He was there for it and I was just too tired to get going. At 8 I finally got myself in gear, cleaned up the kitchen (minus dishes – Kiko does that; I do counters and floors). Now I’m taking care of a few tasks (nightly budget, nightly blogging, nightly bujo, etc.) and then when Kiko gets Dante ready for bed I’ll clean up the living room and vacuum. Then I’ll get Dante down for bed – teeth, story, lullaby – grab a shower, and hopefully make it to bed (to read) by 10. Things always seem to creep in and keep me up, but tonight I don’t have the energy for anything but bed. It’s my plan to read the last 4oish pages in my current read when I go to bed, but we’ll see how long I stay awake LOL.

Edit to add: we ended up having a impromptu dance party right before Dante’s bedtime and it was so fun. He pulled me over and started dancing, so we all danced. And he put on my fuzzy Christmas socks like leg warmers from the 80s! Adorable.

Tuesday

I fell asleep last night by 10:30 and it paid off – a full 6hr 49 minutes of sleep and I feel much better today. Not the energizer bunny quite yet, but at least I’m also not a tortoise anymore lol! Dante had his 6-month evaluation from being in the program. And they said they had to rewrite all his goals because he’d made so much progress. So that was really encouraging. They also gave me a name for an audiologist / ear nose throat doctor for children right around the corner from us – and I was able to get Dante an appointment for the first week in April. I honestly don’t even know what outcome I’m hoping for – on one hand, if there’s something going on with his hearing maybe we can FINALLY understand why he’s not really talking. But if something is wrong with his hearing that could be really hard to deal with too – maybe if it’s something super simple, that we can fix easily? That would I guess be the ideal. I’m a little anxious about it, honestly. I just want my baby to be okay and to talk to me already <3. On the plus, he was super vocal this morning and I just really enjoy hearing him baby talking. It gives me hope.

I wasn’t too busy with work, but Michelle and I ended up on the phone for almost 2 hours. Whoops! Thankfully I didn’t fall behind and also managed to get in my bootcamp work for the day. I’m still finding it confusing and challenging, honestly. But I’m determined to figure it out. I didn’t have time to watch the rest of this one video that was really helping yesterday; hoping I can get to it tomorrow. I took a 45-minute walk after work/bootcamp – didn’t feel up to the gym today but wanted to get in some good movement. Then I got Dante from school – he had a great day – and then we had dinner, watched a tv show as usual while playing with Dante. Then Kiko put on some old school R&B, and we had a great time dancing with Dante while doing evening chores. They’re still dancing, as I try to wrap up a few things so that I can get to bed on a good schedule again today.

Wednesday

Today was a good day. I woke up a little before my alarm – I think I’m finally catching up on sleep and I don’t feel like I’m dragging so much. Did my miracle morning and got Dante ready and we were out the door by 8:05/8:10, so on schedule. Traffic was rough on the way to work (and I caught glimpses of $4/gallon gas… so glad I’m only in the office 2 days a week!) and got there around 9. I’m still training our new employee – though she’s slowly flying more and more solo. I was able to leave right at 3pm which was great. I headed over to my brother’s and spent some time with him and Zach. We talked, took a walk to CVS because Phil needed to pick up a prescription, and then I watched Phil play some horror video game that I may have nightmares about tonight lol. As always it was a nice time. This evening was nice – dinner, a little tv, dancing and playing with Dante.I finished cleaning up the kitchen while listening to my audiobook and now Dante’s getting a bath with Kiko while I take care of a few nightly items. Hoping to make it to bed by 10 again tonight, so that I can be asleep by 11 and have another really good night’s sleep.

My Berkey water bottle arrived tonight and I’m excited to start using it. I drink more than 100oz of water a day and I do not like the way Brita tastes. So, I’ve been doing water bottles – like 6-8 a day. That’s (1) expensive and (2) really not good for the environment. So, I found out about Berkey water filters from my nutritionist and rather than buying one of their expensive systems (which would also take up more space than I have), I got their water bottle that filters so well, I could fill it with lake water! I just finished setting up the bottle and it tastes really good! So yay! It’s good for 640 refills – that should last me at least 3 months.

Oh I almost forgot! The highlight of my day! Olivia Dade responded to my review tweets and when I responded to her, we had a couple exchanges and SHE FOLLOWED ME! Yes, I’m fan girling hard <3

Thursday

Today was a mixed bag from start to finish.

Yesterday marked the end of my 10-day reset, so today I weighed in and took measurements. Y’all I’m UP 1 pound. I thought I could scream when I saw that. But then I did measurements and I’m DOWN 8 inches. So, the lesson I’ve been trying to learn for years about how the scale is not the best barometer may have FINALLY sunk in. Today I’m adding back in dairy and while I’m enjoying my cheese, honestly I’m realizing I was fine without it. I think I’m going to cut WAY back on cheese moving forward.

Work went well enough. I had several meetings and kept pretty busy. BUT I got a lot accomplished and tomorrow should be slower. After work I went to spend some time with my brother and Zach again. That’s always a good time – I’m so glad they live on my way home from work.

Then I picked Dante up from daycare. Y’all *sobs*. It’s happened. 2 years into the pandemic, he’s been exposed. Someone in his class was diagnosed with COVID today. Thankfully his exposure was on Monday – that person hasn’t been at school since Monday. I’m PRAYING that he doesn’t get sick.

This evening was nice and just our normal routine of dinner, tv, playtime, cleaning up. I brought home a couple cupcakes from work for Kiko and Dante. I just love watching Dante eat something he loves like this. We took almost all the icing off and threw it away – way too much sugar! – but he still ended up with icing all over his adorable face <3.

And then it’s supposed to snow tomorrow. WTF y’all?! It’s March and as someone who would happily skip winter, this is way past enough.

Friday – Saturday

My main focus the past two days has been bootcamp. Y’all React is kicking my ass and this instructor is no help! I spent almost all day Friday on bootcamp – not doing the assigned work, but watching YouTube videos I found to try and make sense out of some of this week’s content. In large part because I had one code challenge I could NOT figure out after spending literally 2 hours on it. Saturday in bootcamp I dared ask for help again… and yeah, it was a waste of my time. I actually nodded off during part of class because it’s just not helpful. The workshop part where we split into groups IS useful though. For the second week in a row, I learned more in that time than in the class part. And I figured out that the reason my code hadn’t been working on that one challenge was that I misspelled the word “component.” Y’all. Seriously?! The thing is, all the code I’ve done prior to this I would have felt confident enough in my code that I would have been looking for spelling errors, capitalization errors, missing semicolons, etc. when my code didn’t work. But I’m so uncertain about my code right now that when it doesn’t work, I’m looking at the structure, instead. And I had it right all along!

Beyond coding, Dante seems to be doing well thank goodness. He has a cough and runny nose, but when doesn’t he? We also noticed decreased appetite today, but that happens periodically too. So, I’m watching for fever. I feel like that’s the only way I’m going to know if he’s sick. Fingers crossed. Since he was doing well and the weather got back into the 50s today, after bootcamp I took him for a walk and to play outside. We ran around and had a good time. Then came home and he took a nap. I laid in the sun (inside) by our patio doors while making my meal plan and finishing my grocery order (I’ve started placing a basic order on Thursday so that I can get a Sunday time, and then finish the order on Saturday). After Dante was up and we did dinner, I’ve spent some time playing with Dante and setting up my BUJO plan for next week. Going to try and get to bed early tonight, since the clocks jump ahead tomorrow 🙁 ! Good news, Dante won’t know the difference so maybe we’ll get to keep the hour? Or maybe the sun will come up and he’ll wake up. He has good curtains, so we shall see.

Blog News

Last week on Because Reading

• [7 Mar] It’s Monday! What Berls is Reading March 7th 2022
• [7 Mar] #BookishResolutions2022 March Update
• [8 Mar] Tell Me Something Tuesday: New-to-me Series
• [9 Mar] All the Feels by Olivia Dade ★★★★½
• [10 Mar] Abandoned in Death by J.D. Robb ★★★★
• [11 Mar] At Grave's End by Jeaniene Frost ★★★★½
• [12 Mar] #MyTBRList Results and Linky: March 2022
• [13 Mar] Sunday Post with Berls | Week of March 6th 2022

Challenge update

This week I finished:

I’m participating in 7 Challenges, plus the Goodreads Challenge, this year. Here’s how I’m doing.

1. COYER Seasons & COYER Community 2022 –
   1. Winter – 18 books
2. Bookish Resolutions – This was a challenge that Michelle used to do without me and she took last year off. This year we’re bringing it back together. Details on post, but basically I’m setting 5 “bookish” goals for the year: Here are my goals:
   1. Blog ahead at least 1 week. – So far I’ve done this every week this year! I’m planning to do my blogging for the week today (Sunday).
   2. Keep a blogging planner. I’m back at it! I think I’ve found a system that works for me and I’m really enjoying keeping track of my reads.
   3. Visit & comment on 7 posts a week. I made it to more than 14 posts this week! Really hoping to visit Sunday Posts today and then be on track for the week.
   4. Reply to comments each week. I have responded to comments almost every day. I may have a few to reply to still, I’ll try to catch them when I’m blogging ahead.
   5. Review books before starting a new book/on the same day – This I have been struggling with. I was behind on 2 reviews this week, caught up and now I’m dragging one again.
3. The Backlist Reader Challenge –  7/50 books
4. 2022 Audiobook Challenge – 21/75 books
5. 2022 Library Love Challenge –  6/24 books
6. 2022 Finishing the Series Challenge – My goal is 5 series. I’ve made progress on Mine by Cynthia Eden so far. And I’m currently reading 1 book in another unfinished series.

FitReaders (hosted by Jen @ That’s What I’m Talking About & Felicia The Geeky Blogger)

My big goal for 2022 is to lose weight every month. I’m not setting a specific number goal; I just need to make sure I’m going the right direction (down) every month. I will weigh in on the last (or first) day of each month only (so I don’t get too attached to the scale).

My goals for this week were:

1. My reset (no dairy, no gluten, no added sugar/sugar substitutes, no processed food, no caffeine, no alcohol) through Wednesday. √
2. Drink 100 oz of water each day. √
3. VVFP Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner √
4. 4 Workouts √

Weight gain/loss for the year so far: I ended 2021 at 295.6 lbs

• +3.9 pounds Feb 1.
• -3.0 pounds March 1 (for the year, so total loss for Feb was 6.9 lbs!)

I’m going to start tracking measurements monthly as well, after seeing (what I already knew but didn’t understand fully) how skewed the scale can be this week. I gained 1 pound but lost 8 inches! Stupid scale!

Added to My Shelf

I’m trying to be more responsible about keeping track of the books I acquire, so I’m going to start sharing them again. If I share them here, surely I’ll remember to add them to Goodreads, right?

How was your week? What are you Reading?

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