The Happiness Edit (My Top 5 Ways to Bring More Joy in this Chaotic Season)

Well here we are, friends… it’s almost Halloween, which means it’s about time to schedule my annual menty b. Is it just me or does it always feel like fall is the absolute best UNTIL the calendar hits about mid-October and life explodes into a dumpster fire?? It is? Okay then.

For real, between kids’ sports, band recitals, dance rehearsals, class parties, football games, Spirit Week (how much do I hate Spirit Weeks? Lemme count the ways…), birthdays and ALL THE THINGS… it just seems like everything hits the week before Halloween. So here we are. Mental breakdown right on cue.

Earlier this week I was tucking my tween daughter into bed and she mentioned she couldn’t find this new pair of jeans that I’d had hemmed for her. They weren’t particularly expensive (Old Navy FTW) but just the thought of wasting money on alterations to only have been worn a few times was more than I could bear. So I did what any sane mother on the brink of a breakdown would do: drew myself a bath, poured a giant glass of Oregon Pinot and fired up RHONY on the iPad. Good night family! Mom’s off the clock.

Once I calmed down (and texted every friend who could potentially have these jeans at their house) I waked into my son’s closet just to double check and of course they were there. Crisis averted.

I digress… the point of this edit is sometimes you just have to focus on the things that bring you joy even when life feels hard or crazy.

So without further adieu, here is The Happiness Edit (alternatively titled: “Top 5 things I’m currently loving).

Pilates. As a former fitness instructor (I taught here in LO at both Barre3 and The Bar Method, which are excellent workouts and I highly recommend) finding a workout that feels good in my body without aggravating my multiple injuries that also feels for my mental health is challenging. I absolutely LOVED doing barre workouts because they reminded me of being a dancer (a lifetime ago LOL). But once I started teaching going to the studio was no longer a place of zen where I could focus on my own workout. Instead they became work and I was always distracted or worried or thinking about my next class or a particular client going through a hard time or figuring out how I was going to avoid having to teach back-to-back classes on a Saturday morning. After rehabbing a sacral stress fracture in 2021, I’ve had years of PT and other healing modalities and the only thing I’ve been able to do consistently is pilates. I’ve been training for the past year with my darling friend Pilates with Danii who just opened her brand-new studio in Lake Oswego. She’s fabulous and her pilates-pretty-girly vibes are exactly what I needed to get back on track after a long few years. So if you live around the PDX Metro area, I highly recommend checking her out and taking her intro reformer class. Especially if, like me, you have struggled with hip/back injuries and are looking for a low impact workout that also strengthens the core.
Homemade Sourdough. I’ve always loved being in the kitchen and experimenting with no-recipe recipes (I’m a rebel at heart… I do what I want.) I’ve finally taught myself how to bake fresh sourdough from scratch. After several misfires and thanks to some fool-proof 100-year-old San Francisco sourdough from my brother-in-law, I’ve finally cracked the code. I’ll share my tips here soon but for now, baking a fresh loaf for my family every other day is giving me immense pleasure. I love everything about the process, from feeding the starter to watching it rise to measuring out the flour, water and levain (that’s what you call starter that’s risen) with a fancy food scale, I feel like freaking Ina Garten up in here! And my fam definitely isn’t complaining about having fresh bread for toast, sandwiches, even french toast for breakfast and I use the leftovers (if there ever are any) for cheesy croutons on salads. Fresh sourdough is actually in my definition of heaven on earth.
Succession. I know I’m totally late to the party but my husband and I are totally obsessed with the Roys. We’ve been watching an episode a night since school started and we’re almost done with the series. There’s something about Tom + Greg that just puts me in the best mood before drifting off to sleep. I’m going to be so sad when it’s over (I think we have like 2 more episodes) so leave suggestions in the comments of what we should watch next! No murder or death vibes though ok?
Daily Walks. Okay this one has been in the daily routine for a while now but I absolutely notice a huge difference in my mental health when I can’t get my daily walk in. My husband and I have made a habit of taking a walk every morning (usually when I get back from pilates or finish an at-home Pvolve workout, which I’m also loving BTW) with our sweet dog (she’s a Bernedoodle named Gia.) It’s seriously contributing to the positive vibes in this chaotic season of life. And in the words of the great Elle Woods, “Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. And happy people don’t shoot their husbands.” So walking is basically free, you can do it any time of day and it’s so easy to incorporate into the daily routine.
Trying New Bomb Recipes. One of my absolute favorite things to do on Sunday mornings is make a yummy coffee (with foamed whole grass-fed milk, raw honey and cinnamon of course) and sit on the couch with my iPad and scroll through Pinterest for recipe ideas. We try to cook dinner @ home on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays , Wednesdays and then one weekend night (usually Saturdays). But all of that cooking can get boring and sometimes I feel stuck in a rut. So we made an effort to try out some new dinner ideas (definitely comfort food vibes) and some of the highlights my fam has been loving this month included: an easy Coq au Vin (LOVED this recipe from Half Baked Harvest, don’t sleep on the sage butter mash!); a spicy Penne Arrabbiata with a surprise twist, we added Italian sausage (full disclosure this one was all my husband); and Chicken Saltimbocca alla Romana (the traditional Roman dish is with veal but we love chicken as an alternative so our 10-year-old doesn’t have a meltdown over eating baby cows). Recipes coming soon here but another thing we didn’t really plan this fall but has been happening almost every week is a big fun Sunday dinner. We have family or friends over, crack open some yummy vino and test out those new recipes. It’s usually a pasta TBH. It’s the best way to end a weekend and way more fun than dealing with Sunday Scaries. After all, the laptop is slammed shut til Monday morning, amiright?

Hope you all are finding happiness this season because buckle up buttercups, the holidays are just around the corner and it’s going to get gnarly. So hopefully this helps inspire you to bring little moments of happiness into your week even when life is bonkers.

Enjoy lovelies! XOXO, Jules