February Reflections
Hi friends! Happy Leap Day! It probably would have been fun to find a way to celebrate this 29th day of February, but I forgot, so we are going to karate and eating tacos for dinner at home, but maybe some of you are doing something far more creative??
I mentioned last month I wanted to try and use social media a bit less throughout the month as my main place of documenting our lives, and instead wanted to try and do more of these monthly recaps, where I’ve had time to think about what aspects of life to share and what not to, especially when it comes to my kids. So this month in this post you’ll find:
a bit about what we’ve been up to as a family
the books I read and want to recommend from February
Three movies I watched that I enjoyed
a pasta recipe I made that Aidan tasted and immediately said “you have to tell people about this. They all have to make this!”
a weeknight dinner recipe I can’t get enough of
A TV show both Chuck and I enjoyed
a podcast episode I keep thinking about
Family Stuff
February was a month full of weekend activities it seemed. Chuck went on a men’s retreat one weekend, then he and Aidan joined 238 other teens and adults at our church youth program’s annual Presidents Day weekend retreat. It was Aidan’s first time going away to any kind of youth camp and he had an absolute ball. His group of 6th grade boys had a great time together, being silly and goofy and also spent time engaging with the theme of the weekend by asking themselves what idols do they have in their lives. It’s been fun to hear him continue to process the weekend and we’ve been watching as he’s started reading scripture on his own in the mornings and taking some ownership of his own faith. Chuck led the 7th grade boys and they also had a great time, and everyone came home exhausted and fighting off colds it seemed ;)
We participated in the annual fun run our church helps sponsor for the Faithful Servant Missions in Costa Rica we support and everyone had a great time on this gorgeous day supporting a great cause. Chuck and I also had the chance to go out on a double date with friends from church that we don’t get to see nearly enough and it was such a treat having a lovely dinner without our kids in tow!
I shared on Instagram that I had the opportunity to go see Hadestown here in Jacksonville and could not get over how much I loved it. I was blown away by the story, music, and incredible talent of the cast, and am still listening to the soundtrack several weeks later.
The other really fun thing about February was that Aidan’s basketball team won the district championship and we adored watching him learn a new sport and seeing their team play together. Some of their games got incredibly intense (they won the championship by 1 point!) and we saw some not awesome behavior from parents, but overall we loved the basketball experience (well more importantly Aidan loved it!) and now is signed up for an after school skills clinic for the next couple months and will do some basketball camps this summer.
Books
I felt like I wasn’t reading much this month, but when I look back at what I did finish I realized I read plenty, I just wasn’t working at the frantic pace I was last year, trying to break 100 books, so I think I’m still adjusting back to what is a typical reading pace for me of finishing about 6-7 books a month (I always have one going on my kindle, one audio, and one in print plus a few devotional type books that take me several months to get through, so throughout the month I rotate through what I’m reading). This month the ones I loved the most were:
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (I listened to the audio read by Meryl Streep which I think is why this book was so incredible for me!). Man. I don’t know that I’ve ever read an Ann Patchett book before, but this woman can craft a story in which nothing significant happens and yet I want to stay in the world with the characters forever. Tom Lake was a book that captivated my attention from the beginning and I was sad when it was over. Set on a cherry farm in Michigan in the summer of 2020, three grown daughters have returned home during the pandemic to help their parents harvest the cherries and as they do they get their mother to tell them the story of when she was younger and an actress who dated a now-famous movie star. The timeline moves from the past to the present multiple times and I just loved it. i would listen to Meryl read to me as I knitted each evening and it was the perfect book for a cozy winter night.
The Collected Regrets of Clover by Mikki Brammer—This one had been on my radar for awhile now and it did not disappoint. Clover is a woman in her 30s who has made it her mission that no one should ever die alone. She was off traveling the world when her beloved grandfather passed away and she hasn’t ever forgiven herself for not being there. She has become what she calls a “death doula” who ushers people from this life to the next by being present with them when they need someone. The problem is, she doesn’t know how to live. She’s afraid to open herself and her life up to others. This was a beautiful story of a woman learning how to live while helping others learn how to say goodbye.
The Arctic Fury by Greer Macallister—I picked this up because my friend Sarah was raving about it as she read it and it is perfect for fans of historical fiction. Set in 1853, this story follows Virginia Reeve who has been a California Trail guide and is now summoned to Boston by a strange benefactor who wants to finance a trip for 12 women to go into the wild arctic to search for her missing husband. The timeline jumps from 1853 to a year and a half later when the expedition has returned and now Virginia is standing trial because not all of them came home. You will be sucked in and swept up in this frigid adventure as you try and figure out what happened out on the ice that forever changed all these women?
The Cheat Sheet by Sarah Adams—Okay. This one is not going to be for everyone. But it was practically written for me, so I have to share it here. Star NFL quarterback Nathan Donelson and his long time best friend Bree Camden are stuck in the friend-zone. Until one night when Bree gets absolutely plastered at a bar and accidentally spills her love for Nathan to a reporter, and all of a sudden her feelings for Nathan are viral news. His publicist comes up with a scheme to get them out of this situation by forcing them to fake-date for a few weeks until the Superbowl is over, but the vibes Bree is getting from her old pal Nathan aren’t feeling very platonic….Guys this book made me laugh out loud and read with the cheesiest smile on my face. It was perfect for me—football players, the NFL, romance…I loved the whole dang thing.
