Funny things 6/16

I was so sad to realize that there would be no more Jack Ryan and the series was over.

"We may hit 80 degrees". I remember when Wells was born in summer 2018 in Laramie. It was one of the hottest summers on record at around 80 degrees each day. Nothing in Wyoming has a/c, usually, but they brought portable units into the hospital lol. 

(The joke is that Marines are so unintelligent that they use crayons for everything and not pens or pencils. This is a common dis in the military community I've learned.)

I think these would be good to add to a movie-night list for Wells at this age. 

I've had one in my life and I think they used Pepsi?

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I'd just got done having a meltdown over the fact that no one listens to me.

My kids in the backseat: 

Wells: What's the fastest bug?

Before I can even process how little he was still listening to me...

Sutton: I have bones.

En route to the library

Me: We forgot your library book.

Wells: Why do you always forget things?

Me: ...excuse me?

Wells: You should try focusing. 

Friday recommendations, 6/13

1. First, the Friday Slides I wrote a post about on Tuesday. They're great sandals. 

2. I just finished off this bag of protein powder. I completely recommend the vanilla. We have a bag of chocolate, ironically, that Scott bought awhile ago so I'm trying to drink that next but I prefer vanilla and frozen berries in my smoothies. I'm not crazy about chocolate protein powder. I don't feel like there's much you can mix with it. 

3. 

I recommend just letting your kid wear as many bandaids as they want. 

Remember little Maribel Vance at the inauguration in January? Fingers covered in bandaids. Sutton has 1-4 bandaids on her at all times. Leaves them on for days. Probably not great for her skin. But she thinks that having a band-aid on makes a bruise or a bump or a bug bite "go away". Whatever. 

4. 

Primal Kitchen Ranch. I'm super picky about ranch and I usually just get the Chick-fil-a ranch at Walmart. But this PK ranch is all good for you and passes the crunchy test, I suppose. Heavy on the herbs, light on the white, blob-y ingredients if you know what I mean. 

(I've tried to by PK Ketchup and these people won't eat it. I do like their Hawaiian BBQ Sauce and the Buffalo Sauce too. You know, if you feel like spending $8+ on a bottle of sauce :).

5. 

In an effort to use up whatever I find in the cupboards, I'm adding red-dye-filled maraschino cherries to my diet coke and lime. 

Friday Slides Review!

To anyone who is on the fence about spending money on the Bombas Friday Slides, I bought them so you can have an honest review :)

First, I've had the $10 slides from Target. I wore them to the pool 2 years in a row. I have these slides from Amazon and I wear them around the house, currently. I don't love spending money on flip-flops so I usually have a pair of Sanuks and that's it. Bad flip-flops are really bad for your feet, and I haven't worn regular flip-flops out and about in years. To me, they give "stopping at a gas station on a road trip" vibes and I can't do it. (I think that comes from that Where the Heart Is movie, to be honest). 

Four years ago, I splurged on the Birkenstock Arizonas in teal. They are made of a styrofoam material* and are squeaky when wet. The feeling of my toes on that material was more than I could handle. They also have this raised support thing that you can see in the pictures. I don't understand why. It hurt my feet. Like, I couldn't wear them. Anyway, they sat with our outdoor shoes for a couple of years and last year Mav chewed on one a little and I didn't even care. I threw them away. Also, the print/logo rubbed off when wet. Basically, they were awful. 

I say all of that to put out there that I'm not unfamiliar to the game of buying summer slides that aren't flip-flops. 

This spring, I kept getting ads for Bombas and decided to splurge for Mother's Day. I was also riding out my foot issues for all of April and I used that to justify buying higher quality sandals for sure. Though, after the Birkenstock Regret of 2021, I was hesitant. 

I ended up going with the Desert Bloom, I got a size 8, and they were true to size. 

I cannot say enough good things about these shoes!

