Increasing Your Reading in 2020

Are you hoping to read more in 2020? Philip and I made the goal to read more often for 2018, and since then have been increasing slowly each year (or rather quickly in my case last year). I love it when others are reading, and love to talk about books, so I thought I'd share some of the tips that have helped me increase my reading count so exponentially this year. 

Goodreads

I use the Goodreads app (as well as a spreadsheet) to track my reading, and you can find my profile in the link on the right. It's a social media app for readers, allowing you to add books to your TBR (to-be-read) pile digitally, and mark the books you've read, providing a rating should you choose. It's fun to be able to see what friends are reading, and allows you to see at a glance all of the titles you've read. Habit tracking is a motivator for me, so tracking my reading helps me to feel excited about getting closer to my goals. 

Libby

The Libby app can be used for taking out ebooks and audio books from the library on your phone or tablet. In Summer of 2019 I discovered audio books and have finally hit my stride as far as picking books and knowing what I like in an audio book. As long as you have a library card, this is a free option and I have really enjoyed reading this way! As I mentioned in my last post, I found celebrity memoirs or other books that were read by voices I knew as a great gateway into audio. A lot of people find non-fiction easier than fiction on audio, which was my experience as well, although I have been finding some great fiction options lately as well. Check my last post for some great audio book recommendations, or send me a DM on instagram for more recommendations!

Book-ish Podcasts

One way to stay motivated to keep reading is by often hearing about new and exciting titles, and listening to people talk about a love of reading. I have two favourites:

What Should I Read Next with Anne Bogel Anne hears from listeners 2 books they love, and 1 book they don't, and proceeds to give them 3 recommendations for what they should read next. It's relaxing to listen to, and I have never been steered wrong. If you aren't into podcasts, her instagram would also provide lots of great inspiration to get you to the library.

From the Front Porch This podcast comes out of a bookstore in Thomasville, Georgia. It's a dream for a local bookstore, and my reading tastes are very similar to the bookstore owner, Annie (apparently you need to be named Anne/Ann/Annie to be into books - thankfully my middle name is Ann). They're changing their format in the new year, so the podcast might change a little bit, but I have complete confidence.

Creating Time for Reading

Don't think you have time to read? A couple of ideas to carve out the time:

Pair reading with something else in your weekly routine. Our starting move in 2018 was to pair reading with babysitting our nephews once a week. Each Wednesday when we went over, as soon as the boys went to bed we both took out our books. It was a quiet activity which was great for sleepy kids, and it automatically gave us an hour or two of reading. Once you get into a book for an hour, you're more likely to be interested in the story and eager to pick it up for a few minutes before bed each night or in any other free time you might have. 

Set a timer. Laura Tremaine, a podcaster I follow, suggests setting a timer for reading. If you're just getting started, set a timer for 20 minutes and dedicate yourself to reading. If you set a 20 min timer each day you'll be getting through books in no time!

Read as a reward. Sometimes if I'm doing a task I really don't enjoy, or trying to psych myself up for such a task, I'll give myself a reading reward. If I shovel the walk, I'll come in and read a chapter afterward. 

Read as a break from another time suck. On a relaxing day if you're watching some TV, before allowing Netflix to play the next episode automatically, read a chapter between episodes. It's time you would have spent on a TV binge anyway, and helps incorporate your new habit into the time. 

We're 2 weeks into January, have you done any reading? I'd love to hear about it! I am ahead of my goal for January reading, so February might include some longer doorstop titles while I have the wind at my back. One of my favourite January reads so far was Atomic Habits by James Clear. If you're still determining any 2020 goals you might have, that book is an amazing resource! 

2019 Favourite Books

I've been looking forward to this post for at least a month, but couldn't get it done earlier because I was reading until the last minute to reach a goal I hadn't even imagined for myself. This year I read 100 books. It's probably more books than I've read the last 5 years combined. It was awesome. I loved every minute. I love being a reader. 

First off, some stats:

At the end of the year, I went through all of the books that I read and checked how many books I read that I already owned (or bought) vs. books from the library. My goal is to finish reading the books that I own, so I wanted to see if I at least moved the needle because towards the end of the year I had a library problem. 

Of my 100 books, 42% were books that I owned. Sooo not moving the needle as much as I could that's for sure. However, I think the library was one of the reasons I read so much because I was excited about every book that came in and it had a due date so I was pushing myself. #noregrets

The next criteria that I tested myself on was a diversity audit. One tip for 2020, I'm going to keep track of this as I go because it took a while to look up each and every book and check whether the author was a person of colour. Of my 100 books, 18% were written by people of colour. 

Ensuring that you have different voices represented in your reading is super important (as well as your social media follows, news sources, etc.). I noticed a big trend towards that this year, which definitely helped me to achieve a mediocre percentage this year because books written especially by black authors were popular. My goal for 2020 is to read more books by First Nations authors, as well as Asian authors to better reflect the population of Winnipeg. I looked up the percentages online and am hoping to show the same percentages in my reading. 

Audio Book Favourites

Let's start with audio books. This was a new reading experience for me in 2019, and a large part of the reason why my book count is so high. I majorly slacked on my podcasts, and consumed tons of books via audio. 32% of my reading was done via audio.

Getting into audio books was a little bit hard for me, so I don't have a ton of super deep audio book recommendations because I found it easiest to dip my toe into the audio book pool with celebrity memoirs. If you aren't sure you like audio books, I found this the easiest way to start, it helped to listen to voices that I already knew. Celebrity memoirs, books by instagrammers you follow that read their own books, etc. was an easy way to learn how to listen to books for hours while doing other things. If you are used to podcasts, non-fiction in general might be easier on audio which is what I definitely found. 81% of my audio listening was non-fiction.

All of my audio books were borrowed through the Libby app, which allows you to borrow books from your local library and they are automatically returned on their due date through the app. There can be long holds, and you can end up with 18 books at a time (may or may not have happened to me multiple times), but it's easy to renew or place another hold on a book if you don't get to it during your 21 day loan. 

My favourite non-fiction audio books were Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (I have all of his other books on hold as well so I'm excited for them to be available!), I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai (an engrossing story that taught me so much I should have already known about Islam and the Taliban), & Save me the Plums by Ruth Reichl (weirdly enthralling for a book about working at a cooking magazine). If you were looking forward to some celebrity memoir titles, I'd recommend anything by Mindy Kaling, and I also enjoyed Nick Offerman & Megan Mullally's book, The Greatest Love Story Ever Told. 

My favourite fiction audio books were The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker, The Bookwoman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson, and Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella. I found the narrators easy to listen to so I could get into the books, and The Dreamers in particular was hard to put down! I listened to it over Christmas break which was hard to do as we were around people most of the time, so I found myself playing it in the bathroom to try to hear more of the story!

Non-Fiction Favourites

In looking at my numbers, I read 51% non-fiction this year. It looks like it was a percentage I held steady too, because I started analyzing my reading at 85 books and I was at 51%, and now today when I updated the last 15 books I was still at 51% so I was glad to see that. 

I'm in a Christian non-fiction book club, so that definitely contributes, and I love a good productivity or practical tips book as much as the next gal. I also read some great coffee table type non-fiction books with lots of pictures so that helped my numbers in December. Now, on to favourites:

The Road Back to You by Suzanne Stabile & Ian Morgan Cron
If you are new to the Enneagram personality typing system, this is a super easy book to read and will help you to figure out your type and what that means for you. If you're wondering, I'm a 6w7. This was our January book club read and I'd recommend it for a book club (along with any other personality books) as it makes for great discussion. 

I Think You're Wrong, but I'm Listening by Beth Silvers & Sarah Stewart Holland
First off, what a great title. This book is about grace filled political conversations, taking off your team jersey and getting to know those on the other side, and getting curious about other stances rather than defensive about your own. It was super helpful during a time of hard church conversations (I definitely should have read it weekly to keep my feet on higher ground), and I gave it to my dad for Father's Day as we love to have conversations about controversial topics and politics. Highly recommend their podcast as well, Pantsuit Politics.

Essentialism by Greg McKeown
This book was hyped like crazy on my instagram so I had to read it. It earned every bit of praise that it got. Easy to read, but packs a punch, Essentialism is all about doing less, but better which is basically my life ambition. In the vein of one of my favourite follows, The Lazy Genius (her podcast is a must), this book will help you to be a genius about things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. 

Educated by Tara Westover
A little different than my first 3 picks, this is a memoir about a Mormon girl who grew up in her survivalist family living in the mountains of Idaho. If you aren't a big non-fiction reader, this feels like a novel because it's hard to believe anything that happens to her would have happened in real life. It was hard to put down which is more than can be said for a lot of non-fiction reads. 

I Miss You When I Blink by Mary Laura Philpott
This essay collection was funny and relatable on every page and I remember being pleasantly surprised by it and so glad to have read it. I have trouble remembering books after I read them, but as I went through my 2019 list I immediately knew this was a favourite. Very much enjoyed. Mary Laura Philpott also makes an appearance on a very enjoyable episode of What Should I Read Next, one of my favourite reading podcasts.

Fiction Favourites

The moment we've all been waiting for, fiction favourites! In case you have trouble with math, I read 49% fiction this year. While I read about half an half fiction & non-fiction, if I could only read one I'd definitely pick fiction. I loved almost every book I read this year in the fiction category, so this is really really hard.

A guilty pleasure for me is middle years books. Yes, books for 10 year olds lol. I don't feel good about this so I'm putting it first so you can get to the good stuff next if this is not for you. I only read 1 series and 1 individual book this year I think, but both landed on my favourites for sure. They make you feel happy, they usually teach you something, and they are an easy fast read. Just a pure delight. I felt embarrassed typing this but anyway, moving on. Run right now to your library (or come over and borrow) Matilda and Mysterious Benedict Society. We went to see the Matilda musical early last year so we bought the book in anticipation and I loved it so much. I love reading books before seeing a movie or in this case a play, and it did not disappoint. It also hits one of my favourite criteria for top books which is books about books and reading. Such a delight. Mysterious Benedict Society is a series that I can't wait to read with my nephews when they're old enough. It's a great read aloud if you have young-ish kids. I'd say it's younger than Harry Potter as far as themes, but as I don't have kids I don't want to give a specific range in case I'm way off base. It has some suspense themes, but nothing dark, sexual, or languagey. I think it would be a fun read aloud because it has a lot of riddles and things to solve as you read. 

I don't know how to categorize the rest, so let's just do a quick dump of book names in the order I read them.

The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling)
This is the first of 4 (so far) books in JK Rowling's Cormoran Strike series. This first book is right up my alley as far as mystery novels. I love a private detective with an assistant, and this book was super fun to read. I found the next couple books in the series a little bit more difficult, the second in particular has some really strange things in it that I wasn't super onboard with. I loved the 4th again though, Lethal White, so I'd recommend keeping going with the series if you think the 2nd one is too creepy. 

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
This was a favourite of both myself & Philip this year. It was an amazing, suspenseful, historical fiction book set in WWII. It's a really unique view of the war because it follows one character who is a blind girl in France, and another who is a young adult boy in Germany. Their paths eventually intersect, and the book jumps back and forth in time leading you up to a climactic event making it really suspenseful. Philip loved it, and at first I wasn't so sure but by 60 pages it was a clear favourite and I couldn't put it down. 

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin
This book had a few open door romance type scenes that might not be your thing (aren't really mine either, but in a physical book it's a bit easier to skim past - open door on audio is the worst though!). It follows 4 kids who see a psychic who tells them the day they are going to die. It unfolds following each of the kids in the order that they die and shows how they each act based on what they learned and what it means for the way their life unfolds. 

A Man Called Ove by Fredrick Bachman
I loved this book. I borrowed it from the library, but it's on my list to buy because I could see it being a great reread especially as I get older. It is about the grouchiest old man who is so lovable even though he is so crochety. I was smiling while I read it because he's just so endearing. There are some triggering themes of suicide to be aware of, and those parts were hard to get through, but the overall lessons and themes in the book are worth it. We did watch the movie which is not in English so if you aren't into reading subtitles, wait for the American version which Tom Hanks is creating hopefully soon!

The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall and Ask Again Yes by Mary Beth Keane
I accidentally started both of these books around the same time which was super confusing because both were about two couples who are neighbours and the husbands work together and the wives don't like each other. It took me a while to not mix them up so I wouldn't recommend that method. The Dearly Beloved follows two couples, the husbands are both pastors and end up co-leading a church. The wives are opposites with one being a traditional church wife and the other being an athiest. It is a great fiction book that allows you to think of your faith from different angles and I found myself taking pictures of pages to save quotes. One example: 

"Our love of God is not as important as our faith in God. Love wanes. Faith cannot. One can have faith and anger, faith and hate. One can believe deeply and still rail against God, still blame God. In fact, if one can hate God it is a sign of deep faith,  because you cannot hate and at the same time doubt God's existence."

Ask Again Yes is also about two couples that are neighbours, and in this case the husbands are cops that work together. The wives again don't get along, with one having severe mental illness. Two of the kids love each other which keeps the families intertwined even after a tragic event takes place. I love a complicated family saga and this hit the nail right on the head for me. 

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
I sought this book out by searching "best fiction books about the AIDS epidemic". Just as so may of us enjoy WWII historical fiction, I find books about a more recent tragedy such as the AIDS crisis so fascinating. I really want to read more books next year about events that happened in the 60s-80s to learn more about events that took place during my parents lifetime before I was born. The Immortalists also touches on this theme which got my interests peaked, and this book was an amazing telling about that time. It takes place in Chicago and Paris, jumping back and forth from 1985 to 2015. It follows a group of men that are great friends and unfortunately we watch as a number of the pass away during the crisis. It was a wonderful book and told the story in such a powerful way. 

That's all for favourites! This is a bit of a novel in itself, so if you need to up your 2020 reading numbers feel free to count this as a book. My goal for 2020 is to hit 101. My goal for 2019 was 50, and I hit 100, so we'll see if I can do it again. So far I've read 3 books that I have loved so I'm already looking forward to sharing those with you! Message me about your reading anytime, I love having friends to talk books with! If you need suggestions on how to up your reading, what books to read, or anything else readerly - I hope I can help!

Holiday Preppers: Theme Boxes

Have any of you started your holiday shopping? My goal every year is to finish by December 1st, and it is a goal that I just achieved for the very first time. In fact, if you've been following along on Instagram, my tree is up and decorated weeks earlier than normal! I am feeling the Christmas spirit early and not fighting it. 

I purchased gifts for 28 individuals, and had a lot of fun doing it, using the below framework for a number of the gift selections.

For any others that want to kick start their holiday shopping, I thought I would share some inspiration around my favourite way to create a gift (if you have asked us to take care of your children after your demise, or you're a blood relative of myself or Philip, maybe stop reading now!). 

The "Box"

I love a cohesive gift. I feel unsettled when gifting things that don't go together. That is why, my favourite type of gift to give is the "box". I love to make a homemade gift basket or box of items that go together and suit the person that I'm gifting to. Some examples of this:

My version of a FabFitFun box: I have given 4 or 5 of my FauxFitFun boxes now. A fall box for my sister-in-law filled with fall decor, snacks & makeup. A Christmas box for my sister including things like Christmas napkins, face masks, and small dishes for entertaining. A box for my brother-in-law with a mug for work, beard grooming gear, and turkish delights. I love to find items on a theme, and these are endlessly fun to put together. Just throw me in a Winners with $60 and I'm ready to go. Philip has pointed out to me the flaw in my ways. FabFitFun provides you with a $50 box worth $200, while my boxes are $60 box worth $60. However, it is extremely fun to think of items that the person will love and see their delight at each one. 

Homemade Subscriptions: One year, Philip gave me the most thoughtful gift that he called a "Book Box". He had purchased 24 books in advance of my birthday, and over the course of the following year I received 2 each month in a special box. They each came with a note from a fake company that was putting these book boxes on, and each month the books went along with a different theme. One month I'd get mystery, another Christian non-fiction, another classics or YA. It was the very best gift. This year we're doing this for a number of people on our list (stop reading now if you might be one of them), with some twists. First of all, it would be way over our budget to do 2 brand new books every month for all of these people. What we decided to do was be creative and we hunted the Children's Hospital Book Sale for previously loved books that we thought our loved ones would enjoy. We created 5 kids book boxes - one for each of our friends families - as well as 2 adult book boxes for Philip's parents. We bought a large roll of brown paper and wrapped each book, writing the month and some clues about the contents on the outside. Each month the kiddos in our lives (and our parents) can dig out their box and find the month, opening to find their next read. I really hope they enjoy it. We also did monthly boxes for Philip's brother & our sister-in-law. His brother will be opening an exciting pair of socks each month and my sister-in-law is going to open an item from "the religion". We call essential oils and other woo-woo things we're into the religion because it really bothers our husbands and makes us laugh. She's getting things like an acupuncture mat for her feet, an essential oils bracelet, eye mask, Himalayan salt ball, volcanic pumice stone, jade therapy stick, etc. Each month she'll open a new treat to enhance her wellness. Like I said, these are insanely fun for me to put together, and I love putting the thought and care into putting together a curated box for someone I love.

Finding a Theme

I am consistently helped with choosing any gift by having a theme in mind. I get annoyed when I pick out random things for a person and they don't go together. Maybe that makes me a little nuts. However, I've found this strategy works well for me. Some examples:

• A colour story. This isn't my top choice for theme, but if you're finding yourself unsure of what to get, it can be helpful to have your gifts look nice together. Not only for presentation, but to narrow your search field. Recently I bought one of our nieces a sequined mermaid cup for by her bed, a night gown, and a bath bomb. That had two themes, it was all in the blue/green under the sea type colour story, as well as having a bit of a bedtime/relaxing theme. When I'm trying to pick out a gift for someone and don't necessarily know what they need/love, it can be helpful to think of a theme and get gifts that fit within it. 
• A type of item. Books, beauty items, kitchen items, travel gear. 
• Homemade. This theme comes into play not when I think of a specific person, but if you're having trouble getting started with Christmas shopping, it can be helpful to think of a group of people and a type of gift that you can get for all of them. For example, one year we decided to make homemade gifts for everyone in my immediate family. It resulted in a wooden garage sign, a Christmas decoration made from a recycled mullion door, a paper mache rhino hanging, and a magnetic scrabble wall frame. It was super fun, narrowed our scope a bit, and gave us a focus to keep going.
• In my extended family, we choose names and there is always a guiding theme so that you know what to get. It can be hard to think of a gift for your uncle without a theme as you may not know what he wants or needs. We'll have a theme such as a gift that is plaid, a gift starting with the letter B, pajamas, or something used/homemade. That helps us to narrow our focus and pick out an item that meets the criteria that we think they'd like. They aren't annoyed they get another pair of pajamas, they already knew it was coming. 

I hope this helps with getting started with shopping this year. Are there other ideas you'd like for Christmas shopping? I'm not an expert, but would love to give book recommendations for gifts or other box recommendations if you're having trouble! Ask in Instagram DMs, Email, Facebook Messenger, or the Comments below and I can always put together another post on Christmas gifting to try to help you brainstorm! 

Favourites: Work from Home Wardrobe Essentials

My favourite part about working from home has to be the dresscode. I try to get dressed every day, not staying in pj's, but that doesn't stop me from throwing on leggings & a cute top or the all-in-one wonder that is a romper. Here are a few favourites from the past year!

I can't stop wearing Old Navy compression leggings. I bought them last spring for our trip to London, so that I could avoid compression socks on the long flight. They are so so comfortable, everything is sucked in, they have cute details like mesh or moto designs, and they go great with any long sweater or tunic style top. I bought 3 pairs and the pair above are my favourite (click on photo for Old Navy link). 

Jumpsuits are my work from home jam. A whole outfit with only one decision. So comfy. Philip hates them, but I think has slowly worn down. The above is from Joe Fresh, as my absolute favourite at Old Navy is no longer available and this looks very similar. I also don't see it online, but in Superstore Joe Fresh locations I've been eyeing a blush jumpsuit with pockets and a white drawstring....it will come home with me one day. 

In case you haven't gathered, I'm a bit addicted to Old Navy. I own two of these jersey swing dresses, and they are so comfortable and look super cute with leggings. My main goal in life is to feel like I'm wearing pajamas but look put together, so this dress, some compression leggings, and a fun lip colour do the job. 

Last but not least, Old Navy & Joe Fresh and any other stores I might shop at are definitely examples of fast fashion. In the name of not creating so much waste (and saving some bucks), I'm a huge fan of Style Encore. My sister-in-law took me the first time and I went in fully planning on being there for moral support, but not buy any used clothing. I quickly bought 9 items and never looked back. There's a location on Nairn here in Winnipeg and it is the best place to find new items for your closet at a discount, and save something from a landfill. The swing dress above, I bought my first at Old Navy, and found a 2nd one at Style Encore in another print for less than half the price of the first. With the holidays coming up, I can't recommend it highly enough as a locale for dresses! We only wear them once or twice in a lot of cases, so you can expect them to be in great shape as they were sold by someone who maybe wore them once for a special occasion. I love getting a dress there for a work event, I often see the same people again and again for these receptions and might not want to wear the same dress each time, this is a budget friendly way to stock up my work dresses and easily donate them when I'm done without feeling guilty about the dollars. Let me know what you find! 

Fall Closing Ceremony: Butternut Squash Soup

Last night we finished Christmas shopping, and I immediately felt the need to celebrate by welcoming in the holiday season. We stopped at Superstore at 9:30 last night and picked up some Christmas ice cream to celebrate our success. Today I debated putting up my decor, but didn't want to rush into it. Instead, I decided to finish fall with a celebration of its own. I spent the afternoon making my last batch of butternut squash soup (I've made 4 batches this fall!) and enjoying the fall feeling before making the switch.

My mom taught me this butternut squash soup recipe earlier this fall when we had a meal prep day together, and I've been making it every couple of weeks since. I have some in my freezer still, but had a butternut squash in the fridge so decided to add even more to the freezer. 

To make this Butternut Squash Soup, you'll need the following:

Equipment

Large Pot or Dutch Oven

Immersion Blender (or another blender will do)

Knife for Chopping

Vegetable Peeler

Cutting Board

Ingredients

1 x Butternut Squash

3 x Large Carrots

1 x Head of Celery

Chicken Stock

Lemon Pepper

Thyme (fresh lemon thyme if you have!)

Olive Oil (or other oil you desire)

Steps

1. Peel & Chop Carrots

I had extra carrots in my fridge and they've been there a while so I put extra carrots in this batch just to use them up - I'm not a soup expert by any means but in my experience it's not a science and you can put in whatever you like. 

2. Chop Head of Celery

I use the whole head, but again, it's not a science and if you want to eat some ants on a log while cooking and are therefore missing a few stalks, that is totally ok. 

3. Optional: Chop 1 Onion

I hate onions and like the taste fine without so you won't see an onion in my soup, but my mom does add one to hers. My mom told me that every soup she makes starts with onion, celery, & carrots - the flavour maker. 

4. Optional: A friend commented on my instastories that she adds an apple to her butternut squash soup! How delicious! Since I was just sharing my original recipe to the blog I kept it the way that I knew tasted great, but next time I will try this!

4. Saute carrots & Celery with Olive Oil

 If you had onions you would just do this until they are translucent. I just cook them a little bit while I'm chopping the rest of the ingredients and don't worry too much about the time.

5. Season

I season my soup with Thyme & Lemon Pepper to taste. I have a Lemon Pepper grinder so I didn't measure, but did a number of grinds, and then tasted it after blending and added more as needed. 

6. Peel, Chop, & Add Butternut Squash

Peel your squash with your vegetable peeler. It has a tough skin, definitely not as easy as a carrot - I'd compare it to peeling a sweet potato. Cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds. Chop and add to pot with other vegetables. 

7. Add Chicken Stock

Pour chicken stock into pot enough to cover the vegetables. I did mine with water, covering the ingredients, and then added a heaping spoonful of Better than Boullion. 

8. Allow to Cook

Turn down the heat, put on the lid, and allow to soften. Last time I let it go about an hour and then it was plenty soft. This time I set a timer for 30 mins so that I could have a better idea of how long things took to let you know. After 30 mins everything was plenty soft, so I went ahead to the next step. 

9. Blend

An immersion blender is an awesome tool if you make soup regularly. Just place it in the pot, press the button, and watch the soup blend before your eyes. 

10. Eat, or Allow to Cool & Freeze

I love having this soup in my freezer. I pour it into medium ziploc bags and it is enough for Philip & I for dinner, or he can grab a bag to take for his lunch if we don't have other leftovers ready to go. I'm allowing mine to cool a little bit and then I will pour into bags and freeze. 

What are your favourite fall recipes? In addition to this soup, I'd probably say Pumpkin Muffins! 

P.S. If you watched me cook this soup in Instastories, I also mentioned listening to "I am Malala" by Malala Yousafzai. Such a good book so far! I'm halfway through and am so glad I decided to listen to such an important story. It's important to ensure you're paying attention to voices that have different life experiences than you, and this is a great listen for any North American who is trying to understand the perspectives of others. I'm using the Libby app which allows you to borrow audiobooks from your local library, give it a try! (this isn't sponsored, I just love books)

Lazy Geniusing Laundry

First of all, if you don't listen to The Lazy Genius podcast, and have any responsibility for household tasks, small children, or using a stove, go subscribe now. It's one of my favourites and I regularly feel proud of my own "lazy genius"-esque household hacks. I will never be a culinary artist, professional cleaner, or heavenly hostess by any standard. What The Lazy Genius, Kendra Adachi, teaches us is that we can do better without stressing all the time. She is also a great weekly inspiration on Instagram for things like meal planning, finding routines in the various seasons of life, and generally feeling okay about yourself. 

Now, to my own laundry hack that makes me feel like I've mastered one aspect of life. 4 laundry baskets. You heard it here first, all you need are a lot of laundry baskets. 

As a bridal shower gift, we received one of those wheelie laundry sorters that you can use as a hamper. I have never wanted to be a throw all the laundry on the laundry room floor person (although if that's you, no judgement as long as you're happy!), so I appreciated having the laundry sorted right in our own bedroom closet. However, by the time those baskets were full, it was extremely heavy and the bags would eventually start to rip. Smaller loads could have been considered, yes, but it just didn't fit with our life. Also, if we carried the laundry down in the special bag, and then life got in the way of putting things away right away, we'd be left with no place to put our cold colours. 

With the demise of our second wheelie sorter...enter 4 laundry baskets. We bought 4 matching baskets at Ikea, but any baskets will do. We have them on the floor of our closet in a line, and it is the perfect system for us. We typically have 3 loads of laundry that we separate and the 4th bin is there to keep the system going even while we have a basket downstairs with laundry spinning. The baskets are Cold Colours, Cold Whites, & Warm Whites. I don't know if we need to do this much sorting, but it makes for about the right sized loads each week and works for us. Do you sort your laundry? I recently learned that my mom doesn't really sort laundry and at some point I may graduate to that level of lazy genius as well. 

Below is the laundry basket that we selected (click for link to Ikea website for this beauty of a $9 laundry basket). Apparently we break a lot of laundry equipment, because our two previous laundry baskets both had broken handles. We chose this laundry basket because it is 1 piece, so the handle is less likely to separate from the basket portion. Also, it's a happy colour and doesn't have holes so nothing's falling out. I'm really questioning my load sizes right now based on the fact that our wheelie sorters and laundry baskets have broken multiple times. Add that to my laundry method, huge loads so you hardly ever have to do laundry. 

