March Reflections
Hi friends! Happy official spring-time! I hope wherever you are, that you are experiencing some glorious sunshine and days that are just warm enough but not yet summer-time hot. I know parts of the country got some snow this past week, so perhaps my lovely weather isn’t your reality yet, but I’m hoping it’s heading your way soon! March was a full month, mostly because of the fact that I booked two back to back trips for myself during it. However also in this post you’ll find some new books, a new recipe, some thoughts on not always including extended family in a holiday celebration, some TV recommendations, and lastly the most important thing I’ve been learning lately. Happy reading my friends!
Traveling
If you follow me on Instagram you know this past month was our 15th wedding anniversary, and we really hadn’t been on a trip without our kids since a weekend away in Savannah for our 10th. So at Christmas we asked my folks if they’d come down over spring break and stay with the kids while we ran away for 2 days. Neither of us had ever been to the Florida Keys, so we flew to Miami, rented a car, and drove down into the islands. It was so lovely to get away without our kids in tow. We did wild and crazy things, like eating dinner at 8:30 PM one night, sitting at the bar just chatting with the people next to us (who just happened to be from Jacksonville also), and taking naps in the middle of the day. We had no plans, no agenda, and nothing booked besides a hotel, and it was so fun to just go exploring. We drove down into Key West one day and explored, and went out on a sunset boat cruise. I think we’ve decided that the Keys are beautiful, but we have way better beaches in North FL, so if you don’t have a boat, the Keys probably aren’t our new favorite destination and I’m not sure we’ll go back any time soon. But we are so glad we saw them and we loved getting away together.
We returned home Thursday afternoon of break and at 4:30 Friday morning Aidan and I headed for the airport for our 2 night trip to NYC. For years now I’ve been saying that when the kids turn 12 I wanted to take them on a one-on-one trip somewhere and Aidan was my kid born for a city like New York. So we’ve been talking about it for a long time now and it was finally here! We flew up early Friday morning and by 10:30 AM were checked into our hotel. We had an incredible time. We definitely had a solid game plan for the weekend based around the weather forecast and where in the city each thing was that we wanted to see, and we saw everything on our list. We navigated the subways with zero issues, walked all over the city (in the rain all day Saturday!), took a pedicab tour of Central Park, did sunset at the top of the Vanderbilt building, saw some fabulously fun stores like the LEGO store and the Harry Potter store, and the highlight for both of us was seeing Hamilton on Broadway. I splurged on our tickets and we had incredible seats, which made the experience so fabulous. We both teared up multiple times and were just blown away by the whole thing. I’ll work on a separate blog post one of these days with all the details of where we stayed/what we did for anyone else planning a vacation, but it was truly amazing.
I totally understand that not everyone can do a trip like that, and I am so grateful we had this experience together. I do want to invite all of us to consider ways we could do an overnight somewhere with each of our kids every so often. It doesn’t have to be fancy—grab a room at a Holiday Inn an hour from your house and just walk around a new place, eat out and get a special dessert before watching a movie in the hotel room. Big and extravagant isn’t what our kids need, they want our undivided attention. They want to not share us with siblings for longer than a quick grocery store outing. It’s amazing what happens when we get kids away from their siblings and away from their normal places, the conversations that can happen and the memories that can be deposited into that emotional bank of theirs are hugely impactful as they grow.
And now we are home really until mid-July when we go on our big summer trip this year, so we are settling in, planning on being around and finishing the school year before our summer activities start.
Books
I didn’t read much in March but I did read a book that will very likely be my favorite book of 2024. I loved it so much I even shared it on Instagram right after finishing it. In the Wild Light by Jeff Zenter was a stunning coming of age novel centered on Cash, our high school junior protagonist from the Appalachian mountains. He lost his mother to an opioid addiction and now lives with his grandparents whom he adores, but he knows his Pawpaw doesn’t have long left after battling emphysema for years. Cash’s best friend Delaney is a genius who, as a high school student, made a scientific discovery that took the science world by storm. She’s offered a scholarship at a Connecticut prep boarding school to finish out high school, and she refuses to go without Cash. This is a story of both of them experiencing life in a new place, of wondering if they fit, dealing with feelings of inferiority, making new friends, first loves and being exposed to new areas of study they never would have in their small mountain community. And also, it’s a story about home, about the people who raise us and love us, and the things that create the fabric of our lives. This novel was stunning, and is one I will never forget reading.
