I can't believe we're so close to Christmas. Jared's new job is starting really slow with the patient load because it's a fairly new clinic, so he has actually had quite a bit of free time when he's at work. He asked me to send him a family picture from our last week together in Washington so he could turn it into a Christmas card. He was so excited to bring home a whole bundle of Christmas cards that evening, and then I noticed that the cards are from "The Johnson Family"😂 I was all for keeping them and sending them out to close family and friends anyway because (a) they'd think it was funny, (b) most of them will end up in people's trash cans anyway after the holidays, and (c) It feels like a good reflection of the chaos of our year to have the wrong name on our holiday card😂 He did end up ordering a new batch but I fully plan on sending the original version to my siblings.
It's been a pretty good week over all. I got a few family pictures on our wall to help it feel a little more like home. We are settling in more and more--Jack is getting off to school without much problem anymore, and we've made some tweaks to the bedtime routine that seem to be helping (the "tweak" is that mom leaves the house entirely to take Savvy on her walk and then spends time writing during the hour before and after bedtime--we discovered that if I'm in the house AT ALL the kids will sob and sob because they want me in their presence 100% of the time if they know I'm home; everyone does much better with Jared doing bedtime, especially now that he's working all day so that's his only time with the kids). Jack goes to primary better now that he knows and likes his teachers and the kids in his class. So all said and done, I'd say it's taken about a month in our new home to get to a place of feeling like I can catch a breath here and there.
That said, it's still tough. And I like to write these things down so that the next time I'm going through a similar difficulty (which will be in about a year most likely for our next move) I can look back and get a feel for how long it took to get through the weeds the previous time. I'm so glad we were able to keep a majority of our furniture and have some things ready to put right up on the walls to make it feel more like home. I'm glad I've gone the "quick" approach with decorating instead of the precious approach that would take longer, knowing we'll only be here a year anyway. I do feel at home and happy about our house and neighborhood already. However, I still feel like I'm navigating some discomfort at being unsettled. I don't feel like myself, and that wasn't helped by getting a drastic haircut right after we moved, oops😅 I kind of feel like I'm living someone else's life in this post-move era. Next go around we're hoping to have a few weeks of overlap between when we need to be out of our rental and into our home, so we can move one room at a time and start fresh with everything a little more organized in our next home. It's a little chaotic here and by the time everything is put away nicely and NOT chaotic, it will most likely be time to start thinking about packing up to move again. Le sigh. Grateful to be here though, and reminding ourselves that moving is just a season, and there is joy and community and home on the other side.
And we already have a good bit of community and joy and home now! We had my parents over for dinner once this week, and my high school bestie's family. I should have taken pictures but we were having too much fun for that. So now, some other pictures from our week:
^^Alice with the street style walking around our neighborhood. She loves winter clothes/accessories.
^^A very cool sunset from my walk with Savvy on the trails near our home. We chose this neighborhood based on its close proximity to foothill trails and I am SO happy we did. A quiet sunset walk in the foothills is my happy place. Currently this is only happening on the weekends because it's too dark by the time Jared gets home to be roaming around the mountains, but come springtime I plan to be here daily.
^^Alice in her happy place--on a step stool with some cheese.
^^Jack scooping molasses cookies. The Christmas activities have been less frequent than usual this year but we're still making up for it with the 15-foot Christmas tree:
^^Jared took the kids sledding while I put our family pictures up on the wall on Saturday afternoon.