One question that I have for those of you at a different stage of life than we are, is how can we keep this going with kids? I can see how this is a perfect system for us because we keep all of our laundry in one room. What I'm imagining is that they'll have a hamper and every time I throw in one of our loads I would grab their hamper and sort it into our baskets. Would that work?

When it comes to laundry, I keep things very simple. I throw in the load of laundry with a Tide pod and a scoop of OxiClean and walk away. Our cold colours & cold whites go in the dryer on delicate, I hang zero items. Warm whites go on a regular dryer cycle as we don't worry about shrinking. Warm whites used to be hot whites but I recently read an article that warm is good enough and saves energy so I made the change. Laundry is one of my favourite chores because there is a machine that does it for you. I also don't iron. I sound a bit like a slob. I do have a steam drier if an item is in desperate need, but for the most part we get by with the occasional wrinkle. 

I'm not even precious when it comes to folding. The ever elusive fitted sheet? I roughly fold or roll it in my arms and shove it in the matching pillow case with the flat sheet and other pillow case. It is only right now that I'm realizing how lazy I am about laundry. Maybe someday I'll be a bit more particular, but I actually do like my system. I'm not the greatest at cleaning, but this is easy for me to maintain and we always have clean underwear. Share your best laundry tips with me. What can I do to be even lazier? One thing I'm definitely going to introduce asap is a container for the OxiClean so that this picture could have been more palatable. Happy Tuesday! Go do a load of laundry!

Growing Our Family: Adoption

Part 2! After finding out that we couldn't have biological children, we started to research our options. As I mentioned in my past post, we regularly heard "at least you can adopt!" so of course that was one of the options that we looked into first. When you read blog posts, articles, adoption websites as a person who is infertile, you'll often see the sentiment that they don't want you to apply for adoption as a consolation prize. I really took that to heart, and didn't want to jump to adoption and be judged by an adoption worker that we weren't ready to pursue that path and hadn't properly mourned the baby we'd never birth. This made it hard to move forward with an adoption plan too quickly after our fertility journey ended. It makes you think questions that I don't know if you'd ever know the answer to, will I love an adopted child the same as a biological one? Will our families accept them the same way that they do their other grandchildren? How do we know what the right path is? 

Adoption Options is a private agency here in Winnipeg, and one of only a couple of adoption resources available for those in Manitoba. They offer a free information session for anyone looking into this path, and that was our first step. We took our time and as still our friends didn't have kids, we weren't in a rush to pursue an option until we felt peace and confidence moving forward. The information session walks you through the different international and domestic options, the costs, the time frames, and any other questions or concerns that those in the class had. It is a 2 hour evening session, and very helpful. 

Question 1: Why Domestic Adoption vs. International Adoption?
The choice between domestic or international adoption was one of the first choices that we had to make. In attending the information session, we learned that international adoption isn't as often an infant that would be adopted. At this point in our lives, we were fairly young, none of our friends had kids, and we felt more comfortable with an infant as amateur parents. Now I think I feel a little bit differently, but the decision we made then was the right one at the time. Some other reasons were the cost difference, and the ability to know medical and social history of birth parents and for the child to have a relationship with their birth parents should they both be open to that. 

Question 2: How does the application process work?
After the information session, you have an initial interview with someone to do your intake. There is a small fee and you fill in an initial adoption application that helps the provincial government track who has applied for which types of adoption and ensure that no one is applying for babies all over town. The second step is to go to an education seminar. It is a 2 day class going through the ins and outs of applying for an adoption and getting approved, as well as providing an opportunity to meet birth parents and adoptive parents and hear their stories. It was immensely helpful and we left feeling excited and at peace with our decision to continue pursuing adoption. After this, becomes the dreaded Home Study. I say dreaded because I think it's something a lot of us would fear, worrying what they'll think of us, will we pass? It was a wonderful experience. Don't be afraid of it! Our adoption worker was lovely, they aren't judging you at all, just getting an idea for who you are and what your life is like. It consisted of 5 in-person meetings, one of which took place at our home. It also includes a physical at your doctor's office, criminal record check, character references, and putting together all of your application paperwork. Once the home study was complete and application submitted, we were approved on July 10th, 2015. We had our initial interview on February 3rd, so in total it took about 5 months. 

To give a little bit more detail about the application, it is a doozy. You will answer questions that you have never thought of and that are very painful to consider. It's a good marriage exercise to consider what you would do if you adopted a child who has fill-in-the-blank health concern, or birth parents who consumed fill-in-the-blank drug. We have a copy of our application in a binder, and are open to reviewing it with anyone who is curious. Some example questions are would you adopt a child conceived from various criminal acts (prostitution, incest, rape), what percentage of different races would you be willing to accept, when does the birth mother need to know she is pregnant and how many drinks can she consume before she knows and how many after she knows? There is a lot to think about and consider. We had some heartbreaking conversations. We've been told on numerous occasions that our file is very open, which is all we can hope for as it is the part that we can control. It sounds like it wouldn't be that difficult, obviously we want a baby and if we were phoned and asked if we would accept something that we checked no to, we'd likely say yes (in fact that has happened once). However, they ask you to really consider and be closed to anything that if they called you would hesitate and not be excited. They don't want a birth parent to choose you and have you back out. 

In addition to the application of what we'd be willing to accept for our adoption, we filled out a number of documents about ourselves for the birth parents to review. There is a 8 page questionnaire including questions like What goals and expectations do you have for your children? What do you feel are the strongest points in your relationship? If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be? How were children disciplined/punished in your family? We each had to fill out those 8 pages for ourselves. We also provided a 2 page letter to the birth parents, and 4 pages of photos giving a glimpse into our life. 

