Check in, check out
I enjoy those who do weekly or monthly life updates. I don’t plan (right now) on doing a similar cadence. Partly because I usually don’t consider my life that exciting—which, honestly, I’m enjoying things being boring right now.
Family
In my year-end recap, I mentioned my youngest was doing longer stretches splitting his time between homes. Little did I expect that less than two weeks after that update, he’d be at my place since and will likely continue until he’s off to college in the fall.
That has meant staying in Ottawa and keeping travel to a minimum. He and I went to Paris for March break where we stayed at an Airbnb in Le Marais. We spent too much money on clothes and food, including three Michelin-starred L’Ambroisie. We had a mostly decent experience there but not as good as I was expecting, given a lot of the online reviews I had read. We made up for it by going to Five Guys the next day.
It’s nice having more one-on-one time with him before he flies the coop.
He just went to his prom. I never went to my prom and my oldest missed out due to the pandemic so I’m glad my youngest got to have that experience. He won an award for Best Style. Unsurprising. He’s always been a stylish kid.
As for me, I’m happy to be in a place right now where I can support those around me.
I’m focused on downsizing in preparation for the empty nest. I’ve been selling or giving away things I don’t need anymore. My spending has dropped considerably, which has been nice.
Reading
I’ve started to spend more time reading. I felt like I was spending too much time on social media in general and TikTok in particular. I enjoy the inspiration that can come from TikTok—especially with cooking and cocktails—but needed to…diversify the inspiration.
I finally finished Think Little by Wendell Berry. I appreciate the message of preserving the environment but I found the writing style a bit underwhelming. Having finished that, I went back to reading Romance Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld, which is a light book about a comedy writer working for a fictional version of SNL falling in love with a celebrity host. I’m enjoying it. I have a few other fiction titles lined up for when I’m done that including The Perfume Collector, Service Included, and Food Person.
Music
I go in waves with music. I rarely listen to albums, instead preferring to listen to singles and then adding them to a big playlist. Again, TikTok comes in as my place of inspiration. Sometimes the algorithm will narrow in and give me just music recommendations and that’s where I’ll start adding different things. Dreamwalker by Dogpark has a Maroon 5 feel. Kilby Girl by The Backstreet Lovers. Indie Hills by Jonny K. Oh, and Dead Beat City by Kids That Fly. That’s a song to crank nice and loud while driving with the sunroof open.
For something more chill, Texas Sun by Khruangbin & Leon Bridges is so smooth. Love that guitar. Which lead me to Leon Bridges’ Smooth Sailin’.
I’ve added a couple songs from Galdive and St Paul & The Broken Bones to the list. And when I couldn’t get enough of Jungle, I feasted on Loaded Honey’s recent releases.
My playlists are on Apple Music and while Current Vibes is my main playlist, I’ve been slowly curating my other playlists, too.
The Bar
I stopped buying whisky as I wasn’t drinking it nearly enough to get through everything I was buying. My urge to “collect them all”, even with a particular brand, was getting to be a bit much. For example, I love Octomore but they release four bottles every year. I hadn’t finished off the 9 series but then I bought the 10 and 11 and 12 and 13 and 14 series. Now I have 20 bottles of Octomore sitting on the shelf.
Instead, I’ve been buying vermouth and amaro and other interesting liqueurs. China China and Fernet Branca Menta were the recent additions. I fear I am no further ahead in these matters. Now I just have 20 bottles of liqueurs on top of the 20 bottles of whisky.
Last cocktail I made was The Getaway. Although I just used lemon juice instead of a lemon/lime split. I’d totally have it again.
Summertime
Here’s to a good summer. With the warmer weather, I look forward to relaxing outside, having a drink, and catching up on my reading.