Chelsea Lately March 2019 Edition

Yes, that’s right a post about me.  A post about my current likes, dislikes, obsessions, habits, etc.  A general idea of what defines me and my latest moods.

Likes:

• Convenience for lunch:  Still definitely into the MealPal ordering for lunch and now that the weather is warming my favorites are perfect!!!  An amazing beet, goat cheese, turkey, roasted carrot and mushroom salad from Sprout Salads, the filling chicken, avocado, feta salad from Homegrown, the turkey, pesto, quinoa, almond, and parmesan salad from Evergreens, the combo platter from Halal Guys and any of the poke bowls from FOB Poke (where they now know me by name) or Pokeworks.  All amazing and fueling my day these days.
• Convenience for dinner:  I do love the Instant Pot.  I wasn’t sure how much I would like it or how much I would use it but everything I have made with it so far has turned out great and been easy.  So far this includes:  Thai chicken peanut ramen, chicken tortilla soup, roasted chicken for my competition chicken, leek, tarragon pie, beef stroganoff, and a honey garlic pork tenderloin with sweet potatoes.
• Guilty pleasure TV shows:  I can’t do daytime television but apparently, I can do most all of Bravo! Shows still, including:  Below Deck, Top Chef, Very Cavallari (only when I must wake up early with Reese and too tired to work out) and lately home renovation shows (?!?), I do really like Fixer Upper.
• Weight lifting:  I have much been preferring weight lifting of all sorts.  I still like my FitnessBlender workouts, but my cycle studio has a good TwoFer class that combines 30 minutes of weights and HITT exercises followed by 30 minutes of cycling, and a friend got me hooked on her studio, Flow Fitness, and their amazing Body Pump classes that I sometimes can manage getting in at lunch time, albeit that one is across town.
• Scooter riding:  I don’t think people have truly lived until they have ridden a scooter, just saying. Now that the weather is turning nice, riding on my scooter feels darn right glorious!  I’ve been riding quite often the past few weeks to and from work and Bryan and I took our first ride together to go see Women in Black at the Seattle Rep for our date night this past week.  There is nothing quite as freeing as feeling the wind and fresh air while zooming around on the scooter.
• Our nanny share:  Now that I feel like we have solutions for our childcare and still have the comradery and support of our share family, who we genuinely like and get along with, I am loving the nanny share situation.  It is the perfect mix of nearly undivided attention for Reese along with social interaction that our friendly child loves.  Reese and Lottie are very different personalities and on different developmental timelines but learn so much from watching one another.  Plus, the best is watching them interact both on the Nest cam and when I come home to them at night.  It’s nice being able to talk to another mom almost daily and now that it is going to be solely based out of our house as the host location it makes it even easier for me in terms of prepping and planning for my day.

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Dislikes:

• Being slow at work:  It was nice for about a week and now I am kind of eager for my trips to be over just, so I can be depended on for time and to take on some more interesting projects.  We are waiting to hear back on whether our company has won on a lot of projects so in the meantime the work is slow, and it makes my day go by that much slower. Fortunately, it might be starting to pick up again.
• Politics:  I never like it but for some reason the thought of the nearing preliminary races starting just makes me cringe.  I really don’t want it all to start again and not looking forward to oncoming campaigning and all of the media surrounding it.
• Professional photos at work:  They were a pain to plan for and take and the outcome of them was even worse.  The photographer seemed like they knew what they were doing but does she know about Photoshop?!?
• Cravings: I have had such a darn sweet tooth since about Christmas. Trying to dial it back but man it’s hard.
• Network: Our PEPs group networks seem to have more or less fizzled out. That’s probably fine as we will be having more babies enter our friends circle in the very near future but still a little bummed to not have that network of other parents with babies the same age…with the exception of Lottie and Sarah that is. I am trying one more time for a mom and baby happy hour and so far I have a lot of people SAY they are coming so hopefully that is the result.
• Running; It is taking some time to get back into running, both from a stamina perspective and interest perspective. We are essentially backing out of Ragnar this summer do a few logistical reasons more than anything but also slightly intimidated by the route and demands of the race. Fortunately, now that we can run with Reese it makes running a little more doable, and sometimes more fun. Pushing that darn stroller is a workout though and not quite as free of a feeling as running without it.

Chelsea