A Little Bit of Everything

I vaguely remember Emily wanting to take a picture and Andrew helping her, but I was surprised to find a picture of me on the camera.

It has been a long time since I sat down to write a blog post.  I’ve done a mediocre job at keeping with with major things, and that’s about it.  Today is September (?!?!) and I’ve got a lot in my mind about the journey this year has been.  We’ve covered a large amount of territory. In no particular order, and to be elaborated on in the future:

I’m in the middle of a major blog redesign.  After some research about themes, I took the plunge two weeks ago and bought the Genesis Framework. It is a fantastic addition to WordPress theming and is really stretching me.  I’ve been staying up way too late and getting up waaaay to early to try and squeeze in some more coding time while the kids sleep.  It is a perpetual case of problem solving and my mind is always working through solutions to try.  I feel a great rush to finish the new theme, but I’m trying to remind myself this is nothing to stress over and there is a lot to learn. This is also the main reason why the blogging has slowed down a bit here.

I baked the perfect loaf of sourdough bread today. I thought my first loaf of bread all the way back in January (or was is December? Or February?) was great.  Nope, this has definitely boosted us to new levels.  I think the sudden drop in humidity last night has something to do with it. But I also knew last night when I mixed it up it was going to be good, so I’ve learned a thing or two.  This is one thing I can be grateful to c. diff for.

Joy School has started here in full swing.  We have three other neighbors we are doing it with (no driving!) and this week is all about learning how Joy School works.  Today went more smoothly than Tuesday. I’m most excited about how the curriculum adds a variety of tools to my motherhood tool belt.

We hopped on the minimalism train around November last year (well actually it was much much earlier, but that is a story for another time) and have made incredible progress simplifying our lives.  I feel like we are *this close to having just the right amount of things.  There have been a number of waves of this journey this year, guided by books and good discussion.

The unexpected side effect is that our house is also really feeling like home, taking on a purpose and identity.  Yesterday I put two holes in the wall and I spent all night thinking about how thrilling our new mirror and picture frames are (well and how to create the correct spacing in the grid section in my new theme) instead of sleeping.

Unexpected side effect two is my shift to no waste thinking.  I’m realizing that the less we have and the less we consume the less work it is.  Cloth diapers are a great example: it is significantly easier to have a set number of diapers to wash than it is to keep a stocked stash of disposables in the house with trips to the store, followed by getting all the diapers back into the trash and the boxes back out of the house.  There is always a space for our set of cloth diapers, unlike disposables where we either have too few or too many. I’m just starting to see the possibilities of elimination from our lives (and budget) that would simplify a bit. We are excited to see where this tangent goes.

Emily is potty trained.  The switch happened gradually and fairly painlessly, led by her (with some nudges and guidance from us). I never realized until we walked through this journey with Emily how much work and responsibility it is for two year olds to take on.  I need to sit down soon and record what we did as a reminder for future children (although Andrew and I both think we will never have another child that is as intrinsically motivated as Emily was).

Andrew and I have been officially married for five years!  Our marriage has changed so much, I can hardly remember what it used to be like.  It seems like we were two strangers living together compared to where we are at now.

Nathan’s top incisors came in before his two front teeth so he has a very endearing, but a little scary (vampire), enthusiastic smile. I need to get a good picture so we can compare around second grade when he’s lost his front two teeth.

The weather has changed and now I’m thrilled to begin baking granola and muffins, roasting vegetables, and stocking up food for the winter. We’ve been eating whole foods, plant based for almost two years now and I feel like I’m close to solidifying what really works for us and will grow with us.

I need to write more consistently.