Hello! Happy Monday! I'm feeling refreshed. I can't remember if I put this in last week's post, but because my birthday and Mother's Day are so close together, I decided to try something I've heard of other moms doing--a weekend by myself in a hotel. I've heard of this going both ways for people; some moms absolutely love and swear by this solo break. Others try it out and find themselves bored and end up going home early. I had a hunch which camp I'd fall into and now it's official: first camp. This is going to be my new Mother's Day tradition. I don't want to spend actual Mother's Day away from my family, but doing this the weekend after Mother's Day was perfect. It's a good solution to the Mother's-Day-Next-To-My-Birthday thing. Jared doesn't have to stress about gifts for both occasions, since the weekend away IS the Mother's Day gift, and I set it up on my own. I get exactly what I want, and Jared can focus on my birthday instead of stressing about gifts for both days. This is the first year we've been in a financial position for me to be able to do this and not feel guilty. I stayed at a Day's Inn, so nothing fancy, but I was so grateful for the opportunity. I'm sure I wasn't the only one grateful for this weekend. I have been uptiiiight lately. This weekend helped me a lot.
I only spent one full day away (sandwiched by two nights so I could have an actual, full day to myself). Jack and Jared had an awesome time together doing a father-son day. They went to the arcade and watched airplanes take off at the airport. Lots of cute stuff. I slept in and went thrifting for hours and made a big dent in my favorite-recipes-compilation project while I watched chick flicks. When I got home it occurred to me that this was the longest I have EVER been away from Jack. One full day. Cool. I'd never done two nights away before this. Jared and I have tried, but we always feel guilty after the first night and go home early. Our St. George getaway did feel longer than this staycation, but it was technically only one night. Homegirl's gotta get out more.
I also got my favorite meal in town for lunch: A beef+lamb gyro from Sweet Zoey's. I took it up to Casper Mountain and found a picnic bench by a stream. It was the highlight of my staycation. Enjoy this highly glamorous selfie of the moment. You can even kinda see the stream behind me. Cute!
And now for a job-hunt update. This is me eating allll my words on my last post about feeling a bit overwhelmed to move back to Utah. I take it all back! Give me Utah and its crazy housing market and all the family! Parents and grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews--I want them all, and I want them now. The move back to Utah isn't looking quite as certain as I thought it was. We're not giving up hope--it's just taking the Utah doctor longer to get us a contract than we thought. In the meantime Jared has a few Zoom interviews set up for Washington jobs. We figure we'd better have some backup options in place, just in case. It'll probably be a few more weeks before I have any concrete updates to share. I'll keep you posted.