Hail yes, friends. It’s that time of year…we are huge Michigan football fans in this house. I know I’ve mentioned that before here. So on Sunday, when the team had an open practice we couldn’t resist heading down to check it out!
It was so much fun. After practice, they open up the field to the families to run around. We weren’t able to get Isla onto the field because it was pushing bedtime and she was super grumpy. We did get some cute shots of her in the stadium though, she was so curious about the field!
We also got to take a peek at the Jack Roth Stadium Club! It is a bucket list item to watch a game from here one day.
Our little lady had a great time, and a few epic meltdowns. Regardless, we’re not-so-secretly hoping that someday she’ll be a student here.
It is looking like it will be a great season, and we can’t wait until kickoff on Saturday. Happy college football season, friends! GO BLUE!
My little house is completely organized and labeled, with everything always in it’s place.
Just kidding, my organizational style right now is “toddler tornado”. This freakishly organized place only exists in my head, and on Pinterest.
Our 1900 “we don’t own many things so we don’t need places for stuff” farmhouse doesn’t leave us with many places to put anything. I’m a firm believer that this has led to a lot of the frustration we’ve experienced with our house – we feel like we’re tripping over each other, and all of the “stuff”.
One of the many lacking areas is counter space in the kitchen. There were so many things just hanging out there. We go through a lot of produce in our house, and half of it doesn’t need to be refrigerated, so we’ve always kept it on the counter in a wire basket.
It was cute at first, I thought. That didn’t last long before I realized that we were just consolidating the clutter into one bigger basket of clutter, so we had to find another solution.
Source: Target
We have a blank wall in our pantry, so I wanted to use that vertical space by hanging storage baskets. I searched online and in stores for a few months before running across the perfect one: the Threshold 3-slot wire basket with hooks.
I needed more than three baskets, so I bought two of these with the intention of hanging one on top of the other. I only wanted hooks on the bottom baskets, so we removed the hooks on one of the two. They were surprisingly easy to twist and snap off of the bottom, without damaging the baskets themselves. Super easy! I love having the hooks there to hang our reusable shopping bags.
I’ve been playing around with the idea of chalkboard labels for each of the bins, but haven’t committed yet because we tend to buy different kinds of produce depending on the season.
The farm fresh sign was something I painted at a pallet party that my sister-in-law hosted last Mother’s Day – we were able to pick the design we wanted, and I chose this one with the pantry in mind. It was a blast to make, and fits the space perfectly.
Hanging them was simple, and now we have the perfect storage solution.
Spring finally showed up – which means it’s running season.
I took the entire winter off of running. I get bored on treadmills, so I used to run outside through the winter – that ended about two years ago when I went for a run one snowy January morning, slipped on some ice and fell. I should have broken something, but luckily I was just bruised. That was the end of winter running for me.
This Michigan winter has been a long one, and after about 10 weeks without running I was starting to get really stir crazy (and grumpy!), so I signed us up to run the Trail to the Victors Big House 5K.
We are huge Michigan fans, my husband works for the University, and thought it would be a really run event to run as a family.
credit: mgoblue.com
You run the course through downtown Ann Arbor, and finish on the 50 yard line in the Big House – how fun is that?! Plus, 30% of the registration fee is donated to 6 local non-profits to benefit the community. Not a bad reason to get some exercise.
photo credit: mgoblue.com
We ran it a few Sundays ago. We had to leave the house at about 7:15 and we were all tired, but excited! My brother Eric met us there. It was 22* when we left the house…soooo cold, probably the coldest “fun run” I’ve ever done.
So cold. So early. Jeremy was PUMPED.
Jeremy was nice enough to let me run ahead so I could get in a good run, and he pushed Isla in the running stroller. It was a little slower than normal because I was weaving in and out of people – there were over 7,000 runners, but I had a great run!
It was one of those rare unicorn runs where you feel the sun and wind on your face, enjoy your surroundings, and feel like you can run forever. I caught a view of the stadium about 2.5 miles in and thought “whoa, it’s almost over already!?”.
It was so incredible to run down the tunnel with “Hail to the Victors” blasting, and onto the field to finish on the 50 and jump to touch the iconic M GO BLUE banner. My brother finished just a few seconds behind me.
Poor Isla though, she gave Jeremy a hard time. She was cold, and tired, and just wasn’t feeling it, so he had to carry her and push the running stroller for the last mile and a half.
over it.
Once they crossed the finish, he immediately handed her off to me and she was screaming. I don’t think she’s a runner – and I don’t think I’ll ever hear the end of it from either of them. Sorry, guys.
She was fine once we got her warmed up and fed. She’s also mildly obsessed with her finisher’s medal, and keeps putting it on so she can wear it around the house.
