We've hit the twilight zone of summer. There have been lots of meltdowns this week about, I couldn't even tell you what about. It was a bit of a white-knuckler of a week to make it to Friday, but we made it. I'm going to be mixing some things up this week, including less screen time and more cousin time. We'll see how it goes. For today's post I think I'll share some random things that have been working for me lately:
1. Magnesium. Whoooo, starting out strong! I used to wake up at least once or twice a night. I figured I probably needed to go to the bathroom, and maybe this was just a part of being in my 30s. I had heard people claim that magnesium helped their sleep quality, but I tried it once or twice before and didn't notice much difference. Then a month or two ago, I started nightly magnesium per my cardiologist's recommendation for overall brain+heart health for my POTS diagnosis. And now a month later I've realized that I rarely wake up at night anymore.
2. Bidet seat attachment. This was on my Christmas wish list last year and I must have been a good gurl because Santa brought me one😂 It's just a simple one that attaches to your current toilet seat. The seat isn't heated, and the water isn't heated either so it took a little getting used to, but 7 months later I can say it was a worthwhile investment and I will never go back. What a fun list so far!
3. Mail sorter + cafe curtain. One of my biggest pain points in keeping a clean house in the past has always been the paper clutter. Paper would accumulate in little piles everywhere. In our Washington home my solution was to corral it in a basket on top of our piano and sort through it when it got full. That wasn't a great solution because some papers can be out of sight, but some have to stay somewhat accessible, and the sorting process took a long time. So when I knew we were moving into our forever home, I bought a mail sorter the exact dimensions of the area above our counter but below the upper cabinets in the "command center" portion of our kitchen. It has 12 slots to put different categories of paper in, and I labeled them all--things like Jack Art, Alice Art, Jack School, Medical, Magazines, Documents, Home Design, etc. There is a slot for everything now. I would recommend looking for one on Wayfair because they have a filter where you can insert the exact dimensions you need your item to be. This system has kept random piles of paper clutter from accumulating on every surface in our home. Because the mail sorter is right in our kitchen, I decided to hang a tension rod in front of it and hang little cafe curtains so I could hide it when we're having people over. Now it's cute!
4. Quercetin bromelain (for allergies). I've never been a supplement girlie, but I guess I am now. I came across a recommendation for Quercetin from a blogger who was wildly allergic to cats, but after taking Quercetin for a while her cat allergy disappeared completely. She said she had heard it works for seasonal allergies too. Seeing as I'm allergic to 58 common household and seasonal allergens, I figured I had nothing to lose. Last year's allergy season was brutal on me, so I started Quercetin in the springtime (I just bought one on Amazon). This year's allergy season for me has been my mildest ever, and I credit the daily Quercetin w/ bromelain. You have to take it daily for a week before you can really judge if it's working, but for me it has worked better than any allergy medicine in the past, and without the drowsy side effects.
5. Candle Warmer to keep my morning drink warm. With POTS, my morning wakeup can be brutal. I try and wake up at least half an hour before the kids so I can take my first electrolyte supplement of the day with a ton of water and give it some time to work. Jared often leaves a cup of Perk (a caffeinated hot chocolate I like) on my bedside table for when I wake up, because he is a real one. Jared leaves before anyone wakes up so it would get cold by the time I woke up. Rather than having him switch to an insulated cup or self-heating mug, I put our candle warmer that I never use on my bedside table, and now it keeps my morning drink at the perfect temperature for when I wake up. This has me feeling like Michael Scott in the bacon episode, but I stand by it.
6. Fidget Anklet. I'm a picker. I never had this problem when we lived in humid Washington, but when we moved to Utah I started to get really cracked heels. I found myself picking at them if I was watching a show or doing something mindless like that. When Jack was having problems with biting has nails and chewing on his shirt collar, I bought him a fidget chew necklace to keep his teeth otherwise occupied, and that did the trick. So I decided to get a fidget bracelet that I could wear as an anklet, to try and solve my mindless heel picking problem. Found a cute one on Etsy, and it's been doing the trick! That one's extremely niche, but if you have a nail-biter or hair picker or shirt chewer in your life, maybe a cute Etsy fidget bracelet is worth looking into.
