—1—
Well, the verdict is in on our week of being empty nesters while all
the kids were with their grandparents: I don't know.
The pros:
- House stays super-clean
- Conversations with husband can go beyond the logistics of giving rides to people, date nights don't have to be planned 2 months in advance
- Tons of time and energy to pour into home improvement projects
- No need to go around turning off lights all the time
Cons:
- Lacks structure (no one even knows if you eat nachos for dinner at 9 PM two nights in a row)
- Fruit goes bad when you don't know how to shop for two
- House is too quiet (not a good quiet, I mean quiet like a morgue)
- Phillip and I aren't social at all, but we're going to have to make couple friends when we become empty nesters for real
Overall, I enjoyed the extra time to work on projects and disliked the
eerie absence of chaos and activity of kid life humming in the background. And weirdly enough, when Phillip and I suddenly had more uninterrupted time
to spend together than we knew what to do with, the urgency to make every
moment count slipped away. I'm not sure I liked that, either.
—2—
Now to the projects we did while everyone was gone. First, Phillip got rid of the old washer and dryer in the
garage.
He harvested the usable parts for future repairs to our new washer and
dryer, and then he disassembled them completely and loaded them up in the
van. Because it costs $25 per appliance to recycle them at the dump but they
accept scrap metal for free.
So.
|
| And that's how you dispose of a washer and dryer for $0. |
In addition to all the money we saved by scrapping 90% of the washer
and dryer (there was just a smallish pile of plastic components left),
Phillip also found $1.23 in change while taking them apart.
—3—
We've also been working on our outside living spaces. I've been
silently toying with the idea of a porch swing for a while, but recently the
11-year-old mentioned out of the blue how nice it would be to have a porch
swing to read in and we decided it would be fun to surprise him with one
when he got back.
We found a
porch swing on the smaller side
that fits (but barely, so no being too crazy on the swing), threw away our
crusty door mat and replaced it with
this one, and got some
new pillows for the swing.
Once we paint the door blue and redo the decking (next up on my list),
it's going to look amazing.
|
| Ignore the Victorian grandma sidelights next to the door. We do. |
I love this so much more than I thought I would. My favorite part is
the pillows on
the porch swing, which surprises me, because I normally think throw pillows
are like scented candles: pointless.
When we buy furniture that comes with throw pillows, I literally throw them
away. But I don't know, I just love something about the pattern, and I
searched long and hard for pillow forms that are puffy like marshmallows and not like the thin, flimsy ones I
usually dislike.
As predicted, the kids love the porch swing and take turns reading in it all
day, but the 11-year-old loves it most. He keeps giving me suggestions about
the ongoing project and I even caught him Googling patio decorating ideas
yesterday.
—4—
I talked about finishing a marathon deck-staining project a few weeks ago, and with that beautiful blank canvas we were ready
to start furnishing it.
I'd been researching patio furniture for weeks, but with all of our
parental responsibilities gone Phillip and I were able to decide on,
purchase, and assemble a seating area. It turned out great, even though we had to order
the rug twice because
the first one came shrink wrapped but with the top ripped off so it was all
frayed and dirty on one edge.
|
|
Those double doors go right to Phillip's and my bedroom so this is
meant to be kind of a couple spot, but I guess the kids can sit here
if they want to. |
Fun fact: while this rug came form Amazon clumsily packaged, the outdoor mat we ordered from Wal-Mart arrived more securely fastened than an infant in a car seat. It came rolled up and Saran wrapped in a bag which was taped shut, inside of a box. Get it together, Amazon.
—5—
Do NOT be jealous of all these beautiful "after" pictures I'm showing
you. I mean it. For the past year and a half, we haven't used the deck for anything because
the sliding door leading outside was broken, the deck was chipping and full
of splinters, and there was nothing on it except for a rusty dining table
with a moldy patio umbrella and a single chair with a giant hole ripped in
the seat. I'm not even exaggerating. We were one pair of shirtless overalls away from having a tireless
automobile in the front yard.
The patio umbrella and chair are too far gone, but I decided I could still
save the table so right now I'm prepping it in the basement to sand and
paint. It's going pretty good, so far I only accidentally sploshed metal
primer on my phone and got it all up in the speaker ports once.
We also ordered a metal bench for one side of the table, and I thought I found a good deal on a set of 4 dining
chairs at Target for the other side but I was WRONG.
First of all, they didn't send me chairs, they sent me a pile of metal
sticks and a crescent wrench for elves.
|
| NOT a chair. |
Second of all, the assembly was so annoying. It required two sets of hands,
and by the time we finished the first chair I wanted to go burn down a
Target.
After putting the second chair together, we noticed a defect in the way the
slingback fabric was attached to the base of the chair and that was the
last straw. We packed it all back up to return and I did get my money back,
but what I really wanted was a refund on the two hours I spent assembling
and disassembling it.
—6—
My son is entering middle school and we went to a family cookout and school
tour. It ended up being really nice. I met a new family who just moved here
a week ago and both of my kids had friends there.
I loved the principal, too. He started the tour by sitting all the
new middle schoolers down and asking, "Who's excited to get up early? Maybe
6... 7?" and waited for them to laugh.
For those who don't know, tweeners everywhere are mindlessly saying "6,
7" in a dopey voice, copied from some viral video.
It means nothing, so don't even worry about it. I've asked my 8th grader to
explain it and she just mumbles some stuff and says it's hard to explain.
—7—
"And you have like a million kids, right?" The other mom asked, with a tone
that sounded less like playful exaggeration and more like 6 kids really was
the same as an actual million.
So I told her, "Almost."
Aaaaand that was about the end of that conversation.
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