Five on Friday - Better Late than Never

Happy Friday Friends! Oh wait, it's Sunday. I missed out on Five on Friday, but I'm still going to go ahead and throw five things from my week out there for you. I'm only a couple of days late. ;-)

ONE

 

Did you know that Monday was National Dessert Day?! I saw it on the news early that morning and made sure that I celebrated. Check out this scrumptious Brownie Lover's Brownie dessert from O'Charley's. I tried to eat it all, I did, but only managed about half.  

 

 

TWO

 

I started out the week with the migraine of the decade. I have always gotten headaches, ever since I was a little girl, but they have slowly become few and far between over the years. I think I'm getting them less, but I also think I have learned how to identify triggers and prevent them from becoming debilitating little punks.

 

More often than not, when I do end up with one, the headache comes on in late afternoon or evening and I can just sleep it off. That's preferable if I'm going to have to endure one. Sunday, however, I woke up with a full-fledged migraine. I napped as much as I could during the day, took meds around the clock, and literally didn't emerge from the dark, cold dungeon of my room until 7 pm. I'm pretty sure I dropped 5 pounds too since I wasn't sleeping it off, I wasn't able to eat or keep anything down.

 

The one good thing that comes from a migraine of this magnitude is that when I awake the next morning and I do not have a headache, I'm so much more appreciative and thankful to God for a head that doesn't hurt!

I Have a Confession...

I am a blogging slacker.

Really, I go through phases. I have a phase in which I feel like I'm caught up in the blogosphere. In this phase, I'm reading all of my favorite blogs, commenting on lots of different posts, creating at least one or two posts of my own per week, responding to the comments I've received, maintaining and keeping up the friendships I've made, and making new ones.

But in my other phase, I am so far removed from the blogging world. I rarely log onto the computer and check my blog page, much less respond to any comments or keep up with what others are writing. I disappear from Twitter and Facebook, and even more than that, creating a blog post itself seems daunting. I have no topic, nothing to discuss, no experiences to share.

It may or may not be obvious that I am currently in that other phase. I have barely posted over the last couple of weeks. I managed a Five on Friday last week but that was all. And if I'm being completely honest, I forced myself to do that so that I was at least posting something. I attempted to catch up on all my favorite blogs last weekend but knew that I was missing so much by not checking in throughout the week.

Pasta, New Shoes, and Blog Issues

Happy Friday Lovelies! I hope you've had a fantastic week... and that an even more fabulous weekend awaits you. There really is just something mighty sweet about Friday. :)

And in honor of all that is Friday, here's my week in a handful.

ONE

 

I was travelling on business this week and chose to eat at the Olive Garden. I love to eat there, but it's not on my hubby's list of favorites, so it was the perfect opportunity. My Seafood Alfredo was scrumptious.

 

 

TWO

 

On Wednesday, I was casually checking the blog page when I realized my design had went a little loopy. The background consisted of multiple photos that said something about photobucket and increasing bandwith. I thought for sure I had been hacked. I only had my phone with me and couldn't do any damage control without a computer. I did figure out that it was not a hack, thanks to the awesome ladies from the SITS Girls. It was something amiss with my blog designer's photobucket. I'd been thinking about a change lately anyway, so instead of trying to fix that, I just went new. What do you think of the new and improved Seriously Kate?

Moments of Hermitude

What exactly is hermitude? According to me, hermitude is the act of or need to withdraw oneself from their surroundings and circumstances in order to sort of hide or regroup - like a hermit crab.

If you Google hermitude, you will find that there is actually a hip hop group out there that goes by that name. For today's purposes, let's go with the Kate definition. 

So, why would anyone want to enter hermitude? Beats me. But basically, I have these moments on occasion. I want nothing more than to be in my own home, surrounded by only my immediate family, doing absolutely nothing I do not want, with junk food close within reach. This includes an ice cold Coke. 

The primary attraction of withdrawing into this invisible shell is that there aren't any demands upon your time - you simply utilize the moment to purely exist. 

As women, we lead a ton of different roles in this life, and we are expected to play them simultaneously and interchange them effortlessly. It can be exhausting. No matter how organized I may be or how together I may seem, I occassionally need to pull away. I need just a few moments to be anti-social - to withdraw within my shell and take deep breaths and regroup. I need only a few minutes, at times maybe a few hours, to put down all of my roles and just be me. 

a Liebster, a Feature, and 2 Sunshines

I am pretty humbled and incredibly grateful to share with you that my little space in the blogosphere has been nominated three different times for two separate awards over the past two weeks. I really don't know what to say, except thank you. Thank you to those who nominated Seriously Kate and thank you to every single one of you who take the time to read what's going on in my life and in my head - and then continue to keep reading and sharing your thoughts.

In addition to the nominations, this post was also selected by Raising Reagan last Friday as one of her Featured Posts - another truly encouraging benchmark to motivate me to keep on keeping on in the bloggy world. Thanks Lanaya!

Now, onto the goods...

an Answered Prayer and a Sunshine Award

Hello Friends! Friday is upon us and the weekend is just around the corner. I've been a little out of the blogosphere the last couple of weeks but am intent on not falling away entirely. It's just been a little more hectic than usual and honestly, I've just chosen sleep over blogging time. :)

So, to briefly catch you up on this week's highlights, I'm going to join in with the fabulous ladies that host Five on Friday.

ONE

 

First and foremost, I want to thank each and everyone of you for your prayers this past week. Little Man's procedure went really well. They put in his second set of ear tubes and went ahead and removed his adenoids to hopefully prevent the need for a third set of tubes down the road.

 

It worked out that I had to handle this one solo. As I was sitting in the waiting room, I was getting dings on my phone with encouraging messages - it truly was a blessing. Thank you.

 

The doctors and nurses said he'd probably have a lazy weekend and need to eat soft foods for a couple of days. God answers prayer - because he was wild enough to shoot at after his afternoon nap and eating normally by the time we returned home. God is good. :)

TWO

 

Does anyone else watch NCIS? It is hands down my favorite show, maybe ever. I had a really hard time saying goodbye to Ziva this week. I'm glad though, that they finally confirmed the love between her and Tony. Even if we won't get the opportunity to see it play out, it was a nice way to say farewell. And I'll admit, I cried.