“Show up, show up, show up, and after a while, the muse shows up too.” – Isabel Allende

Hi friends and happy April. I know I haven’t been showing up here recently, but, like my daffodils in the garden, I seem to be re-emerging with the spring. The truth is that real life has been taking a lot of energy and I just haven’t felt like showing up anywhere else. Part of it is that I feel the muse has abandoned me so I’m trying to hold tightly to the quote above. If I commit to showing up myself, she might just come back around.

1. Springtime – January and February are always a drag for me. They were a little less dismal this year thanks to the magic of bright light therapy, but it still felt like a slog. I am always grateful when spring shows up and brings back sunshine and warmth into my life.
2. New routines – So in a big change, I’ve gone back to work. A former employer reached out to see if I would be interested in coming back in a temporary capacity to help get a project finished up. I said yes, so long as I can just work part-time. Thankfully they were on board with that so I now find myself back in the workforce on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. This has forced me to create some new routines around getting my creative stuff done as well as all the other household things. I actually thrive with external structure and I’m enjoying settling into a new weekly routine! I might do a separate post sometime and get all into the nitty gritty because I love seeing day-in-the-life/week-in-the-life type stuff from people so I assume there are others with the same kind of curiosity!
3. Meal plan/prep – Since I’m working three days a week now, I’ve changed up my meal planning and prepping game to be more intentional about picking quick & easy dinners, prepping ingredients ahead of time, and leveraging leftovers. For the past two weeks I’ve made a pasta dish that we also eat on Tuesday. Then Wednesday/Thursday is a curry dish using vegetables that I cut up earlier in the week. Neither dinner really needs a recipe and you can choose vegetarian or not, you can change up the proteins you use (FYI – salmon curry is delightful!), and you can mix it up with the veggies. Also, I’ve made my own curry sauce and found that the store bought simmer sauces are often just as good (if not better in my case…). And right now I’m all about an easy shortcut like that when I know I can make the rest of the meal super healthy. It might seem like a super simple tip, but doing these easy throw together meals and prepping as much ahead of time has been a game changer for me as I’m adjusting to a new schedule.
4. Yoga – A woman I follow on Instagram posted a three minute yoga flow a couple months ago and I’ve been loving doing it a few times a week. It seems to help with my posture as well as some little aches and pains, not to mention settling my brain for a bit! Here’s the link if you want to try it out. 3 minute yoga flow
5. Reading nook – Several months ago we finally got rid of our broken treadmill that was just taking up space. All of a sudden I had an empty corner that needed to be filled and I decided I wanted to create a cozy reading nook for myself. I shopped around for the perfect chair, then had to wait until that perfect chair came back in stock. Tyler bought me a cute succulent shaped pillow and made a beautiful side table. Then I added a rug, blanket, and lamp. And now I have the coziest little place to sit at night and read before bed! It’s so fun how even after living somewhere for seven years you can create a new space and make it all feel brand new again.