Step Into My Week 1.19

 It's feeling obvious that today is the first day back to work after a long weekend, and the delay in getting this post live just about confirms that. Even still, I hope you enjoy reading about what I've been up to over the past week. 

It didn’t feel too overwhelming to be the start of a new week on Monday since I had already done most of my meetings for the week the previous Friday, so I didn’t feel like I would be stuck on video meetings all morning and could instead get some of my other to-dos crossed off. I went to the office that morning and arrived there around 8:30, which gave me some time at my desk before pulling surfaces and props for a shoot scheduled for Wednesday. I was able to make some returns and send out a couple of emails between doing that and the meeting I had at 11:00 with our team of stylists. That meeting only lasted about 30 minutes, and once it wrapped, I headed home to work from there the rest of the day. I made a quick stop at Trader Joe’s on the way there to get a couple of ingredients for a dip I was making that evening. Once I was home, I spent my lunch break making a chicken and sausage gumbo recipe from The Defined Dish cookbook while listening to a podcast episode. My afternoon was spent sending out emails and responding to ones that came in with a 30-minute virtual tasting happening mid-way through the afternoon too. Once the workday was over, I rinsed off, made the swiss and bacon dip I had gotten ingredients for earlier, and did some blog work before a friend came over so that we could eat dinner before watching the National Championship game at another friend’s house that evening. Fortunately, the game didn’t turn out to be much of a nail bitter, so we were able to enjoy watching it and hanging out. It ended close to 11:00, which is late for me on a work night, so I read a little before eventually going to bed. 

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Tuesday morning, I was tired but had a long list of work tasks I wanted to get done on my one full work-from-home day of the week. It felt like I was doing bits and pieces of everything without fully crossing anything off, which kind of frustrated me, but instead of letting that mess with my productivity, I decided to use my lunch break to go on a walk with Nell to break up the day. I was also convinced most of the day that it should have been much later in the week than it was, which threw me off. My afternoon was more productive as I was able to confirm a lot of things for upcoming shoots and try to get ahead. Since I was at home for the day, I also decided to do laundry and continued with my previous week’s organizing efforts, and organized the chest of drawers in my room once my workday was over. I did a Peloton arm and ab workout before showering, eating dinner, and heading over to Nell’s apartment to watch the previous night’s episode of The Bachelor. 

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I had a shoot on Wednesday for a spring meal for one of our food titles. I had already pulled all of my props, so I was able to get to the office around 8:00 to get going on it. We finished up a little after lunch, and I put away my props from the day and went ahead and pulled props for the next day while I was there. I spent my afternoon getting some work done from home before deciding to go on a run. I hadn’t run since hurting my ankle back in October and was interested to see how it would go. I think the cold weather helped since I was able to run a 5k comfortably. I did a true40 glute workout when I got back and then showered, got a bit more work done, and ate dinner. I thought we were going to have bible study virtually that night, but that didn’t end up happening, so I could get in bed early and read before going to sleep. 

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I woke up early on Thursday to get some blog computer work done before going to the office for my shoot. We were shooting summer desserts this day and flew through them, finishing before lunch. I stayed at the office to eat my packed lunch so that I could put my props away and get a few other things done while I was there. Once I got home, I decided to start some laundry and wash my sheets to pack for my weekend trip, and come home to a cleanroom. I was able to cross most everything else off of my to-do list that afternoon and successfully packed before heading out to dinner with Hunter. We went to The Filling Station in Crestwood before heading to his house to watch a show until I left to go to sleep.

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Friday morning, I finished up packing and had a couple of meetings before being picked up by Nell and our friend Mary to head to North Carolina for the weekend. One of our friends here has a mountain house in Brevard, so we were on our way for a laid-back girl’s weekend there. We stopped at The Varsity for a late lunch and made it to the cabin a little before 6:00. That night we had pasta and homemade bed and sat up talking over hot chocolate before going to bed.

Our plans for the weekend weren’t too structured, which meant waking up a little before 9:00 and making breakfast before heading to explore downtown, Brevard. We had lunch at a soda shop called Rocky’s, and it was snowing as we popped in and out of some shops. In the afternoon, we curled up in the living room with books and read and hung out for a while before making dinner. We built a fire that night and ate s’mores with our hot chocolate while just hanging out. 

Since we all had Monday off, we were able to enjoy a full-day on Sunday as well. We had a big breakfast of waffles, bacon, and eggs before venturing on a hike to a waterfall. It was chilly, but it felt so nice to be outside and stretch our legs. We had lunch out in the downtown area again and went to a pottery shop and the store before retreating home. I got started on dinner when we got back, and we all continued to hang out and do our own things in the afternoon. That night we decided to watch the new Little Women movie and ate dinner on TV trays downstairs as it started. I eventually snuck back upstairs for a s’more, and after the movie ended, we all decided to call it a night. 

On Monday, we packed up in the morning before eating breakfast and heading to walk around the camp Nell attended growing up. Everything was dusted in snow, which made it that much prettier. We then got in the car to head to Tandem (in Traveler’s Rest, SC) for lunch with my friend Sophia on our way back to Birmingham. It was so fun getting to catch up with her at an old favorite restaurant, even though it was brief. We made it back to Birmingham around 5:00, and I unpacked, talked on the phone with my parents, and showered in preparation for the week ahead. Hunter had made lasagna for dinner, so I went over to his house to eat that. We watched a couple of Planet Earth episodes before I fell asleep on the couch and left to go to bed. 

I hope that many of you were able to enjoy a long and restful weekend. It’s so nice that this week is a short one!