When our house got featured on Design Mom, I was excited. It was before I had my own blog, so it was a chance to flex my new photography muscles, and get in some writing.
When I found out which photos she’d selected for the post, I discovered she’d chosen not to feature our living room. Besides the kitchen, the living room is the core of a home. We spend a lot of time in ours. We do most of our schoolwork there, and it’s where I typically hang out during quiet time. Not featuring it seemed like it was leaving out an essential part of our home.
But when I looked at the photos I’d submitted, I realized why she’d skipped it.
Like I mentioned in this post, I often work a night shift just before we leave for our yearly Tobago trip. This time around, I scheduled myself off that weekend, so I tried something else instead. Another gong bath. This time, I went by myself.
Why are you telling me about another gong bath? You could rightly ask. After all, I’ve been to two already, and I’ve written about both. I think the reason why I want to write about this one, too, is that they’re all different.
I have a theory about preparing for disaster when traveling with kids: Whatever you are prepared for, that isn’t the disaster that will happen.
I’d rather pack light and have my hands free to deal with whatever comes my way, than to have neatly packed baggies with special treats, toys to give my kids on the plane, and a fresh change of clothes for everyone. Bare essentials for a five-hour flight?
It feels amazing when you have energy and you’re getting a ton of stuff crossed off your to-do list, doesn’t it? If it were easier to keep a balanced perspective, those times would probably keep you going during the times when making even simple decisions felt exhausting and you were staring down your third day of laying on the sofa all afternoon because you just couldn’t get up.
Maybe that’s just me.
My mom taught me a way of thinking about purchases when I was a kid. I think it was part of my Real Life Math homeschool learning. She said that when you buy something, you can divide the price by the number of times you use it to figure out how much it costs per use.
Of course, more expensive items or seasonal items that only get pulled out at certain times of the year take longer to bring the per-use cost down.
In 2014, I climbed Mt. Hood in Oregon with my dad and my sibs. It was in celebration of my dad’s 60th birthday.
It was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done. Despite it being June, an icy wind was blowing when we started the climb in the middle of the night. The tiny crystals were flying in our faces, and I felt like an ant clinging to the surface of the impossibly huge face of the mountain. Our crampons kept us from slipping off the slick surface of the icy snow, but it felt like we could fly off the slope with next gust of wind.
The fancy hiking boots and ski-grade mittens I’d purchased for the climb kept me warm and dry. When I came back to New York, I didn’t need them anymore. While it was winter up on the mountain, it was spring back home.
