Birthday Weekend + Blogging Thoughts

8.12.2018

Over the weekend we hosted family for R's birthday! She turned 3 on Friday, and we had the party on Saturday. I took short video clips all day both days and hope to put together a 3rd birthday video collage soon. For whatever reason I think making videos is so fun and love doing it. (Here is how I make them, if you're interested!)

I haven't gone through all the pictures yet, but maybe soon I'll share a post with pics from the day. It was pretty low key with minimal decorations, and mostly everything was recycled from my "party cabinet" where I keep all the decorations I've made over the past few years along with paper goods and other Target dollar-spot finds I collect. We did a taco bar and had pink cupcakes. It was really fun!
Right before the party my brother noticed that the side fence in our backyard had fallen over in the storm the night before. The only reason it wasn't completely over was because it was being held up by our neighbor's shed. We have had a few house projects lately, and we are not the type of people who enjoy doing house projects. And by "we" I mean Jordan. I've tried to be handy and end up hanging things unevenly and putting giant holes in the wall on accident, so I leave all the handiness to him, but since he does manual labor all day at work, he doesn't so much want to do it at home. 

Anyway, we clearly need to pay to get our fence repaired (yay adulting!), but in the meantime he rigged up some rope, and the fence is at least mostly upright at the moment. We also have a broken pillar off our front porch, and our front screen door is busted so there's a piece of packing tape holding the lock down. In June we used our cash emergency fund for the very first time to pay for maintenance on my car, so we are Very Excited to pay for a new fence.

I need to sign us up for one of those home improvement shows before Jordan goes insane from the stress and pays someone to burn our house down so we can collect insurance money. (He might have mentioned doing that, but I think he was kidding.)
We are pretty stressed out at the moment, to be honest. As I mentioned in my last post, this summer has been so full of wonderful things and awesome family time, but it has been FULL nonetheless, and we are tired. We really packed it in this summer, and all four of us have a birthday within 2 months of one another so that adds a bit of extra excitement too.

But how are you? No, seriously. How are you doing? Are you feeling stressed out by anything, or are you in a relaxing season at the moment? It's so easy to get caught up in the stress of daily life, going from one thing to the next and not really paying attention to how other people are doing. If I can be an encouragement to you in any way, let me know!

Blogging is weird. You get a glimpse into someone's life that you haven't ever met (in most cases), and if you follow them for long enough you begin to feel like you know them a little bit. But you may not know this about me: I can get insecure about what I say online. I'm not really all that afraid of confrontation usually, and I often say/write what I think. Sometimes I feel like I offend people, and especially online it's hard to accurately convey tone of voice and meaning. I also hate to go back and reread old posts because I get super embarrassed by how dramatic I sound. But those were my honest thoughts at the time, so that's what I wrote! haha. Plus also if you don't know me in real life, I can be kind of dramatic ;)

Just know that I do appreciate everyone who comes and reads. I've taken a huge step back this past year in the frequency of my posts, but I still enjoy sharing in this space and hearing from you! 

I'd like to try and get some photos from R's party edited and posted, but in the meantime I wanted to let you all know about a new Facebook group I started for anyone who loves books! The group is private so you have to request to join, but I'll accept anyone as long as you love books and promise to be a nice person in the group :) It's not a book club, just a place to chat books. Join here!

Happy Monday!


Ashley H said...

Owning a home is hard work! Seems like there's always something getting broken & any simple project you think will just take a few minutes never is simple!

I just got married on Saturday. We planned for four months so I finally feel like I can take a deep breath & relax now :):)

Rebecca Jo said...

I cant believe R is 3... how the heck did THAT happen????
I watch my video cameras at home when we're away especially during a storm because I'm expecting any moment for it to fall over too. GASP

Amie said...

There is always something to do when you own a home..blah. My husband thinks if we bought a brand new home we wouldn't have to do anything, I'm like we would still have to do things! haha Happy 3rd birthday to R!!! I'll be doing the 3rd birthday over here in November and was briefly considering inviting a couple of his friends from daycare but maybe not.

StephTheBookworm said...

I feel your pain. We've had some unexpected home expenses too lately. New dryer needed about a month ago after ours died, and now we had an oven fire yesterday and need to replace that. We had to / have to pull from my maternity leave fund. So annoying.

Nadine said...

A taco bar?! I want a taco bar!!!! That sounds like a wonderful way to ring in 3! Sorry about your fence and other house expenses. We have a few things we are having to do with ours right now to list it and I am like ughhh why do we own again? haha! It is always something.

Jen said...

