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life + happiness

Don’t Let a Summer Bucket List Run Your Life.

Written by Cassie · June 11, 2019 · This blog generates income via ads · This post may contain affiliate links

Don't Let a Summer Bucket List Run Your Life | CassieRauk.com
Don't Let a Summer Bucket List Run Your Life | CassieRauk.com

Right around Memorial Day weekend, my blog reader and Instagram feed fill up with beautiful pictures of picnics at the beach and glamping trips in the woods. The images are beautiful, and the people in them are gorgeous, and they all focus on making this the ‘best summer ever!’

These posts end with a call to create a summer bucket list (and many of them have a cute printable). The idea is so that you can put down all of the fun things that you would like to do this summer to make sure you take advantage of the fleeting days of summer.

I am a list maker and planner by nature so summer bucket lists should be right up my alley, but dear Lord do they ever create an impending source of doom and a considerable amount of FOMO.

I hate that shit.

For the majority of us, the summer does not change our work schedule. Summers, at my day job, do not consist of Taco Truck Tuesdays and Early-Out-Fridays. We slow down a bit, but a Wednesday in July and Wednesday in February are usually pretty similar.

Gang, I want you to have the best summer ever, but if you are running around desperate to check things off your summer bucket list, you are not going to enjoy any of it.

This summer, I want you to try something different:

  • Take some extra time off of work (if you are able).
  • Go on a spontaneous road trip.
  • Plant something.
  • Go camping/hiking/biking at a state park near you.
  • Sit outside in the sunshine with a book or magazine.
  • Invite friends over for a super low key dinner.

Basically, I want you to make no plans. Accept invites if they sound fun, say no if they don’t.

And love it.


Filed Under: life + happiness, VIP

Things I Learned in May (and a few books I read)

Written by Cassie · June 4, 2019 · This blog generates income via ads · This post may contain affiliate links

Quote by Kahil Gibrand

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. That means if you click through a link and buy something, I get a small commission and it doesn’t cost you any extra. Awesome, right?!

Instead of a gratitude journal, I keep a list of things that I learned in my planner with my to-do list. Paraphrasing Emily P. Freeman this list is a way of purposely looking back before moving forward.

Quote by Kahil Gibrand

You can get a lot accomplished if I turn off the podcasts/audiobooks and focus.

In April, I started taking two classes through the local Community College.  This is something that my job offers to train people for more ‘in demand’ positions within the company.  For me, that means more pay and the possibility to work from home sometime within the near future.

This was something that I applied and interviewed for, so I was in it for the long (12 weeks) haul.  Like most things, it was much more work than I was expecting.  I am not sure what I was expecting.  Something easy(er) I guess?

I struggled with homework, work work, blog work, and home-work.  But once I sat down and turned off my phone and conccentrated I was shocked by the amount of work I could get done.  Who knew?!

Apple’s Trade-in Program is pretty lucrative.

I upgraded my MacBook a few years back. I set up my new computer, wiped my old one, and set it aside. Completely forgetting about it. Right until I was moving office stuff to a new room and I found it, full of dust, on a high shelf.

I found out through The Digital Organizer’s Newsletter that Apple recycles its products, and you usually get the best price by using them directly. I filled out the form and found out I am getting more than $250 for that old dusty laptop. The money is technically an apple store gift card, but I am alright with that.

It is just easier to pay someone to wash your dog

Every spring as the snow melts, our dog finds every bone we have given him over the course of the winter. These aren’t the dried out ones that you buy at the pet store, these are beef bones that came out of the freezer so there is usually some meat left on them. So at this point, they are rancid AF.

The nasty bones wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t roll on them. And then come into the house smelling of death.

After one such incident, I grabbed some dog shampoo, a brush and brought Dru out to a sunny part of the yard were we have an outdoor faucet with the intention to give him a quick bath.

After 45 minutes and soaking wet legs I remembered why we pay someone to groom him. It is pain in the ass.

Some of the books I Read

I am a voracious reader and library user. Libby is my BFF.

Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport made me feel validated for thinking that FB is the worst; Free to Focus by Michael Hyatt made me feel validated for carrying my planner around with me everywhere; Burnout by Emily Nagoski gave me some great ideas for dealing with overwhelm; and the delightful Flavia solved another murder in As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust.

What things did you learn last month?

Filed Under: life + happiness

A Birthday Benediction

Written by Cassie · May 28, 2019 · This blog generates income via ads · This post may contain affiliate links

donut with candle, pink frosting and sprinkles

On May 26th, I turned 37 years old.

It was a quiet day.

