40 things I loved at age 40

Turning 40 felt like a big milestone, but also milestones can be fun (excuse for a reading party, anyone??), so I wasn't bothered per se. Turning 41 on the other hand? What a weird, kind of old sounding number. 

Reframing it with a look back on 40 things that were great in my life at age 40, in no particular order...

1. Listening to the stories of amazing ladies of a certain age, especially via the Wiser Than Me podcast and the delightful memoir The Third Gilmore Girl. 
2. A couple of new favorite NYT Cooking recipes added to the regular rotation that are easy and delicious: spiced roasted chicken with tangy yogurt sauce, white chicken chili, ssamjang pork meatballs.
3. Discovering/devouring 2 super fun new-to me book series: Thursday Murder Club and Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies. Fantastic summer reading!
4. Using these date night conversation cards with Peter, whether at home or on a dinner date outing.
5. Building a Lego set with Peter for spending some quality time in a fun different way.
6. Spring break in Punta Cana with the immediate and extended fam!
7. Our new garage - the building process was a bit trying, but finally parking in it?!?! What a better attitude I had about winter/snow this year.
8. My adult tap dance class. 
9. The Quince cotton fisherman sweater - cost-per-wear is turning out to be amazing on this thing as I am always wanting to reach for it, and it has held up great.
10. Seeing Moulin Rouge the musical.
11. Seeing Wicked the movie in the theater with Hendrik, his Christmas gift to me.
12. Hendrik's multiple new friend groups from his first year in middle school.
13. Hendrik absolutely rocking his first piano recital.
14. Freddie starting at the same (beloved) Montessori preschool where Hendrik went.
15. Watching Freddie cheer Hendrik on at a track meet - so 
16. Baking so many batches of one-bowl blueberry muffins with Freddie that I have the recipe memorized - and he nearly does too.
17. Taking Hendrik to a couple of concerts and seeing his face any time the band launches in to one of his favorites from their catalogue. 
18. Celebrating Peter's 40th at a baseball game in Seoul, a cultural experience we'll never forget.
19. Seeing Freddie's face when I surprised him by a bike pickup rather than a car pickup after school one day.
20. Seeing Freddie's face when he lays eyes on any kind of treat.
21. Taking Hendrik on a big kid trip to DC for his birthday.
22. Being surprised at the end of my conference last year by being presented with the only occasionally given "president's award" by my organization.
23. A "golden ticket" Mother's Day weekend (i.e. 40 hours completely to myself!).
24. Doing a flower bouquet workshop with my mom and a wreath workshop with my friend, and laughing at ourselves for struggling with these endeavors in our Enneagram 1 perfectionist tendencies.
25. Becoming a Patreon supporter of 2 favorite podcasts (Sarah's Bookshelves Live and Girl Next Door), and loving the bonus content.
26. Re-watching the entire series of The Closer. Some of the early 2000s attitudes don't hold up, but still really fun to revisit this detective series that I loved when it first aired.
27. My new go-to massage person. Ahhh.
28. Lifting heavier weights with more of a planned focus - especially liking the Peloton split training programs for this - and leaning into the recommendations for ladies in their 40s to focus on muscle building. That + more protein have me feeling stronger and proud of myself for the exercise/body mentality shift + the doing hard things.
29. Active dresses - and this is key - with the innovation of the open back waistband on the built-in shorts, so that you can actually use the bathroom... Will be wearing this one and this one a lot this summer, great for running around the kids and showing off some toned arms from #15 💪
30. Topping my usual lunchtime spinach salad with these meatballs for a quick and easy midday upped protein intake. 
31. This "natural finish" full face kit, easy to use for the makeup-stupid and gives a nice glow.
32. These little rubber spatulas that I still use and appreciate every single day.
33. Finding a new perfume that I love and wear daily.
34. Finding some daily wear jewelry from Hello Adorn that adds just the perfect amount of interest and personality to every outfit (because I literally never take it off, no need to in water or anything): horseshoe earrings, satellite choker.
35. Maldon sea salt flakes, which are just fancy, and I sprinkle all over all kinds of things to make them even more delicious, from apple slices to my morning eggs to baked goods. They even make the only 2 grams of sugar protein bar option that has become my go-to taste like a treat rather than a slightly-off flavor that protein bars sometimes have. 
36. Adding this cheery yellow color to my wardrobe in several formats.
37. Doing face masks and watching Netflix comedy specials with Peter. Hot date night, anyone?
38. Letterloop family newsletter. My sister-in-law set this up for us to all submit our individual responses to questions that run the gamut of mundane (what are you up to lately, what's your current favorite book/tv show), silly, and deep/profound, and then Letterloop compiles it into a newsletter emailed to us every 2 weeks. Such a great way to stay connected, and I absolutely love how everyone's personality always shines through in the way they answer questions. I end up laughing out loud a lot. 
39. Setting a goal of figuring out Substack, doing it, AND having a whole bunch of people subscribe when I mentioned that I am going to make the transition. Thanks, guys!
40. Getting to be alive another year, and getting to have the people I love with me another year. I've got some complaints about the aches and pains and hormones of it all, but how lucky am I to have been 40, and now to be 41?!

