Life By Kristen

5 on Friday: Random Musings of early October

• At the end of last winter, I finally got rid of my red winter peacoat. It was long overdue. It was a hand me down that I loved, but I replaced the buttons many times and had sewn so many holes shut in the pockets there wasn’t much fabric left! Now I need a new winter coat and probably new winter shoes as my feet grew a bit from pregnancy. High five to me last March for writing in my planner for this month that I needed the new coat. Otherwise, I likely would have forgotten until it was already cold and I would have missed my window of opportunity to buy one in stores (don’t get me started on how you have to buy something you need months before you’ll need it because of the silly retail cycle).

 

• Excited for the new season of Peaky Blinders which is available on Netflix today. Also The Good Place started its final season last week so hoping it’s a good one. Some time last year we finally upgraded our cable to get a DVR ( always behind the 8 ball with all things tech!) and now with the baby, it’s our favorite thing because we are usually in bed by 830 or can’t watch a show in one sitting lol.

 

• I set a very minimal reading goal for this year of only 35 books because I had no idea how much time/mental energy I’d have for reading after Gray arrived. I read A LOT in the first 4 months of the year since we spent a lot of weekends at home enjoying our childless life and being lazy, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised how much reading I have been able to do on the Kindle while pumping or during naps. I haven’t touched a physical book in awhile ( minus a few books about babies/parenting), but have one out from library at moment (Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner). Hoping the limits of the library loan period will get me reading. I honestly don’t think I’ll tackle more than one or two books from my own bookshelf this year. I think I probably say this every year and never do much to attack it either, probably because I don’t look at it every day since the built-in bookshelves are in the basement. 

 

• With the fall temps finally arriving, I’m trying out new recipes and bringing the slow cooker down. Looking forward to trying some new recipes for some of our favorite things like beef stew and chili, and a few new ones too. Q is very good at trying new foods (minus shellfish and chicken) and is more on board with more vegetarian stuff so I find I’m actually looking forward more to cooking, even with a crazy work schedule and baby life.

 

• I got way behind on podcasts over my maternity leave so have been binging a lot of my old favorites, but also adding new ones to the listening queue. I’m only commuting to work three days a week now so trying to fit more listening in as I work from home and do things around the house! Recent new finds I enjoyed: Constitutional from the Washington Post (it’s a few years old) and Moonrise, also from the Post about the 1960s space race to the moon.