Guest Crazy and a Family Photo

I get super weird when guests come to visit. Not when they're actually here, but in the week leading up to it. I stress about all the home projects we NEED to finish before the guests arrive. (None actually need finishing. Our home is great and mostly decorated by this point.) Usually I pick the biggest, most complicated project to finish and I'm not able to finish it in time anyway. I also stress about the meal schedule and all our snacks, and will they even like fig bars and greek yogurts? Guess I better run to the store one last time for ice cream sandwiches in case they need easy dessert access, and also a bag of red peppers in case they're trying to eat only raw foods. 

Then the day before the guests arrive I get even weirder. Usually the house is in shambles that day because I've spent my whole week trying to take on random home decor/organization projects that are only half finished and absolutely won't be done in time. I know that I SHOULD be spending the day doing laundry so I can get the guest bed all made, and cleaning the house so I'm not stressed out the day they arrive. But of course, usually I use this time to remember one final project that MUST be finished before they get here or the world will completely fall apart!!!!! (It won't. Not even a little.) So I don't even start doing the laundry or cleaning until 4 hours before they get here, and of course Jack is at an age where really nothing gets done unless he's asleep. It's a huge adrenaline rush and I become a big sweaty mess. When all's said and done and the guests get here, I'm able to chill out and be fine. But man, those few days before are an unnecessary whirlwind. Which is so weird because I'm generally the most low-key, chill person on the planet. I'm excited to hit my 30s. That's when you stop caring what people think of you and your house and your snack drawer, right?

This last week, my best friend Julie and her husband and baby came to visit. (Julie, if you're reading this, hey girl! We miss you!) They were only here for one night--they were driving home to Idaho Falls from a family reunion near Mt. Rushmore. The project I decided I "needed" to do before they got here was making a shelf I designed for the guest room to hang my weavings from. It's a really cool shelf--all black, spanning the entire length of the room, and with a hundred or so holes on the bottom of it from which to hang weavings from S-hooks. On top I'll display plants and family pictures. I'm excited to see it installed, but it has been a beast to construct. The day before Julie got here, I realized there was no way I could get it finished in time and I was able to drop it.

But then, when I woke up Thursday morning, knowing full well they'd be here by early afternoon, I was like, "The world will END if we don't have a recent family picture displayed prominently on the wall in our living room!!!" Don't ask me why I thought this. Julie is very chill and wouldn't have noticed or cared either way. We do have a large photo of me and puppy Savvy in the living room, but no large family pictures or pictures of my actual human baby. I've been self-conscious about that for a while but never gotten around to printing a nice family picture. And by this point, the most recent nice family photo we had was taken 7 months ago for our Christmas card. 

Jared's work shift wasn't going to start until 9:00 a.m., so when Jack woke up I threw some bright happy outfits on everyone and marched us out to the prairie with my trusty camera tripod. I snapped a couple pictures, hoped for the best (no time to actually check--Jared had to go home and get ready for work), and when Jack went down for his morning nap I found the best one and edited it. The final result is the picture you see above. Turned out pretty cute, right? In this instance it worked out great that I'm a crazy person before guests come. If I weren't, this lovely family photo would never have happened. And Jack's growing so fast that I'm glad we captured his classic one-year-old toothy grin and cowboy boots before he's outgrown them. 

I spent the next hour trying to print the photo at home, but unfortunately we own the cheapest printer on the planet and the photo would only print in all green or all pink--even when I tried to print it in black and white. With only two hours to go before they were scheduled to arrive, I finally decided to let the picture thing go and get cleaning. Luckily Jared got home from work early, and Julie+co were delayed an hour or so. I was able to run to Walmart and have them print the family picture for me after all. And now, what do you know, our living room finally feels complete! Our nice family picture hangs right by the front door and makes our house feel way more like home than it already did.

We had such a wonderful time with Julie, Brandon, and baby Davis that night. Jared had to go to a fancy residency dinner, but afterward he came home and we played board games together and chatted. I wish they were able to stay another day so we could have shown them the prairie and talked more about what's going on in their lives. It's definitely harder to have deep conversations now that we both have needy babies. Luckily, they're hoping to be in Utah for dental school soon and we're planning to settle down back in Utah after Jared's student loans are paid off. Hopefully our paths will cross in Utah for at least a year or two. Julie's the type of best friend that's easy to have and to pick up where we left off after going years without seeing each other. I'm so grateful for her. I'm also grateful for all you other guests who have come to see us. Without you, our home would never get decorated, so you the real mvps.