(Quick note: I'm posting this in both places during the transition, but to keep up-to-date on all things books and maybe-occasionally-updated on other stuff with me, come check out my Substack!)

Freddie's Very Hungry birthday party

Freddie turned two last week (!) and just like with his first birthday, we had a theme ready-made around food... thanks to his love of The Very Hungry Caterpillar (and his own well-known love of eating). You know when the caterpillar eats through "one slice of chocolate cake, one ice cream cone, one pickle, one slice of swiss cheese, one slice of salami, one lollipop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake, and one slice of watermelon"? Menu PLANNED.

We had lots of family over to celebrate Freddie's day and lots of fun with the cuteness and tastiness of it all - the piece de resistance of course being the custom cake made by my dad. Thanks to Eric Carle's description of it being a piece of chocolate cake in the book, I got to request Poppy's all-time best cake flavor - chocolate cake with Oreo mousse filling - and then he topped it with the adorable piped chocolate decorations and dots. I was pretty pleased with the rest of my decor too - had considered buying some cute cutouts/clip art like these from Etsy, but then I happened upon a $2 used copy at the library, and I just made the cutouts myself from the book! Used them to make a little banner, food placards for the buffet, and wrap decor for the utensils/pie stand. 

I did have some other good Etsy finds though, with Freddie's party tee, the balloon bouquet (which we broke up to decorate different places including the back yard and lost several to the wind before I got photos, oh well), and the polka dot garlands. Had to get polka dot plates too! Oh, and some easy favors with Jelly Belly and mini M&Ms to mimic all of the dots with on-theme stickers to close up the little baggies. All in all, a colorful and yummy and fun celebration of our sweet and silly boy.

Hendrik's Poké-party

Hendrik's birthday parties since year 1 have basically been little time capsules of what he's like at that age - from his obsession with birds, to his love of Harry Potter, and now... Pokémon. Admittedly this is not something I personally care for (or really have any knowledge of), but after being introduced to it at school he has amassed quite a collection of cards along with an encyclopedic knowledge of all things Pokémon. So of course he wanted this to be his party theme, and I obliged - but tried to at least make it cute ;-)

 

Invites and décor

It's Paperless Post all the way for me these days, and luckily they had a cute Pokémon inspired option! For décor, I'm always tempted to go all-out, but honestly it's more for me than the kids - I mean, do 9 year olds even notice any of this? They were immediately just running around the house, not oohing and aahing over decorations. So I'm glad I kept it fairly simple, since I don't really have time to be doing Pinterest-worthy creations... Ordered some fun balloons, which he LOVED, and a birthday banner, and I got out my cute cake stands to arrange the food. Good enough! Though I did see and think this idea to do a wall of Pokeball designs made out of paper plates was really cute.

Treats

Hendrik helped me plan this part - he thought we'd be on theme if we did Poképuffs (cupcakes) and Pokéberries (fruit tray), and on the day of the party he even came up with making cute little label cards for them. I kept it simple by ordering cupcakes from the grocery store bakery with color-coordinating frosting and grabbing a pre-made fruit tray.

 

 

Activities

This is the biggest "friend party" we've done in years, and I was a bit nervous about having a bunch of 8 and 9 year olds running around my house, so I tried to come up with some good activities - but also was a little nervous they'd think my ideas were cheesy... luckily I came across an idea to do some minute to win it games as "training" for Pokémon trainers. You need your agility and dexterity and such before you go off to catch your Pokémons after all!

Then for the catching of Pokémon, I hid little figurines for a backyard hunt. To make it cost-effective and also a bit of a challenge for these older kids, I got these little Croc charms - quite small so they really had to hunt, but comes in a huge pack so I could hide enough for each kid to find about 6 of them. And then I put little bracelets in the favor bags that they could put their charms onto.

The minute to win it games we did:

• Unwrap it: see how many Hershey's kisses the kids can unwrap in 1 minute while wearing oven mitts (spoiler alert - not many!)
• Balancing act: hold a tongue depressor (or a popsicle stick, I suppose - we have an ENT doctor for a dad here!) in your mouth and see how many dice you can stack on it. Can try it two ways: stack your own (makes the kids go a bit cross-eyed, very funny), or do it with a partner and have them stack on your stick.
• Hands-free transfer: put a pile of mini marshmallows on the table and see how many each kid can transfer into a bowl using just a straw, no hands.
• Marshmallow toss: have pairs of kids stand 4ish feet apart and see how many mini marshmallows they can toss into their partner's cup in a minute. And then have the other kid toss the other way - eats up some more time!

 

Favor bags

The part that I more went all-out on searching/spending a bit because I like to find things that are not too junky and are a bit of a novelty. For starters, who doesn't love office supplies, adult or kid? I found round sticky note pads (reminiscent of a Pokéball...) and put those in along with an eraseable pen (Hendrik is obsessed with these and his friends seemed to love them too) and a Pokémon pencil. Then there was the rubber bracelet for the character charms they collected in the scavenger hunt, and some treats too: Pokémon grahams and monster-themed Hershey's kisses. And everything went into these little bags.

 

It seemed like all of the kids had a great time (and were delighted to meet the baby Pikachu in attendance), and Hendrik thanked me for such a fun party multiple times unprompted, so I'm feeling like it was a success! Also felt like I was ready for bed by like 5pm that day, but that's another story... whew.

1 year of Freddie!

First birthdays bring out all of the clichés: time flies, certainly, and the days are long, but the years are short, for sure. Case-in-point is this lineup of all of Freddie's monthly photos. Gosh, it feels like a long time ago since I took that "one" photo - and what a different little guy he is from that time, in personality, playfulness, chunkiness, and dare I say even cuteness! - yet it's also hard to fathom how it's been a whole year since he arrived in our lives.  

Freddie at 12 months is generally easygoing and usually quite happy, especially when he spots flags or construction machines to point at or wave to or when he manages to crawl to Ginger in time to grab a chunk of fur before she escapes him - and except when he's waiting on anyone to cut up his food. Kid likes to eat any and all things, and NOW. He is sweet and smiley, doesn't have any discernable words (aside from "uh oh") but is still clear on indicating what he thinks or wants (lately it's lunging toward the Stanley the Builder book in order to request another reading, or squealing when I pick up the baby carrier to take him outside for a little stroll to look at said construction machines and flags), and he just brings joy to us all. 

Having a baby again - especially when so used to the big kid stage - has had its difficulties and anxieties for sure, but all I can think about today (aside from how glad I am that I'm never doing a 24-hour marathon labor/delivery again) is how lucky we are to have this little mister.

Also having all of the nostalgia for when Hendrik turned one after comparing his 1-year post to this one - so fun!

five things Friday: birthday mocktail chat edition

Big weekend here with Father's Day landing on my birthday this year - and the summer solstice too, so we have lots and lots of daylight to cheers it all with. Though let's be honest, at nearly 32 weeks pregnant I am not going to be staying up all that much beyond our 9:30pm sunset, nor am I going to have an actual cocktail to celebrate. Though thanks to some of my new discoveries, especially Ritual's gin alternative and Fre's alcohol-removed sparkling rose, there'll certainly be a delicious birthday mocktail! And thus a great time to bring back the "cocktail" chat on a birthday theme.

