Our odd, transitional 3-month summer of dreams is officially behind us, with Jared starting work and Jack starting preschool tomorrow. It has certainly been a ride. Not what I expected, but still good. When I first heard that Jared couldn't start work until September, I was like, "Sweet, mandatory 3-month party." I imagined we'd quickly get unpacked into our house, I'd spend most weekdays working full time on getting our home design figured out while Jared got a taste of what it's like to be the primary stay-at-home parent, and also lots of exploring and PNW adventures mixed in there.
In the end, our first month was spent panicking and finding documents to be able to move into our house. The second month was spent bouncing around to reunions and such. The last month was a bit of a mishmash, but there was a cruise in there!! We're probably only halfway unpacked into our house, and as far as "interior design" goes, I was lucky if I got one full, solid work day each week to hash it out. I've saved a lot to my pinterest boards but haven't really made it to the next stage. There were several enormous unexpected costs associated with closing on our house that made it so we've been kind of limping along on our savings until Jared can start making a paycheck again. We're not starving or anything, but it's going to be quite a while until we've got a fully furnished home. We had a side account for getting our house set up that at least was enough to get our living room put together so we have one mostly done place to settle into.
I've discovered that buying new furniture is overrated--for me and my tastes at least. Well, unless you can afford the really nice stuff, I guess. The new pieces we bought for our living room were from Wayfair and Target, and they just don't have as much character as a lot of the stuff I thrifted in Wyoming. The quality's honestly not as good either, it's just newer. I told Jared that we can finish the main floor in new stuff since that's his preference (our downstairs is pretty small so that's not much of an undertaking), but when I design the upstairs I'm going to go back to my thrifting roots and have some fun. I think I truly prefer a good thrifted treasure to a new Target chair, especially with the price comparison factored in.
So we're not as put together in our house at this point as I imagined, and we didn't explore much outside of our little town of Granite Falls, but we have a nice home, and we got to see Alaska, so overall a really great summer! One of the best ones yet! It was so nice for Jared to catch an extended break from work after 7 years of really intense studying and working. We've loved having him around.
Bring on fall and a new routine! I don't know exactly how it's going to look yet, but I do hope that most days end with me in my favorite spot in the house--our master bath with a private sunset view. (You know, for some much needed relaxation before Jack wakes me up no less than SEVEN times during the night because he's "scared." Send help. And prayers that I can summon the strength to pull it together and sleep train him again. I've made several feeble attempts but always relapse when I realize he's genuinely scared. It's so much harder to sleep train once they've learned to talk, and once they're no longer trapped in a crib! Our next child will be cribbed indefinitely. And once they outgrow their crib, I'll just build them a bigger crib. This is a good life plan I think. I've tried "cribbing" his room by making it childproof and putting one of those doorknob locks on the inside. But he genuinely panics when I close the door and I always end up caving and leaving it cracked. I can tell when he's playing me, and he's not with this. He's actually scared. At least we've progressed to the point where he stays put while he's falling asleep. But all bets are off in the middle of the night. And that's my sleep woes novel for the week! If you have any ideas, leave them in the comments. Even if you're a stranger. I usually don't check the comments but this time I'll try and remember to.)
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