Happy Sunday from grey and rainy Omaha! So very happy that it's a long weekend (hope it is for you, too!). It's been a busy week here, filled with a lot of fun things, but I'm needing a day to just rest and recover. In fact, it might just be a day spent curled up reading. 

On last week for my summer Life Goes On photo - can't believe summer is unofficially over already. Going to do my best to enjoy the fall this year. Might be buying a lot of mums just so we continue to have blooming flowers later into the year so things don't look so bleak so soon and winter doesn't feel as long. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: I finished Isabel Allende's Ripper, which finally all pulled together although I'm not sure it was in time to save the book for me. Just started Harriet Constable's The Instrumentalist, which I learned about at our library's annual Book Bash the other night. Historical fiction, based on a true person, featuring Antonio Vivaldi? Count me in! 

Watched: Lots of volleyball, our Huskers' first football game of the season, and several episodes of Only Murders In The Building. 

Read: I started Ruth Ware's The Woman In Suite 11. 

Made: Teriyaki stir fry, salads, and meats for a taco bar we had last night. 

Enjoyed: Book club Tuesday, the library Book Bash on Thursday with friends, dinner Friday with my niece and her husband who were in town for a concert, and an impromptu engagement party last night for Mini-him and Miss C. 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: I think this will be a quiet week. With the house having been cleaned for company twice this week, there's not a lot of that to be done which should give me time to get back to some family genealogy work. Or maybe a furniture project. 

Thinking About: How smart I was to make a little of the food for last night as possible. Cake & queso from Costco; carnitas, tortillas, chips, salsas, and guacamole from one of our fave Mexican restaurants; and margaritas brought by the bride-to-be's parents. Still busy getting everything pulled together but so much more relaxing than trying to make everything myself. 

Feeling: Tired, y'all. This girl is not used to having so much going on in her life! 

Looking forward to: It's "get my hair done" week and you know how much I love that excuse to just sit and be pampered without guilt. 

Question of the week: Are you celebrating the end of summer or mourning it? 

Life: It Goes On - August 17

Happy Sunday! I'm finally getting to this, just before I go to bed. Made a quick trip to Kansas City (left here at 10 a.m. yesterday and got back at 11 a.m. this morning) and came home with a headache that has had me mostly just sitting all day. Am I getting too old to make a quick trip to K.C.?! Last Week I: 

Listened To: I finished Kim Michele Richardson's The Book Woman's Daughter and started Isabelle Allende's Ripper. Three hours in and I feel like we're mostly just getting to know characters. 

Watched: The main reason I went to K.C. was so that Miss H and I could go see Freakier Friday together. Freaky Friday is one of those movies the two of us have watched dozens of times and always quote so I'm glad we got to see the follow up together. Verdict: we both liked it and laughed a lot. Does it live up to the original? No, but almost nothing does. It tries a little too hard and tries to do a bit too much. But almost everyone from the original is in it and there are a lot of fun throwbacks in it, including the band playing the song from the Battle of the Bands in the first movie. And there are a couple of Easter eggs in it that we both loved. Two thumbs up from us. 

Read: I started Geraldine Brooks' Memorial Days, which I had forgotten was a memoir about her grief process after losing her husband. 

Made: Monster cookies and onion dip to take down to have with my girl. 

Enjoyed: Dinner with friends Friday night at one of our fave places and time with my girl with just the two of us. Big Guy had a "gig" with his old band so couldn't come. Sometimes it's fun to just have girl time!

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: I'm hosting book club Tuesday (yeah, it wasn't last week, it's this week) and we're going to be watching a movie based on a book. So I'm planning which movie to watch and what to serve. 

Thinking About: Family genealogy. I'm on a kick now to get all of my previously notes organized and put into a readable format. Then I'm looking forward to filling in the blanks. 

Feeling: Still tired, still a dull headache so I'm feeling ready to crawl into bed. 

Looking forward to: Seeing my friends on Tuesday and a four-day weekend next weekend that I have to take so I don't max out on earning PTO. 

Question of the week: Have you ever looked into your family history? If so, how far back have you been able to track your family? Thanks to my mom and BG's mom's side of the family, we already have most of the work done to track our family back to Europe on all sides; my job is to track it on his dad's side. 

Life: It Goes On - August 10

Happy Sunday! It's been another busy week at Chez Shep! Overnight company for a couple of nights, evenings with friends, sibling dinner at our house last night, and a week of taking care of Mini-him and Miss C's cats while they were in Alaska have me worn out. There is plenty that needs to be done around here, but I think I'll opt for a day mostly filled with rest and reading. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: The Book Woman's Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson, a follow up to her The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. Not enjoying it as much as I did the first book; but I'm only about a third of the way through it, so we'll see if it picks up for me. 

Watched: Not much, except some pre-season pro football. 

Read: I haven't had much time for reading this past week so I'm still working on Paul Harding's Enon and Sarah Vowell's The Partly Cloudy Patriot.

Made: Homemade ice cream, bbq chicken, caprese salad, spinach/strawberry salad, homemade chocolate sauce for supper last night. 