So here are some questions, both birthday and summer themed in honor of this weekend (sorry, dads, it's my blog...), to discuss over our virtual beverage of choice (like maybe the above frose!):

1. What's your number one birthday present wishlist item this year, whenever your day might be?
2. Birthday cake filling: fruity or frosting-y?
3. What summer read are you most looking forward to?
4. Ideal summer vacation location: mountains or beach?
5. What's your summer beverage of choice?

Here are my answers - do share yours in the comments! 

1. What's your number one birthday present wishlist item this year, whenever your day might be? I'm angling for an iPad mini, as I think ahead to Netflix watching/Kindle reading/online crossword puzzling potential whilst nursing, and also to use with the Peloton app on my treadmill. But also I still really want these cutest ever espadrilles.
2. Birthday cake filling: fruity or frosting-y? Frosting-y all the way! No fruit in my cake or ice cream, thank you very much. But really the best ever is my dad's Oreo mousse filling - definitely some of that coming my way this weekend.
3. What summer read are you most looking forward to? I of course have a big stack of good stuff lined up for the summer, but right now with my summer reading mood I'm especially excited for Tokyo Ever After - the description of "The Princess Diaries meets Crazy Rich Asians" makes it sound like the perfect escape.
4. Ideal summer vacation location: mountains or beach? Beach, please! With a big stack of books.
5. What's your summer beverage of choice? Usually I'd love a crisp chilled rose, but a go-to lately has been mixing the above-mentioned gin alternative with lime juice and Topo Chico bubbly water (a la this recipe). Super refreshing.

Cheers to the weekend's celebrations, or just plain the weekend!

seven!

We're in the thick of what I term nostalgia week here - because it's my boy's birthday! It is a bit baffling, how quickly (yet some days, not) we got from the 7-and-a-half pound infant in my arms to the 7-year-old long-legged kid jumping out of the car at school dropoff, but here we are. It's funny how 7 is old but yet not: he's big enough to be well into reading things like Harry Potter on his own, but little enough that he still instinctively reaches for my hand as we cross a street. Holding on to that as long as I can... literally.

I'm not sure I ever imagined having only one kid, but that's the way it has worked out - and how lucky am I, that the one I've been blessed with is this curious, imaginative, enthusiastic, and (too?) smart creature. That package comes with its challenges, but also lots of amusement and joy and excitement to see where he takes all of this as he grows up. 

Thanks for taking the annual walk down memory lane with me (here's the first stop on the road, which has me all verklempt again). Now back to the present, where we get to celebrate with a quick family Zoom gathering and then Hendrik's choice of takeout tonight... maybe even a Sprite. Going big, Covid-style!

pin to present: it's my party!

Today I'm honoring my own birthday with a repeat of a super fun double Pinterest-inspired post - chocolate chip cake (soooo rich and good) plus party animal cake toppers - because it's my party, and I can re-cake if I want to!

Though my day won't feature this particular cake, my dad always makes me something excellent, so there's that to look forward to, along with a little family dinner gathering. And because of work schedules (travel starting tomorrow for me, and being on call for Peter) there's no birthday dinner date yet for us... luckily I'm finding us a great place to try on our upcoming trip, and I'm willing to take delayed gratification on that particular birthday celebration in return for getting to do it in Copenhagen.

Now I'm off for some birthday alone time - also a key component in my celebrations, ha!

5th birthday arty party

We love a good party theme around here - so far Hendrik's birthday shindigs have mostly been coordinated around foods he likes (avocados! ice cream! everything!), but this year we went for one of his favorite activities: arts & crafts. For our first attempt at having a party with little school friends over, I thought an arty party would be a fun way to keep some preschoolers occupied for a bit... realizing later that it could have been semi-disastrous to give 5 boys a bunch of paint, and also blue frosting, but they all took their art very seriously, and had a great time!

It turns out there are tons of art party ideas on Pinterest, and even a whole line of art party items you can buy on Amazon, so I took advantage of both to plan a fairly simple yet cute (because I can't help myself) event. At this age Hendrik loves to help with this stuff, and as long as he thinks it's fun, I'm rolling with it! Here's what we came up with:

Invitations: inspired by this napkin design, I came up with a quick postcard design in Photoshop and then had them inexpensively printed by Zazzle. But I saw similar cute printables like this on Etsy as well, like this, this, or this.

