Happy Saturday!

I normally start these emails early in the week (or even earlier), but oh boy this training (for the sprint tri) is taking up so much of my time. And honestly it is not taking that much time; it’s just that I think about it all day long!! I read about it, watch videos, imagine myself doing the different sports. It’s literally all-consuming.

A lady (shout out to Allison!) on IG gave me a simple tip: she said not to take it so seriously and just have fun with it! She added, work hard but enjoy the fact that you’re improving each time.

That helped me a lot. I’ve been starting to stress about it. I don’t like doing things unless I know I will be great at them. As soon as I realize I’m not going to be really good at it, I usually just give up. 🙈 Call me a sore loser I guess, except I don’t make it to the losing part because I quit ahead of time! Ha! Anyway, I’m not giving up this time. 💪🏼

Pantry clean-out meal

I love doing a good ole pantry clean-out meal. I love making meal plans, but I don’t base it on anything except for what sounds good. Every now and then, I’ll take inventory of what we already have and then make a meal plan based off of that.

This week, the only groceries I bought were flour, ketchup, mozzarella, and canned corn. Everything else, we had. For a full week of meals and snacks. 👏🏻 If you’ve not tried that, give it a try - you probably have a lot more than you realize, unless you’re really good at keeping up with the inventory you have. If that’s the case, go you!! 🎉❤️

Here are the main meals we’re doing this week (I’ve linked the ones I can):

• Chicken tortilla soup

• Steak, fries, and green beans

• Chicken drumsticks

• Chicken nuggets and tater tots (homemade)

• Butter chicken with naan

• Sweet potato and tuna

• Meatballs and mashed sweet potatoes

• Pizza spaghetti pie

• Chicken pot pie soup

If there’s something you want to know that is not linked, just reply to this email and I’ll hook you up!

New watch bands!

This is not something I planned to share here, but honestly I love them. My old watch band, I had for a few years and it was starting to feel beat up. I also wanted something sporty, for this race I’m doing. When I looked online, I couldn’t find a single watch band - it was all multi-packs. And I thought to myself, “Why in the world do I need more than one??”

Turns out, I switch out the bands almost every day, to match my outfit!😅

Here’s the set I got. It’s currently $15 for the 6-pack. That’s an affiliate link by the way!

5 random things

1. Keith Lee on TikTok is one of my favorites. He tries foods from different local spots (he is in the Vegas area). Then he rates the foods. He’s entertaining and even though I’ll likely never try any of the food (since most of it is local places, no chains, and I don’t know if I’ll ever go to Vegas), it’s fun to see his reactions.

2. New Bluey episodes are dropping on Disney+ next week. Yay!

3. I’m really into Threads, the new app from Instagram. But it’s been literally less than 1 day (as I’m writing this). It’s like Twitter, yes. The differences I’ve seen are that there are no DMs, you already have connections from your current IG following, there’s a 500 character limit, no ads, and so far not really any yuck. I feel like Twitter has a lot of crap to sift through, but on Threads, it seems like positive and fun. I’m sure the trolls will show up, but maybe if we ignore them, they won’t take over.🤞🏻

4. I’ve been waking up early to work out and now my body just gets up a little earlier even when I don’t have an alarm set. It’s the first time in my life (I’m pretty sure) that I’ve woken up early FOR ME. Sure, when I was a teacher, I had to wake up early to get to work. But this is different because no one is forcing me up. I’m doing it for myself. I still don’t like being up early, but I’m getting a little bit used to it!

