Feel Good Friday 44

Can you feel it?  Can you smell it?  Fall is in the air and I am here for it!  Last weekend it dipped down to 58 here at night, and it was glorious to hop out of bed for an early morning run where I barely sweat. (Of course, yesterday it was 72 with 99% humidity at 5:30 am for my run, but at least I had a taste of fall last weekend!) We’ve been in the mood for it around here and have enjoyed more time outside hiking, fluffing the porch, and we’ve also been feeling it in the kitchen with our first round of squash soup and vegan chili this past week. I’m going to share one of those fall recipes with you as well as a couple other things that have kept our spirits up around here.  Now let’s dive right into another Feel Good Friday! (I am an Amazon Associate, and I earn a small commission on qualifying purchases.  I appreciate your support.)

Photo from our hike Monday, where Wilder hiked 3 miles on his own!

Podcast Episode About Making Good Health Easily Accessible

Earlier this week I tuned into this episode of Marie TV (I listened to the podcast version here) featuring Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, author of Feel Better in 5.  Dr Chatterjee talks about how he started taking a really easy, realistic and doable approach to health with his patients by offering them 5 minute workouts, tea rituals, meditations, and other 5 minute “health snacks” that busy people can easily squeeze into their day.  He realized that people struggled with getting to the gym regularly, and that healthy habits needed to be something that felt convenient and could fit in almost anywhere.  His approach has helped himself as well as patients and proponents of his book reach for a healthier lifestyle with limited time. I really enjoyed listening to him and appreciate his approach to fitness. A day after I listened, I saw a cashier at the grocery store doing pushups on his counter while he waited for a customer to pay, and I wondered if he hadn’t read the book. 😉

Vegan Chili

At this point in my life, I eat mainly vegetarian, with the occasional seafood.  I am not vegan as I love my eggs way too much.  When it comes to cooking meals that both Chris and I will enjoy, it can be rather challenging.  With fall in the air, he suggested we try a new vegan chili this past week and I settled on this slow cooker recipe so I could toss it all in in the morning and just have it be ready that evening.  To be 100% honest, it was not my personal favorite, but Chris loved it and said it was more like chili than the other vegan chilis I have made, so it’s a win and made it into this post. My hang up is that the sweet potatoes became really mushy, so I think maybe it needs a little less cook time than suggested.  By the way, I mentioned to Chris last week about how much I loved the farmer’s market and how I wish I had gone to culinary school, and perhaps I should just get more creative in the kitchen and write about it.  He loves to cook as well, so who knows… we are just talking now, but maybe we will set some wheels in motion. (PS- for those who are wondering, no, my picky kids do not eat the chili… they had grilled cheese.  They pretty much eat only breaded meats and bread with cheese or carbs with cheese.  I have raised kind, independent, smart kids who sleep really well and always have, but their eating habits suck. That is where I have failed as a mother. Nobody’s perfect!

Sweet Quick Read

I’ve been making my way through the many books my mom has passed on to me, and this one was in the stash.  Shadow Baby reminded me a little bit of My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry in that it portrays an unlikely friendship between an elderly person and an outcast, awkward, highly intelligent child.  The story is narrated by Clara winter (with a lowercase w on purpose as she explains in the book), who decides to interview Georg Kominsky, a poor old man in her quiet upstate New York town.  The two develop a routine and a friendship, and this book is truly a coming of age story for one while it’s a peaceful ending for another.  The author truly illustrates the mantra that you never know what battles others are facing behind their facades. It was a very sweet and beautifully written book that didn’t take much time to read at all.  I’d highly recommend it if you’re looking for something to read. (By the way, my thumbnail has crayon under it from peeling crayon labels for Wilder.)

Cookie Baking

I don’t know about you, but as soon as fall hits, I want to bake all the things.  And eat all the things.  This week I made another round of pumpkin bread at Wilder’s request but I had him help me.  He loved it so much that I decided he was ready to help make cookies, and I thought he might have fun cutting out shapes with sugar cookies.  He had a blast cutting and adding sprinkles before baking.  As luck would have it, Emmy had a long break between classes and was able to join us and was a huge help.  (That’s a perk of this whole school at home situation!).  We used fall shapes as you can see, but added a sweater shape that came in an ugly Christmas sweater cookie kit I got last year. I felt like it could be used for cozy fall sweater cookies as well. This cooke cutter is similar, in case you’d like to make some of your own.  Check out the pumpkin sweater cookie Emmy created!

Unexpectedly Hilarious Movie

Every Saturday night we do a family movie night at our house, and we rotate who takes turns making the selection.  (We do it at 8 pm after Wilder goes to bed so we aren’t stuck watching only kiddie movies, especially now that we have teenagers).  Last weekend was my turn, and I perused all of our movie streaming services and came across Get Duked, an Amazon Original.  I was a little nervous as none of us had heard of it, so we expected it to either be terrible, or surprise us.  Well, I am happy to report that this movie had us all rolling!!!!!  It’s a challenge to find something that all four of us walk away from loving, but this one did it. We’ve been quoting it all week and making the “Farmside” symbol at each other.  A few precautions… the language is rather vulgar at times.  Eddie Izzard is one of the stars and it’s his kind of humor.  You can judge my parenting.  I am judging my parenting. 😉 Also, I would recommend listening with closed captions on as sometimes the accents can be a bit hard to decipher.  I actually recommended this movie to my parents and my mom said she needed to rewatch to understand.  I didn’t think to tell her about closed captions, so you can thank her that I am thinking to tell you about it.  Check out the trailer below, but I really hope you will watch the full film.

 

Before leaving you for the weekend, I do want to take a moment to acknowledge this date, and honor all of those who lost their lives on 9/11/01.  We will never forget. Like most of you, I know exactly where I was when I heard the news, bewildered. I was 23 years old, living in Nashville, and driving to work that morning when the radio announced that the towers had fallen.  It was before the days of having a regular cellphone for me, and I remember pulling my car over in tears, calling my family, calling Chris, calling one of my best friends who lived in Hoboken and worked in the city. We will never forget what we lost as a country, but also how we came together in a time of crisis.  It’s possible for us to put differences aside and stand together.  We’ve done it before and we can do it again. My thoughts are with all of you who lost someone that day, all who served that day, and every American who was touched that day.

And with that, my friends, I am off for the weekend.  We’re hoping to get our mantle up 100%… we worked on it last weekend but hit some bumps.  It’s Emmy’s movie night this weekend, and now that I’ve set the bar high, who knows what we’ll be watching. 😉 Have a wonderful weekend, my friends.