This was a weird week. I found my dream office space (a garage apartment where I could cook with clients…and it ended up falling through). Ultimately, it’s not that big of a deal. I have a great office space now for client sessions and nothing needs to change. The thrill of something new and exciting got me all amped up…and then for it to not play out was a bummer. And then on top of that it was a challenging week for other reasons. But the food was tasty! And I was feeling trapped and stuck in life, so I switched up my routine with a few novel outings. My brain enjoys newness so much. It is such a reset. I took myself on a couple solo coffee dates (specifically, “taking my inner artist on a date”, a recommendation from The Artist’s Way) and tried a new exercise class at a time I never exercise because it isn’t convenient for the family (I tried Solidcore and wasn’t that impressed). Here’s some of what I ate:

One night my parents invited us over for football and dinner. My sisters and I went on a walk all together with Q’s twins and it was so nice. We hadn’t done that in years. My dad made these taco burger things that were awesome. Then we had the best thing I ate all week, which was a chocolate pie my sister brought from a bakery.

Leah is killing me in the best of ways. She’s entering into her baby playing era and it’s adorable.

One day I was craving produce, but didn’t want a salad! So I made a smoothie with everything in the fridge and freezer – strawberries, bananas, kale, cauliflower, protein powder, milk.

All 5 of us went out to dinner at Teo one night. If you’re local, their frozen margaritas and salsas aren’t as good as El Tiempo, but everything else is as good and it’s half the price of El Tiempo. And I love the atmosphere here better and that matters to me.

Now onto the Asian inspired portion of our week. We are still loving our Asian food phase we are in. In a stroke of brilliance, Andrew sliced fresh ginger and put it into the freezer. It’s been great when making fried rice to chop up a bunch and throw it in to saute. It’s nice to have it already prepped and ready to go.

Udon noodle dish (basically fried rice made with noodles).

Rice dish.

Another day, another rice dish while watching Love is Blind on my lunch break.

With the 5 yr old, we made a list of foods she likes and one new food she wanted to try this week. I don’t want her always hearing – “you are such a picky eater/don’t eat much/etc.” – so I wanted her (and me!) to see there are a lot of foods she likes. The new food she picked was pomegranates, so we tried those. Always fun (and staining lol) to dig the seeds out.

A breakfast was my go-to lately of oatmeal, walnuts, bananas, and iced vanilla latte.

I had two solo coffee dates for writing Morning Pages. Vanilla latte + chocolate croissant. One of these mornings was before church on Sunday. My parents did a sleepover with two of our kids and their cousin, so we only had one child at home. I got Leah ready and we had an hour before church still so I seized the 45 minutes and told Andrew I’ll meet you and Leah at church! I’m out!

Another early morning coffee date was so idyllic. It was raining and slightly chilly (for Houston…like, 81 degrees lol) and was such a calm, pleasant way to start the day.

Always a solid snack choice: fruit + a cheesestick.

Have you tried this cereal? I wish it was a little less sweet, but mostly I love it! I had cereal at some point for breakfast, lunch and a dinner this week.

One night I said, “I think it’s a cookie night!” And everyone agreed with me. We’ve been making this recipe.

Is there a more motherly job than handing off the cookie dough covered beater to your child? I think not.

One lunch I had sunchip nachos – beans, cilantro, cheddar, cojita, green onions. Yum.

Today for breakfast I had a breakfast sandwich and a latte.

We are off to have a relatively calm weekend, but have enough things planned to get out of the house so we don’t feel like we are drowning in the whines of young children. Hope you have a good one!