married life

but mostly just pictures of my daughter or dogs.

[seiflife]

Well, we sold our house. We move out by Dec 2nd at the latest and are looking for somewhere in Michigan to rent until the new house is ready. I'm thinking a 1 year lease starting Nov 1st until the next EOM October so we have plenty of time to move in to the new house.

We are also selling things as we don't need them and although it is intimidating, it has been nice seeing $10 here, $20 there come back to us. It's small but it adds up and feels good to repurpose stuff instead of packing it. I hope to list quite a few more things this weekend to give it time to be sold before we finish packing.

[seiflife]

Tell me I'm (not) crazy. We are going to sell our house this fall and then rent back for a few months. Then we are going to live in different Air BnBs first in Oregon, then Colorado, then maybe a stop before we land in Michigan. This means we will be in town for home closing! Do you think the 5 of us can live out of suitcases for 4 months? Let's find out!

[seiflife]

Michigan Plan C - we bought a house

Well, we bought land. We are building my dream house.

[seiflife]

My 2 year old just asked for gum. I said sure, why not (she gets gum every once in a while the past few months). She went to the cupboard, waited for me to hand her the package. She then gave me a piece, asked her 3 year old sister if she wanted a piece, and threw her garbage away before putting the pack of gum back on the counter. Unprompted.

I am thriving in this role as a mom and absolutely loving it. It's HARD some days and I'm growing and reparenting but it is paying off a million times and is giving me the most life satisfaction to watch these little humans be real, responsible, kind humans. Who knew my kids would throw their trash away and clear their plates starting at 18 months to the point of not needing to be asked? I'm so proud of me for relearning patience and kindness and parenting with respect.

[seiflife]

Michigan move - Plan B

I don't know if this is Plan B in the sense that Plan A is doomed, but we think this route is smarter.

We are going to sell our house in the spring, pay off all debts, and then move in to a smaller home. I say smaller but really we would be so grateful to have one of the beautiful new build homes we are eyeing. It comes with a utility sink, a basement, and extra garage space for bike storage which are all things we don't have in our current house (although we will be giving up our wall of windows in our current house, booooo).

I can't believe in my 30th year I will be debt free, a goal I have been clawing at for a decade. As someone who used to have over 10,000 in credit card debt, I am so incredibly in awe.

We would have to be careful in the next year to make sure we are putting cash where it needs to go (essentially savings until we sell our house because we will do all of our payoffs in one sweep right before we buy the new house). And then when we move, if we have some extra cash, we will buy a new dining room table and a basement play structure (thinking Brain Rich!) so they kids have an indoor swing and climbing structure for winters.

Anyone else getting excited for Michigan!?

[seiflife]

I think we are going to move to Ann Arbor. We are thinking spring of 2023 when Jack is 2 so we can sell the nursery furniture and save before we go. If anyone is from there or has feedback, please let me know!

A few reasons:

Houses are incredibly expensive where we live now, in central Oregon. We can sell our house and get 3x the house there.

On that point, we probably couldn’t afford to go up in house and stay in our current city. Right now the girls share a room but I want them to have their own space in high school/teen years so I want a little more home space if we can afford it.

Where we live is pretty remote. There aren’t any zoos, theaters, or kids museums within 3 hours that I’ve found.

It gets pretty cold in the winter and pretty hot in the summer but the summer also comes with smoke. If I’m going to be trapped inside, I want a basement so we have some space to get the wiggles out.

I love midwest property and home designs. I found my DREAM home being built currently in the suburbs there so fingers crossed we can afford their next phase.

There isn’t a ton of room for career growth in my current city. I work remote for a coffee chain and love my job but if I had to leave my company or wanted to take the next step, I would be stunted in that growth.

The town I live in is beautiful and connected to nature (when you can get outside) but I’m not in a phase of life where I want to be outside. I want to do things other than hike or swim in the ICE cold lakes from mountain runoff (basically the snow that melts from the mountains drains in to these lakes so they are freezing).

We are currently hours from Portland and not much else. Ann Arbor is near Toledo, Detroit, and a few hours from Chicago making it a central place for different nearby family vacations.

[seiflife]

Okay so I’m not crazy but I might be off the rails.

I think we are going to sell our house early spring 2023, buy a camping trailer, and mosey our way over to Michigan so we can see the sights. I’m getting really excited to close this chapter and start a new one.

[seiflife]

I think we are going to move to Ann Arbor. We are thinking spring of 2023 when Jack is 2 so we can sell the nursery furniture and save before we go. If anyone is from there or has feedback, please let me know!

A few reasons:

Houses are incredibly expensive where we live now, in central Oregon. We can sell our house and get 3x the house there.

On that point, we probably couldn’t afford to go up in house and stay in our current city. Right now the girls share a room but I want them to have their own space in high school/teen years so I want a little more home space if we can afford it.

Where we live is pretty remote. There aren’t any zoos, theaters, or kids museums within 3 hours that I’ve found.

It gets pretty cold in the winter and pretty hot in the summer but the summer also comes with smoke. If I’m going to be trapped inside, I want a basement so we have some space to get the wiggles out.

I love midwest property and home designs. I found my DREAM home being built currently in the suburbs there so fingers crossed we can afford their next phase.

There isn’t a ton of room for career growth in my current city. I work remote for a coffee chain and love my job but if I had to leave my company or wanted to take the next step, I would be stunted in that growth.

The town I live in is beautiful and connected to nature (when you can get outside) but I’m not in a phase of life where I want to be outside. I want to do things other than hike or swim in the ICE cold lakes from mountain runoff (basically the snow that melts from the mountains drains in to these lakes so they are freezing).

We are currently hours from Portland and not much else. Ann Arbor is near Toledo, Detroit, and a few hours from Chicago making it a central place for different nearby family vacations.

[seiflife]

My husband lost his job. He made more than I did and we both make a fortunate amount (not millions but it kept life pretty easy with 2 kids and budgeting).

And holy shit the emotions and the waves of grief. We wanted him to be a stay at home parent. We have talked about it for years. But I keep going in waves of up and down.

I’m excited for him to be home with the kids and around the house and cook yummy lunches.

I’m nervous we will run out of money and starve.

I’m glad he never has to talk to his boss anymore and Elle never has to talk to a nanny or daycare person (she loves being home with her dad and didn’t LOVE her last nanny).

I’m sad that she won’t have birthday parties and presents as big as I wish I could give her.

I am so grateful that we are safe and our home has plenty and we have been saving and practicing budgeting for years so this won’t be new to us.

I’m so scared about retirement and saving enough, not having enough extras for vacations (which we haven’t taken in years anyway).

I hate that his company took our options away from us over a software technicality and 2 weeks before his annual bonus. I hate that they hurt his heart. I hate that I’m 30 weeks pregnant with no maternity leave and no second income to supplement mine while I take time off to heal and recover.

I’m leaning into the waves and the feelings. I think they will subside after we practice for a few months and get the hang of this new lifestyle. But right now it just feels scary and sad and intimidating and exciting and more flexible. I’m crying it out as the waves come but oh I’m so overwhelmed. I am so eternally grateful for the friends who have been there to listen while I try to process all of this.

[seiflife]

I feel like the bar is set SO LOW for car dealerships. Shitty pictures. Pictures that don’t match. Don’t get back to us. Like we literally want to hand someone $30,000+ for our family vehicle and we aren’t even picky other than no red. :| 

[seiflife]

Monday morning mantra thanks to TikToks I saw over the weekend.

Okay so I’m a 3 Enneagram, I love working and feeling “needed/valued/productive” and I love my job. But sometimes it just GETS to me because I want to do it all and be perfect and organized but I am getting BURNED OUT.

So I saw a few TikToks this weekend about how we don’t take our PTO and how burnout is a badge of honor and it really shouldn’t be. A quote that stuck with me is Your employment is a business contract - they contracted you to do a job for a certain amount of money and that doesn’t include burning yourself at both ends all night and every weekend.

So I was much more refreshed this weekend, not worried about e-mail, etc. We had our rough growing period where we worked a ton to set up a team and processes but that’s over now. So I’m focusing on my business contract obligations and feeling good about it.

[seiflife]

Our new finance director has been unintentionally arrogant and condescending. I don’t think he means it, but I think he forgets that I have been doing my job for years so some fine details I specify are because I’ve seen what goes wrong if we don’t manage those details.

I thought about it all night - what do I do? I decided that if someone on my team thought I was being like this, I would REALLY want them to say something. So I’m going to approach him today by asking “is now a good time for feedback or would you like to followup later today?”

My goal is to be direct and remind him that I don’t ask to clarify pieces because I don’t know what I’m doing, I ask because I’ve had to work multiple 60+ hour weeks trying to get this new software correct and recode it and work through processes.

I’m really proud of where I’ve settled so far on this topic. Confronting him with confidence and kindness. It’s so easy to shy away but that won’t fix the problem and won’t help either of us feel good at work where we spend SO much time.

[seiflife]

It well really well. I’m grateful I spoke up and came to the table with feedback in a polite way. I listed out my items and calmly presented them and then gave him space to “feel his feelings” (he was slightly defensive as he was processing but I could tell he wasn’t trying to be defensive, he was trying to think through what was said and how he approached it). Good reminder to just say the thing if something is bugging you.

[seiflife]

Our new finance director has been unintentionally arrogant and condescending. I don’t think he means it, but I think he forgets that I have been doing my job for years so some fine details I specify are because I’ve seen what goes wrong if we don’t manage those details.

I thought about it all night - what do I do? I decided that if someone on my team thought I was being like this, I would REALLY want them to say something. So I’m going to approach him today by asking “is now a good time for feedback or would you like to followup later today?”

My goal is to be direct and remind him that I don’t ask to clarify pieces because I don’t know what I’m doing, I ask because I’ve had to work multiple 60+ hour weeks trying to get this new software correct and recode it and work through processes.

I’m really proud of where I’ve settled so far on this topic. Confronting him with confidence and kindness. It’s so easy to shy away but that won’t fix the problem and won’t help either of us feel good at work where we spend SO much time.

[seiflife]

I’m really struggling with what to do for maternity leave.

I don’t get paid time off from my company so if I take any time off, it eats up my vacation time for the rest of the year. I’ve “banked” 4 weeks since I haven’t taken a vacation in 3 years. It’s our last baby so I want to soak it in. But there are so many other emotions. I wish I could take 12 weeks and not feel like this but every week I take basically equates to $1,000 from our savings account. So then I start to feel guilty and selfish because our nanny isn’t going to stop coming (we don’t want to impact her income and it will be really helpful, especially for the older kids) so I could work a few hours a day starting at the 4 week mark. We can’t ask her to come full time because it’s already $1,400 per month and daycares in the area are $2,000 for two kids per month and don’t take newborns so we would still need to find somewhere to put the 3rd kid. I work from home so I won’t have to go anywhere and I could still easily nurse the baby. But my boss will want a rigid schedule and I’m afraid that will be hard to do because my husband doesn’t get any paternity leave so he will be trying to work with 2 toddlers at home and a newborn.

So basically I get 4 weeks paid time off and then I’m considering going back so we don’t eat through our savings. But the best time for me to work would be afternoons but our nanny isn’t here in the afternoons because one kid naps and the other kid has quiet time so that means my working husband is going to have to help me juggle the newborn and the toddlers if they aren’t cooperating that day. It sounds daunting, stressful, and heavy and I hate that our country and my company don’t do better for moms. I’m also grateful that my insurance company covers 70% of the birth so we only owe $2,000 out of pocket on top of no maternity leave.

My state did pass maternity leave coverage but it starts in 2024 which doesn’t help us this year.

[seiflife]

Some things that have made me happy this week: I installed a Google Home light behind my desk so I can control the color and dim of the strip behind my desk.

Our girls are going to share a room in the next few months and it’s almost set up (they sleep on mattresses on the floor so they have more access to their beds but eventually when they are ready we will get them frames)

We got a new rug for our living room and my husband picked this one out. I “blame” him because if it turned out looking bad I felt like people would feel more okay giving him a pass than scrutinizing me. Stupid and unfair but I think it turned out great anyway and it really lightens up the room

I had a “mom’s day out” Sunday night where I hit Bed Bath and Beyond for some spice turnstyles, Nike for new shoes for Elle, and Carters. I went about an hour or two before closing and it was perfect and not busy. I got Jack some outfits and this one says “Baby-Saurus” on the front with dino spines on the butt. It helps feel excited about the baby being able to name and picture him. Otherwise I just feel uncomfortable haha

I work for a coffee shop chain who partially owns a bakery in the PNW. Their bakery in town is like 4 blocks form my house so I picked up some sweets for us on Sunday, cut them in quarters, and my whole family sat around the table enjoying different bites and treats. It was a ton of fun and so sweet watching them share and choose their favorites!

[seiflife]

I got a bonus at work and we decided not to “put the money to work.” It’s just sitting in savings because we don’t know what 2021 will look like in terms of job status, we need a bigger car, medical bills (baby #3!), stimulus, student loan forgiveness, etc.

So we just decided to leave it there. And LET ME TELL YOU. The freedom of having some cash in savings is so refreshing. I go to work with more peace of mind because I’m there because I want to be there not because I’m terrified of starving or being in a bad spot where my kids will starve or lose their home. We’ve been living on so little the past few years to pay off debt, we have been pretty close to huge emergencies if we lost our income but not right now and it is refreshing.

Also, for any workaholics - when you finally called overworking quits (logging off at the end of your day), how did you get rid of the guilt? Because I want to find more work lie balance.

[seiflife]

I’m excited that after 2021, I’ll actually have vacation time again. In 2020 I had to bank time to use for my 2021 maternity leave (where all of my 2021 vacation time is going so I can have a total of 4 weeks paid off when I have my baby).

2022 will be the first year I have vacation time since 2016 because I have been continuously banking time and trying to save thousands of dollars for their birth.

[seiflife]

Having babies in US.

For my 1st, I got 4 weeks maternity leave and had to use the rest of my vacation and unpaid time to get a total of 10 weeks. We had to pay cash for the birth because our insurance didn’t cover midwives.

For our 2nd, I got 0 paid maternity leave and had to return to work after 4 weeks after using all of my vacation time. We paid out of pocket for our midwives.

For our 3rd, I will have 4 weeks of PTO accrued and will still have to pay 30% of our birth costs because this insurance plan covers 70%.

I’m so excited to not have to take 0 vacation days for 2 years (times 3 for us because 3 kids back to back) because I need to bank them before I have the baby and then use them up on maternity leave so I don’t have any left over after birth. Sign me up for a vacation in 2022 after no vacations since 2016 except our wedding.