Jesse was working so I had the house to myself.  Sometimes on Sunday morning, I like to head to the coffee shop with my laptop for a chai and a few productive hours, but today I decided to stay home.  I drug a chair outside to our new (yet to be finished) patio area with a cup of coffee and enjoyed the sunshine.

I tend to get a little navel-gazey on my birthday and this year was no exception.  This time around I decided to lean into it, instead of feeling ashamed of being self-centered.   Don’t feel ashamed about self-reflection, friends, it is the only way to grow.

So I spent the day thinking, reading and daydreaming. I also watched a fair amount of Battlestar Galactica and ate a bunch of cheese.

Do I have everything figured out?  Of course not.

I am alright with that? You bet your ass.

I want to leave you with one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems.  I hope your day is full of thinking, reading, and daydreaming.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Filed Under: life + happiness, VIP

What is saving my life right now

Written by Cassie · May 21, 2019 · This blog generates income via ads · This post may contain affiliate links

pineapple

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. That means if you click through a link and buy something, I get a small commission and it doesn’t cost you any extra. Awesome, right?!

pineapple

Spring means one thing in the midwest – mud.  And also dirty piles of melting snow.

So two things, spring means two things!

It is not my favorite time of year, the weather is volatile, and the cabin fever is high.  And right now, I am so close to being able to plant a few veggies, and I can taste it. So I am doing everything I can to keep my sanity.

Keeping track of the things that are saving my life throughout the year was something that I picked up as an exercise of self-reflection as an avid reader of Anne’s blog.  It is easy to remember what is driving you crazy but to pick out the little things that are saving you take a bit more thought.

Here a few of the simple, everyday things from my list.

what is saving my life right now | cassierauk.com

Kickapoo Coffee

I picked up a coffee grinder during the holiday sales and used that as an excuse to upgrade our coffee.  The world of coffee (and coffee snobbery) opens up to when you start grinding your own beans.  I have even started going down the pour-over road, but that is a discussion for another time.

Kickapoo Coffee is a Wisconson based company (and that makes it local for me) that focuses on great tasting coffee and fairness to farmers.  They are also the country’s only solar-powered roastery.

I usually pick my beans up at my local coffee shop, but you can order it online and they also have coffee subscriptions!

Grocery Pick-up

My go-to local grocer finally offers a grocery pick-up.  It has been a game changer for me.

I sit down with my notebook for meal planning, my cookbooks, and my Pinterest boards.  As I choose the recipes that I am planning on making for the upcoming week I add the ingredients to my cart on the grocery store website.  All I need to do then is choose the date and time of pickup, and check out.

They require a 4 hour lead time and charge $5 for the service.  And it is so worth it.

The Calm App

I am going to be straight with you, mediation is weird.  But it helps.  It helps so much.

I read Dan Harris’s book 10% Happier a few years ago, but it didn’t really sink in until late last fall.  I was so stressed out (because of the day job) I just wanted to cry.  After reading a couple more stress management books and some google searching I came across the Calm app.

Right out of the gate I loved the soothing tones of narrator Tamara Levitt’s voice.  I also fell in love hard with their Sleep Stories, where they have a variety of narrators tell you soothing tales for you to fall asleep to.  You can download the app and try a few of their beginning series out for free.

Toby

At any given time I have anywhere between 10 and a million tabs open.  That might be a bit of a stretch, but not by much.  Toby is a chrome (and Firefox) extension that helps you index your open browser tabs.

That might be one of the nerdiest sentences that I have ever typed.

Check out the Toby website and watch the video and you will see what I mean.

What is saving your life right now?  Let me know in the comments!


Filed Under: life + happiness, VIP

a new day

Written by Cassie · May 7, 2019 · This blog generates income via ads · This post may contain affiliate links

No one ends up exactly where they planned to, do they?

I wasn’t one of those girls who planned her wedding, picked out the names of her future children and decorated the fantasy house.

My husband I and did have some plans, though, when we got engaged.  We were going to buy some land from my folks, build a small-ish house, have a kid or two and be happy.

Instead – my mom died of breast cancer 3 months before our wedding,  Jesse and I signed a contract for deed for my family’s farm, my dad continued to live in the house, with us, as he struggled to get on his feet in this new life without his wife, we found that children would be impossible without expensive fertility treatments or expensive adoption, and recently my dad died suddenly the day after his 67th birthday.

So, things aren’t going as we planned.  But you know what?  Things are OK.

a new day | cassierauk.com


 

Filed Under: life + happiness

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Howdy, I’m Cassie

Rural Gal. INTJ. Voracious Reader. 8w9. Enthusiastic Eater. Questioner. My sarcasm is on point and I am loud for no reason at all.
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