Moving boxes in a living room

Making This Military House Our Home

I’ve noticed over time military families tend to fall into two distinct categories when it comes to unpacking after a move. While there are certainly exceptions, most of us can be classified into one of these two groups.

The first group unpacks their home within a week. The second group, however, finds themselves surrounded by unopened boxes from previous moves, adding to the mountain of boxes from their current relocation.

Personally, I have yet to find a place for everything in the house we’ve called home for the past three years. In the first year, I thought, “Oh, we have time, we just moved in.” By the second year, I reassured myself, “It will find its place soon, we’ve got time.” Now, in the third year, my mindset shifted to, “We are moving soon, so don’t worry about it.”

Never in a million years did I think my husband would be extended and we wouldn’t be moving anytime soon. Yet here we are, facing at least two more years in this house. I figured it’s finally time to put this house together and truly make it our home.

I’ve always done just enough to make it comfortable, letting the rest fall into place over time. This time, things were supposed to be different. It was supposed to be our “pit stop” until we moved into our forever home after my husband’s retirement. Now, I find myself spending days staring at the walls of each room wondering what’s needed to transform them into our “family room” or “family kitchen.”

I find myself going through boxes and discovering pieces that define a room. I’m ordering pictures to fill frames and imagining where they’ll look best. I make trips to the store, grabbing my favorite coffee drink as I browse the aisles for staple items that can tie my rooms together.

To be honest, the way I plan to turn this house into our home is by filling all the nooks and crannies with what makes us, us. I can change the countertops, add a backsplash or a pop of color to each room — renter friendly, of course. I’m so excited to walk into my house and truly feel at home.

If this phase of military life has taught me anything, it’s not to be bound by time constraints at each duty station. Have fun, make it your own and transform that house you were assigned into the place your family can call home. I can’t wait to see how it all comes together. Until next time, y’all!

Boy and girl talking to Santa

Let It Go: Holiday Edition

For the first time ever, I’ll be enjoying Christmas Eve free from assembling toys, wrapping gifts, tiptoeing around my own house and staying up way past my bedtime. This is the first year everyone in our house knows Santa’s real identity.

This had me revisiting all the “traditions” we’ve tried to make stick over the years. There are a lot of them. That’s the burden of someone parenting in the age of bloggers and influencers. We feel the pressure to dump more and more magic into our holiday season. I’ve asked myself several times over the years, “Are we even having fun anymore?” And, of course, “Why am I more tired after winter break than I was before winter break?”

Of all the things we’ve abandoned over the years, I’ve found what’s important to our family stuck — decorating together the day after Thanksgiving, watching everyone’s favorite movie, annual (very tacky) Christmas pajamas, homemade cinnamon rolls, light riding, and baking a batch of everyone’s favorite cookies. The rest of the noise the internet led me to believe “made the holidays” has been shown the curb.

I’d like to give you permission to simplify your winter holidays. If something drains you, don’t do it. If it just absolutely will not work where you’re stationed this year, pause it. If you find yourself dragging the kids kicking and screaming to something, maybe it’s time to call it.

Family in front of the Christmas tree in pajamas

Here’s what we’ve abandoned over the years while keeping the holidays the most wonderful time of the year for everyone at our house:

The Elf on the Shelf

I made it one year. This little maniac is nothing but trouble. Create over-the-top messes after the kids go to bed for 24 nights in a row — absolutely not. As I unpacked our holiday décor, I threw him straight into the garbage before the kids could see him. They never asked about him again. To be transparent, they did drop little hints of jealousy here and there over the years about friends who had elves. I simply told our kids that we didn’t need an elf at our house.

Daily Acts of Kindness

I really, really wanted to love this one. I would not let it go despite moving overseas and still trying to make it work. Logic finally won out. For starters, it was expensive, but most importantly, I found it was doing the exact opposite of what it’s supposed to (show our kids the importance of doing nice things for others). Our kids were just as exhausted as I was rushing here and there to hide dollar bills, prep care packages for the homeless, bake cookies for an entire teaching staff, etc. We now focus more on letting these moments happen organically, all year long. When there’s an opportunity to be a little nicer or more generous than you have to be, do it. There’s no need to cram all the good deeds for the year into an already hectic month.

Little girl in a cemetery

Santa “Evidence”

Technology and I have a love-hate relationship. Most of that hate falls on my printer for rarely doing the one thing it’s supposed to do. One year, I downloaded an app — you may know it — where you could take a picture of your living room and they would essentially edit Santa into the picture, making it look like you (super parent) snapped a photo of him leaving gifts. This blew the minds of our two kids, but by the next year, my boy genius of a son was onto the whole Santa thing. That photo was at the center of his suspicions. He’d heard friends say their parents got the same photo; dots were connected, and he wanted some answers. Let’s just agree here today, some efforts to make the magic feel more real can deflate it all together. My advice? Leave room for imagination.