They don't get all weird and squeaky when they're wet. They dry quickly. They feel like nothing on your feet but are incredibly supportive. The footbed is almost completely flat and the ridges on the bottom actually kind of massage your feet the way those amazing adidas slides did back in the day. (I think I had them in 9th grade?) They also don't have a print logo or anything, just the name on the bottom. 

Honestly, I'm ready to buy another pair because I like them so much. If you are looking for a beach, summer, splashpad (me) sandal that is a little bit more elevated than a flip-flop and you can also wear with a sundress or into the grocery store after the pool (also, me), this is for you. 

*All of these slides have EVA listed as the material but the Birkenstocks were the only ones that felt like walking while encased in a styrofoam cup.

**I wish this post was sponsored, but it's not.**

Funny things. 6/9

 

My friend was driving cross-country last week and we had this really long conversation about how awful Ohio is and how Indiana is just as bad, really.

The fact that they're not releasing the first batch of episodes on Halloween is the biggest miss I've seen in awhile. Is this a holiday season themed season of ST?

It's true: I didn't want it to be that way, but I talk to no one from high school. I talk to people from college and I've made more friends as an adult than I ever did as an adolescent. My two friends I talk to most days: one is from California and grew up everywhere, and one is from KC by way of Korea. Military life will do that to you. In Colorado, my closest friends were from Texas and Michigan. In Alaska, my friends were from everywhere you could imagine. Ironically, the only place I had trouble making friends was when we lived back in PA for 18 months when Wells was a baby. 

I've had two healthcare practitioners in the last few years with fake eyelashes that were so obvious and I'm legitimately confused if they understand how this works.

I have HUGE opinions on tattoos. Don't get me started. 

I have been in a battle with Capital One for a month. They never sent me a new card, prior to the expiration of my old card at the end of May. I called almost a month ago and they said they would send one. Two weeks later, it hadn't arrived. I called last week, they said it was never sent and they would send one with a tracking email. The email never arrived so I called back a couple of days later. They said the card was mailed so it should arrive soon. Sure, okay. 

The Steelers signing Aaron Rodgers was not on my 2025 bingo card.

Friday Recommendations, 6/6

1. Persil laundry detergent. I spent the last two years looking for non-toxic laundry alternatives. I found some good and okay ones. I really like the ones that utilize lemon, vinegar, and essential oils. We've never used Tide because Scott has an allergy to it so mostly it's been All Free and Clear for over a decade. However, a homemaker I respect on Twitter recently posted about "you think your natural alternatives work, you wait til you try Persil to clean your clothes and you'll never go back". I was intrigued. I had been feeling lately that our washer isn't doing what I want it to do. I've added vinegar, etc trying to soften things up and deodorize. So I bought Persil. I don't care and I'm never going back. Clothes get brighter. They smell good. I switched without telling anyone and there's no allergies or irritations popping up. If you want your clothes c-l-e-a-n, try it. 

(I still use All Free and Clear dryer sheets. Don't @ me.) 

2. I've really struggled with an inability to make rice over the last 6 months. I've destroyed pots. The rice cooker would overflow for no good reason. I went from being able to make rice for dinner to...not being able to make rice for dinner. It's like that part of my brain stopped working. Anyway, after buying bagged rice to cook in the microwave for 90 seconds for months, I found this recipe for coconut rice the other day and I tried it with this Korean beef. It was very good. We had something similar from Dinnerly last year and it's one I recreate often! Wells ate two bowls. I let Sutton help me cook it so she'd maybe try it but she proclaimed it "smells really bad" and ran away crying when I gave her a (very small) bowlful. 

3. Here's memes and the books I've been reading over the past few months. I also wrote a post about math instruction, if the overall decline of educational strategies is your kinda thing. 

4. Lastly, I recommend going outside. I was starting to feel like I was actually suffocating, being in the classroom all day. We've been walking dogs, at splashpads, and at parks almost every day. While I'm also convinced that having a potty-trained 3 year old instead of a disgruntled 2 year old is what makes this possible :), I'm enjoying June more this year than I have in years past.