Even with these three paragraphs I've barely scratched the surface of the application process, so if you are considering this yourself, please feel free to reach out and we'd be happy to get together and show you our binder and answer any questions that we can. 

Question 3: How long is the wait?
In Manitoba through our agency the birth parents choose the adoptive parents. This means there really isn't a set wait time, the very first day you're approved someone could see your file and love you and choose you, or it might take longer. They say approximately 6 months - 6 years. We are of course around 4 years now, which is longer than we expected it would be, but adoption numbers have been significantly lower than they had been historically, with single digit numbers each year, so wait times have increased accordingly. Every year we have an update to our home study where our worker comes to our home and finds out about anything that has happened in our past year and updates our file, at that time she also tells us about activity with our file. We've had basically everyone who comes in look at our file each year. So we're definitely open enough which is great news. All of the couples waiting (I believe there are around 60) are equally deserving, and we can't all be chosen so it is what it is. We've always been encouraged to just be as honest about our life as we can, because you never know what the reason will be that you're chosen. Some of the things about us that a birth parent might think are great - our age, our faith, living in the neighbourhood we live in - could all be reasons why another birth parent might not want to choose us, so we just have to wait for the right birth parent to see our file and feel a connection to our letter and pictures.

Question 4: Wait, the birth parents choose - so is this an open adoption?
At our agency all of the adoptions are open adoptions. A lot of people are leery of this at first without all of the information so I thought I'd shed a bit of light on this. Openness can vary from a photo and update every year, to regularly scheduled visits, etc. Every situation is different depending on the adoptive and birth parents comfort levels and expectations. Our plan is to follow the birth parents lead on this one, from what we've learned lots of adoptive parents who don't have a lot of contact wish they had more, so we are hoping to be as open as possible and do as much as the birth mother/father are comfortable with. Hopefully this will also allow our kiddos to know where they come from, be able to find out medical information should they need it down the road, and have a healthy relationship with their birth parents if possible. Having more people love your kid and be part of their family seems like a great thing!

Question 5: What happens when you're matched?
When we are chosen by a birth mother, we will get a phone call from Adoption Options. That will be quite a day! Most times if I get a 204 call that I don't recognize I think it's them, which can be a roller coaster of feelings. We will have a match meeting where we meet the birth parents and get to know each other better. At this point the decision isn't final, both us and the birth parents will go home and take a few days to think about whether or not we want to proceed. After we've both decided to continue, we'll have another meeting where we go over details of the adoption. At this meeting we sign the initial legal documents, discuss naming the baby, openness agreements, provide a diaper bag for use at the hospital, and go over any medical or other concerns. 

Typically, this meeting would happen within weeks of the birth. We don't expect to have more than  few weeks notice, and could be as little as a few days. We'll have to quickly get ready, but know the possibility of our adoption being reversed (the birth parents changing their mind) so we won't buy a lot of things in case. 

48 hours after the birth, our adoption worker and the birth parents will bring the baby to our home. That will give them an opportunity to tell us anything about the birth, the baby, see our home and where the baby will stay, and continue getting to know each other. There is a 21 day period in which the birth parents can change their mind. During that time, the birth parents can visit the baby and it is recommended that they do so that they can get closure and be sure about their decision. Approximately 12% of birth parents change their mind in the hospital during the 48 hours, and 8% once the baby is placed at their new home. I pray that after this wait, we aren't in a situation where a reversal takes place. 

After the 21 days, the baby will be ours. There is still some legal proceedings to take place, but birth parents can't change their mind after that time period. During that time, it's recommended we keep the baby somewhat to ourselves and keep it on the down low. I'm not great at secrets, so we'll see what we end up doing, but we expect we'd just tell our parents and siblings and potentially some friends. 

Question 6: Are you doing anything else to speed up your chances or pursue any other options? 
The 3rd part of this series is going to be about our other options to consider and what we might do next. That will provide more details on fertility options, other adoption options, etc. The only update I do want to include here, is that this July we also applied for adoption through CFS (child and family services). We went to a free information session there and applied right away. We hadn't realized we were allowed to previously, as you can only have one adoption open at a time typically. For that reason we can't apply for international while our domestic adoption is open. It turns out we can have this CFS adoption open, so we're happy to have done our paperwork and had that submitted. With CFS, things work a little bit differently. With all adoption options, once you are approved, home studies need to be updated every year. As CFS does adoptions for free, and has limited resources, they don't want to do the home study every year so we will only be called to do a home study and have an approved file once we've reached the top of the list of waiting parents. They said that if you're looking for a small child - for example, under 5, they said we'd be waiting likely 3 years to get our home study. We've been waiting 6 months so we don't expect to hear anything from CFS any time soon. Hopefully we will hear from adoption options much before 3 years and have our family begin growing! 

Question 7: How much does this cost?
A domestic adoption at adoption options is around $10,000 with variable legal fees. Costs are distributed about half at the beginning and half after being matched. If an adoption is reversed, we don't get our money back as it has been spent on legal fees that still need to be paid, birth parent counselling, etc. With CFS, the adoption is free. International adoption is significantly more, ranging from $20,000-$60,000+.

Thanks for your patience reading this huge post! Please don't hesitate to let me know if I've missed answering a question you had!

Growing Our Family: Infertility

I've had this post on my mind for a while, and have been trying to figure out what to write/when to write it. It's one of those things when you've waited so long to share that it never feels like the right time. However, I want to share our story to help get the word out about adoption, and to be a resource for those of you who might be looking into adoption yourselves! Bear with me, as I'm an awful blogger and have included exactly zero photos. I just don't have photos of us waiting on an adoption and going to infertility appointments? It took a lot out of me to write these posts and I just didn't have it in me to then try to pretty them up with photos that I try to make sense of in here. Thank you for reading all of this with no pictures!