And those are 6 highly specific and random things that are working for me lately. Oh! We spent a day at Splash Summit water park as a family this week. It was fun to compare to our Splash Summit trip last summer, which was also really fun, but this year each of the kids can do more than they could last year. It's a fun barometer of how much the kids are leveling up year by year, and who doesn't love a waterpark? It was a good time. Now for the pictures from our week:
Jared and I celebrated our 13-year wedding anniversary this week. Jared had the day off so we went to explore somewhere new (my favorite way to spend a day). We checked out Sandy Beach at Yuba Lake. The water was pretty, the sand was soft, and it was a weekday so we had the beach all to ourselves. We had a great time! When all was said and done our takeaway was that if you aren't boating, but just playing in the sand and doing kayaks, there are other places closer to our house where we can have that same experience. But this scratched the"explore somewhere new" itch and I do think we'll go back again sometime.
Later in the week my parents stayed with the kids while we spent some time at Jared's parents' nearby home, which they haven't moved into yet, to save money but still have a short anniversary getaway together. We had a funny and abrupt end to our "staycation" when they called to tell us they were (surprise!) driving to Utah and would be at their house in an hour. They had given us their blessing to stay at their home any time, but Jared apparently hadn't let them know we were going to be there those exact days. We packed everything up and scrambled to leave the house cleaner than we found it. Luckily it was already nearly bedtime and we were planning to head home the next morning anyway. The next day I made Jared fess up that we had just been there, and it sounds like they just laughed it off and reiterated that we are welcome there anytime. While we were there we had a fun time doing a short hike to a waterfall, going out for an anniversary dinner at an Italian restaurant. We also spent a morning using our Lagoon passes to go on some bigger rides without the kids, and looking at some nurseries to buy a little mountain mahogany tree for our backyard. It was good to have some time together. Big thanks to my parents for staying with the kids.
And now for some pictures from our week:
Happy Independence Weekend! Jared spent a lot of last week sick (also we've been doing a Pirates of the Caribbean marathon in the evening after the kids are asleep--would recommend), but I'm so glad he recovered in time to enjoy some great July 4th activities with us. I appreciate July 4th extra because it brings up memories from the medical training years--nearly a decade of sad or nonexistent July 4th celebrations. First we were living in the Caribbean for a few years, where of course America's birthday isn't celebrated. Then we were living in Georgia, with no family or friends nearby to spend the day with (also, pregnant Laura=near-dead Laura). Then Jared had 3 years of residency, during which I may be mistaken, but I think he had to work on July 4th for every one of those years. I remember trying to take colicky little Jack to our neighborhood parade by myself, and we lasted about 40 seconds outside of the car before he started screaming because he was terrified of the fire trucks. I got really good at disassociating from most holidays during that decade, because I had to. So now I try to appreciate the holidays a little extra, especially the ones when we are lucky enough to do fun things with extended family.
We weren't going to be able to see much family on the 4th this year, so I invited everyone to go kayaking at a nearby neighborhood pond on July 3rd. Chris and Tim's family came, which meant playmates for Jack and Alice, and we had a great time watching tons of kids on kayaks and paddle boards cruising around the pond. To me, every 4th of July needs some type of water play.
The next day, we invited all family available to come to our patio for a July 4th brunch, and then swimming at our neighborhood pool. This went great too! It was our first time hosting in our backyard. Our backyard is far from finished and it might not be done until the end of the summer, but for now we at least have half a patio and a bit of grass, so it was a good time. Swimming at the pool was fun too--my dad played in the water with all the kids and they were in heaven, and I got to lounge poolside with my mom. Now I'll get to some pictures from our week:
Another beautiful (smoky, post-apocolyptic-looking) summer week! There have been lots of wildfires in Utah and the smoke and ash falling from the sky is something else. Truly I don't want to talk about it. We're staying inside as much as possible but trying to make the most of it. Here are some pictures from our week:
Mama's tired. For some reason I've been stuck in a thick brain fog all weekend. I'm still fresh enough in my POTS diagnosis that I don't always know what the culprit is. I have suspected for some time now that there may be some food triggers at play, and I did eat lots of processed treats over the weekend--something I've tried to stay away from for the past few months because it tends to flare up the fatigue/brain fog. I also wasn't on top of my electrolytes as much as I usually am, because there were lots of back-to-back events. That did make for a fun weekend though, so since my brain isn't so sharp right now I'll get right to the pictures:
