Alice is waking up from her nap just as quickly as she fell asleep, so sparing you all the words, here are some pictures from this week last week:
Hello hello! We have got an extremely busy week ahead of us. I will try and update more next week, but this week's post will be pictures with some captions--that will be a pretty good summary of the week anyway.
It's another beautiful fall week in the PNW. I wish Alice was in a carseat-loving or even carseat-tolerating stage so we could go for long drives to take in the beautiful fall leaves in this part of the country. Unfortunately that's not the stage we're in so I'll settle for enjoying the leaves around town. Luckily we live right next to the Cascades and so we can get some beautiful scenery without having to drive too far.
We are feeling pretty fortunate that no one caught Jared's covid this last week. He keeps calling covid his "blessing in disguise." His symptoms were just general cold symptoms for the most part, but he was required to stay home from work all week. He did a lot of relaxing and brushing up on interview skills. I'm probably not going to document too much on the blog about interviews Jared might have in the future because (a) this isn't a private blog and (b) anything is just hypothetical right now. But. Jared's contract with his current job will be over in a little under a year. He has loved his job here and it has been wonderful to be on salary. The town where we live is so beautiful! We love Jared's 5-minute commute. That said, Jared's pay model will be shifting to production-based at the end of the year. We'll see how that goes, but we're anticipating a pay drop and increased stress for Jared about taking time off, getting sick, etc. We will see! Maybe we'll like it better?
We're also nervous about the peer influences in the schools here after Jack moves beyond kindergarten. Not in a snooty way--we love the diversity, and the teachers are wonderful. The biggest concern is a culture for physical violence among the youth. Everyone gets bullied and beat up. It is so sad to hear our 7-year-old primary kids' updates each week about their "friends" giving them black eyes or hitting them all over. I have a neighborhood friend with a high school girl and the stories she tells me are terrifying. Death threats are so commonplace, and the daily posts on the community facebook page are awful. Would Jared and I be happy to stay longer if it was just us and no kids? Yes! Might everything be fine if we kept our kids in school here? Ya, but that just feels like something we don't want to risk if we don't have to, and homeschool would not be a good fit for Jack. The other thing on our mind is that Jack will likely benefit from a more challenging academic environment as he gets older, and there aren't resources like gifted programs or challenger schools around here. Not something we're worried much about in Kindergarten, but looking to the future we'll likely want those options available. So anyway, we're open to the possibility of a new job near family. That's probably all I'll say about it on here until Jared's contract is up next year and we've decided one way or the other.
That's about all I've got for you since we were semi-quarentining all week. Jack had two football games that he enjoyed. Alice is sleeping better through the night after a finally successful attempt at sleep training. Her naps got worse for a while but they're finally starting to catch up to where they used to be.
Oh, I'd also like to report on the life-changing magic of leaving for a regular, designated work day or afternoon if you're the home manager and/or primary caregiver in your home. This has been something we planned on ever since we moved here and knew Jared would be working a 4-day workweek, but during my pregnancy and Alice's newborn year I was in survival mode and kind of forgot about it. However, over the past few months--really since Alice's many food allergies became part of our life--the amount of time it was taking to meal plan and order groceries got out of hand and it was keeping me up well past midnight at least once a week. I was feeling sleep deprived and bitter about it. Once I sat myself down and realized hey, this problem isn't something that's going to go away, we were able to really troubleshoot and come up with a solution. And the solution was to leave the house for the entirety of every Tuesday afternoon for a work day to do the meal planning, grocery shopping, and other home-management-related items of business. It's been about a month of this and it has changed the game for me. Jared loves having that time with Alice and then Jack, and I love the peace and quiet and structure of leaving the house to get some work done at the same time every week. If Jared ever has to go back to a 5-day workweek we will either work this into a Saturday or I'll take off as soon as Jared gets home one day a week to start my own block of work time. Game changer. Sometimes I work in a McDonald's or similar with a large Dr. Pepper, other times I work in the front seat of my car in a scenic parking lot. Both are great.
Here are some pictures from our week:
Happy October! Jack has reached an age where he is very excited about Halloween--even the spooky decorations--and so at his request we already have the house almost fully decorated for Halloween. Jared and I have a tradition of watching all the Harry Potter movies during September and October. This week we put up some floating candles in our dining room and it is VERY cozy. I'll try and remember to take a picture for next week's post.
Jack is still loving kindergarten. Flag football season is in full swing and he is living his happiest football life. He has really wonderful/fun coaches and teammates. The kids are young enough that no one's keeping score at the games, but Jack has a knack for pulling flags and running touchdowns.
Alice is sweet as can be. She has started pretending to brush her hair when we hand her a brush, and pretending to pull on socks when she stumbles onto Jack's basket of socks by the front door. She also loves coloring scribbles onto paper when we hand her a crayon. I get so excited envisioning these next few years with a daughter who might love to color and pretend. It's going to be a cute time.
Poor Jared came down with a nasty cold at the end of the week and tested positive for Covid last night. The rest of us are hanging in there so far. Prayers for continued health and for a speedy recovery for Jared.
I'm enjoying the misty fall mornings and doing little home projects. The big things are all in place (at least downstairs) so at this point home projects are usually adding functionality or layers of coziness. The project I tackled last week accomplished both! Jack has been coming home from school with lots of papers and I needed a place to put the important ones so I wouldn't forget about them and tuck away the rest. My solution was an enormous magnet board right smack dab in the middle of our main living area. I got a huge piece of sheet metal from the hardware store. Very functional, but a bit of an eyesore. So I wrapped it in some leftover wallpaper from Alice's room and painted/glued some pieces of trim around the edges to frame it out. That made ALL the difference. Next I just need to get a file organizer to hang on the wall for the less important papers that still need a place to live. It's a great time in 30-something land.