Decor: going with the paint theme, Hendrik and I stopped by Lowe's and picked up some paint sample cards, which are in this great pointed banner shape already, and then just punched holes and strung them on bakers twine. Did the same with a pack of pom-poms from the craft store. Other than that, just did this fun coloring tablecloth and cute paint splatter napkins from Amazon, and the painter tee for Hendrik that I just couldn't resist (this or this would also have been perfect).

Craft projects: first things first, I covered the table with a big disposable tablecloth, and put out aprons to keep the kids from getting too messy (which I decorated with temporary tattoos - so fun!). Then I set out jars with all of our favorite craft supplies: acrylic paints, paint brushes, washi tape, googly eyes, felt letters, assorted pom poms, and glue. To decorate, we had some party hats along with some cute little white pumpkins I got at the farmer's market for 50 cents each. And then all of these Montessori classmates know the necklace "work" where they string on noodles and such - so I thought they would love a Froot Loops + peach rings edible necklace craft. I just put out some supplies in little bowls and some yarn from my craft stash, and that occupied them all for a bit longer as well!

Cupcakes: I got this idea from Pinterest, to have the kids decorate their own cupcakes with a variety of sprinkles placed in artists' paint palettes. They turned out so cute, and I was impressed how long the kids spent on carefully placing sprinkles onto their cupcakes! Just went with a boxed funfetti mix and jar of blue frosting to keep it simple, but I put the frosting into a piping bag to make it look fancier on the cupcakes.

Party favors: this is the part I'm most proud of... I came up with the idea of a "creativity kit" for each of the kids to take home - and aside from the temporary tattoos I ordered on Amazon, it was totally free! I happened to have some clear cone shaped treat bags, so I just went into my craft stash and put in some fun stuff, like googly eyes, pom poms, stickers, pipe cleaners, paper clips, and even some leftover mini play dohs from Hendrik's last Valentine's handout. Along with a felt letter of each kid's first initial and a cute washi tape closure, these were a hit! If you don't have a craft stash of my size, you could replicate easily with a kit like this from Amazon.


So that was Hendrik's 5th birthday arty party - followed the next day by a family dinner with 16 extended family members and his choice of spaghetti and meatballs. And we've been building his new Lego sets ever since... I think I sense a 6th birthday party theme coming on!

five things Friday: birthday treats edition

Growing up, while I kind of loved that my birthday lands far enough into June to never have to go to school on my birthday, I did always think it was cool that other kids got to bring in birthday treats for the class on theirs. These days, though, I'm old enough to just go ahead and take advantage of the "treat yo'self" situation afforded by birthday month coupons and discounts. (Gotta take some perks from getting older!)

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Here are the treats I went for (or would go for... I managed to not buy myself all the things) with mine this year, thanks to 15% off at Shopbop for my favorite undies that pretty much never go on sale, $5 off at my local running store for a deal on these running sunglasses, a freebie from Sephora, 15% off at Anthropologie where I'm eying a snazzy new key chain, and 15% off at World Market for some fun home goods.

The Hanky Panky selection also brings me back to my youth, when my aunt would always joke that she was going to get us undies for our birthdays. And then a particularly memorable year, when my mom suggested that everyone bring me 16 of something for my 16th, which ended with my little brothers throwing 16 pairs of underwear into the air, yelling "it's raining undies!" whilst my then-boyfriend looked on. (Cue bright red cheeks on the both of us.) I hadn't thought of this in years, but it was a funny memory that absolutely cracked Hendrik up when I relayed this anecdote this week (minus the boyfriend part) when he asked for me to tell him a story at bedtime.

What's your favorite birthday deal to take advantage of? Audrey and Whitney both had great roundups of these recently, if you want to get some more coming your way...

birthday [life] list

A couple of summers ago, my mom handed us all blank notepads and challenged us to come up with a life list - 100 things that we'd like to do/see/try/learn/be over the course of our lives - and ever since then I've been mulling it over, thinking about what experiences and knowledge and projects would lead to a life that feels fulfilling, whether they're big things or small.