Also in March I read Mika in Real Life which I thoroughly enjoyed. Mika is a woman in her 30s who, when she became pregnant as a teen, placed her daughter for adoption . This daughter is now a high school senior and tracks Mika down on line, inviting conversation for the first time. Mika may have told her daughter some fabricated version of her life to make herself feel better about the fact that she’s jobless, boyfriend less and living with a roommate, but it’s fine because this daughter lives 2000 miles away! Until she decides to come visit Mika and Mika has to enlist the help of her friends to turn this fabricated life into a reality in 5 days. It’s hilarious, tender, a story of identity and family and I loved it.
The third book worth mentioning from this month was Family Family by Laurie Frankel. I was first introduced to Frankel’s work in probably 2017 when I read her book This is How it Always Is. Talk about a novel that rocked my world and helped me look with so much more compassion on families dealing with children who struggle with their gender identity. She told a story that you could not possibly read and come away with anything other than empathy at the difficult decisions a family sometimes has to face. If you haven’t read that one, I would highly, highly recommend it. Family Family is her newest novel that I’d been looking forward to. It deals with adoption, and was a beautiful look at what makes a family. I adored the characters in this one and her writing has a way of drawing you right into a story. Again, another book I’d highly recommend.
Family Holidays
Easter just barely squeaked into March this year didn’t it? I’ve shared on Instagram over the years that our Easter tradition is to be home that weekend and spend Easter late afternoon at Top Golf as a family. This is the third year we’ve done so, and the boys are already planning on next year too. This little tradition kind of started by accident, but it is absolutely one of my favorites now, one we will be keeping! I am all for trying to see family around holidays. We host Chuck’s parents and brother every Thanksgiving, we travel to visit both his family and mine every Christmas. We try and see both sides of the family every summer at some point. And all those trips provide opportunity for memory making and connection, which are so important to us. However, a few years ago I realized we didn’t ever have a holiday that we spent at home, at our church, doing exactly what we wanted to do without taking into account hosting, traveling or meeting anyone else’s needs or expectations. So I claimed Easter at that holiday. We don’t ever get days off at Easter, we still have to be back at school Monday morning, so traveling doesn’t make sense for us—we’d spend a solid portion of Easter trying to drive home if we went anywhere, and sitting in the car isn’t how any of us want to spend our holiday. And honestly, we recognize Easter is one of those holidays that people kind of want to be at their own church for—with their own community, I know that’s true for us, so we haven’t ever really invited anyone to come visit for that weekend—often one or both of us are helping with children’s ministry that day, so hosting family at our church isn’t always realistic either. So a few years ago I randomly said on Good Friday, “I have all the stuff to make a fancy Easter dinner for the 4 of us. But I don’t know that I want to spend my holiday in the kitchen, does anyone want to go play and eat at Top Golf on Sunday instead?” This was met with a resounding yes and our tradition was born. Everyone orders what they want, we all get to play golf, and it is so relaxing and fun.
The older I get, the more I’m realizing it is okay to not travel or see extended family for every holiday. It’s okay to pick a holiday and draw a boundary around it, saying “this one is just for our nuclear family.” That doesn’t mean we care any less about seeing people we love. It does mean we can value simple, home, quiet, no-fuss celebrations sometimes. And those can be the sweetest memories.
Aidan’s Recipe Corner
My boys found out that every month I share a recipe with ya’ll , and now at dinner they’ve started offering their thoughts on which recipes are “blog worthy.” Aidan especially has taken an interest in this, so each month I’m now letting him choose which recipe to bring to you. So from the 12 year old, this month’s winning recipe that he requested two weeks in a row (that Asher enjoyed too) is actually not really a recipe at all, just a list of ingredients to assemble! This one came from my sister, she made this for us one day for lunch last summer when we were all in Iowa and now it’s become a favorite in the rotation here at home. I give you, super easy, super customizable, perfect for picky eaters—BBQ Chicken Salads/Wraps!
I have no recipe, but here’s what I use and how we serve these. The BEST part of these is they are completely customizable, so everyone chooses exactly what they want. They’re gluten free if you do them as a salad, kid friendly if you wrap the ingredients in a tortilla and call it a BBQ burrito, and packed with protein and fiber for those of us paying attention to those things.
