Happy Memorial Day! It's fun to experience our house in each new season for the first time. I have a feeling that once our backyard is finished, our house will be a total Summer house--this feels like the season it will shine the most. Because we live in the foothills, we can hear crickets most of the time in the summer, and it just feels like magic to have this corner of the world to ourselves. I'm writing this with our windows opened, listening to Jared and the kids play in our backyard--it's still all dirt, but with the levels in place they can get a game of ball going pretty well. From the view out our bedroom there isn't another house in sight--just foothills and backyard and my family, and the sounds of crickets and birds. The backyard is such a big undertaking that I really don't think it will be ready until July at the earliest, but it's going to be pure magic when it's done. From the front yard we still have an unobstructed view of the entire valley. Eventually there will be houses blocking about half of the view, but I'm hopeful they can hold off on that until after July 4 so we can experience one Independence Day with a view of all the fireworks in the valley.
We reached a new level of adulthood this week when we purchased a Garage Fridge. I've been loosely planning out our summer days now that school is out, and a cornerstone of the plan is going to be making and freezing a hundred pbj sandwiches. Last summer we went to a park or splash pad most days--it's nice to be able to grab a sandwich on the way out the door. Our inside freezer is really tiny though. Our fridge/freezer is counter depth, which I love and prefer for the flow and aesthetics of the kitchen. I even prefer having that reduced fridge space because I find that food is less likely to get lost in the back corners and go bad. The freezer space is really lacking though. We ended up getting a small stand-up freezer rated for garages instead of a chest freezer, because I know us and I know food would just get lost in the bottom of a chest freezer. Exciting milestone in our garage.
I caught a random summer cold this week. It was pretty bad for a day or two, so on Saturday Jared and the kids went to the sheepdog festival in Midway while I stayed home and rested and framed some random pieces of kids art to hang around the home. I love getting an unexpected few hours to myself at home and usually spend that time ignoring the to-do list and puttering around the house doing random house projects that aren't urgent or necessary but do feed my soul. I'm realizing that for me, self-care isn't a nap or a face mask. It's puttering around with the house to myself doing non-essential creative house projects.
For Memorial Day I visited my grandma's grave with my parents and some siblings yesterday. It was a nice time with family--Jared and the kids were having dinner with his parents, who were bringing another moving truck full of things to their house. Today we will likely visit our new neighborhood pool and have dinner at my brother's house. It's good to have family to celebrate with! And now for some pictures from our week:
