Life, and a SPLURGE!

3 day weekend, complete. On to the….first “real” week of school! Technically the boys started last week Thursday, but it was super light. Too light, in my opinion, after months and months with no school, but I digress. 

Anyway, they basically just had a couple check ins with their teachers and worked through a few “techy” things like setting up their Google Drives, using Google Classroom, etc. Fortunately, the boys are both quite handy on a computer (just a natural by-product of LIFE these days, I think!). I can’t imagine how hard this would all be for a child (or family) who has never used technology at all much, though. 

The long weekend kind of flew by, and I accomplished only a sliver really of the stuff from my list from yesterday. Oh well. I sort of knew that would be the case as I was typing that. 😄

A few big wins:

• got our financial spreadsheet TOTALLY caught up, checkbook balanced, finally made new spreadsheets for September. This had been ignored largely sort of since we got home from Florida, and had been looming over me. DONE!

• took a solo walk for about 25-30 minutes mid-morning. Ethan had a friend sleepover and Ivan was doing some yardwork, so I snuck out on my own and it was nice. Just me + a podcast. 🙂

Pretty flowers (or flowering weeds?! No idea) near the pond

• Sat down with each boy and went through all of the assignments that were pushed out to us yesterday. They will be assigning the work in one big clump on Sundays, all due the following Sunday (to be spread out throughout the week accordingly). It looks like a LOT when you look at it all at once (though probably very reasonable in actuality). We just skimmed through each assignment together and updated the whiteboard for today with their Zoom times, etc. too. Ethan looked a little overwhelmed as middle school now has all the different teachers for each subject- I think he felt like, “omg how am I going to have time to do all this stuff!”. But it will be fine. 

In other news, the WEATHER has decided that it is fall. At least for a few days. Check out this local forecast…. 



54 degrees and rain for a high tomorrow?!! Brrr!!! It will feel weird to wear….pants. 

And finally, a big highlight this weekend was something I wasn’t even sure if I was going to share here, because….honestly, I didn’t want it to look like I was “showing off” my fancy new toy. But since I really (hope!) everyone reading this knows me better than that by now, I decided I will share it, since, well, it’s my blog and this was an exciting thing for us! 

We bought a hot tub!! We had been one wanting one for a while and finally ordered one back in June. It arrived on Friday and we got it all set up and had our suits on and were in it by Saturday morning. 

I grew up with a hot tub at home and my parents still use it daily. My best friend also had an awesome one that we went in all the time. So…I always felt like I wanted to get one one day, too. It was definitely a “splurge” item, but one of those things that I really think is worth the money (for us) as “hot tub people”. I’m sure they aren’t for everyone, but so far we love it!!! I think we will use it a LOT and I’m excited for many nights ahead of relaxing and talking with Ivan in there.

First time using it….was the most perfect, beautiful morning, too!

The boys went in at 4 times yesterday! 3x/ with their friends during the day and then a soak before bed. LOL! At this rate their skin will fall off.

It’s the best at night!! Still working on getting the lighting and stuff done on the deck.

Daily Gratitude: