Alabama + Graffiti

It is sooo much fun when you’re covering for people on a Friday when you’re already slammed yourself at work, right?  Does that happen to anyone else.  Ugh – anyway, I have a couple Truly Margaritas (have you tried these yet?  They are amazing) waiting for me at Piggly Wiggly to pick them up and drink them when this god-forsaken Friday is over with.  Onto the fun stuff!  The Queen of screenshots is back!

|| Have you guys watched Only Murders in the Building on Hulu?  It’s such a good show.  It’s got Martin Short, Steve Martin and Selena Gomez.  It’s hard for me to start new shows, but this one is five stars.

|| I’m not sure there’s a crossbody that’s more me out there than this one.  I love that it’s beaded and it has rainbow lips on it.  I want it – definitely don’t need it.  At least not yet.

|| Also who said you don’t need a pillow with a peach on it?  This girl from Georgia is really wanting it to add a pop to the brown leather couch.

|| The cuuuuutest ever little bluetooth speaker thing that also does FM radio.  I don’t think the price is cute, but this would look adorable in my kitchen.

|| Yes please to that paint color.  It’s called pale coral- I’m going to pick it up this weekend to paint on the inside of our door that leads from the kitchen to the outside.  It’s going to be gorgeous!

|| Lastly, the album Kaleidoscope Eyes by Sheppard.  Obsessed with the soft dancey-ness of the music. Die Young is my favorite tune from it so far.  It can instantly put me in a better mood.

And some personal stuff from the week:  Sheff celebrated his 100th day of school, told me to take a picture of him because he liked how his hair looked, and left me this sweet as could be note on my nightstand.  I saw it right before I went to bed, and because I’m a giant mom softy now, I cried a little.  We finally got a call-back from the Lowe’s people to come and measure for our new kitchen countertops and cabinets, and filled out our paperwork to list our old house!!

We’ve got a weekend of sports ahead of us with Auburn playing Kentucky in basketball tomorrow, and the Pack playing tomorrow night, plus Sheff’s basketball practice on Sunday.  Hope y’all had a great week and have a good weekend on deck!

Let me preface this by saying that no, I do not own a Peloton Bike.  I have a Bowflex bike that looks like a Peloton minus the screen, but I do subscribe to the app (about $14 a month), and that gives you access to pretty much everything.

When I first got my bike and got the app downloaded, I was super pumped.  I literally went through all the instructors trying to find one that I could relate to and had bomb-ass playlists.  The first Hannah Frankson ride I did was a 30 minute EDM ride and after that, I was hooked!

She is super high-energy, super motivational and almost always introduces me to a song that I must have on my Spotify playlist.  As with most instructors on Peloton, she has her “crew” that she calls the Push Push crew.  During her rides, she encourages the riders to “push push” during the efforts.

She’s one of the British instructors, so it’s hard to catch her on a live ride (which you CAN do on the app!) due to the time differences, but you can catch all of her rides on demand on the app.  As with all the instructors, she has “work” rides and “music” rides – her playlists for her hip hop, EDM and pop rides are out of this world.  If I don’t feel like working out, I purposely choose a Hannah EDM ride to get me in the mood.

Besides any Hannah EDM ride, my favorites are her Turn It Up, Carnival and her Major Lazer ride from last summer.

I didn’t think I’d fall so hard for a Peloton instructor, but y’all, she just gets it.  I love that I have a workout that I love – plus you can hop on for 10 minutes or for 45 minutes.  There are plenty of all times, so you can squeeze it in when you can.

A few of the other instructors that I love are Kendall Toole (for super hard metal rides), Jess King (for EDM trap rides!!), and Alex Touissant (Club Bangers!!).  If you’ve got any sort of exercise bike, I promise the Peloton app is worth every dollar.  In addition to rides, you have access to running, yoga, meditation, strength, stretching and lots more.  And if you do get it, please please give Hannah a go!!

The pictures of Sheff sleeping are representative of this past weekend.  I’m glad he has an extra day off school to recover from the weekend (me, not so much.  Transportation sleeps for no one!).

Friday, I got to meet up with a friend to try a new-ish restaurant, Helen.  They have a fancy dinner, but do a less fancy menu for lunch.  Their burger was delicious, but what stole the show was their angel biscuits.  They served them with some kind of magic butter – they were so good!  That afternoon, I got to get my hair done, and then met up with the boys after to get some work done on the old house.  We had pizza for dinner and introduced Sheffield to Hey Arnold!  He loved it!

Saturday, we got up and dropped Sheff over at a friends so we could get a good solid chunk of time at the old house getting it prepared.  We also got our second king cake in our Tour De Birmingham King Cake – they were the doughnuts from The Heavenly Doughnut, and they were delicious.  B and I knocked out an amazing amount of work at the old house – we are so close to being done!  Later that afternoon, we had Sheff’s friend and her mom over to watch the AU game, and the weather was so crappy that they ended up staying the night with us.

