Currently

some of the non-digital photographic treasures I found this week!

Tracking my days in my planner by mood.  I've been feeling in a rut lately and for the past two weeks, I've been tracking my overall feelings by giving each day stars in my planner; up to a five star day.  I'm trying to see any patterns to what makes my days a two star day (bleh) versus a four or five star day.  I'm noticing some interesting trends from doing something creative, to the weather, to my own screen time, to the length of time I get in the morning before the kids wake up.  I'm planning on doing a full post to update with my findings but it's been interesting and I like the level of self reflection it brings with it.

Reading (still) Their Eyes Were Watching God and now starting our first Inspired Readers book club book Make it Happen by Lara Casey.  If you're interested in reading along, join our facebook group!  Already, our book club book seems to be inspiring to move towards getting out of my rut (above) and that makes me excited, especially to dig deeper into conversation with all the other readers!

Digging up patience from way down deep in my soul.  It was been one whiny week over here with lots of teasing between Greyson and Gemma.  If I say, "mind your own business" one more time this week, I think I might scream.  Grey has been trying to control all things Gemma does or doesn't do which just makes her whine and cry.  I've been attempting to remind him that she is three (a challenge in itself) and that when he was three he also said made-up stories, and wanted to do everything himself, and tried to be a big kid.  As much as I'm sad about him going to kindergarten this fall, I think the separation for them might be a really good thing.  Give them a chance to miss each other a little.

Reminiscing while I put together our individual memory boxes (100 small things item #18 ).  I had already started on the kids' boxes, but this week I pulled the HUGE box of memories and mementos down from the attic and finally combed through it to pull out only the things that Brandon and I want to hold on to.  Sort of like the limited collection of items that someday the kids can look through and say 'this is what my parents were like.' (and then totally trash it all afterwards if they want - we don't want them to feel an obligation to hold on to any old stuff).  What a walk down memory lane to see so many pictures (many of Brandon and I from high school, hahhah) and read through old high school notes (!) and cards from my grandparents (all since passed). What a relief to finally go through all that and get it more organized and pared down!

Playing!  We had a play day with our cousin Caleb on Wednesday and the kids had so much fun together. And then we had a play day with our favorite friends the Fiores yesterday and it turned from just playing the afternoon into a full day of playing followed by dinner together too!  It was so  nice spend the day with Kate chatting and laughing while our babies played and giggled.  What a fun week!

Cleaning up all the floors and low shelves:  Violet Mary is on the move!  She started crawling midweek (I'm calling it officially) and thankfully she is finally happy again. It's been a frustrating past week for her as she wanted to so bad to be and see everything that's going on.  She is delighted to be moving around, getting into everything she hasn't been able to before, and explore our home.  She thinks she is so funny and big now, shout-babbling and trying to talk to us.  She has us all cracking up with her little personality.

Celebrating our community as the Valley Girl's Softball team is killing it in playoffs!  We've had to miss their games this week (boo!) but we've been refreshing facebook constantly to get updates from the parents and fans posting the score live.  I was whispering to Brandon while he was on the field at Grey's teeball game the score updates on Monday! They just won again yesterday in the quarterfinals and had an emergency vehicle escort parade back into town last night!  #bluejaypride forever.

Planning the upcoming Conemaugh Valley Alumni Association's 5K and family fun run/walk as we are now only three weeks away.  I am lucky to be working with such an great group to get the plans all together and organized (thank you!) We've had awesome donations secured this week, the scavenger hunt list for the family walk/run completed, and prizes ordered!  It is all coming together and such a relief for me that the next two weeks will be mostly about organizing and double checking!  Keep those registrations for the 5K coming in!

Thinking ahead to summer plans.  We've got a packed summer over here (what's new?) including weddings, family reunions, 7th annual beer Olympics, Grandma & Kid trip to the city, AKT summer playdate in VA, graduation parties, and local festivals.  There are lots of double checking of open dates, booking hotels, and making travel arrangements.  It's both exciting and overwhelming - but that's how we like to roll.

This week in interesting internet:

Obviously a lot in the social media world this week about Caitlyn Jenner.  Regardless of your thoughts on her decisions on how she lives her life, this was an interesting read on sharing things on the internet without researching first.  I commend the guy for owning up to it instead of just ignoring his findings.  karma and irony can be really cool sometimes.

Here's another example of how each of us can decide to spread love and kindness on the internet or divisive hatred and garbage.  This guy had his wedding photos meme'd (without his consent) and he responds in the classiest, kindest (even though they don't deserve it) way.  Putting good in the world, one drop at a time, people.

This Scary Mommy article had me laughing and sort of smacking my former self too about the realization that comes to first time Moms of all the senseless pre-Mom thoughts they had about motherhood.  I think at least twice a week how I wish I could speak to my pre-Mom self and let her know how clueless she was.

I'll be the first to admit that I don't know everything about feminism and I'm still learning constantly about how me and my life fit into the picture:  Can a stay-at-home Mom be a feminist? the answer appears to be yes.  Can I still believe in romance and chivalry and be a feminist?  that answer also appears to be yes.  Articles like this one talking about how women spend time in their life making plans on how to hide their unopened tampons on the way to the bathroom and this video on if buying condoms was like buying birth control remind me of how weird society can be about gender-based things.  Like men don't have to think about this at all and actually probably don't even know this is a thing we have 'plans' for.  (Hello tampon up the sleeve as my go to maneuver). I've started to learn that being a feminist is simply thinking about the world through eyes of equality.  What can the world look like?  What do I hope the world looks like for our kids (our girls AND our son) when they grow up?