Happy Friday friends. I worked from home today for the first time all week and it was – just what I needed. I am coming off of a 2-week period of busyness at work, with parenting, and a bathroom renovation and so a calm, sunny day in my home office, with only ONE MEETING, getting through emails and clearing my to-do list with sleeping cats around me and a classic jazz playlist felt like a luxury. I love the feeling of being able to shut down my computer on a Friday feeling caught up, with pins in the things I need to pick back up on Monday. It makes me feel like I’ve earned my weekend and if work stress crops up, I can remind myself that I have things in order and even if they’re not finished, I have a plan to get them there and, in the meantime, my only job is to relax and feel at ease with my down time.

 The bathroom reno is going well and I am going to love the new space. Brandon picked out some really beautiful tile, which is all in place, and the shower is done! But the two weeks leading up to this were loud and dusty, with a marked lack of privacy. Although Brandon and his cousin Tony were able to do all of the demo work, after that we had tradesmen in doing drywall and tile-setting and often working until into the evening. Thankfully, that is at an end as of yesterday. We’re still all sharing the kid’s bathroom as there is more work to do – painting, vanity, mirror, lighting, plumbing – but everything has gone on schedule and very smoothly thanks to Brandon’s hard work (and his cousin’s support) and I feel like we are over the hump. My only disappointment is that the art tile I purchased from Pewabic in Detroit just isn’t going to go with the shower tile. I thought it was going to complement the floor, but it just misses being complementary and ends up clashing. There was no time to pick out another one. I’m sad that we won’t get our extra special Detroit touch, but sometimes things just work out that way and I’m sure we can find a place for the tile somewhere else.  

The other big news – I have a new boss at work and I could not be happier about that. For the past six months, we have been very short-staffed and while we “kept the lights on” (which was what I committed to do when my prior boss left), it is always frustrating to feel as though I am being slammed left and right, only able to do triage and firefighting and nothing is done as well or as thoroughly as I’d like it to be. This week was the light at the end of the tunnel, but no less frantic. We had meetings with overseas colleagues late Monday night, early Wednesday morning, I had four office days and the nights that we didn’t have calls, I had the kid’s soccer games and EMT training to rush off to (EMT training is always a fun time, though – I got to volunteer to be an accident victim that the kids extricated from a vehicle and loaded into an ambulance!). This is a lot for an introvert like me so I warned Brandon that this weekend I will be in full goblin mode. I have knitting (Wolop advent cowl, and I just cast on the Perfect Knit T-shirt by Lion), I’m halfway through ‘Wild and Wicked Things’ by Francesca May and have ‘Weyward’ by Emilia Hart on my Kindle. I want to water my plants and feed the birds and get a vanilla latte tomorrow morning and hang out in the sunshine with a cat or two and have nothing else to do besides that. The kiddo is off on a snowboarding trip with her dad for her Spring Break so I told Brandon that Saturday night is date night, even if we just get takeout and eat it in bed with a nice bottle of Chianti or Shiraz and episodes of ‘White Lotus’.

I hope you are all doing well and looking forward to whatever brings you joy, peace, and inspiration this weekend!