Enjoyed: Time with my brother and sister-in-law when they stayed for a couple of nights; time with friends Thursday and Friday evenings; time with the Big Guy's siblings and their spouses. 

But most of all, this: 

Mini-him proposed to Miss C while they were in Alaska and we could not be happier! 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: On a quiet week this week, filled with genealogy research and reading. Unless BG finally decides it's time to work on the garage, which he's been hinting at being ready to do lately. Then I'll be all in for working on that for as long as his interest lasts. 

Thinking About: Leftover homemade ice cream. It might just be my lunch! 

Feeling: Tired, but happy. It was a busy week, but filled with so many good things. 

Looking forward to: Book club this week. We were meant to be either going to a book-based movie OR reading our non-fiction read for the year. But both of those have fallen through so we may just be chatting for a couple of hours, and that's ok. 

Question of the week: What's your go-to meal when you're having company? Does the time of year make a difference in what you're making? 

Life: It Goes On - August 3

Happy Sunday! I'm dragging today and not getting much done. May have something to do with having had more to drink the past couple of nights than I've had to drink in the past couple of months! 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: Marie Benedict's Carnegie's Maid, which I will probably finish today. Not sure what's up next since I have nothing on hold that's even close to being ready. 

Watched: I watched the first episode of Washington Black and My Oxford Year. 

Read: I finished My Friends by Fredrik Backman and started Sarah Vowell's The Partly Cloudy Patriot and Paul Harding's Enon. 

Made: A lot of salads including caprese, cinnamon rolls, some dips, and we grilled burgers and hot dogs. 

Enjoyed: My niece's two little guys - they are busy but well behaved and the oldest became buddies with the Big Guy who got talked into playing jai alai and football quite a bit. We all had so much fun that not a single one of us took a single picture. 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: This week will see me spending an hour or so a day talking care of Mini-him's and Miss C's cats while they are in Alaska, which will mean less will get done around here. I am hoping to get back to some genealogy research this week. 

Thinking About: What I'm going to do with all of the tomatoes we have coming ripe. We'll eat as many as we can but I'll end up with well more than we can eat fresh. 

Feeling: A little disappointed - we were meant to be having the Shep siblings and their spouses for dinner on Saturday as well, but the family patriarch wasn't feeling well so that had to get postponed. 

Looking forward to: I've been so focused on what needed to be done to get ready for this weekend that I haven't even looked to see what's coming up this week. 

Question of the week: It's been a gorgeous weekend here (except for some grey skies), with highs in the mid-70's. We've spent hours and hours that past two evenings on the patio and it's been so much fun and so relaxing. My brother and sister-in-law arrived Friday evening and were here about 24 hours, my brother-in-law has been here since late Friday, and my niece and her family arrived mid-day yesterday and spent the night. So much talking and laughter! 

Life: It Goes On - July 27

Happy Sunday! I really, really need to talk my boss into letting me work four-day weeks so the weekends aren't so short. Sunday always just feels like the day where you race around doing all of the things you didn't get done on Saturday and getting ready for the coming week. 

I still haven't even touched the desk I bought at that auction - it's living in my dining room, just off the front hall where it's a visible reminder that I need do something with it. I keep thinking "next weekend." It wasn't this weekend. Maybe I am getting old - I definitely don't get as much done in a weekend as I used to be able to get done!  The Big Guy, on the other hand, has knocked out getting the kitchen painted, which is making me so happy. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: I finished B.A Shapiro's The Art Forger and just started Marie Benedict's Carnegie's Maid. Not too far into it yet, but I'm afraid I'm going to struggle with it. Fingers crossed because I really don't want to go to the effort of trying to find another book that I'm interested in that's available right now. 

Watched: We went to see Superman last night. Not the kind of movie that I usually pay to see in the theater, but it's summer so why not see a summer blockbuster. Still not sure if I liked it or not - maybe too much comedy in it and I'm not sure about the dog (that felt a little Disney-esque to me). 

Read: I'm about two-thirds of the way through Fredrik Backman's latest, My Friends. While I love his writing, this one took me a little while to get into the story. I am feeling like it runs on, but I am becoming quite attached to the characters. 

Made: It's summer and it's the week of Mini-him's bday so the food this week reflected that: caprese pasta, BLTs, Asian chicken salad (which is not a salad, but a pasta dish that Mini-him always wants for his bday) and red velvet cake. 

Enjoyed: Dinner Thursday night with Miss C's parents, the movie followed by dessert and drinks last night with friends, and birthday dinner today with Mini-him and Miss C. 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: I have a renewed interest in genealogy so I've pulled out all of my old paper files and I'm working on getting those organized so I can get everything uploaded and start researching again (let's be honest, I'm alway already researching because that's really the fun part!). 

The zinnias are bring in the 
monarchs! 

Thinking About: We're required to take five days of our PTO in one block and I need to figure out when I'm going to do that and what I'm going to do in that week. A vacation would be nice, but I think our kitchen was our vacation this year! I may end up painting cabinets during that week. Or trying to knock out a big organizing project around here - like the garage or photos or the basement. I'd say that would make me as happy as sitting on a beach, but nothing makes me happier than sitting on a beach. 