They left pretty early on Sunday morning, so we went back over to the old house for some more touching up.  We watched alllll the NFL playoffs, B took Sheff to basketball, Sheff got to play with the neighbors across the street, I finished off the last of my library books – it was a good and relaxing Sunday for sure.

We also had our other neighbors come over and introduce themselves to us.  Her husband is Italian, and they were in Italy for the holidays.  She brought over some freshly baked cookies and invited us over for a pasta dinner.  I can’t tell you how good it feels to finally be in a neighborhood like this – I always thought that I hated neighbors and wanted nothing to do with them, but this past month has changed my tune in that regard.  I am over the moon that Sheff can run across the street or next door and have someone to play with – and of course, to have that connection with the people around us.

I hope y’all had a great weekend!

 

It has been a week y’all.  We have been doing the work/school thing, and then heading over to the old house to finish up all the work on that monster.  I will be glad to never pick up another paint brush when this is all said and done.  Also, I am never moving.  Ever again.  This house is it, guys.

Sheffield also had his first “testing” at school yesterday – I’m not sure how it went, or how it’s used.  Testing used to give me such anxiety, but Sheffield told me yesterday, “I got this.”  Gotta admire the confidence.

Usually during the week, I’ll collect a thousand screen shots of stuff I’ve seen and loved – whether it be products, doodles, quotes – seriously, whatever.  This week’s compilation is a collection of all the screen shots I’ve taken from this week.  Please tell me I’m not the only one who does this!!

|| Instagram ads will be the death of me and my bank account.  This was from the Tiny Tassel shop in Charleston.  Who doesn’t need a pair of beaded heart earrings for Valentine’s Day?  They also have conversation heart ones – they are all super cute.

|| Something I’ve wanted to work on is to be a better leader.  Katie from Live Half Full  posted a link on her Instagram stories to a blog post she had written awhile back.  Her blog post featured questions she asks her team to help her be a better boss:  read the list of questions here.  I absolutely loved this.

|| I don’t need this eye palette.  I don’t need it, I don’t need it.  But it’s so pretty.

|| I have a collection of dry shampoo – I love it, and I love trying out new brands.  I haven’t found one that I’m completely loyal to yet: there are a few that I love, but none that I’ve wanted to rush out and buy again.  Enter one that has Mermaid in the title.  I have no idea who Kandee Johnson is, but that packaging will suck me in, I’m sure.

|| Bham Now is sort of the pulse of Birmingham -they’re always around checking out new places to eat and drink, and always posting fun things to do.  I screen shot this one for two reasons:  new restaurant and I need that chicken pesto sandwich immediately.  Find their Instagram here.

|| Who doesn’t love Mr.  Miyagi?  I’m pretty sure this quote is from the third Karate Kid, but I could be wrong.  I love almost everything Wonder Doodles posts on Instagram.

We also tried out a new Mexican place one night after we were exhausted from doing work on the old house.  It was called Tacos Don Tachos, and if you’re in the Green Springs area in Homewood, don’t sleep on them.  Their food was delicious, and they have ice cream and a sweets case.  Sheff got the strawberry cream, and it was so good!

Hope you all had a great week!!

I was going to call this 2022 goals, but I’m really bad at goals.  I’ve always hated when an institution makes me write down goals – whether it be for school or work.  My main “goal” for this year is to just survive it – as it has been for the past couple of years.  Everything is so unknown with Covid, but if you think about it, everything about life is unknown.  We’ve learned as a people how to navigate the unknown, so we can get through this. Here’s a few hopes for 2022.

I hope that I’m able to hit 500 rides on the Peloton app this year.  I’m currently sitting at 274 and would love to see that turn into 500.

I hope that I pack my lunch 4 out of 5 times each work week.  With me being back in the office, the temptation to eat out (especially with all the delicious places down here) is really high.  I’m hoping to save money and calories by bringing my own lunch.

I hope that I can read as many (if not more!) books than last year.  A good hope is around 65.  I’ve also been one of those people that struggled with using Goodreads for whatever reason, but have taken to using StoryGraph, and I really like it so far.

I hope to go on more Mom & Sheff only dates.  Taking him out to lunch or to breakfast, or to concerts or sporting events.  Anything that gives me and him that one-on-one time.

I hope to try 10 new places in Birmingham this year.  There are always so many popping up (we tried one out on 1/2 already!), and it’s always a good practice to support local.

I hope to schedule all those doctor appointments I’ve been failing to keep up with.  I’ve got an appointment with the eye doctor today, so I’m off to a good start.

I hope to start the day in more good moods than bad.  I also hope to end the day in more good moods than bad.

Let me know what you’re hoping for this year!!