I'm feeling relieved we didn't blow away in the wild windstorm we got over the weekend. It felt like we were in Wyoming all over again. Gusts exceeded 80 mph, and our northern windows rattled for several hours until it calmed down. We drove up to our new home to see how it fared, and it held up fine. They wrapped our home in weatherproof wrapping last week, and the windy thunderstorm was the perfect trial run for how it would hold up. Luckily, we couldn't find any leaks from the sideways rain blasting the house all night. This is a relief, especially since they put our flooring in on Thursday. We are at the stage in the home build where finishes and cabinetry will be going in soon. This means we will be locked out in the evenings from being able to do our nightly walkthrough, but that's ok. We'll still get the key from the sales office and pop in to check on things every week or so.
This week I have immersed myself each evening in workshops through the Good Inside subscription. If you're not raising children, you could definitely skip to the pictures at this point because the rest of this post will basically be a review of Good Inside. It is a subscription-style platform that gives access to dozens of resources and workshops given by Dr. Becky Kennedy, a PhD Columbia-trained clinical psychologist. The subscription is for parents navigating a variety of challenges related to raising children, and I have been so impressed by it. https://www.goodinside.com/topic/home/ , if you're curious.
We've had this subscription for nearly 6 months now. We planned to just do 3 months, but at the end of the first 3 months I had only gotten through half of the workshops, and they were full of so many helpful strategies that I knew it would be worth it to pay for 3 more months and finish up the rest of the workshops. I really got down to business this week watching every workshop I hadn't yet and taking copious notes, so we could cancel before being charged for the next three months as well. We will be moving during the next three months, and I will will not be watching any parenting workshops during that time, haha.
The subscription includes hour-long workshops with really practical strategies on topics like Tantrums, Listening, Punishment Alternatives, Defiance, Rudeness, Anxiety, Sibling Interactions, Sleep, Entitlement, School Prep, Confidence, Play, Partner Communication, Teens, Potty Learning, Phones, New Baby, Rage (parental triggers), Repair, and so much more. Like any parenting resource, I take in what I think will be useful for me and my kids/family at this time, and disregard the rest. Dr. Becky encourages this too. Anyway, that's my review of the Good Inside subscription now that we're on the other side of taking most of the workshops over the course of 6 months. Worth it if you've ever thought "I could really use some advice about ____ aspect of kids/parenting."
There is an app that gives full access to the library of workshops and resources. We downloaded the app onto both mine and Jared's phones. I'm the one who loves this type of stuff and wanted to listen to most of the workshops and take notes. But there were a few workshops that Jared and I listened to together during long drives (the workshops are similar to podcast episodes, but with a constant stream of practical strategies to take notes on). There were also a few really good workshops pertinent to our current stage of parenting where I would tell Jared, "Hey this one was really helpful, will you listen to it on your commute to and from work today?" And then we'd talk about it afterward. 10/10, would recommend. Such an incredible resource, at a very reasonable price considering I feel like I got several dozen child psychology sessions worth of information.
We also had lots of fall fun this week, from football to pumpkin patches, so I will share those pictures now:
