Things just keep getting busier and busier. I bet you are wondering, “what did Jenn do this last month?” Well, I will gladly tell you! 😅
I left off at the end of May when I started painting the kitchen cabinets. Do you want a before and after? Well…I don’t have one currently because it isn’t finished yet. 🤪
On the 2nd we went to the racetrack again. It was first responders appreciation night. It was actually really cool to see. They had representation from at least 8 different cities. They even had one of the helicopters do a fly-around. They had a guns (police) and hoses (firefighters) race during intermission which was fun to watch. We had a good time.
Here in the United States, we celebrate Independence day on the 4th of July. We didn’t really have plans for the 4th of July this year. My uncle invited us to watch his fireworks on the 3rd. I spent half the time inside with Bug and Monkey, while Chris was outside helping and monitoring Pickle lighting off some smaller things. We were there for about 2 hours and then came home. On the actual 4th we decided to stay home and just hang out. Once the darkness of night settled in, I watched from my livingroom window as we can see pretty far into the city -a skyline of a show.
On the 5th I spent a lot of time outside with the kids. I mowed both the front and back yard. We played in the sprinkler, the pool, and all the ride on toys. Chris surprised us and got home super early! We also planted some pumpkin seeds [hopefully we get a few]. We had our Monday movie night, watching Boss Baby 2. It was really good! Afterwards we decided to go on a walk to the park. On our way to and from the house, we picked up any garbage we could find. My oldest really has a heart for the Earth, we say “one earth” meaning we only have one and need to take care of it. By time we got home, our stroller basket was half full of deflated balloons and firework trash. After getting home it was time for showers and bed.
Realizing Summer break is already half way over, we took a look at our summer bucket list. We wound up choosing to tie dye pillowcases and tshirts. They turned out so cool! We had a lot of mixed colors leftover so we wound up tie dying my painting sheet too.
On July 8th we went to a baseball game. It was sort of impromptu. It was our family of 5, my sister, her son, her friend, and my brother. I’m not much into sports, but when I am at a game, I can get into it. By the 4th inning the kids were getting antsy from sitting, so we wandered over to the “kids fun zone” and they were able to run around, ride a carousel, bounce in a bounce house, play dodgeball, and climb on a playset. We went back to our seats around the 6th or 7th inning. It was funny hearing the kids yell things at the game. Afterwards they had a firework show which we all really enjoyed! We wound up getting home around 1030pm. We really enjoyed ourselves.
A week into the month and I was really feeling impulsive. I get these sudden urges for change, mainly in relation to my house. It wasn’t that long ago when I redid the kid’s bedrooms moving my oldest back upstairs and the 2 littles (4 and 2 years) into one room. Well, I have been thinking about school starting this next month and how that is going to go now that we will have 2 kids in school. I was thinking maybe Monkey (my 4 year old) would do better sleeping if she had her own room again. Even though, she is always wanting to sleep with someone. She has been waking up everyday to come to my room after Chris goes to work. Plus, my 2 year old has been way off schedule for sleep, staying up way too late. Maybe the separation will help them have better sleep and stay on the schedule. –fingers crossed-
I asked the kids what kind of rooms they want. My oldest is super into gaming, but he also has voiced that he is really into modern designs. [He watches a lot of tiny house and some home remodel shows]. We looked online and found some inspiration to piece together gaming and modern design. I figured I had to start with his “new” room first. I moved the mom cave to the den and got to work in his room. It was definitely a process, especially with my back/shoulder problems. July 9th around 9pm was Day 1. This also happened to be the same night that a wicked storm blazed through.
The kids were completely panicked. We had wind gusts of almost 96mph. I was watching through the windows and I felt like surely this tree was about to come through the side of our house. Once again we made way to the basement, Chris as usual decided to stay put, sleeping ever so calmly in bed. I had my 3 kids plus my nephew and a dog in the basement. The power flickered 4 or 5 times and then around 1230AM we completely lost power. Luckily, I prepared in advance and we had our flashlights on standby. We spent about an hour and a half in the basement while the craziness went through. Then all 4 kids, the dog, and myself made our beds in the livingroom. Our street was covered in debris from trees. We had some limbs come down and our backyard stuff was all in a pile on the patio. The kids finally went to sleep around 230 or 3am. I did not get to sleep until after 5am when Chris left for work. We finally got our power back on around 8AM.
I was exhausted and highly unmotivated most of the day [10th]. But, I didn’t want to drag out all these projects longer so I decided to spend some time on Pickle’s wall design. I spent about 2 hours in there getting the initial design started.
