Category: Lifestyle

Friday Favorites {07.29.22}

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Happy Friday! It’s been a super busy week at the Lane house this week. I don’t know how, but it always feels like all of the things end up scheduled for the same week. There were hair appointments, school appointments, grooming appointments, not to mention just a busy work week, all pushed together in one week! Whew! I’m glad it’s Friday, and Nathan and I are headed out on a date night tonight!

If you read my WUW post earlier this week, then you know that we have a very special TWO year’s old birthday this weekend!

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July 2022 Book Review

Posted on by Lauren Lane

It’s time for my monthly book review! I didn’t get through as many books as I wanted to this month, so I only have two books to review for you. I always wondered how people found time to read. Having really little kids at home, I feel like I rarely have a free minute. And when they go to bed, I ALWAYS choose to veg on the couch and watch TV. Always. It’s my way of relaxing and calming down.

But about a year ago, my husband said he had joined Audible, which is an audiobook app, and that I should listen to the new Matthew McConaughey book. Well, I did. And I loved it. Thus began my reincorporation of ‘reading’ again. I listen when I take the dog for a walk, folding clothes, making dinner, doing yard work. And it’s been the best thing to finally get to enjoy the very long reading wishlist I had kept for years before discovering audiobooks.

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Let’s Look At…Keeping Healthy

Posted on by Lauren Lane

It’s Let’s Look day with Shay @ Mix and Match Mama and Erika @ A Little Bit of Everything! If you’re new here, it’s one day a month that we share a little peak into some aspect of our lives. So far this year, I’ve shared:

And today, we’re talking about keeping healthy. How ironic that I’m sitting down to write about staying healthy on a day where I really don’t feel healthy….mentally, physically….But that’s just it. It’s not a straight line of healthiness at all times. It’s having habits that direct us back to feeling our best. There are a lot of facets of keeping healthy for me:

Staying Active. I’m a Bar Method devotee. I’ve been an almost daily regular at Bar classes since 2013. Days that I start my day with Bar have me feeling more energized and awake even though I get up two hours earlier before the boys on work-out days. I feel it the days that I miss class, which has me all the more excited to get back ASAP. It wasn’t very long ago that I wrote a whole blog post about my active lifestyle, and it really covers it all.

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Friday Favorites {07.01.22}

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Oh my goodness, this week was busy! Harrison went to a soccer camp, and work seemed to be super busy, but we made it! I hope you had a good week, too! We’ve had a lot of wonderful things going on the past few weeks, and I’m going to share some of my favorites today!

Harrison spent a week at my parents’ cabin with his cousin, Everly. You guys, they had THE BEST time. I have to admit, I was a little nervous going into it. It was his first time away from us for so long, and he’s four years old and his cousin is five, and man, they can be a HANDFUL sometimes. But it sounds like Mimi and Papa more than survived. They thrived! And the kids have so many awesome memories running around the cabin and playing in the forest.

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June 2022 Book Review

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Happy book review day! I’m sorry I disappeared last week. I was feeling exceptionally uninspired, so I just gave myself a week off to recharge. But this week, it’s book review week and What’s Up Wednesday tomorrow. Those are two of my most favorite posts each month!

Last June was my very first book review ever on Sunwashedlinen.com. And it’s all because I found audiobooks. I could finally fit ”reading” into my very busy ”mama” schedule. So happy that I found Audible and that I’ve gotten to read so many books over the past year!

I read three books this month. Two audiobooks and one hard copy book. One I adored, one was pretty good, and one just average. So, let’s get into it…

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Friday Favorites {06.10.22}

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Happy Friday, friends! It’s been a busy week around here. I was traveling for work for a few days, which always seems to make the week fly by. I hope you have something fun planned for the weekend!

Can I be really honest with you for a sec? 2020/COVID really kind of burned me out to my very core.

I loved doing special adventuring with, back then, just Harrison and me. It filled me up. I used to be on a flexible work arrangement that allowed me to do something special with Harrison every Friday.

