Don’t worry: I’m not about to lecture anyone on needing a more visibly diverse friend group. Appearances are often misleading (take that banner photo for instance*), and what your friend group looks like is not what I’m interested in talking about here.
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As I mentioned in a recent post, we’ve been doing a lot of work on our current home, with the intention of selling it before our oldest goes to high school.
Things still on the to-do list include new exterior doors and replacement of two light fixtures in the living room (all scheduled for this month). Guest bathroom updates and new flooring are on the “maybe” list. A new heather and AC unit are being installed as I write this.
Several of you asked for more info and better pictures of what we’ve done so far, so here we go (enjoy!):
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Wow time is flying! I really had every intention when I started this blog of posting once a week. HAHAHAHAHAAAAA! *wipes tears from eyes*
I guess once a month is going to have to suffice for now. As if two jobs and two kids and the usual summer travel and training for another endurance race aren’t enough, we’ve added the funtivities mentioned in the title to our list.
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I ask this as an honest question, because it’s seeming to me like maybe the answer is yes.
I starting pondering this topic after we left a nice dinner party (full of other couples about our age and in similar stages of life) and my husband said: “I think we were the only people in there who actually like our lives.”
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The short answer is that he doesn’t need one. Let’s unpack that statement with some frequently asked questions that we get on this subject.
Depends who you ask, I guess.
We’re both at the upper end of the Millennial generation. We both have smartphones and various social media accounts. We both work with kids and teenagers in our careers. We use computers, phones, and other modern technology frequently for our jobs and have lots of random unnecessary electronic devices in our house. I don’t think we’re too far out of touch.
My husband and I are now on our 18th winter of driving non-fancy 2WD cars in snowy climates. Locations we’ve driven said cars during winter include most of Colorado, Chicago and other “lake effect snow” parts of the Midwest, and our current mountainous hometown, which averages 100 inches of snow per year in town (double that on the higher mountains around us).
This past winter brought us one storm with over 35 inches of snow in 24 hours.
Our current vehicles are both 2WD. They were made in 2004 and 2007, were bought with cash, and cost us less than $100/mo total to insure. The costs for gas and regular maintenance (oil changes, etc) are negligible.
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As you may have picked up from some of our previous posts, we like a good adventure. We realize they’re not all winners, and in fact some of them are solidly in the “once was enough” category, but we like to feel like we’re doing stuff. We also realize that being bored is a first-world problem, and we own that.
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Honestly, it’s mind blowing for me to write this post. I have major imposter syndrome anytime I even think about numbers this high.
And before we go any farther: please don’t send me messages telling me I’m limiting myself by “not thinking big” or some such nonsense. These are freaking huge numbers. And not only on a global scale (where the median household income is under 10k) but in the USA as well (where the median household income is about $61k) and even in the shiny bubble of doctor salaries that I live in, where the average individual income is anywhere from $100k to $300k depending on your specialty and time in practice and blah blah blah.
So, yes, it feels crazy to write this post. It’s also really fun for me to write this post, because I’ve been waiting impatiently for this day ever since I realized it was within my grasp this calendar year. …
There’s something about the prospect of getting new stuff that causes kids to go a little nuts around the holiday season. I’ve heard “You know what I want for Christmas…?!” approximately a thousand times since Halloween. And the answer to that question is not a single, simple item. Heavens, no. Long gone are the days when kids sent a hand-written letter to Santa asking for a jump rope. Kids are now making online “Christmas wish lists” on par with wedding registries, and plenty of parents are boldly crowdsourcing holiday shopping money “for the kids!”
We’re kind of over it.
Here are five reasons why my husband and I – despite loving the holiday season and having plenty of money available to spend on our little angles – have all but nixed Christmas presents in our household: …
Whaaaaaat??!!
This might come as a huge shock to those who know us, what with the recent upsurge in nomadic impulses among Millennials – especially those who, like us, have always loved traveling and are drawn to minimalism.
If you were unaware of this trend, just search “nomadic lifestyle” or “millennial nomads” or “digital nomads” or “nomadic families” or anything similar and you’ll be up to speed in no time. People seem to be hitting the road in droves with one-way tickets in hand.