I can't say no to books about productivity.

Y​ou can see my complete TBR list on Pinterest.

My (fully vaccinated) parents are here for a visit and I am elated. All I wanted for Mother’s Day was a brief break from parenting and all my mom wanted was some time with her grandchild. So, today I got to sleep in while she took care of the kiddo. We both win and get to sit down to some scrumptious waffles my husband is making.

I understand that Mother’s Day can bring up many different emotions, so I want to celebrate the day by moving the apostrophe.

On this Mothers’ Day, I want to thank everyone who mothers.

To my own mom, thank you for being you.

To my mother-in-law, thank you for treating me like your own.

To the women who take care of my kiddo at daycare, thank you for making her happy and allowing me to enjoy my own career.

To the moms I chat with regularly, thank you for your advice, support, and hilarious TikTok videos.

To the women who want to be moms but can’t, for whatever reason, I see your struggles. Thank you for sharing your stories, strength, and resilience.

To the women who choose not to be moms, thank you for showing others that there are multiple paths in life.

I wrote a blog post for work about research in real life. It's always fun to show students how research goes beyond finding articles for their papers.

Here is what I found myself looking up this week.

• Atlas Obscura Podcast - Not that I need to add another title to my "to listen to" list, but I saw that Atlas Obscura had a podcast. I wanted to know how many episodes there were and what topics it discussed. I ended up adding it to my list.
• Watering Air Plants - I now have a gorgeous quartz crystal air plant holder that is going to double as a bookend on my WFH desk. This is my first air plant and I wanted to learn how to not kill it.
• Hanging Indent Word - Formatting a works cited page. It's been awhile and I completely forgot how to do a hanging indent.
• Geology v. Earth Science - We were watching one of those shows where experts are talking heads and one was tagged as an "Earth Scientist." Needed to verify the difference.
• Japanese Maple - I was writing up a caption for an Instagram post and I knew the tree I was showing was a Japanese Maple but I didn't know which kind. Image search helped me uncover that it was a red dragon.
• Cheugy - I keep seeing this word and didn't know what it meant. Explainer. Also, I am of the age where I do not know slang now.

I've only seen one cicada so far but there are many holes in the ground in our neighborhood. They're coming.

Unlike many, I am actually kind of excited for this. Since I know the bugs don't bite people, I'm generally not afraid of them. In fact, I hope I can get one to land on my finger so I can show it to the kiddo. My biggest fear is that she'll try to eat it. Toddlers have the oddest palette. 

Here's what else has my attention at the moment.

WORK

• I shared the feedback from our Faculty Webinar Series. We are starting to assess it and are looking at planning our series for the fall semester.
• One of our interns finished their required hours. I wrote a final report and submitted it to their faculty supervisor.
• During finals week, I always do a massive motivational/self-care push on our social media accounts. I had fun making hand lettered post-its and finding GIFs to use. 
• I started (and mostly finished) an outline for my presentation to our library consortium's annual conference. I'll be discussing how you can capture anecdotes to tell stories for marketing and outreach. 
• Our team went through our summer projects list to discuss feasibility and collaboration or all the things we want to work on. 
• My colleagues and I finished our slides and proceedings for the LOEX conference. We're going to do a dry run of our presentation tomorrow.

PERSONAL

• Since the weather has been nice, we had the windows open a lot. The only downside is pollen gets everywhere. Dust all the things!
• Once a month, I update the "childcare binder" we keep for that as-yet-unknown date when we can have a babysitter. The binder essentially shares everything a caregiver would need to know about our kid and taking care of her in our home. I first made it when we were in our nanny share, but I keep updating it because I figure that it would be helpful to any future babysitter we might hire. At this point, I only need to make minor changes, but it's a nice routine to be in.
• I prepped my bullet journal for May. That included making my May monthly pages, doing my April review, and, this month, coloring a full-page sticker to full some blank space.

Why Have Kids: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness
Jessica Valenti

After putting a ton of Jessica Valenti books on my TBR board last week, I decided to grab one that was available at the library. I'm nearly halfway through already (because Valenti's writing is just so readable) and I am here for her throwing American intensive parenting and lack of community/government/social support under the bus. She is doing a great job of laying out what so may moms are just burnt out, unhappy, and lost.

