Remember when I used to consistently blog twice a month? Me neither. 🙃 (For a hot minute I was blogging once a week but that was before my 2 y/o was born.) I figured a change in season (Hello Fall!! ) would be the perfect time to let you know what I’ve been up to.
The last couple of months have been a whirlwind. In August, my husband and I were scrambling to remodel our basement to prepare for family visiting from out of town. We did get quite a bit done and our basement is probably 70% finished with new carpet, no more wall texture or popcorn ceiling, fresh paint, a remodeled bathroom, and the return of our theater room. If you follow me on Instagram you have seen these stories or can view them on my saved highlight reel. It looks really good but I can’t bring myself to post pictures until our kitchenette is finished, the trim is up and the doors have been painted. Life happens so I may never post after photos. 🤪
Back in August though, two of my husband’s brothers, my sis-in-laws, and my niece and nephews visited from out of state. Our household doubled in size for 5 days to 10 people. It was a full house! The kids had such a great time with their cousins. We made so many family memories and took some family photos with my in-laws, all of my husband’s siblings, and their families to commemorate the occasion of all of us spending together.
While our family was visiting, my husband started a new job with a new company working from home 100% of the time. You would think that we spend more time with him working from home but he is truly “at work” in his office until 6 pm. It’s been an adjustment but I’m so happy for him and his job change.
I got to breathe for a week and see a couple of friends before my kids started school in late August, all 3 of them!! My oldest son is back to in-person learning while my 2-year-old son and Pre-K daughter attend half-day preschool two and three days a week. While I had been prepping my two older children to go back to school I only found out there was a spot for my youngest, 2 weeks before school started. With my older kids, we read a lot of books about preschool and talked about going quite a bit. For my third kid, not so much.
Some friends asked what do I do with my childless time. Usually, it’s 75% getting things done and 25% trying to relax. It’s 8 hours a week and although that is glorious, it flies by. Earlier this week my fourth baby was born aka a new project. I helped launch the largest fundraiser at my son’s elementary school that they have ever done as fundraising chair. I’m probably going to be vague about what it is because the internet is scary but I’m sure I will share more on my close friends’ IG circle about that. You can never be too safe on the internet. Although it has been a lot of work, it has also been exciting to see things come together and I’m sure I will be overjoyed as it comes to an end AND we reach our goal. 🙌🏾
I feel like I’ve ripped a band-aid off compared to a year ago when I was being very cautious in the pandemic and trying to be mindful of who our family was seeing so we could still freely see at-risk family members. But at this point in time, we’ve jumped back into life feet first. I’ve realized that life goes entirely too fast. My daughter will be in Kindergarten next fall and I am in no way ready. 🥺 Sometimes I get really sad over the things I felt like we missed last year but I know we can only make the most of right now and even during that hard times, we still have so much to be grateful for. Like the closeness of our family – especially the bond between my 7 and 2-year-old- that may not have been if we hadn’t been at home.
On the flip side, I find myself being exhausted at times realizing that as many good things are going on and people I’m around that I need to recharge a lot. I’m not sure that I was emotionally prepared to be around as many people that I am now compared to last year. I’m still an extrovert but I GREATLY value my alone time.
My motto for this school year is to soak everything up. I am in no rush for 2022… AT ALL! I want my daughter to enjoy her last year of preschool to the fullest. I want my second grader to enjoy his early elementary education in the building this year. I want my 2-year-old to have fun at school and at home running errands with his mama and enjoying one on one time with me like his siblings before him. So many changes and so many good things. At this point, I’m just enjoying the journey.