I'm still working on filling out the entire thing, but so far I've got a fun mix of goals, travel wishes, and little self-improvements, all geared toward making the most of these great years I have been given - especially as these years seem to fly by faster and faster! So, in honor of my 34th birthday today, here are the first 34 items on my life list (bold ones have been completed already).

1. Go to Paris
2. Have a fruit tree in my yard
3. Bike to Grand Haven
4. Ride 2000 miles in a year
5. Do a triathlon
6. Run the Riverbank 25k
7. Go on a bike trip
8. Build a garage for our house
9. Learn to play the organ
10. Learn conversational French
11. Have a home tour featured online
12. Learn to curl my hair
13. Learn to fold a fitted sheet
14. Visit Hawaii
15. See a match at Wimbledon
16. Read a Russian classic
17. Donate blood
18. Read Harry Potter with Hendrik
19. Read 100 books in a year
20. Live above a downtown shop
21. Make ice cream
22. Make a will
23. Have a cottage
24. Find somewhere to volunteer
25. Do a Napa wine tour
26. Take a tap dance class
27. Complete a 5000-piece puzzle
28. Tour the Van Gogh museum
29. Bike a century (100 miles)
30. Remodel bathroom and get double sinks
31. See a live TV show/podcast taping
32. Go to Palm Springs
33. Knit a blanket
34. Work in a bookstore or library

This is one of my favorite pages in my bullet journal - I like to just page over there every once in a while to look through what I came up with, or to reminisce about some of the things I have marked off (tip: I cross them off with highlighter, in a color that indicates what year I finished the item, because that means I get the fun of crossing it off and the fun of still being able to read my whole list - plus it's colorful).

Have you written a list like this? Leave me a link to one as a birthday present... or you're welcome to send a fruit tree or a 5000-piece puzzle as well.

p.s. also, because I just plain love lists, I also have an 18 in 2018 list going, for the same "make the most of life" reasons - and it also was a good chance to pick some specific things from this life list that I am going to make happen this year. That Russian classic has already happened, even if Anna Karenina was nearly the death of me...

Hendrik's "everything" 4th birthday party

When I asked Hendrik what kind of 4th birthday celebration he wanted, he replied with, "an everything party." What would an "everything" party entail, you might ask? Well, cake and food and presents and blowing out candles and "You're Welcome" (from Moana) and a wall of balloons, Hendrik would tell you - pretty much just all the birthday things. So that's what we did.

I love to plan Hendrik's birthday parties, but with two remodeling projects going on at once in our house, I just needed to keep it simple this year - not to mention move the whole shebang to my parents' house. So with some easy Paperless Post invites, a couple of quick DIYs + all of the generic "birthday" things you might think of (cake, sprinkles, balloons, party hats), primarily in Hendrik's favorite color (blue), and we had ourselves a great time.

For a fun activity I got some plain party hats and a bunch of stickers/things to glue on them - right up Hendrik's alley as he adores craft projects, plus it made for a more festive-looking party. And his (actual) request for a wall of balloons became this easy balloon arch. I thought it turned out so cool, but it was really quite easy to do in about an hour, with Peter blowing up the balloons, me tying them off with this handy device, and then attaching them to this super handy balloon decoration strip that has holes spaced every inch to just stick the balloon ties through. And to festive-ize the place settings a bit, I picked up some cute paper plates and stuck the leftover stickers from Hendrik's birthday treat onto the napkins.

For dinner, requested pizza and broccoli, so I just ordered some take & bakes and my mom roasted a few trays of broccoli, and then we followed that up with presents and cake, made by my dad to Hendrik's specifications: vanilla cake with chocolate frosting and rainbow sprinkles plus both colors of chocolate chips on top and chocolate chips inside. And then we capped the night with a little dance party from a playlist of Hendrik's faves: Moana and Puff the Magic Dragon.

And just to illustrate how very Hendrik it is to request an everything party: when we were getting ready for bed afterward and I asked him what his favorite part of the party was, he said, "The craft...and the presents...and my cake...and blowing out the candles...and all the persons". So yeah, basically all the things.