I spent four evenings of my week scrubbing our bathroom floor grout. This is one of those chores I put off for months. I just didn’t want to do it. But, every time I stepped foot into the room, the dingy grout lines bugged the heck me. Like many projects, the idea of working on it was actually harder than just doing it.

Since we have a kiddo who still puts far too many things in her mouth, I wanted a relatively non-toxic, non-stinky method. The internet led me to try the baking soda/hydrogen peroxide method. It was as easy as mix, let sit, scrub, and wipe up. That was it.

Something I’ve been dreading for months took, in total, all of 2 hours of my time. And the results are spectacular. Our bathroom is not only cleaner but looks newer.

Now I need to attack the kitchen.

In a few months…

What easy chore have you been putting off?

You ever have one of those work weeks where every day feels like a Friday? That was me this week. I was constantly moving my mouse into the corner of my computer to verify what day of the week it actually was.

At least it's Friday today. 

Here's what else I looked up this week.

• Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong - Following the news that Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins had passed led me to look up if his crew mates were still alive. Aldrin, yes. Armstrong, no.
• Geode Planter - I spent some time looking for a geode planter to add to our bedroom. I found a beautiful one on Etsy that even comes with an air plant.
• Terrazzo - Cleaning my grout this week lead me to a deep dive on terrazzo floors. They often don't have grout so I was considering if they could be an option when we get around to remodeling our kitchen. Probably not, but I still wanted to look.
• Arugula Pesto - I have a bunch of arugula leftover from a dinner recipe. A quick search led me to find that I could make a tasty arugula pesto recipe with things I have on hand. Now I just need to do it.

I have a weakness for pictures of royals and pictures of weddings. A few weeks ago, I opted to grab a trio of royal wedding albums from our public library as my secondary reads.

Royal Wedding: Souvenir Album
Alison James

Harry & Meghan: The Royal Wedding Album
​Halima Sadat

William & Catherine: Their Romance and Royal Wedding in Photographs
David Elliot Cohen
Robert Jobson

I try not to talk about the weather in all of my introductions, but it's so hard not to talk about the weather right now. Summer warmth arrived in DC yesterday. Today, we could even hit 90. Normally I bask in the heat (convinced I'm part cat), but not so much this year. The cicadas are coming...

Aside from anticipating the arrival of Brood X, here's what has my attention at the moment.

WORK

• Later today, I host the last session in our faculty webinar series. After I deal with the last logistics of this session, I will pivot to sending thank yous to our vendors and assessing the feedback. 
• I finally started writing the literature review section of my University customer service initiative proposal. It's the part I least want to write so I figured I should just get it over with. My goal is to finish the lit review by next week and the entire proposal by the end of July.
• My colleagues and I are working on the slides, notes, and conference proceedings for our presentation at LOEX in a few weeks. We might have had a little too much fun with one of the slides in our deck.
• I drafted the staff newsletter to go out next week. Just waiting for a little more content to come in before I give it an edit and hit send.
• At the end of last week, I submitted a proposal for a Core webinar. I received a quick acceptance so now I need to develop my slides and other materials. The webinar is scheduled for June 2.
• In order to organize myself and see where I stand with my colleagues, I drafted up a list of summer projects I want to work on individually and as a group. It's slightly unwieldly so I will likely need to cut back in a few areas. 

PERSONAL

• The last few nights, I started cleaning our bathroom floor grout. It's not hard, I'm using the hydrogen peroxide/baking soda method, but it's a little time consuming. Since we only have the one bathroom, I'm doing it in sections so that we can still use the bathroom. I should have it finished tonight!
• I scanned a pile of stuff I had hanging around. The pile included some of  important documents and our daughter's daycare artwork.
• I finished the reading list for this website. Huzzah! Last week, I just decided to power through while watching some shows.
• I hit week 6 of my 5k training app. Yesterday I ran for 20 minutes straight. That was supposed to be 2 miles, but I'm a bit slow so it was only 1.6. Better than nothing! I'm just happy I was able to run that far without stopping. 

I am a big fan of Jessica Valenti's work. I decided to go through her entire publication list and add missing titles to my TBR. Also, still on my royal fashion and hand-lettering kick.