I believe there is a Scandinavian saying about “no bad weather, only bad clothes!” and I thought about that when I woke up to 39 degrees this morning. Cold weather and life changes have come to my part of Michigan but I have warm clothes and a positive mindset.

Brandon has commenced a work project out of state and will be away periodically for quite some time. He’ll be coming home most weekends and for a longer time over the holidays, but I have to make up my mind that my extra alone time will be healthy and productive. Today at lunch I went out for a run to enjoy the brisk fresh air and if I feel sad this evening after work, I’ll take my iPad to the gym and spend some time on the elliptical instead of lying on the couch with snacks and reruns.
I’m a true introvert so I don’t mind alone time. I do, however, want to focus the extra time on productive and positive things – doing extra work, spending extra time with my beautiful daughter, my knitting, and my feline companions.
It’s good to have plans, now to put them into practice.

I have a couple of recipes from WW buddies that I want to explore. I actually do not enjoy cooking, but when Brandon and the kiddo are both home, I cook almost every night. Left to my own devices I’d probably eat frozen pizza and salads every night so my plan is to batch cook a couple of times a week. This week I’ll be trying this white chicken chili recipe – I love a dish where I can just throw a bunch of stuff into a crockpot and be done.

In other news, we hosted our first party for teenagers on Saturday night. We got lucky with the last evening of comparatively mild temperatures for autumn – later that night and into the morning hours, the cold would really begin to set in – so we set up an outdoor projector and big screen and the kiddo had 9-10 of her marching band friends over. We ordered pizzas and set out a cooler of sodas, some bowls of Halloween candy, cider and donuts, they had a bonfire and watched ‘Scream’ and ‘Blair Witch Project’ bundled up in blankets. I kept creeping around to the back of the house to eavesdrop and enjoy their snarky comments and laughter. I told Brandon that we are officially in the period of life where we do the hard labor and bear the expense for her parties and then don’t get to enjoy the fun! I was gratified that the kids that she invited are all great young people who seemed to really enjoy themselves and even though it was a little stressful for me to plan a party for teenagers, and I had moments of regretting the offer – I am tentatively sure it was a reasonable success and I would do it again to make the kiddo happy.

Every day, every week is an opportunity to try new things and extend myself beyond my comfort zone, and I just keep telling myself – there’s no bad weather.