This post is going to be part of a 3 part series that I post over the next week. We've received a number of questions and I want to provide blog posts that you aren't longer than the novel on your nightstand. We'll cover discovering our infertility, applying for adoption, and the other options that we may consider in the future, among other things. 

So let's start at the beginning. Philip & I were married on August 6th, 2011. We'd always intended to have kids of our own (I'd hoped for 5!) but wanted to wait a couple of years and be just us for a little while. I don't remember exactly when this started, but I felt prompted by God that we should start trying earlier. This sounds a little woo-woo, and I can only think of twice in my life that this has happened. I remember feeling that I couldn't trust if it was God, or my own selfish ambitions, pushing Philip to pull the goalie and see what happens. After months of arguing about it and praying about it, I threw out my birth control on Mother's Day of 2012. At the time it seemed cute and symbolic (though fluke timing as it happened to be the day I would have started my next pill package), but as you can imagine hasn't made for the best Mother's Day's over 7 years that followed. 

We were very hopeful, and had no reason to be concerned. I've always had a very regular monthly schedule, and we weren't fretting very much at all as each month things didn't go our way. None of our friends had kids yet (which is crazy to think about as we now have almost 13 kiddos in our close-knit friend group, and 3 nephews born to our brothers and sisters who weren't even married at this time) so the pressure wasn't on as much as it was later.

When we started trying, we came to the conclusion that we would also move. I had quit my job as I was really not enjoying it, and since we were moving and trying for a baby I didn't find a new one. We decided to move from our condo and buy a home so that we could do some renos before kiddo came along, and get used to some of the maintenance required before we had our hands full with a new human to learn about. We moved in August 2012 into the home we're in now and have slowly been renovating over the past 7 years. I am happy to say that our home is fully renovated now and ready to welcome our baby whenever he or she decides to join us! 

After a year had passed, we decided to go for routine checkups just to make sure everything was ok. That August, I went to my doctor who did blood tests and sent me for a pelvic ultrasound. The worst part of my ordeal was having to pee on command which anyone who knows me knows I can't do. I also remember the ultrasound tech being super harsh with us and telling Philip he wasn't allowed to come in. I don't totally understand why, isn't it kind of up to me if I'm comfortable with him being in this very private appointment or not? Philip went to his doctor, went to the Dynacare to provide his sample (which if anyone is wondering is done in a room that Philip says looks like a bathroom, but with a recliner instead of a toilet....if chairs could talk). To provide a bit of a look into that (which I'm sure you all want lol), you have 30 mins to get your sample to the clinic which is about 30 mins away from our house, so he elected to do it there. You do have the option of delivering it rather than using the creepy room though if this is something you're embarking on and it helps to have an idea of the ins and outs. 

Eventually we ended up going to see an Endocrinologist about Philip's hormone levels. We learned that he had a zero sperm count, so things weren't looking good for us. We experienced numerous delays during that time, the clinic losing our requisitions and blood results, having to redo tests only after calling dozens of times to ask if things were ready, all in all this delayed us learning any diagnosis for about a year. After the endocrinologist did all that he could do, we were referred to Heartland Fertility Clinic here in Winnipeg to see a urologist about a potential biopsy. The idea being, that if they can find a sample through a surgical biopsy, we could use it for IVF. Philip went to the urologist appointment and they basically laughed him out of the room and told us it would be a waste of money. It is still something that we could pursue, but at that point we had been poked and prodded for a year or two and felt like we wanted to take a break from that and move on to something more hopeful. Even if a biopsy was successful which they made us think it wouldn't be, we'd still be looking at a ton of doctor's appointments and procedures with the slim chance of a biological child. The biopsy is about $3000 if I remember correctly, and while the money isn't the only factor, we decided to put a pin in that at the time. 

At this point, we had to look into other options. For anyone going through infertility, I just want you to know that I know how hard it is to make these choices. Often during this time we were told, "at least you can adopt!" "what a wonderful thing to do for a child!" "have you tried this herbal remedy?" "so-and-so had this same thing happen and then got pregnant!" etc. etc. Everyone means well, but choosing to adopt rather than have a biological child is not an easy decision. There are tons of factors to consider, and you want to know that you're excited about it and have mourned the loss of being a parent to a kid that looks like you and your husband. When I think back now at being told "at least you can adopt!" I think, well that's easier said than done because we've been waiting years and years. It isn't as easy as that, and no one will understand the emotions that you're feeling. Even I, who has been through it, I'm sure feels things differently than you will. 

I often count my blessings in this whole thing. First of all, we started trying earlier than we planned, so we got on an adoption list earlier than we otherwise would have. We're definitely one of the younger couples waiting for an adoption. Secondly, we haven't experienced miscarriage. We've had our own heartbreaks over our infertility, but we've never lost a baby and for that I am forever grateful. 

In addition to counting blessings, I fall apart once in a while. I actually hold it together pretty well most of the time, but just last week had an 8 hour crying session about the fact that we just might never have kids. It's ok to be sad, things aren't going our way and it's hard to know what to do next. Writing out these posts will hopefully give our circle an idea of what we're going through and the decisions we're making, as well as provide a glimpse into how all of this works for anyone going through it. If you are going through this, feel free to reach out and ask questions too. No question is too personal, I am an open book and may not think of every question for these posts. 

Next up I'll write about applying for and being approved for adoption, as well as the stats/timeframe/etc. to answer questions that have come through. Thanks for your patience with these long posts, and thank you for your continued prayers as we wait to grow our family.