Mom and her kids in front of Christmas lights

Mailing Letters to Santa

You’ve heard about my wickedly smart son; now let me introduce you to my fiercely independent daughter. I’ll never forget the year she mailed a letter to Santa with her Christmas list via our base post office without showing me what was on it. To this day, I have no idea what was on that list. She was so young she’s forgotten at this point. I had to deliver what she wanted without knowing what she asked for — not ideal. After the stress of shopping for her that year, I gave up on letters to Santa. Our kids rarely had them done in time to help me shop anyway. I’d have their gifts purchased by Thanksgiving, and they’d mail a letter with a completely different wish list the week of Christmas. It became yet another vulnerable spot in the Santa fabric, so we stopped.

Kid crying with Santa and mom

Elaborate Holiday Meals

If you’ve read my rants about Thanksgiving, this is nothing new. It’s a monster grocery bill, two days of prep, a day on your feet in the kitchen, only to eat lukewarm food and spend two days cleaning up and a week eating leftovers. Instead, everyone picks something they want to eat — it’s usually a snack or an appetizer — and we have a spread set out all day. We still do our traditional morning cinnamon rolls and then kick over to savory bites in the afternoon. It’s zero effort, which means I get to enjoy the holiday too, and I know I’m not going to labor over something my kids are just going to call gross as they fill up on rolls.

Woman making cinnamon buns in kitchen

Creating Happy Holidays

I could probably go on, include things that fell away that hurt me deeply (like photos with Santa), but you get the idea. These are your holidays too. Make sure you have time to enjoy them and make memories with your family instead of staging something for social media or trying to keep pace with influencers. Wherever you are, whatever you celebrate, I hope you and your family have a relaxing, memorable and joyous season.

Little boy exploring the outdoors

Finding the Silver Lining Wherever You Are

I miss summer thunderstorms in the South. The way the whole house would shake as I held our babies in my arms. Staring into their wide eyes, waiting for the next flash of lighting and startling booms of thunder. I miss the excitement the storms brought on the long hot days, breaking up the sun’s crippling heat and putting on a show for us with a much-needed breeze.

I also love the calm, reliably perfect summers here in Washington. I love the crisp mornings and the cloudless days of robin’s-egg blue skies. I love how we can keep the windows open most days and eat dinners on the back patio without sticky air or bothersome bugs. I love how long the summer days are here. It’s as if they know how precious they are, allowing us to squeeze the most we can out of our time under the sun before leaving too soon.

I miss the brief and mild winters of the South, the way summer was its default setting. I miss how the warmth would creep back in by the end of March or beginning of April and not depart until close to Christmas. I miss October beach trips and February picnics under the sun. I miss babies crawling around in diapers and nothing else for half of the year, and I miss the days I didn’t spend every morning searching for the other sock, glove or rain boot.

I love fall in Washington. I love waking up in the mornings to blankets of fog, soon making way for blue skies. I love the vibrantly colored leaves covering the sidewalks for my children to collect. I love that I can wear my cozy sweaters without needing to shed them by noon. I love the anticipation of and preparations for home projects, books to tackle, movies to watch, and board games to play with the kids while we drink hot chocolate. I love dreaming of the cozy days waiting for us just around the corner.

I miss living near our family members who are all on the opposite coast. I miss being in the same time zone and being able to call my mom or sister after I get the kids to bed. I love the adventures we give our family members when they come to visit. I love how special the time we have with them has become and how we make the very best of every moment.

I miss warm beaches and swimming pools and endless afternoons of water games and too many popsicles. I love making fires and flying kites and exploring tide pools on cold beaches along the Pacific coast and how the sun sets over the ocean.

I miss rural landscapes and country backroads. I miss the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance on long drives. I love that I can see Mount Rainier from wherever I am; its towering snowy peak trying to pull me away from reality with hypnotizing majesty. I love how we can take any exit off the highway and end up at a state park. I love how the hiking trails feel right out of a fairytale here, and the world feels extra colorful in these mountains.

Possibly my favorite thing about Washington — The Evergreen State — is the evergreen trees. I love how each one seems to have its own personality, pointing crookedly in its own windblown direction. They’re beautiful against both blue skies and gray, when still and when blowing. I love how they never change, how their eternal green is something we can count on during our colorless winters.

It can be easy to move to a new duty station — possibly one you don’t like — and look at everything through jade-colored glasses you never thought you’d own. It’s too easy to get caught up in the “I wish this place had/was more/was not…” (fill in the blank) mindset, comparing your situation to others.

Many know how the saying goes: We cannot control what happens to us in this life, but we can control how we respond. If you’re reading this, I encourage you to make the decision to find the good wherever you are. I promise it’s there. You just have to look around.

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