Between my last day at Cosmos and my first day at my new job I had 12 days off…well, 11 if you count the one day I went back into Cosmos to help with “orientation” for my replacement. A few things to note about my time off…a) I’ve never taken time off over the holidays. b) I’ve never taken time off between jobs…last time I left a job for another my last day was on a Friday and I started the new gig on Monday. c) Andy & I have never had more than a long weekend off together, not counting my maternity leave. and finally d) I’ve never had that much time off. Period.

I’m not going to lie, I was really looking forward to the time off. Not only because I wasn’t going to be stressing about work or stressing about the holidays, but because I was truly, genuinely excited to spend so much time with my family at home.

There were many times over the course of those 12 days where I found myself leaving my phone in another room…sometimes hours at a time. Not caring one bit that I was disconnected. At times, I even put my phone on Do Not Disturb. It was so amazing to step away, completely guilt free.

It ended up working out where a few days over my time off the girls either went to daycare or spent a day with their grandparents. We took that time together to work on projects around the house and property. We made major progress on our chicken coop. When some people heard that’s how we were going to spend our time as “just us” they joked about how boring and practical we were. In reality, I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather do. Before we had kids, we used to work on projects, both big and small, all the time. We would spend hours outside. It’s something we loved to do and often talk about how we look forward to being able to do those things again when the girls are older and a bit more independent.

I could feel the stress melting away. I could feel myself relaxing. We spent time as a family. We spent time with friends. We laughed a lot. We prepped for the holidays. We knocked a bunch of projects off of the ever-growing to-do list. We organized. We purged. We cleaned. Together.

I ended my vacation with a clean and organized house, completely revived and ready to take on a new year and a new adventure.

My new job comes with 5 weeks of paid time off to use over the next year. I’m already looking forward to using some of that time just like I did.

This last week has been kind of a whirlwind. Oh who am I kidding, life in gerenal is a whirlwind anymore. However, with back-to-school and a new job, this week has been a special version of said whirlwind.

Ok, I’ll stop using that word now.

I just finished munching some Oreo cookies dipped in peanut butter and have a few minutes before I need to get back to work so I thought I’d tap out a quick update.

Reese has been doing this super fun “I’m going to wake up and start scream-cring anywhere between 3:45 & 5:00 AM and not want to go back to sleep”thing over the last couple of weeks. It’s been rough, but now that Andy is back at work and we all have to get up and going at a decent time, we’re both over it. Like, really over it.  So, we’re working on breaking her of that habit. Fun times. Er, more like tired times.

Rylee did not want to go back to school. I mean, she’s not refusing kicking and screaming, she’s just made numerous “I’d rather stay home and spend time with my family” comments. I’m sure once she’s back in the swing of school she’ll be fine. She’s just about ready to lose her second tooth. I ask her every morning if it’s still there or if she swallowed it while she was sleeping. She only thinks that’s funny about half the time. She’s still digging gymnastics. We just signed her up for another 8 week session.  She told me yesterday that she wants to join Girl Scouts…now it looks like Ihave some research to do.

I’ve officially been at my new job for a week. It’s pretty much as awesome as everyone had said it is.  I’m seriously missing all my old work family and shifting focus from doing all of the things to just a couple different things is definitely an adjustment but…wow. I’m excited about where things can go here. I’m in the process of adjusting to a new-ish schedule. I don’t technically need to be in the office until 8:30 in the morning, but I get in anywhere between 8 & 8:30. That also means I only “get” a 30 minute lunch so I’m trying to work blogging into my new schedule. I’ll get there. Or not. Who knows. Either way, I’ve got things I want to shore from my time off between jobs, but at this point, maybe I won’t? Meh.

10 minutes is officially up. Time for my next training.

Here’s a few pics of some recent things…

Happy Friday Eve.