Hi Friends!

I don’t have much time for writing, but I wanted to hop on here and give you all a quick update since no posts went live last week. You might know from older posts that I work full time in the SBA department at a bank…and if you’ve been following the news then you know the government passed another stimulus bill in December. That bill came with more funding for the Paycheck Protection Program, which means I’m back to working overtime to get PPP funds out to borrowers. We’ve had around a thousand applications, and there is a team of five of us working to process them, not including the lenders who are working with the borrowers through the application process.

All of that means – no free time for writing right now. I even worked this morning until about noon, and have a two hour reprieve until I go pick my boys up from their dad. That means no food prep happened today, and I essentially just bought lots of processed quick food for next week. I hate doing that, but I just don’t have the time to food prep or prepare meals right now. Also, this was our kid-free weekend so I spent Saturday with Michael…which means I had to get caught up on work today since I didn’t work at all yesterday.

Michael’s dad’s birthday is tomorrow, so they celebrated over the weekend. Michael’s siblings were in town, including a sister who lives in Virginia and a brother who lives in Chicago. We went to his parents’ house to spend some time with them yesterday, then did a little shopping. We stopped by Hobby Lobby where I spotted a new vase – I’m thrilled to see that green seems to be the color of the upcoming spring! Green is my favorite color and it’s been quite some time since it was trending. So I couldn’t resist the vase.

Then we went by TJ Maxx because Michael’s cutting board broke and he needed a new one. We found one for him, for $4.99. As for me…I went in for nothing and ended up spending $75!! I found a couple of mixing bowls, which I’ve been needing for a while, that match the other white platters and bowls I have with the dots around the rim. I found a copper salt and pepper grinder set that I didn’t need but bought anyway. Michael spotted a pineapple cutter – which I already have but it’s plastic and can’t go in the dishwasher (the last one I had warped) so it has to be washed by hand. It’s a major pain because it’s basically a tube and it’s hard to get a rag down it. The one he spotted was stainless steel, so I definitely scooped that up.

After that I told him not to let me get anything else! Then he wandered over to the men’s clothes to browse (he picked up nothing), so I wandered to the women’s clothes. I was excited to see they had some Spring dresses out! He texted me and said to come on, he was at the check out. So I walked up, two new dresses in tow, and told him “see what happens when you leave me alone?!” Luckily I always over-budget to leave wiggle room for things like this!

And now for the big news of the week – HUNTER TURNED 16 ON THURSDAY!!! I cannot believe I have a DRIVER in the house! It was raining on Thursday, so I took him Friday morning for his driver’s test, which he passed, and then over to the DMV to get his license. He is now a licensed driver and can drive on his own. It’s awesome because now he can drive himself and his brother to school so I don’t have to leave the house at all since I work from home! But it’s also terrifying because he can now venture a lot farther from home than when he was just riding a bike to get around. I made him share his location with me, but since that isn’t always very reliable (it tends to show up “location not available” quite a bit), I also downloaded the find my friends app so I can keep track of him on there.

He also is going to be applying for jobs next week, so he’ll be adding some working hours to his weekly schedule very soon. Money for gas and taking his girlfriend on dates…my first-born is growing up so fast its terrifying!

Okay friends, that’s about all that I have time for right now. I need to get changed and run by Michael’s house to drop some things off, then go pick up my boys. As soon as work slows down, I promise I will be back with more nutrition posts and thorough Sunday blogs with meal plans and photos. Please bear with me until then!!

Love,
Lore