1. Starting when I was in high school through my mid-twenties, Friday was this major thing. The idea of having no plans gave me anxiety, and when it came to going out-- the more friends the better! Fridays were an evening for fun clothes, a little too much makeup, and a beer in the shower. Now that I'm a parent of three, Friday nights are equally amazing because on Saturday we don't have to wake up to catch the bus at 6:58am, we often get to hang out around the house instead of rushing-rushing-rushing to the next thing, and I can make a night special by calling it a movie night and serving frozen pizza to my little people.
2. Cheese pizza for grown ups: order/ bake/ cook a plain pie for the not-so-foodies in your life. Then saute some spinach (a LOT shrinks down a LOT so I basically put a salad's worth in a pan with a few teaspoons of water and a lid) and top your pizza with the spinach, a drizzle of balsamic glaze/ balsamic vinegar reduction, and a sprinkle of coarse sea salt. Gourmet for pennies! You're welcome.
3. Fall is wonderful and everything, but it's not the only season worth living for: I hate pumpkin pie and pumpkin spice lattes (though I loooove pumpkin beer), I hate my amped up allergies to something that's yet to be defined, I love sweater weather but hate the days where I have to basically plan out three outfits per kid because it starts off at 48 degrees but ends at 75 and rains somewhere in the middle, and I really am not a fan of cider mills because cider and donuts = sugar = bees and I am NOT a fan of them.
4. In less than a week my third baby will be 4 months old and I could already see myself wanting another despite the fact that we've 90 percent decided that he'll be our last. But the time is passing by so very quickly and I can already tell that he's going to be a toddler before I know it. He's already scooting (scary) and sleeping through the night (scary because I know it could change on a dime) and he's just the sweetest little dude on the planet. I'll have five more just like him, please.
5. Instagram is driving me nuts. Though I love the photo-centric format and I really love the fact that I can have my feed automatically printed every 60 pictures (Chatbooks are the only reason why my kids are going to have their early days documented because traditional baby books have been a major fail around here!), it seems like every day people's feeds are getting more contrived and more magazine-like to sell the lifestyle they want everyone to think they are leading. It also, at least for me, breeds discontent. I want the beautiful white rooms and whimsically perfect cookies and adorable children who are always coiffed and styled perfectly. It's hard to remind myself that Instagram, like Facebook, leads people to compare their own rounded knowledge of themselves with the external image that others are portraying. So I'm thinking about seeing myself out. Or changing my social media habits. Or something.
So here's a pumpkin beer toast to the short-lived neverending days of parenting young children and maintaining some semblence of sanity and a career in a world where women are losing themselves in their filtered online lives. Here's to the 9 hour workday I have tomorrow that allows my husband and me to reduce childcare costs and pay for extracurricular activities and the unspoken costs of moving into a new build home, and reduces both our family time but also our stress levels. And here's to the blessed freedom of a Friday night without plans or expectations.
Cheers!
Erin
PS- On the home decor front, we've started planning out our mudroom and study built-ins. I am so so so anxious to get started! Plans coming soon.
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