Hello from Taylor's Boyfriend's Usher Concert Game

Okay, I've tried to write a post for DAYS and have obviously failed. Life is just so dang busy and the rare moments it's not, I want to read or rest or flirt with James, and so my personal laptop is almost never opened. But the Super Bowl is on and this has become MY TIME to get a blog post done. We made a delicious nacho bar, signed up for a free trial of Paramount+ and now everyone is on the couch half-watching the football while Landon tells us the over/under on every crazy Super Bowl bet you can make. We've seen our goddess Taylor 2 times and apparently the over/under is 5.5. Also we all just learned what a horse-collar is.

(James is offended by my use of "all." To be clear, he was the one explaining it to us.)

I have many a random update and a lot of selfies. I was trying to figure out why most of my pictures are of me, Maggie, or Milo these days and then the answer came to me: my kids are big, busy, and no longer in the phase of doing adorable things I can publicly post. They're still adorable, but they're funny and nuanced and mostly look the same day-to-day and these are not things you can capture in a photo. But a perfectly fluffy perfect cat? Or a new outfit that makes me feel good and confident and strong? Yes. The iPhone was made for moments such as these.

(Also Bonnie sent me the link to buy that white "worth it" Veronica Beard blazer in an amazing end-of-year sale so it was well under $200 and this is one of many reasons why she actually saves me money. #GirlMath #AlsoActualMath.)

(Also ALSO, those black pants haven't fit me in 2 years and I remembered I'd put them in a bin with holiday clothes so that looking at them in my closet didn't make me feel bad and I pulled them out last Thursday and they're basically brand new and it's nice to see results from all the "no I don't drink at work events" and "no, I'll take water instead of that welcome glass of champagne" and "this cup of grapes is the perfect in-flight snack even it doesn't involve chocolate in any form." I travel too much to make everything a treat, and dammit if I don't feel SO MUCH better following these general guidelines than anything more fleetingly indulgent. Plus, it's been nice to save those indulgences for friends and family; I still indulge, I'm just picky about it. Oddly, this is a lesson Bonnie taught me too.)

(Like this hot pink L'AGENCE blazer I stalked on The Real Real. It's an indulgence that ALSO makes me feel good. I try to wear pink every Wednesday in honor of the Mean Girls of my young adulthood.)

But in lieu of an actual topic, I do have big kid updates! Sometimes it truly shocks me how very big they are... that we’re on the back half of parenting with kids at home. This picture popped up in my memories from 5 years ago when we adopted Maggie and they all look so small and soft.

Only 5 years ago!

Now Landon drives himself home from his high school swim meets and I see him out of the corner of my eye and wonder who that random man is in my house. He's rocking 5 AP classes we basically never hear about, swims 4 hours a day, eats a full dozen eggs for breakfast (plus a tall stack of pancakes and two biscuits), and if his brain occasionally goes offline while he grows another foot, he is secretly outrageously smart and surely the practical knowledge he had two years ago will one day come back to him.

Claire saves all her babysitting money for Lululemon and Sephora purchases, requested layers at her haircut on Saturday, and bought a flat iron so she could do her own hair in the morning. She is kind and quirky, strong and yet a little bit fragile. She goes to high school this fall. I don't even know what to do with that.

Cora, our squishy third baby, is 10 and tall and strong and so independent that she really could be the one going to college in 2 years. She adores all animals and spends her free time watching animal documentaries that are often too sad for me to handle. "That's just life mom," she says knowingly, "sometimes it's hard in the wild." She reads a book every 2 days, cares deeply about everything, and tells the best longest stories about her days at school.

I try very much to live in the present, but I'll admit that sometimes I look around the table at dinner and cannot imagine we’ll be eating there without Landon in two short years. That we'll be a sort of family of four with no fifth person sitting at the end of the table and I absolutely hate it. But the only thing that keeps me from wishing for time to stop is knowing that we have soaked up every bit joy we could from every year of being their parents and it reminds me to keep doing the same. We played Uno Attack the other night and were laughing so hard and I clicked the camera in my mind to just hold it tight. I love this crew and someday this phase will seem young and nostalgic too.

But back to me. I went to Washington, DC last week. My first trip there since November which is by far my longest gap in trips in the nearly 2 years since I started this job. It has been LOVELY actually living in my house with my family, but I feel rested and ready for the next few months of trips ahead of me.

I feel like I have a solid routine now: my trusty carry-on suitcase with packing cubes, my toiletry bag that has a travel size of every single thing I use and never has to be unpacked or repacked, and my makeup bag with the same. My giant LV purse that can fit all the things and still look profesh, and that has my smaller clutch-on-a-chain purse inside to use for dinners and events. James bought me that Burberry trenchcoat for Valentine's Day 2022- our first fancy purchase after I'd accepted (but not yet started) my new job, and it has gone with me on almost every trip in the non-summertime.

New to my packing routine: workout clothes! I have kept up my exercise every damn day commitment since last fall and work travel is no exception. I either use the gym at whatever hotel I'm at, or use the resistance bands I keep in my suitcase with my beloved HIIT Dog app which has a "resistance bands" option. On the DC trip I stayed at the Ritz which has the fabulous Equinox gym attached so I got to do a Pilates and Barre class in the mornings before work. I can never make group fitness work at home, but it felt SO GOOD to fit two in on my trip.

Tomorrow I go to Chicago and my work and workout clothes are ready for that too! Also, a quick shout out to the women's bathroom in the hallway leading to Terminal 1 at Reagan National Airport. It has the BEST natural light.

Last week I hit my 2-year anniversary of leaving the SEC which means I don't need to pre-clear every case I take through the SEC ethics office anymore, so that's exciting. I celebrated by getting drinks with a friend (my first margarita since November-ish and it was delicious; I stopped drinking Diet Coke last September and think I've hopefully lost my taste for it, but apparently frozen margaritas are forever), wearing my Barbie Lawyer sweatshirt (at the top), and finding a meme that spoke all the way to my soul.

"in the distance, sirens" reads like a poem. I love it. It's also agonizingly accurate.

And now we've reached the past weekend, which in a world where I blogged more I'd save for another post, but who knows when I'll find myself at this laptop again: my parents came up from Houston and Landon competed at his High School Regionals swim meet, and he did GREAT!

He has been working so hard and it is so fantastic to really start to see it pay off. He went all best times in prelims and finals. He got 3rd in the 100 fly (51.95) and 100 back (52.80) with times that both got picked up for State (in Texas the top 2 finishers from each of the 8 regions automatically go to state and then the next 8 fastest from any region are also picked up to make 24 swimmers in each event). He was actually the 1st pickup in the 100 back and the 5th in the 100 fly and that's pretty great for a sophomore.

It was so fun to watch. I failed to take any pictures besides this one, but James was of course there both days and the girls were there for finals. Landon is the only boy to qualify from his under-funded inner-city public high school and one girl qualified as well, so we will be a small but mighty team at state, but we can't wait to cheer them both on at the UT pool in two weeks! I always love being back in the pool where I have so many state memories of my own and where James and I spent so much time in college.

And now I need to go pack for Chicago. Happiest Sunday my friends, may you all have a great week. Maggie loves you.