I decided to let that be enough progress for the night. I didn’t want to rush it and have it turn out all crazy. Plus, Chris wasn’t feeling that great after work. I wound up throwing together a waffle dinner for the kids and ordering delivery from this Ramen restaurant that we have never tried. It was pretty good, but man those delivery fees are just crazy.
It was an extremely rough night for me with my youngest 2 kids waking up and staying up until 4am. I am surprised I still managed to get up around 10am to be able to go pickup our groceries. I knew though, that if Chris was feeling better we would have a family day. Can’t sleep all day if you want to go out and do something…
Luckily, his stomach was feeling better. We took the kids to the Durham Museum. They currently have a James Cameron exhibit which was pretty neat. Along with all the usual stuff they have there on the history of Omaha. The kids especially enjoyed the train cars we were able to explore. The museum also has this old fashioned soda fountain, the kids really enjoyed that!
Afterwards I had mentioned to Chris that we needed to spend sometime outside, but not at home. We decided we should go on a picnic and let them play. Chris had recently seen this huge park during one of his routes at work. On the way, we ordered Panera and sought out this little cabin house that the museum had mentioned. Of course because of the storm we just had, there was a lot of trees down everywhere.
When we left there and turned the corner, I realized we were at the cemetary my grandparents are buried at. Of course I had to stop and find their grave, which took some exploring and phoning-a-friend (my mom) to find. Thankfully I found it and we were able to continue on. We ate at the park and then let the kids play for maybe an hour. It was very hot and the kids were turning red. We decided to head back home. I was feeling sort of antsy when we got home and decided to do more work on Pickle’s wall.
I finally got into the rheumatologist. If you want all of the details on that check out my Journey To Wellness post. Long story short, I have unofficially been diagnosed with fibromyalgia.
We did take a weekend trip (16th – 18th) to Adventureland, which was a bit of a roller coaster. You can read about that in my Memory making trips post. The Monday following that little trip was mostly uneventful. I did spend 2 or so hours doing yard work in the front yard while the kids played and ate popsicles. Usually we have Monday movie nights at home, but this time I decided last minute that we should take the kids to the theater. I had them wear their pajamas and bring their blankets. We saw Peter Rabbit 2. It was cute, the kids get a kick out of the animals and their quirks.
We also went back to school shopping! Okay, I did all of it online. It is just easier that way. Pickle will be starting 3rd grade and Monkey is going into preschool! I had them pack all their supplies into their backpacks. Here is how amused Pickle is about back to school.
I started my new meds and hit the [what I call] zombie phase. All I wanted to do was sleep all day long. I was lucky to be able to feed everyone, do dishes, put all the laundry away, and bathe the kids during all of this. Unfortunately for me this phase can last a few days before the clouds start to clear. During this time I also had a sore throat and 2 seemingly sick children. One seemed to get over it quickly, while the other and myself took a bit more time. I really loathe having the chills and feeling freezing cold 🥶. Though I wasn’t feeling that great, I did manage to do some more work on Pickle’s wall and found him a new bed off Facebook market.
4 days into the start of my new meds, I was really facing some challenges. I mentioned the chills already, but I also felt like my muscles had ran a trip across the state and back. They were so sore and for no reason. I decided to look up side effects of the medication and low and behold all of these things are side effects of the medication. I stopped taking it and by about 30 hours or so after my last dose, I felt everything had nearly subsided! I still had some muscle weakness, but it definitely improved. It reminded me when they had prescribed me gabapentin and I felt like I was hit by a train. It is weird how these medications are supposed to be helping relieve pain, but then cause more. Now that I was finally starting to feel my normal again, I was able to clean the house, mow the backyard, and hose off the siding.
My sister invited us to a family movie night [23rd] at her house to watch the new Space Jam movie. This was something new for us! We packed our 5, my brother and his 4, and my sister and her 1 into her livingroom. We had a coffee table full of snacks. Despite the fact that I was being jumped on 78% of the time by my youngest 2 kids, I really enjoyed the movie. My nephew says there are over 200 “easter eggs” in it, so we spent a lot of time searching for them in each scene. The oldest 2 kids spent the night with my sister and nephew that night. Or so I thought… Around 11pm I decided to wash the dishes, organize the water bottle lid/straw drawer, and wash the dog. Midway through rinsing the dog I heard my phone vibrating and my oldest son’s name was on the caller i.d.. He wanted me to pick him up because he wasn’t feeling good and was experiencing anxiety because of it. I quickly finished rinsing and towel drying the dog, grabbed my keys and shoes and started to head for the door. Well, my youngest apparently was still awake and found me before I could leave. He decided he needed to help me pickup big bro, so he came with. Plus, Chris did have to be up for work around 4am. I really hate driving at night. My eyes are terrible and the lights at night make me so anxious. It took me almost an hour to get there and back. Thankfully we made it safe and sound.
Pickle was feeling back to normal the next day. I don’t know what was going on around here with these random sick days. Luckily he was better because Chris and I had planned for a “date night” if you will. I mean, we do go every year, but when we are kid free I’ll just call it a date. Anyway, we went to the Lucas Oil Silver Dollar Nationals. It was a very hot summer day, but luckily the evening brought in some cooler air. The racing was good, but also mostly uneventful. We did have a good time though and it was a much needed break from responsibilities.
Needless to say, we definitely “slept in” the next day. Chris wound up waking me up around 11am [I was up until about 4am]. We had planned to run an errand before getting the kids. With back to school coming up, that means wardrobe changes are in order. I wound up going through all of our storage totes of hand-me-downs from Pickle as well as the kid’s current clothes. We had a trunk full of stuff to take to the kids resale shop [some toys and things we don’t use anymore as well]. Thankfully they took almost everything! After that we picked up the kids and headed home. The kids were on each other’s nerves pretty instantly. When we got home everyone went to their own spaces. Chris and I wound up taking an hour nap too. I was having a really bad headache right above my eye. I thought maybe sleep would help. It was around 530pm when we got up. We had to pickup a target order, so we decided to grab some ice cream cones on the way there. After picking up the Target order we stopped at a park for about an hour to play. I decided I didn’t feel like cooking and I wasn’t even hungry, so we had a simple peanut butter and jelly dinner with applesauce and a veggie tray. While the kids ate, I meal prepped my lunches and a few yogurt parfaits for the kids. Finally it was the kid’s bedtime. Once they were all in bed, Chris and I decided to play some Animal Crossing together for about an hour before heading to bed ourselves. Chris fell asleep within 3 minutes of laying down. I kept playing until about 2am 😅. It was a chill day and those are the days I am needing lately.
On Monday, the 26th, I was awoken after about 3 hours of sleep to my oldest children fighting. I swear they are always fighting these days! After they were finally chilled out, I finished Pickle’s wall. I cleaned up the paint supplies and vacuumed.
Then I brought his bed in, put it together, and moved the mattress from upstairs. By time I finished the bedding, I needed to eat and take a break. I had about an hour to do that before we went to Pickle’s orthodontist appointment. When we got back home, I decided I should probably start cutting up the branches from the storm we had a few weeks ago and put them in the trash toters. I cleaned up the small debris and then hosed off the driveway just in time for Chris to pull up home from work. He was surprised that I was able to finish the branches myself. We came inside and I decided to head to the laundry room. I knew there was at least 3 loads of laundry that needed to be washed. I threw a load in and then decided to go through my hand-me-down totes and organize them by size. By this point, I felt like I was going to fall asleep sitting on the laundry room floor. Luckily I didn’t. Chris grilled burgers and I made fries and cauliflower “potato” salad for dinner. We ate and of course the kids were looking forward to Monday movie night. They decided to watch Trolls World Tour. I really just wanted to go to sleep, but I kept myself awake trying to be present with the family. I figured at least I’d pass out when it was actually bed time. But of course, my brain had other plans and I gained my second, maybe even third, wind around 10pm.
The last few days of the month were busy! We had so many appointments the last week: orthodontist twice, DBT group, eye doctor for the oldest 2 kids, and my therapy appointment. I finished out the month with running errands and deep cleaning most of my house to host my family for my mom’s birthday celebration. Oh! I also randomly had an idea for a novel and finally started writing. I don’t know how long it will take, but I am liking where it’s going.
The school year is quickly approaching and honestly, I am SO ready! I miss the structure, but I also have grown seriously tired of my kids constantly fighting. I can only take so much. Their age gap, I think, has a lot to do with it. Hopefully it gets better. It has to, right?
I really cannot believe we are going into August already though. I keep thinking there is literally 3 months until Halloween and 5 until Christmas. Months are just so short seeming anymore to where years feel like what a month use to feel like. It’s just crazy to me.
Hopefully August brings some peace and more time for myself to get where I personally want to be. Let’s get it!!
Things I Watched:
- The Queen’s Gambit
- Titanic
- Boss Baby 2
- Ugly Dolls
- Fatherhood
- National Geographic: Drain The Titanic
- The Emoji movie
- Peter Rabbit 2
- Working Moms
- Space Jam: A New Legacy
- Grey’s Anatomy [season 16]
- Lost Speedways
- Bob Ross
Books I Read:
- All But My Life by Gerda Klein
Reclaiming My Sanity 