Hello beautiful friend! Welcome to the first of many weekly diaries. Where I will be sharing with you all that I did the past week. I’ve been craving a more casual way to chat with you on a more frequent basis so I came up with the idea to share a weekly diary recapping the week. My monthly favorites series, Everyday Magic, although I love it for sharing an eclectic list of items or events that have brought me joy throughout the month, it doesn’t allow us much room to dive into life, routines, or habits.
This was supposed to be posted yesterday, but I had a terrible migraine all day yesterday and I’m finally getting around to typing it up today. SO let’s pretend it’s still Monday and I’m posting this. ๐
Monday. It is springtime and all I want to do is be outside. We hosted Easter Dinner on Sunday (our first time hosting a holiday). It went really well, smoother than I imagined it would. Andrew and I split up most of the prep work. He took over and cooked the ham while my mom, my grandma, and I worked on all the sides. Everything turned out so yummy, but not having a slow Sunday meant that we were both ready for a relaxed and slow Monday. We both worked from home and took our laptops out to the patio to work outside.
My Starbucks drink obsession lately has been an iced matcha latte topped with sweet cream cold foam and add a scoop of strawberry puree in the cold foam (I know it’s the longest order ever). I realized on Monday that the stars had aligned and I had all of the ingredients I needed to make the drink at home. I tried and it was a huge fail, but it looked pretty. ๐
After work, Andrew and I went to the gym. We started with 15 minutes of stairs, hit chest & shoulders together, and then I finished up with 25 minutes of cycling. Cycling has been my favorite form of cardio lately.
Since I had cooked all weekend, I was not in the mood to make anything for dinner, so we grabbed steak salads from a local restaurant, Fresh Chef. The food there is amazing. It’s always so fresh (haha get it?) and cooked so well. We almost always get these salads when we go there. It’s one of our favorite take-out go-to’s.
Tuesday. Another beautiful day. I am loving all of this sunshine and so are Mia & Mae. Andrew worked from home again and we took our lunch out on the patio. We had a lot of leftover salad stuff from Easter weekend so I made massive salads for lunch almost every day this week. I just swapped out the protein on top each day, either salmon or chicken.
At the gym on Tuesday we hit legs. Leg day is usually my favorite because I feel like I put in the most work and sweat the most (gross I know lol). I want to feel like I did something when I leave the gym and sometimes upper body days just don’t do it unless I speed through and only take 30-60 second rests in between each set.
Wednesday. I woke up craving egg in a hole for breakfast. I know that’s incredibly random and I don’t know why! I get bored if I eat the same thing every day so I always switch it up. Andrew went to the office and I had a very busy workday.
On my lunch break, it was time to get my Easter Bunny nails changed up for something different. I fought everything in me to just get my usual pink-nude shade and went with a French Manicure for a change. I haven’t had a French manicure in years but I LOVE how it looks. If you’re wanting to get the same thing, I ask for acrylic overlays, a rounded almond shape, and a French Manicure with gel polish. ๐ ๐ป
Right before I left for the gym an Amazon package arrived with the Deep Cleansing Oil by DHC that I ordered. I like to double cleanse when I’m wearing makeup and needed a new cleansing oil. I saw this on TikTok and I’m really excited to try it out!
It was arm day at the gym! I pushed myself and was pleased with my little arm-day pump. For dinner, we made a batch of rice in the rice cooker and had chicken, rice, liquid aminos, and kimchi topped with the Furikake seasoning from Trader Joe’s. This meal is pretty much a weekly staple of ours. It’s easy, healthy, and yummy.
Thursday. I woke up early and filmed a video for TikTok/Insta of my morning. I’m having a ton of fun lately creating “mini vlogs” for reels & TikTok. After that, I jumped online for work and was heads down until lunch. We had some work to do for House Story Designs over our lunch break, but once we got that finished up I made a quick lunch (another salad) and got back to work.
Friday. I was not in the mood to make breakfast this morning. So I grabbed a bowl of multi-grain cheerios and protein granola with Carbmaster and then had a Chobani drink. I decided during my lunch break to install a new theme to the blog and it ended up being a bigger task than I originally anticipated. ๐
We realized after work that we were out of dog food so we decided to take an off day from the gym and head to Costco to pick up a bag. Costco was actually out of the girls’ usual bag, Kirkland Signature Adult Formula Lamb, Rice, and Vegetable, so we had to grab a new one for them to try, Kirkland Signature Nature’s Domain Salmon Meal & Sweet Potato. So far they are loving it, I think more than the lamb, so it might be a permanent change.
After Costco, I hopped back on my laptop to get the new theme installed and properly configured. My full-time job is fairly technical and I work with some simple code all the time, but rushing to get my blog back up and trying to add all the code needed was a bit frustrating. I couldn’t just leave it half done, so I was up pretty late getting it done. I hadn’t changed the design or layout of my blog in over 4 years!! It was time. I’m very very happy with the new design. It’s exactly what I wanted and marks this new chapter of life & blogging.
Saturday. I have been in the gardening mood all week. Researching our hardiness zone, picking different flowers, finding out what their sun requirements are, and watching our yard to identify what areas are full sun, partial sun, and mostly shade. Saturday I was up early, ate breakfast, got dressed, and headed to Lowe’s & Home Depot. Andrew had plans to play disc golf in the early afternoon so I decided it would be the perfect time for me to garden. I got 2 hydrangea and 2 peony bushes planted.
Also, figs are BACK in season so I snacked on those while I gardened.
By the time Andrew was done disc golfing, I was ready for the gym. We hit a very heavy leg day and I’d say after a day of gardening/disc golfing, we definitely earned our Saturday night cheat meal. We planned on going to see the new Fantastic Beasts movie, but we were both so exhausted from the day we decided to rent the new Batman movie at home instead. For our cheat meat, we got a deep-dish pizza from one of our favorite local pizza spots, Matt’s Chicago. We always get the meat lovers and it’s always amazing.
Sunday. The gardening continues. Andrew and I went back to Home Depot and decided to buy more flowers, mulch because it was on sale 5 for $10, a little fence for around the peonies and hydrangeas, and stones for around our flower beds and trees. It was a BIG landscaping day. We ended up taking out 4 bushes from our front landscaping, relocating 3 other bushes, and then planting a bunch of flowers.
While we were gardening, I had a big pot of sauce cooking on the stove on low all day so that I could make dinner for my best friend who just had her first baby!
Lunch on Sunday was lettuce cups filled with greek yogurt salmon salad (instead of tuna) and pickles. Andrew and I are obsessed with Grillo’s Pickles. They are the most delicious pickles in the world. We get them at Costco and also sometimes Harris Teeter.
Once my sauce was done, I showered quickly, prepped the pasta and salad, brought it over to my friend’s house, and got to meet my new nephew ๐ญ๐ญ He is absolutely the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen in my life and I’m so happy for them.
When I got back, Andrew was still unloading stones from his truck, so I helped him get to a stopping point and then we headed in for the night. A full weekend of landscaping kicks my butt. My whole body hurt. We opted to DoorDash Chiptole and watch Friends for the rest of the night.
I hope you enjoyed this very first Weekly Diary! I’ll see you next week for another one ๐ ๐ค
Always,
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