Author Archives: Heather Shoberg

About Heather Shoberg

I'm many things... I'm a wife, a mother, a book lover, a movie lover, a photography lover, a music lover, a coffee lover, and a chocolate lover. I have cute aggression and I'm an introvert. I love mangoes and my favorite flower is the sunflower. I got married in Converse sneakers and love fairy lights. I love the mountains and when I was little I wanted to be an astronaut.

Solitude on the Road

I’ve always loved going for drives in the car, mostly as the passenger, but I’ll gladly do the driving if it means being alone and recharging for a bit and possibly doing some exploring. One thing I miss from Colorado is that feeling of remoteness that I often had. I didn’t live in a big town or even that near a big city so it was very easy to drive a short distance and feel like there weren’t a lot of people around. It’s been a little more difficult to find that here nearer a big city without having to drive too far.  So, I had the idea to take day and do a lot of driving on a weekend and Josh said, why not stay the night somewhere so you don’t have to do all that driving in one day?  Sold!

I think everyone needs to be on their own at times, but as an introvert it’s a necessity for me.  I do often get quiet time each day, but it doesn’t always feel like enough, especially when one or both kids has trouble sleeping and that time is interrupted. Also, as much as I love the cats, Uzi has somehow become even clingier and the second I relax, he’s on my lap. There are times when I am just touched out – by kids, by cats, by everyone and everything and even my own skin feels like it’s too much. So, this time away was very much needed and overdue.  I drove… and drove… I think I spent about 10 hours in the car total?  I went with the intention of looking for birds and did find some, though, not as many as I had hoped.  I didn’t take any amazing photos, but I did find a very funny squirrel and most of all I found space to breathe deeply and in silence.

I mentioned in a previous blog post that I accidentally left my really warm clothes at home, so without my big hat and gloves I wasn’t able to do much of the wandering by foot I had wanted to do. It was around zero outside, and with just a light knit hat and gloves I didn’t want to wander too far.  The snow was crunchy so I managed to scare a deer or two and some other birds, but once I got farther away from a road (with barely any traffic) I just stopped and it was… perfect. I could hear birds even if I couldn’t see them, many of which I had never heard before.  I could hear the scurry of squirrels and what I imagine was another deer or two as the crunch of the snow was louder, but more delicate than my own trudging.  It was in that moment that I knew when we got our own cabin it has to be more remote. I need a place to recharge on a more regular basis.  I need my place, you know? Now if we can just find that perfect spot near a lake for Josh. Granted, my ideal place would be in the mountains, but I’ll take what I can get.

Week In Review – Could have been better… could have been worse

Happy Monday!

Linking up with Meghan from Clean Eats, Fast Feets for another Week in Review!

Random occurrences and accomplishments.

  • All of the laundry since I didn’t get it done over the previous weekend while I was gone.
  • Day care found lice… again. I just can’t. We were clear and then all of the sudden it’s back.  I’m burning down the house.  (*Update – all is good now!*) Phoebe enjoyed our stop at Starbucks after confirming that we were indeed lice free and didn’t have to firebomb the house.

  • I am currently looking for our resident Sock Gnome who ran off with half of Phoebe’s new socks. I just bought them and then when I went to do her laundry…. Nothing. I looked everywhere. Curse you Sock Gnomes!!
  • Our car died.  As in needs a new engine died.  The good thing is that it looks like it’s related to a recall that happened last year.  Good because we took the car in and they cleared it, which means it looks like we won’t have to pay for the repairs.  I can’t even tell you what a huge relief THAT is.
  • However, because of the lice and the car I ended up working from home all week.  I’m ready to get back in the office tomorrow.  The one plus is that I get to wear whatever I want when I’m at home.

  • Still loving the planner.  I suppose I should have taken a picture this morning when it was updated, but too late.

  • Watched a fair amount of TV over the weekend. It was really gloomy and grey and just really blah overall.  Phoebe and I did get out to go run errands, so we weren’t completely housebound all weekend. There was a lot of lounging, though, which we fully earned after our less than stellar week.