Feeling: Tired. My anti-depressant seems to be helping in the way it should be helping, but it makes me so tired that I tend to nap as much as possible. Not sure that's tenable long term. 

Looking forward to: Visits from family this week. 

Question of the week: If you had to take a week off of work but weren't going anywhere, what would you do? 

Life: It Goes On - June 24

Happy Tuesday! I hadn't realized how long I'd gone without blogging until I just finished up a review that I'd left hanging open and found out I lasted posted on the 8th! I've been feeling down lately, maybe more down than I realized. 

It's also been, for us, fairly busy this month. Since I last wrote, we've had visits from my uncle and aunt and from my sister and her husband. Which, of course, means that I've been keeping my house cleaner this month that I might otherwise have been. Father's Day weekend we were busy all weekend with activities. And I had an employee in office from Texas the week before last at the same time that I had a new employee start, which drained my battery every day. 

And last week I spent an hour every day taking care of Mini-him's and Miss C's cats while they were on yet another mini-vacation. Oh to have so many free miles and the ability to work away from home! Luckily, Big Guy is perfectly able to wipe up a dinner while I'm stopping to do that on my way home from work. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: Good Material by Dolly Alderton. This week I started listening to Long Island Compromise, which I had been reading in print until the audiobook became available. 

Watched: All of the College World Series games, including the one BG, Mini-him and I went to on Father's Day. 

Read: I'm floundering when it comes to actually reading a book. I'm back to Anne Perry and the Murder of the Century by Peter Graham, but it's slow going for me. 

Made: Spaghetti with meat sauce; roasted tomato and spinach pasta, and egg roll in a bowl. 

Enjoyed: Dinner out with my sister and her husband - I finally found my new favorite restaurant macaroni and cheese. 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: Nothing on the calendar for the rest of the week so I'm plugging away and decluttering my office. I've joined a new group on Facebook created around the book, The Swedish Art of Death Cleaning. Because maybe if I join enough groups, I be able to keep myself working on clearing things out. 

Thinking About: Politics. I try to avoid them but have to balance that against wanting to be informed and involved. 

Feeling: Better. I finally admitted to my doctor that I've been struggling with depression and I've started on a medication that seems to be starting to help. 

Looking forward to: A relaxing weekend. Which I hope is cool enough to spend time outside again. Last weekend was ridiculously hot. 

Question of the week: How have you been beating the heat? 

Life: It Goes On - June 1

Happy Sunday! The sun is back this week, which makes me very happy. But also, it's 86 degrees right now; and while I'd much rather it were summer than winter, it's quite a jolt to go from the upper 60's/low 70's to almost 90.  

We've had quite a week. Tuesday and Wednesday my brother and sister-in-law spent the night, Friday Big Guy drummed with his old band at a nearish winery, and yesterday we ran down to Kansas City to spend some time with Miss H before she gets too busy to see us all of June. This week will be much quieter. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: I finished Black Woods, Blue Sky and started Great Expectations, which may turn into a read/listen combo. 

Watched: Friday evening I watched Wicked Little Letters, starring Olivia Coleman; last night I introduced Miss H to Practical Magic. 

Read: Amy Griffin's The Tell. Not sure what's up next. 

Made: Salads, charcuterie, nachos - summery food. This morning I taught Miss H how to blanch food; a very kind food Door Dashed her a lot of food and she was not going to get it all eaten before it spoiled. So we got spinach, carrots, broccoli into the freezer. We also frozen strawberries, grapes, and an entire bag of mandarin oranges. And now I'm thinking I should do the same at my house!

Enjoyed: Time with family - biological and family by choice. Miss H had dinner plans last night so BG and I joined the people we now call our Kansas City family as they celebrated the patriarch's birthday and Joe's of Kansas City. AND BG and I went to Barnes and Noble after dinner for some browsing and coffee, which we haven't done in far too long. 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: Miss H is going to be moving into a temporary situation in a couple of months so we brought some things home that we'll store for her. That means I need to find a home for them in the basement which will almost certainly lead to some decluttering down there that will bloom into a much larger project than it needs to be. 

Thinking About: The countertops are ordered, the tile is ordered, the work will begin in a few weeks. But I'm still not certain which colors the cabinets and walls will be or whether or not to get new hardware. The idea of remodeling rooms sounds great, but for some reason I didn't really comprehend how stressful it would be and how many decisions would have to be made. 

Feeling: Tired. Miss H gave up her bed so we'd have a better place to sleep (we've previously brought an air mattress or used the hide-a-bed) but I never sleep as well in another bed, even if it is comfortable. 

Looking forward to: That empty calendar. As much as I enjoyed the things we did this past week, I need a quiet week this week because next week I have a new employee starting and I'm going to come home exhausted from that every night. 

Question of the week: Every time I have an evening to myself (and the t.v.!), I spend far too much time trying to figure out what to watch. What's something you've watched recently that you'd recommend, especially something that's more female centric (a.k.a. something that I wouldn't need to save to watch with BG)?