Owning a home can be so darn stressful!! It’s all the little things that add up.

Unknown said...

Wow, R is so big and grown up! I'm glad that y'all had a good birthday celebration. Those are darling family photos! I hope that life will start to slow down and that the stress will lessen for all of you. Also, I want to thank you for mentioning that you guys "are not the type of people who enjoy doing house projects." It seems like so many people I know-even other parents with young kids-are always getting projects done! And while that's awesome if it works for them, I can feel like a huge slacker sometimes because it takes us forever to get anything done on our house. We've been living in our house for a year, and we only very recently bought curtains (and the final set still hasn't been hung-but I don't think my husband trusts me to do it, since it'd probably wind up uneven, so I'm waiting on him), and that's not even a "big project" by any means haha!

I enjoy hearing your thoughts on blogging. It is really cool how people can come together and build community through these little blogging corners of the internet. I like to pretend like I hate technology, but I love blogging and I'm amazed at some of the close friendships in my life that have grown from blogging. To answer your question, I am doing well! I'm very hugely pregnant but I'm feeling great for the most part and life is pretty chill over here. I'm just trying to fill the next few weeks with books, writing, caring for my toddler, and spending time with my husband and friends before the chaos of newborn days arrives ;)

Rach said...

Happy third birthday, R!! I look forward to seeing more photos and the video when you finish it. I have loved making travel videos for a long time, but I have found that I really love making home videos this past year. The most mundane things are the things I realize that I want to remember so well.

It seems like most home owners say that their house projects feel like they are never ending, but you guys are really getting hit with it! Whew!

I can so relate to being embarrassed by things I have written about in blogs. Both in my This Italian Family one (especially from the early days of that blog) and in the Xanga I had as a teenager. Oh my goodness, I was feeling all the teenage hormone feels. Which was fine because I had like 10 readers, but still. I wasn't upset when Xanga disappeared from the internet. ;) I can't tell you how often I would refer back to an old blog post to read about a house project or trip and then just think "Wow, I was so different then." Oh, and some of the Youtube videos I made when I vlogged for like a hot second... face palm. It's alright, though. I just always remind myself that it was where I was at in the moment and that's okay. :) I do have to say, though, I love the honesty in your posts and I think it's really brave of you to share so candidly. <3

Also, I am totally in to chat books! :)

Sarah said...

we have replaced our hvac, gotten some new windows, and taken down three trees this year. there are certainly blessings to owning your home, but man! it can be expensive and stressful too. and i totally am embarrassed about things i've blogged about before, both on my current blog and in my college xanga (gah i'm so glad that is gone but i sort of wish i had a copy for me!). hope you have a good week :)

Michelle said...

House projects are my undoing at the moment. We have half-finished projects everywhere, because most of them require James to tackle something before I can do something, and he works so much and takes care of the lawn that he doesn't have as much time for other projects we're working on and I GO INSANE. We've been ripping out massively overgrown bushes and trees that are right up against our house, and we have stumps everywhere we need to dig out but that's been its own saga. Basically--I understand. Our screen door is also broken. Our kitchen floor has been 90% finished since the spring. Our windows desperately need to be replaced. That's not even the tip of the iceberg. NEVER BUY A FIXER UPPER.

Rachel said...

We're definitely not in a particularly relaxing season right now with Angel's new job starting and me working on all the legal stuff for opening my "business" (I probably shouldn't use quotation marks around my own business but I guess that's how I still sort of feel about it)...it's a lot of new stuff but thankfully exciting sorts of new stuff. We had to get three ceiling fans replaced about two weeks ago because they were broken and becoming so noisy you couldn't even really be in the room with them. And with no air-con...an apartment in the tropics isn't really livable if the fans are broken. Times like these are when I'm very happy indeed to be a renter. We try not to bother our landlady as much as humanly possible...but three new fans have improved our quality of life immensely!

Audrey Louise said...

The family party pics you shared are so precious. I can't believe how much the kids have grown and how much you and Jordan have even changed! Stressed or not, you guys look so happy and joyful :) It's odd to follow people's lives via blog but it's been the normal for so long now! Lol!

Jenny Evans said...

I actually like that you feel how you feel and you put it online. You are one of my favorite bloggers because of that! Besides, how boring would it be if nobody ever got worked up over anything?

Amy said...

HOW IS SHE ALREADY 3?!?!?
Also I've done the whole temporary fix thing at the house so many times haha, if it works it works!

I also hope that you get a nice rest soon and that FULLness (while it can be fulfilling it can drain you) this fall brings some nice restoration!

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