Overall it was a really fun time, one of the most fun running environments I’ve ever been in! If you’re in Ann Arbor next April and have a chance to sign up for this one, do it. Check here for more details on next year’s run.
Hi there. It’s been a while, and fair warning: this will be a long post.
When things in my life get chaotic, I tend to internalize my stress and shrink away from my network – I try to handle it all on my own, with the help of Jeremy when I need it. I always feel the strong need to shelter myself away from others, keep my burdens to myself, and only emerge again once I’ve worked through it alone. These last few months have been pretty heavy, which is why I haven’t updated. I simply didn’t have the physical or emotional energy to give to this space, which is why I’m sure you’ve noticed a long silence over here.
Let me start by saying that I’m back. It was tough for a little bit, but everything is okay.
Shortly before my last post, a close family member was diagnosed with breast cancer at a very young age. As a result of some testing, we found out that a BRCA1 gene mutation was running in our family – most likely from my great grandmother. This meant that my mom, myself, my siblings, and my precious little girl were also at risk of having inherited the mutation.
The odds for a carrier are stark. I was facing up to a 50% chance of ovarian cancer, and almost 90% chance of breast cancer – my best chance would be a prophylactic mastectomy, and ovary/fallopian tube removal. Experts recommend that these actions be taken by age 35, because these cancers can show up so young in carriers. I’m turning 35 this year, and felt like I was finding this out entirely too late.
I ran through these possibilities in my head 24 hours a day for months – I would lose the gift of breastfeeding another baby. More importantly: could I afford to wait to have another baby and risk ovarian cancer, if I was a carrier? I already had one little girl who absolutely needs me around for a long time. Thinking about these things made me nauseous, and tearful. All the time.
The order of testing should have led to my mom being tested before me, but she didn’t have the same sense of urgency as me. I’m impatient, and absolutely felt the need to know NOW, so I could plan. I don’t like surprises, especially bad ones.
So, I paid to have a full hereditary cancer gene panel run through Color Genomics (during cancer prevention month, go figure), and knew there would be at least a 4 week wait. You spit in a tube, and send it in the mail to find out potentially life-changing information. I felt sick every day, waiting for the email that my results were ready.
2 weeks after the lab received my sample, I got a message from the company that my sample failed testing and that I would need to start over. This meant another 4 week wait. AGONY.
24 hours later, my mom called to let us know that my dad unexpectedly passed away.
I hadn’t seen him in almost 6 months, and it broke my heart to know that he was alone, even if he knew that I loved him.
So here we are. I might be a hereditary cancer gene mutation carrier, and my dad is dead.
…f*ck.
I was in shock initially, and even decided to go to work the next morning thinking that if I kept busy, I could avoid the grief. I was wrong – the first coworker I saw that morning stopped me and asked with a knowing, sympathetic look “why are you here?” I immediately broke down in sobs, threw my hands up and said “I don’t know what else to do!”. I didn’t last the full day. I left early and met Jeremy for an early lunch where I cried into my cocktail at Jolly Pumpkin.
Time had stopped, but life went on. I still have a 1 year old at home who needs my constant attention, and a husband who needs support from me as a partner in marriage, in parenthood, and keeping our household running smoothly.
But I also needed to discuss arrangements, answer calls and texts from well-meaning family and friends asking how I was doing, and the strangest, most bittersweet thing…buy flowers for my dad’s funeral. It seemed so pointless and so meaningful at the same time. He was not going to get these flowers himself.
The days leading up to the funeral were a blur. The service itself was nice, although seeing my siblings cry was rough. My brother and I sat on either side of my mom, and holding her hand as she sobbed, hugging my brother while “Hey Jude” played the service out is one of the most painful moments of the day. The Beatles, my dad’s favorite, will never be the same. My oldest brother and I carried his ashes at the cemetery, I tried cracking jokes to make my brothers laugh during the prayer. It was difficult, and strange, and just…everything all at the same time.
We got through it, and moved on to adjusting to this new “normal”.
Exactly 13 days after the funeral, I got an email with the subject line: “Your Color Results are Ready”. I thought I might have a panic attack before I could open the email. My heart was racing, entire body shaking. I took a deep breath, exhaled, and said to myself “whatever this says, you’re going to be okay.” I opened my results, to see this:
I’m not a carrier. My baby girl will never have to worry about this, and relieved does not begin to explain it.
It’s been over a month now, and it all still seems surreal.
Thanks for reading, and stopping by every so often to see what we’re up to here. I’ll be checking in more often lately now that life has lightened up a bit.
Dad: I miss you and I love you, and I hope you’re at peace now. I don’t know what happens beyond this life, but I’d like to think that you were looking out for me during this health scare – and for that, I say thank you.
