Bittersweet weekend

What a wild weather week we had.  Actual temps below zero and 50+ degrees this weekend.  Mother Earth be ANGRY, yo!  Friday morning we woke up with a beautiful blanket of snow, and I knew given the craziness that is winter and how we can never count on snow anymore that we should take advantage of it.  We snowshoed that evening after the Mr got off of work.  It wasn't ideal timing, we had grocery shopping to do that night which is always exhausting, but I'm tired of living a life of "should haves" and if we never get another flake of snow, I would've said, "we should've gone shoeing when we got that last snow."  However, given the pain and swelling of the next morning, I have noted to not do that again.  Friday night, I decided to be smart and put a bag of pinto beans in the crock pot for Friday's taco bar to make homemade refried beans.  Do you know how much salt is in ALL refried beans!?  The lowest I could find was 440mg.  So I dumped a bunch of no salt spices in there to cook, and it did need salt so I put 1 tsp for the whole crock pot which is 13 servings or 177mg sodium and it tastes just fine.  They can salt up if they want, but it's good for our palette and one big thing crossed off the list.  Then I used some of the bean water to throw a massive pack of chicken in there to cook while we were gone so I could freeze it later.  If I hashtagged:  meal prep.

Saturday was a bittersweet day.  In my effort to KonMari the house, one of the things that took up the most room under the stairs was my childhood toy box.  He was an absolute cutie...

I took pics of him, and he's been in our living room for three weeks just hanging out, you know, so I could get more attached to him while I could finally see his face.  He makes me smile.  I shed some tears over the thought of getting rid of him.  I looked online and saw he was selling for $100-$150, but the cost of a box big enough to fit him ($50) and wrapping him properly (another possible $50) just felt like more than I wanted to deal with.  I checked with a local mid-century antique store who said to send pics to them on their website if you have something to sell.  I never heard back from them.  I checked with another place a week later, and they said they weren't in the market for something like that but gave me a vintage toy shop not far away that might be.  I messaged them, and sure enough, they were interested.  They played the "how much do you want for it" game and I sent them three eBay listings to show his "potential."  (aka- I know what he's worth, don't try to dick me on price.)  I told him I was open to a reasonable offer as I know he needed to make money on him too.  He said he wanted it for the store to put toys in for little kids to rummage through and would $100 be okay?  I thought that was a very fair price.  The thought that he would be used again and bring kids joy to look through but more importantly, parents and grandparents to say "I had that when I was a kid!!!" was the perfect outcome.

As soon as I agreed to it, I burst into tears and ugly cried for a solid 15 minutes.  (Tearing up just typing about it.)  The Mr kept telling me to keep him, we'd find room for him, he'd clean out his closet, and we could put him there to use him as a bin.  I appreciated it, and I was tempted several times but I feel like him being used as a toy box again is the best thing.  His cute little face can "spark joy" for many and not just me.  I can visit when I want, but I know I won't, it would be too painful to not run out of the store with him saying "I changed my mind, here's your hundie back!"  So yeah, that was not fun, but they immediately put him to use, and before we even left the store, he was already full of pro wrestling dolls!

They laughed at how weird that probably looked, and I smiled warmly and said, "no actually it's perfect because I used to go to late 80's WWF matches up the street.  This is meant to be."  And that Darth Vader head of the Mr's?  They took it too, and he got $15 for it!   He was happy with that and didn't know if they would keep it or sell it, but he said he wasn't sad about it. Even if it was meant to be, it was still a little sad, but I said my goodbyes and thanks to him before we left and took some pics with him.  It was kind of a Toy Story moment I suppose, but he was meant to be a toy box, and now he is again at the perfect height for lots of little hands to go through his treasures.  I think he'll be happy.

We ran to the grocery to pick up some Cabot Lamberton and Private Reserve cheeses for grilled cheese and soup for a comfort food lunch.  (Get those two if you want the BEST grilled cheese ever.  I swear the Mr almost explodes confetti when he eats it!)   We started watching Russian Doll on Netflix (I thought it was a movie, I was wrong) and I could feel myself drifting to sleep.  We took a 90-minute nap because the previous day was catching up with us.  I went in and shredded the chicken and added pineapple salsa and enchilada sauce and put those in the freezer.  Two big components...done.  Before we knew it, night was upon us, so we finished Russian Doll (8 episodes at 25 min a piece)  Then we settled in for our annual viewing of Groundhog Day.  It's hard to believe it's been a year since we were part of the festivities in the movie town.  I highly recommend it.

Sunday we worked on various things to bring down the stress levels that could spike this week.  The Mr did my veggies and fruit, and I was irritated at the heap we left at the front door of snow sneakers, hats, and tennies.  We don't have a dedicated closet on the first floor (something I deeply regret not just splurging for when we built, but we was po' and already scraping it) so we have a shoe rack in the garage as soon as you open the door.  It was full of shoes that were old, didn't fit or were never worn.  In a bit of a frustrated rage, I ripped away at it and boom!

So now there are only shoes we actually wear or will wear on it and out of the way.  I did a little work and made the taco beef and Mexican rice for Friday, so all four of the main things are done.  We have a heated buffet that we usually use on Christmas Eve and for get-togethers that has been an utter life saver.  I'll stick the refried beans in one tray, Mexican rice in another and the taco beef in the last one.  There's a lot of chicken so that will go in a small crockpot.  I'm making cheese and onion enchiladas if I can ever find full-size corn tortillas again that will go in the family size Hot Logic when they're done to stay warm.  Then I'll have heated flour tortillas and taco shells on the back warmer on the stove and all I'll need to do this week are cut up the veggies and the day before, make fried ice cream.  Mama likes to make a good first impression.  😁

Before you know it, it's 4pm, and you're wondering where the hell the day went.  I recorded the Puppy Bowl (go Emmett!) so we could watch it on fast forward because it's become an advertising crap show over the past 5 years.  I remember when it used to be 2 hours of watching puppies run up and down the field and putting their paws in the water bowl cam.  Now, just like everything, it has to be all about ads and less about what it started out as.  Why can't we stop ruining EVERYTHING?    I recorded the Super Bowl only so I could watch the halftime show with Maroon 5.   I'm a casual fan and wanted to see how they did.  Oh and you know Amazon has more money than God when they get Harrison Ford to do a commercial.  I can almost see him in hard negotiations for salary...

(via GIPHY)

There's still a lot to do this week but the majority of the pressure, at least food-wise is off of me, and that's nice.  I am going to try a new habit this week of drinking 20 oz of water before I even get out of bed.  I have a 25 oz double insulated water bottle on the nightstand that stays ice cold all night.  Since we wake up dehydrated every morning and it's usually at least 10am before I start drinking anything, I thought I'd see if I could put an early dent in things.

How was your weekend?

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