You will need:
Cooked shredded chicken—grill a breast with salt and pepper, toss a breast into salted water and boil it through—however you want to cook a chicken breast and then shred it—you’re going to use dressing on it so don’t worry about the flavor.
Romaine lettuce washed and chopped
Tortillas if you’re turning these into wraps
A dressing you mix yourself—I do 1 cup of Hidden Valley ranch dressing and 1 cup of BBQ sauce whisked together well—this is delicious!
Toppings—we do avocado, diced tomatoes, a can of black beans rinsed and drained, a can of corn drained, crushed tortilla chips, diced red onion, shredded cheddar cheese, and some cilantro.
Make a salad bar line up in your kitchen and let people assemble what they want. Kids can eat all the pieces individually, in a wrap, or a salad bowl and they love the concept of putting together their own meals, so this one is an easy win around here!
TV Recommendations
As a family this month we started watching the game show on Hulu called The Floor with Rob Lowe hosting. This one is fun for all ages, and is kind of a trivia based show but it’s stuff our kids know for the most part so they’ve enjoyed it as well. And lets be honest, I’ll watch anything with Rob Lowe, even my kids know mom has had a crush on him since I was 20!
I have been watching the show called The Bear on Hulu at the recommendation of SO many pop-culture podcasters and I have to say, this one is a JOURNEY. First of all, the language is ATROCIOUS. I’ve never watched a show with more F-words in my life. So this one is NOT for the little ones! The first probably 4-5 episodes are stressful, chaotic, overwhelming and leave you wondering what the heck people love about this show and why are you wasting your time. And then you hit some episodes that show some character arcs where they are growing and learning and you start to think maybe there is something here. Then you hit the mid point of season 2 where you watch episode 7 and think “well now I have chills. This might be one of the most powerful episodes of TV ever.” Has anyone else watched it? I need someone to talk about this show with so let me know!
I also watched a documentary that came out on Hulu very recently when Beyonce’s new album dropped all about the challenges black artists have had getting air time on country radio stations, and how white that genre truly is when you look at the percentages of air time given to artists. It’s called Its Beyonce Country and it was an excellent hour long look at the country music industry and introduced me to some voices I didn’t know but have come to really enjoy listening to.
Learning Things
And lastly, I have a podcast recommendation/person for you to follow—really for anyone but especially for ladies between age 35 and 60! I was introduced to the work of Dr. Mary Clare Haver about 8 months ago when I heard her speak on a podcast and I’ve followed her online since. (Clicking on that link will take you to her instagram page—go follow her, you will learn a TON!) Dr. Haver is a board certified Ob/Gyn who has spent her career caring for women. When she herself hit the perimenopause years (she’s 55 now) she realized she knew nothing about this season of life—her training was woefully inadequate and she had not been providing solid menopause related care to her patients for decades. She made it her mission to change that. She went back for additional training, became a registered nutritionist (learning about how important our nutrition is in this season of life for so many reasons) and has written a new book coming out later this month called The New Menopause. She explains what is exactly happening in our bodies in a way I’ve never heard before, so clear, simple to understand and SO profound. She explains why we see changes in almost every organ system in this season of life (because there are estrogen receptors all over our bodies and when our estrogen begins to decline it wreaks havoc on our hearts, lungs, metabolism, brain health, anxiety, digestion, joints etc) and helps us build tool kits of nutrition, exercise, sleep, supplements and eventually hormone help as we age to keep our whole bodies functioning as optimally as possible. I have learned so much and made several changes in the past month based on her teaching—I’ve started weight training which is crucial for our muscular-skeletal system as we age, I’ve way upped my fiber and protein which she teaches are two of the most important things we can do (she talks a lot about not thinking of what we take out of our diets or restrict but what we can ADD—fiber and protein being the two most crucial to start with), and I’ve changed how I think about aerobic exercise based on her teaching.
She was recently interviewed on the Mel Robbin’s podcast (so go search for that in your podcast app, look for The Mel Robbin’s Podcast and then scroll down to the March 21 episode called The #1 Menopause Doctor: How to Lose Belly Fat, Sleep Better, and Stop Suffering. I promise this will teach you something I bet you didn’t know about your body! If you think you’re too young or too old, take a listen anyway, she gives fantastic tips we can all be incorporating at any point in our lives!