  • I also pulled out my coloring books again the other night. It really is a nice stress reliever, I just don’t do it as often as I’d like because generally after 5 minutes I have to put everything aside (and kick a cat off my lap) because a child starts crying or needs to pee or something. I suppose I’ll have to use the dining room table from now on.

On that note, have a great week everyone!  May your cars run smoothly and may your house stay bug-free.

Currently

Currently…

I started filling this out earlier in the day, but as the day has progressed I’m going to have to give the day and perhaps January the following rating:

Reading… Mr. Mercedes, The Book of Speculation, Raising Your Spirited Child

Watching… The OA, Moana videos over and over per the kids

Listening to… Moana soundtrack… over and over per the kids

Drinking… Way too much coffee. I think it’s time to cut back and drink more tea and water.

Eating… All of the comfort foods, especially Banana Bread when I make the time to actually make it.

Planning… Our Spring road trip!!

Feeling… A mix of emotions. I don’t necessarily feel unmotivated, but I feel like I have energy that I don’t know what to do with.  I don’t know what exactly I want to be doing, and can’t seem to stay focused on much. Reading I can do, though, so I do a lot of that.

Exercising… Yeah, one of these days when I have time and motivation.

Loving… My new office switch-up. I’m sure I’ll love it even more once I get everything where it needs to be.

Thankful… That the kids have been doing really good at their new preschool, but also glad that insurance agreed to approve Enzo’s Occupational Therapy.  He’s excited about it and I’m hoping it’ll help us all.

Stressed… Because our car is dead. Now to talk to our dealership and see what deal they can work out with us because we still owed money on our 5-year-old car.  A total freak thing random thing. Not sure what’s up with our recent run of bad luck…

Trying… To remain optimistic. There must be a silver lining in this.

Wish us luck on the car front and Happy Weekend all!

Day in the Life – The Abnormal Edition

It’s time for the Winter Edition of a Day in the Life!  I decided to take pictures on the weekend (as usual), however, this round ended up on a weekend that was fairly atypical. I also only took photos with my phone, so we’ll see how those turned out.

Stats:

Josh – 37
Heather – 34
Enzo – 4 years, 9 months
Phoebe – 3 years, 2 months
Ziggy – 14
Uzi – 12
Vega – 1

There wasn’t much sleeping in on Saturday (there rarely is), but I definitely could have used more sleep after overindulging a tad the night before at my company’s holiday party. Whoops!  Right away Phoebe asked for hot chocolate and wanted to try out her pink hot chocolate that she got in her stocking. It was neither pink or very good.

Rather than immediately reaching for coffee, I grabbed a Green Machine from the fridge.  The kids were watching some television since it was early yet, so I took the opportunity to do a little reading as well.

I slowly started to feel more normal and got up to make coffee… or maybe Josh did and I finally decided to just go grab some?  Either way, I tripped over a cat or two and finally got some coffee.

It also apparently went from really dark to really light outside. Anyhoo… I knew we didn’t have a lot planned for the day and just one or two things that I wanted to accomplish before I left the house at 3:00 that afternoon.  I figured we would just hang out and see how things went.

I figured I should get at least one picture of myself during today’s randomness, so thank you, Phoebe for making it a good one. 😉

At one point I heard giggling and looked in the kitchen to see that the kids had come up with some sort of game where Phoebe pushed Enzo around on his chair and they both thought it was fairly hysterical.

It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt and I figured that eventually it would happen. Thankfully it wasn’t bad at all, but Enzo was done with the game after that.

At some point I decided that pizza for lunch was the way to go, so I pulled out the bread maker and our go-to easy pizza recipe.

While the bread maker did its thing, I put together a couple of shoe racks because our closet was a disaster area.  Mostly my fault, I know, but it was out of hand and I wanted to try and start getting it under control.  I suppose I should actually start using those weights and the yoga mat. 😀

I could actually use another one as some of my shoes are currently sitting in the entry way.  Hey, at least I got rid of a couple of pairs??

In the meantime, Josh was keeping the kiddos busy in the living room making a fun fort.

The living room has been extra messy thanks to the aftermath of Phoebe having lice.  Thankfully, though, we have plenty of blankets and probably could have turned the entire living room into a fort had we really wanted to.  Hmm… must try that next time.

