Weekend Coffee Share...

Welcome to another weekend coffee share. I'm not sure I'll be good company this week. I'm tired. It's been a long week. Good one, but long. So grab a big cup of coffee and sit with me. 

Family photo in front of the U-haul before we headed to the airport.

Both kids did a great job on the plane sleeping most of the way. 

On Tuesday I hopped a plane from Portland, Oregon (I love our airport..while I waited to board I walked around. I hate sitting down when I know I'm going to be sitting on an airplane. I got about 4,000 steps in.), to Dallas/Fort Worth. The mission? Fly there to retrieve my daughter and grand kiddos, and fly back to Portland the next day. I arrived at 1:45. On Wednesday, the four of us ( kids are 2 1/2 years and 9 weeks), hopped back on a plane back to Portland. In between landing and takeoff again I played with. my grandson, helped my daughter do some cleaning in their apartment, ate, slept, got up, made sure we were all ready to go and headed back to Portland....total of about 32 hours. My son in law is driving a U-haul back to Washington with a friend of theirs.  Wow. I thought I'd be tired, but Thursday I was fine...however, Thursday night I slept terrible, waking up almost every hour from 1:20 til I woke up at 5:00...no fun. So today, Friday I'm feeling it all. I'm tired, I could go to bed now, I have to work tomorrow so no real sleeping in for me. 

I just had to take a picture of my birkenstocks by the birkenstock sticker.

It feels good to have them back in our town, I've missed them the last 8 months, and while they had planned to stay longer, and I was a bit sad for them that it didn't work out, I am happy to have them back here.

These were my containers a few years ago at the start of planting. I couldn't find a photo of them full! 

On the homefront, I purchased 6 bags of soil so I can do some container gardening this year. I still need to sit down and decide what to plant. Since I try to buy most of my produce organic, I usually plant vegetables that tend to be more expensive when bought organic. Probably cucumbers, zucchini, tomato. I might try peppers but they haven't always grown well for me. 

I also bought a new book and companion journal called The Wisdom of Menopause by Christiane Northrup. It's quite a large book so I'm not sure how I'll read it...cover to cover, or look at the chapters. If you read a few posts back I have been dealing with some peri-menopause issues and a friend from a group I'm in recommended this book. My naturapath also gave me some tinctures to help build up my iron, because I'm always a bit low but being on a cycle (a heavy one) for 4 weeks can do a number on you. Yikes. If we were having coffee I'd pick your brain if you've experienced this "lovely" time of womanhood.

If we were having coffee I'd ask if you have listened to any good podcasts? On the plane to Texas I listened to Jen Hatmaker interview Joanna Gaines and thoroughly enjoyed it. They are both such fun ladies to listen to. I had a few more downloaded but never got to listen to them. A blogger I follow has one called the Cabin Cast and it's all about living in the Northwoods of Minnesota. It's a fun listen. I have such a variety saved to my library, I just need to take time to listen to them. 

My book club is picking out it's next book. We're going for mystery/thriller this time. The decision will be made tomorrow. The last one we read was The Bookish Life of Nina Hill. It was a fun read. I was going to also join an online one but I've struggled to get them all read. 

I love making homemade granola. I've been liking it on Plain greek yogurt with a little maple syrup. You can find the recipe here.

Usually on the weekends I try to do a bit of meal prepping for the week and a little grocery shopping. Yesterday I did a grocery pick up which sometimes comes in handy, though I do like going and picking out my own things. 

The above photo is when the second phase was almost done. It sat undone for quite a few years because my hubby changed jobs and he just didn't have time to work on it and we'd been working on it as we saved up cash. Which takes awhile.

This was back in December. Outside finally sided and painted. I'll share more later, but it's coming along. 

We are working on getting the second part of our house finished...it's been a long journey. If you search home building you'll find posts. My hubby is going today to look at appliances. In the first phase, we did it all ourselves, now that he's working a different job and doesn't have the flexibility of time, we are contracting much of the rest of it out. We have been blessed to have a friend staying with us who has finished the exterior. I can't wait til it's done. It will be smaller than the first half. Maybe next week I'll do a whole post on that. 

 We experienced some beautiful weather this last week but now we're back to rain. BUT it's what helps our state stay green and hopefully wildfires down. When spring is unusually hot, it makes for a potentially high wildfire season. We already had one about 8 miles up the road near some friends house, but they got it under control. 

If we were having coffee I'd ask how everything is going in your world. The one thing I've loved about these weekend coffee shares is getting to know about the lives of so many. Especially since many of you live in other parts of the world. Sometimes I feel like my life is a bit mundane compared to some, but then I have to think about the stages of life we are in, our location, etc. I'm also still getting the hang of sharing these posts and how I want to go about organizing thoughts....do I want to share themes, topics, just daily life, a combination of them all depending on the week. Who knows. 

But if you visit, thank you so much. It means a lot. I'm off to visit some of you now. 

Check out all the other posts on Weekend Coffee Share, hosted by Natalie the Explorer. I'm off to go visit some now. #weekendcoffeeshare

With Joy Unquenchable,

Kirstin