But COVID quarantine, working full time with him home, then having both boys be home, honestly just knocked me on my booty. And in the past year, more often than not, even when I’ve had the option of being able to have the boys at home because I had PTO to use or a holiday, I opted to send them to daycare because I truly have felt like I’m still recovering from the depletion that was 2020.

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What’s Up Wednesday {05.25.22}

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Edit: My heart is heavy and shattered given the events in Texas yesterday. The fact that we’re here as a nation weeping again at the loss of innocent little lives in America. That we did nothing as a nation to change the course of the future after Newtown makes me sick to my stomach. That we live in a country that it seems the risk we take with sending our children to school in this country includes a higher risk of being shot and killed in their school than every other developed nation. It’s inexcusable. Exhausting. Heart wrenching. It makes me want to hold my babies close to me and never let them out into this seemingly cruel world.

I’m not tone deaf. And truthfully, I considered just pushing delete on this post. All of it was written before this horrific event. But it’s written. And it’s fun to read. So I’m going to leave it here because these are my memories that I want to be able to go back and read for myself. But where I’m personally at tonight, as I sit here in my pj’s having tucked my precious boys into bed, is a mess. Angry. Pleading with my fellow Americans. Can we please compromise to do something to move in the right direction to fix this. We must be better than this.

My favorite post of the month! A post with a little bit of everything. A little bit of food and recipes, a little bit of books, a little bit of looks at family, and lots more! I can’t believe we’re at the end of May getting ready to gear up for summer.

As always, I’m linking up with Shay and Sheaffer to share with you what’s going on in our life!

1: WHAT WE’RE EATING THIS WEEK:

I can not stop. You guys, I love these Chicken gyros, and they are on the menu again this week. AHH. So good!

Some homemade pizza and sundried tomato pasta with creamy burrata rounds out the week. Yum!

2: WHAT I’M REMINISCING ABOUT:

Another fun soccer season for our little man!

We’ve had so much fun watching Harrison play this spring. He truly loves soccer. Every day he comes home and asks to play soccer, so we’ve had so much fun watching him get to do something he really loves with his friends. He may be the most into it four year old soccer player on the team, but we love every minute of getting to watch him!

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May 2022 Book Review

Posted on by Lauren Lane

You want to know how I know the weather started to improve in Kansas City, my children weren’t sick for an eternity and home for school, and I spent time on walks and gardening? I read four books this past month. Because I listen to all of my books, I stick in AirPods usually once a day if I can, and spend 20-30 minutes on a walk or outside gardening, and listening to a book. And this month there were some really good ones!

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How I Stay Active: A Q&A

Posted on by Lauren Lane

It’s taken me awhile to get to a point in my life that I have a good routine going around staying active. Through all of my growing up years up through high school, being active was just simply part of life. I was a dancer, and spent sometimes 20 hours a week at the dance studio. But like so many, college came, and that routine went away, and it took me awhile to figure out what worked for me again. I’m sharing a few Q&A’s about my active lifestyle now, including the grace I give myself in this phase of life.

When did you start getting on a consistent exercise schedule as an adult?

I think like a lot of people, in my early adulthood, I went through phases of exercising. I’d go through a phase of doing nothing at all. Followed by a phase of going to the apartment complex gym every day and doing 30 minutes of elliptical. Then there’d be another phase where I’d do nothing.

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Friday Favorites {05.06.22}

Posted on by Lauren Lane

The past week and a half have felt more like…many weeks. Both of the boys ended up with Influenza A, and some really terrible side effects of Tamiflu. The washing machine was running non-stop all week, if you know what I mean. But I think we are finally on the up and up again. This year has just seemed particularly bad with viruses. I swear one or both boys has been home every other week since the beginning of the year.

But, dare I say, I’m really excited for this weekend! We are back at soccer on Saturday, and celebrating Mother’s Day on Sunday.

This morning, I’ve got to get myself ready to take the boys to school for Muffins with Mom at their daycare. It’s our very first in-person holiday party at school since December of 2019 when Harrison looked like this…

So to say I’m very excited to get to celebrate with my boys at school is an understatement!

I’ve got almost all of the plants I need for my garden this year! This year’s colors are…all of them. Every last thing that looked pretty and drew my eye.

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