TL; DR: Long weekend, yay! This was one of my chiller weekends, with no big events planned. I worked out, took a short nap each day, worked a bit (almost) every day for Fake Meats, and we celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary on Friday. Oh! And I got back to painting after 11 days off.

Thursday

It was mani/pedi night after work! Lorena (my nail tech) is out of town so Alex did my nails and instead of chatting it up like I normally do I read (Yellowface). It was a nice way to wind down after a chaotic work week.

We had pizza for dinner and watched Champions and I actually painted for the first time since Sunday the 20th! It felt good to paint.

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Friday

It was my Friday off and our 16 year wedding anniversary!

My morning started with a lower body strength class. I love that we paused between sets 1-2 so everyone could share a September goal and say something nice about someone else in class. My goal was to cut back on snacking and get back on track with losing weight (I said lose 5 lbs). A super basic goal, but that is my focus for the month. So far, so good.

I did my long run after class. I wanted to get it done before the 90 degree temps came, and before any DOMs came. I felt good! I listened to three podcasts, then finished with some music to get my legs to turnover faster.

I went to get gas and a car wash after and my father-in-law called to wish me a happy anniversary and tell me he sent me some money on Zelle. So thoughtful! We chatted for 40 minutes, then I cleaned up, and met Steven to get our will amendments notarized, and have an anniversary lunch at El Famous!

By the time I got home it was close to 2:30 and I decided it was too late in the day to start my Fake Meats work so I took a nap then finished the last episode of And Just Like That… and watched part of the new season of The Summer I Turned Pretty, but didn’t pay attention to it.

We had leftovers for dinner and finished Champions and I painted then booked a short trip to LA for November to see Tiff and Val! Woo hoo! I’m so excited to sneak in another visit with them this year. We actually started planning this one when I was in the airport coming back from Denver. Tiff told us that astrologically, we were all in our villain phase, and I said we should do something spontaneous, like plan a trip. We were looking at Vegas in September but November was the first time all our calendars aligned. Ha. So LA in November it is!

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Saturday

I started my morning with a 6:00 am group run at WWM Fitness. There was a big turnout, which was fun, but most people brought music to listen to and no one talked so I was a bit bored. Ha. I can bring music if I go again.

After that I went to the Upper Body class (which was so hard! I loved it!) then I came home and worked for a few hours (Fake Meats stuff – writing a blog post and long format video script), had lunch, then got groceries. I listened to an audiobook (The American Roommate Experience) while shopping and it made it so much more enjoyable.

I took a short nap after I put the groceries away, then hung out with Steven when he got home from work. We were trying to find a place to rent A Few Good Men because we’re discussing it for movie book club this week at work, but every place we found only offered to buy it. So we made dinner and watched Love & Mercy instead, and I painted. For the third night in a row! Woo hoo!

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Sunday

I got out early enough on my bike ride to avoid traffic, yay! And the road that was so bumpy last week was paved this week. I rode just over 48 miles and felt good (slowed down by the slight wind, but good). I’m proud of myself for riding so much post RAGBRAI – 171.8 miles so far!

Tywin greeted me when I got back from my ride. He got sweaty hugs (and a food tube).

I made a shake and took a bath then joined Steven while he watched The Wolf of Wall Street. I wrote my reading recap while the movie was playing and could not focus at all. I already struggle with writing those – it was a bad idea to try to write it while hearing something else!

We ate lunch and finished the movie and I took a short nap then read (Romantic Comedy). Then I did some work (creating a long format video on my phone) while Steven had Amadeus on. Ha, I should have worked in the office. A house on our street was having a really loud party, and pair that with Mozart’s annoying laugh in that movie and I was super annoyed and again, struggling to focus.

We had burgers for dinner then went to Kenosha to get ice cream and walk by the lake. The ice cream was delicious (mine was an oat milk based peanut butter one), and it had cooled down enough to be pleasant for walking. There were tons of people out, and there was even a horrible band covering classic rock songs. It was fun to get out and move around after staying inside most of the day because of the heat.

When we got back to the car, we had a parking ticket, which was completely my fault – I had told Steven to park in a museum parking lot, not realizing there were signs that prohibited parking from 7pm-5am. Gah, I felt stupid. I won’t do that again. (Earlier in the night we had joked about not parking too close to a curb – something else I got a parking ticket for in Wisconsin once).

When we got home the party was still raging so I put earplugs in and ear protection over that to drown it out while I read. There’s just something about hearing loud bass and talking on a speaker that makes my heart rate escalate. Even though my ear plugs drowned it out, I didn’t sleep well because I was annoyed. Wah.

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Monday

When I woke up Monday and the windows were all steamed over I thought it was going to be horribly muggy on my run but it wasn’t too bad! I started just before 7:00, and it began to heat up toward the end of my run.

Then I worked on Fake Meats stuff most of the day. I drafted the editorial calendar for September, made a reel for this week, finished editing the script I was working on, recorded it, put it on the video, published the video, and finished the blog post I was doing and sent it to Steven for review.

I did fit in a short nap and reading around 3:00, as I had the previous three days!

We had dinner and watched The Railway Man and I painted. A quiet and productive weekend! I like those.