Movies
I mentioned last month that I have watched very few films over the last decade of my life, and I feel like I have a lot I want to catch up on. Since I’m trying to knit more I’m reading a bit less in the evenings, and with Chuck gone 2 of the February weekends I found myself watching movies those nights he was gone. I don’t know if anyone else can relate but when he’s home it feels like it takes us 30 minutes to find a movie we are both interested in and we have to keep scrolling through every streaming platform we have to see if something better exists. The whole process is maddening to me, so I never suggest a movie, I’d just rather read instead. But awhile ago I made a list of films I haven’t seen but would like to and am just choosing titles off that list—so when he was gone I knew exactly what I was going to watch without having to scroll.
The first film I watched was The Other Boelyn Girl which I knew nothing about other than it was about Anne Boelyn. I had no idea Henry the 8th had a relationship with her sister as well, and was horrified at the family dynamics at play in this one. I haven’t read the book but did do some online reading about the real Boelyns after watching this one.
The next weekend when he was gone I watched The Two Popes, a movie he saw a couple years ago and kept telling me I’d like. He was right, I loved it. It’s the story of the relationship between Pope Benedict and Pope Francis (fictionalized and embellished but rooted in some actual events) and it was a beautiful look at two very very different minded individuals who both loved and cared for the church.
The third film I finally saw this month was Bombshell, the story of Gretchen Carlson, Megan Kelly, and other women at Fox News who finally spoke out about the sexual abuse and harassment they’d endured at the hands of Roger Ailes. I thought Nicole Kidman and Charlize Theron were phenomenal in their portrayals of these well known women and found the story heartbreaking and fascinating at the same time.
Recipes
Last weekend I made salmon for my crew, which everyone loves, so that’s an easy win here. I was trying to come up with a starchy carb type side dish to go with it because I know that salmon and veggies alone just won’t keep these guys full for very long, and my kids don’t like rice at all and only one of them will eat potatoes. So pasta is usually my go to. I searched around in my recipe collection and found one that I hadn’t made before for garlic parmesan pasta and decided to try it. I didn’t have fresh parmesan, just the kind in the green can, but I decided to make it anyway. Ya’ll it was so good. I cut the recipe in half because a whole box of pasta seemed excessive as a side dish but when I tell you there was arguing over who got the last scoop I’m not kidding. This week when I posted our weekly meal plan on my menu board in the kitchen the first thing Aidan asked was “when are you going to make those noodles again?” (Friday my son, the answer is Friday). He said “You have to tell people to make this.” So to appease him, here is the recipe link and then if you make it feel free to tell Aidan how much you loved it. Garlic Parmesan Pasta (I made mine with bow ties cuz that’s what I had, and used the can of Parmesan. I cut everything in half and that was enough for all of us to have two side-dish helpings but you could totally use this as a main dish and make the full amount).
The other recipe I’ve made several times in the last two months that keeps getting rave reviews from my entire family are these Sheet Pan Greek Chicken Pitas from Pinch of Yum. All of her recipes have been good, but this is my new favorite. We make the chicken and bell peppers as she instructs, but I add sliced red onion to the red peppers. Then I serve mine over rice with tomato, feta, hummus, tzatziki (I buy mine, I don’t make hers), cucumber and pita on the side. The kids wrap theirs in pita like a taco with hummus, tzatziki, and feta.
TV Watching
As I mentioned above, it can take Chuck and I quite awhile to find a show/film we both want to watch. We have fairly different tastes when it comes to entertainment but this past month we put on the show Jury Duty (we watched it on Freevee which I think is through Prime? I’m not sure…). We both really enjoyed it, there was one episode we both laughed so hard we were both crying. The premise is that it’s a trial in LA where people have been summoned for jury duty. What you learn in the first two minutes is that everyone involved from the judge to the plaintiff to the attorneys are actors except for ONE juror who believes he is there for a real trial and bizarre things keep happening in it. He thinks he’s filming a documentary on what it’s like to be on a jury, but he has no idea everyone around him are actors who are working off a planned script. It was hilarious, delightful and so sweet at times. Some episodes dragged on for a bit too long, but there are only 10 of them and each is like 22 minutes long so it’s a quick binge watch.
Listening
Lastly, I told you I had a podcast episode that I keep thinking about to share with you. On February 12 Annie Downs interviewed Dr. Darren Whitehead, a pastor at a church in Nashville about Lent and Fasting, especially about doing a digital detox. He has a new book called The Digital Fast and it was such a good conversation about our phones, what is a distraction vs what is a tool, and it gave me a lot to think about. I don’t know if technology is something you also struggle with, but if so, this was a great conversation.
Yikes! That was a lot! I’ve been in travel agent mode lately planning all the details of our upcoming spring break trips, so I’ll be back with all those details at the end of March! Have a lovely weekend and thanks for reading along!
