Simple Joys of the Week, July 20th Edition

This week = exhausting.

Emotionally, because of the Sayde post and all of the time spent processing, discussing, and working on finding her a new home, and physically, because my days with Charlie Mae have been starting much earlier. 

As she's gotten older and the summer has continued, Charlie Mae has slowly been moving up her wake-up time...she used to sleep until 7 or 7:30am every day, but over the past month she's moved to 6:30, then 6, and now, this week, she's settled at about 5:45. NO!!!! I think every parent reading this knows just how I feel. 

Anyway, even though this week was a tiring one, I was still able to identify lots of simple, sensory joys when I reflected back on the past 7 days.

What brought you happiness this week? My #SJOTW are below...

HEAR: Music + podcasts from my phone via my car speakers (aka I got an Aux Cord)
This is embarrassing, but I had absolutely NO idea that there was a thing called an "aux" outlet in my car and assumed that because I don't have a tape deck (haha) and my car cigarette lighter is broken (also haha) that I had no way to connect my phone to my car speakers. WRONG! My friend Olivia showed me that for the price of a $5 aux cord, I now have in-car iPhone listening capabilities. Welcome to the future, Mary Catherine. 

SEE: The outpouring of love + support re: Sayde
I have seriously been blown away by the response to Monday's post about Sayde. Thank you all so much for the support, messages of love and understanding, and interest in helping us find her a new home. Many of you have asked me to keep you updated and I promise I will; at this point we still don't have any promising leads but we're going to continue making calls and sending emails on our end and in the meantime, hope that some of the shares from all of you will reach the right person. 

TASTE: Ice Cream on National Ice Cream Day
Duh. But also, every day is National Ice Cream day in our family. Charlie Mae loves ice cream just as much as (or more than?) Ben and I do, and that's saying A LOT. Nothing gets our girl more excited than the words, "Want to go get ice cream?" We can't even keep it in the house because if she sees it, she wants it for every single meal. And I get it, I really do. [Also, the addictive quality of sugar is scary.]

SMELL: Neuro Style Protect HeatCTRL Iron Hairspray
Since I got my hair cut short, I've been straightening it a lot more after blow drying. When I told my stylist this, she recommended this product to protect my hair from the heat. I don't know if it's saving my hair or not (lets hope so!), but I will tell you that it's one of the best smelling products I've ever used. I smell it in my hair for at least 24 hours after using it and it's divine. 

TOUCH: Being pain-free after dealing with a *very minor* injury
I always forget how much it sucks to be injured until I get injured. I just ALWAYS take my health for granted until something goes wrong, and this past week's minor injury was no different. I had a weird wrist sprain that flared up late last week and lasted through Tuesday; it was so painful that I went to that place in my mind where I thought it was possible that I would never be able to practice yoga in the same way again. Then after a little rest it just went away and man, am I thankful to have a working wrist again. I love this old body of mine--weird aches + pains and all.

Other SJOTW? An impromptu family trip to the beach yesterday (SO lovely), a butt-kicking Barre class that left me super sore (in a good way), the perfect weather we've been having, a much-needed therapy session, and of course, lots of amazing snuggles from both of my girls. There's just so much to be grateful for in this life. 

Also, a reminder that my new yoga tanks are available for pre-order through Monday! Here's a blog post with the scoop and here's where you can purchase yours. Thanks to all of you who have purchased already!

Have a wonderful weekend and I'll see you back here next week.