Phoebe and I spent a little time playing with kinetic sand. I love this stuff!  I need to try one of those recipes I’ve seen online on how to make your own and see if it really works as well!

At some point the bread finished up and it was time to make pizza!  I went for Chicken Alfredo this time, which the kids didn’t even want to try. What???  Oh well, more for me!

As it neared 3:00, I started to pack up my overnight bags and random items I was going to take with me on my mini adventure.  I had decided to head north a few hours and Josh encouraged me to just get a hotel room and the next morning  would get up and drive around and look for wildlife.  Not everyone’s idea of a great time, but it’s something I’ve always enjoyed.

Everyone started to feel a little sleepy since it was after lunch – cats and kids alike. It definitely just felt like a sleepy kind of day for some reason. Cold days are always that way for me, though.

Before I knew it, it was time for me to hit the road!  This time of year it always feels so much later than it actually is and I already knew I’d be stopping for coffee at some point on my almost 3 hour drive.

However, about 20 minutes into my drive, I was off to a bad start.  I had a feeling I should have taken the van to begin with when the car didn’t want to start earlier. Josh figured it was because it was cold and hadn’t been started in a few days, but something seemed off to me and sure enough… suddenly the check engine light came on.

So… back home and I went and quickly shuffled stuff from the car to the van and set up the GPS again crossing my fingers that there wouldn’t be anymore unplanned stops.

Onward ho!  I love road trips, but admit that I prefer it more when I’m not driving myself.  Haha!  I get so bored. It wasn’t too bad, though when all was said and done.

I made it to the hotel nice and easy, so I figured I’d grab my stuff and hang out and watch crappy TV or HGTV since we don’t have cable, but I had one more glorious moment of “Oh Crap” when I went to grab my stuff out of the van.

See that empty spot?  That’s where the bag with my clothes should be. The bag with long johns and my hat and gloves and also little things like deodorant and makeup and stuff.  Apparently when I was in a hurry to switch vehicles I left that bag in the backseat of the car. YAY!  Thankfully there was a Walmart nearby that is open 24/7 so I was able to get some emergency long johns and warm weather gear for the next day and for fairly cheap.

Whereas the “Old” me would have probably gotten kind of upset over the turn of events of the day, the “New” me couldn’t help but laugh that of course I would forget that bag and was just really grateful I had a backup nearby. On to TV watching!  That got boring fast, though… there was nothing on. NOTHING, which is exactly why we don’t have cable anymore.

Thankfully I brought my planner and stickers so I could do that, and a book, of course.  Since I knew I’d be up early the next day, it was fairly early to bed (before 10:00) and that was Saturday!

I really need to work on taking notes throughout the day, but I always say that and then forget or get lazy. Oh well… pictures it is!

 

Week In Review – Bugs and a Road Trip

Happy Monday!

Linking up with Meghan from Clean Eats, Fast Feets for another Week in Review!

Random occurrences and accomplishments without many pictures because it was one of those weeks.  Oh boy, was it ever.

  • Lice, Lice, Lice. We’ll know for sure on Wednesday whether we’ve completely gotten rid of the little buggers. Needless to say my week has not been as productive as I would have liked.

  • Small progress made in my office in terms of organizing.
  • An embarrassing amount of Sister Wives episodes watched (in the background) while working from home 3 days this week). It’s fascinating, what can I say? There are times when I’m like, yes!  Having extra help around the house would be awesome!  Then I realize I’m incredibly jealous and that would probably not work… also I’m anal and then that would be one more person putting stuff in the wrong place and I have no time for that nonsense.
  • My company’s holiday party was on Friday evening, so we went to that and I indulged in several G&Ts and we watched a musical (Million Dollar Quartet). Neither Josh or I are really theater people, but we had a good time and it was very enjoyable.

  • I had a much-needed getaway. I haven’t spent a night away from the kids in a very long time and I can’t remember the last time I spent quietly outdoors, by myself without a lot of noise and/or people. I stepped out of my typical comfort zone and it was really good for me.  We’ve talked about one day getting a cabin and now I’ve decided I really want something as remote as possible.

I hope everyone else had a great week and Happy Monday!