5. I can’t wait for a little mini vacation. I feel like I can’t take any trips right now because I’ll miss a training day. So as soon as this race is over, I want to go somewhere. Doesn’t have to be a big trip but maybe just a few nights away somewhere. Plus, the race is actually on our anniversary😅 A trip will be a little treat to ourselves for making it 12 years!🥹

Mysterious true crime cases

I saw this TikTok video recently that mentioned various true crime cases that have some mystery to them (like, they’re either totally unsolved, or there’s an aspect that’s still unknown). Anyway, I searched most of them in the Podcasts app and have downloaded a bunch of episodes from different podcasts so that I can learn more. I knew a few of them (um, Susan Powell, hello) but most of them, I did not! For my true crime pals, watch this TikTok video. Here are the ones I looked up (there are 24 total!!):

• Russell and Shirley Dermond

• Brian Shaffer

• Brandon Swanson

• Mateusz Kawecki

• Todd Geib

• Oakville blobs

• Terrance Woods

• Ellen Greenberg

• Gareth Williams

• Tiffany Valiante

• Timmothy Pitzen

If you know any of those or have any thoughts, hit me back! I think the unsolved ones are so interesting, especially when it just does not make any sense.

Games

Here’s a quick rundown of some games I like: 1 kid, 1 family, 1 online:

Sum Swamp is a great board game for kids. There is no game play involved - you roll 3 dice, do what they say, and you either win or lose. The thing I like is that you practice adding and subtracting, and there’s also occasional reinforcement of odds and evens. The 3 dice are two 6-sided dice and one plus/minus die. So if you roll a [3], [5], and [+], you’d move forward 8 spots. If you get [3], [5], and [-], you move forward 2 spots. Either way, you go forward: the amount is based on the dice. There are a few special spots on the board. Some of them say “odd” or “even” and if you land on them, you HAVE to get an odd or even answer in order to move off the space. The other special spots have a number on them (let’s say “3”). When you land there, you ONLY roll the plus/minus die - if you roll a plus, you move forward 3 spots; a minus means you move backward 3.

Set is a sort of math-y pattern game. It’s VERY confusing at first (in my opinion), but if you get the hang of it, it’s really a fun challenge for all ages. There are 4 qualifiers in the game (number, color, shading, and shape). The way you match 3 cards is to look at each qualifier, and the 3 cards must be all the same OR all different. Here are a few examples of sets:

Do you see another set in this group of 15 cards? There’s at least one more that I can see!

Letter Boxed is yet another NY Times game. They’ve been pumpin’ out the games lately! Anyway, in this one, you build a chain of words. The last letter of each word must be the first letter of the next word. The trick, though, is that you can not use 2 letters in a row from the same side of the box. In the example below, that means you can not do the word CARD because the C and A are both on the bottom.

The objective is to use all of the letters in the fewest words possible. Here, I did PITHY - YARD - DAFT - TWO - OPTIC. Apparently, you can get it in just 2 words most days, if you can find the long one! The best I’ve done is 4 words so far. Give it a go!

“A good past”

I saw a TikTok recently about this, and it resonated a lot with me.

Basically, we can not guarantee that our kids have a great future. We can do as much as we can to set them up for success but ultimately, the future is uncertain. What we can do, though, is give them a great childhood that they take into adulthood. Trips to the park, letting them pick the music in the car, hugs before bed.

Anyway, watch the video for a little more info! I’ve thought about it every day since I saw it. I’ve been trying my darndest to sit down on the ground with Charlie every day, say “yes” when Annabelle asks if I’ll play with her, watch Alexander do whatever new thing he’s learned that he wants to show me. There’s still a lot of “wait a second” and “I can’t right now”, don’t get me wrong! But that video really got me thinking each day about how important NOW is.❤️

Some shout outs and TTFN 👋🏻

Shout out to Allison (mentioned earlier), as well as Ruthann, Rachel, Marina, Brianne, Ashlyn, Joy, and Kelsey (and I’m sure a few others that I overlooked!) who gave me swimming and triathlon help. S/O to Katy for the tips on cooking a better steak! And S/O to Katie for sending me 2 sporty swimsuits!!

This email felt like it was all over the place! That’s sort of where my head is at (nowhere and everywhere!). Hope you’re doing well!! What’s something exciting happening this month in your life?

That's it for this week. Have a good one!❤️ Bethany

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