Hello, friends! This last month has held multitudes. We spent the first half packing up our first home and the second half settling into our new home. We weathered the news of the original buyers backing out – and went under contract with new buyers – all while the movers shuttled our belongings between houses (a wild day). We’ve now met every neighbor on our cul-de-sac. We have loved walking to school most days. I have thoroughly enjoyed the process of purging, tossing on-the-fence items with glee and freedom. Our maple out the front windows has been ablaze and an abundance of squirrels are frolicking in the backyard with abandon. Megan McArdle once wrote about how young adults setting off on their own subconsciously expect to start at their parents’ standard of living – which is, of course, the standard their parents ascended to over a lifetime, and likely far from where they started as young adults. They want to shop at the same stores, eat the same foods, take the same vacations, and live in the same sort of house with the same sort of furnishings. When their budget or circumstances don’t allow them to continue in “the style to which they’ve become accustomed,” they can feel cheated. John and I had (and have) plenty of failings, but this was not one. I’ve written before about how we mostly reveled in our scrappy phase, that time of our lives when cardboard boxes were our coffee tables and splitting a Chipotle burrito was a grand night out. I’ve been thinking about this idea a lot lately, wondering about its relevance to my current predicament. I find myself impatient that our home does not feel like us, that it does not feel “finished.” Which, when I write it out, seems absolutely

The other day John and I were talking about what we’ll miss most, physically, about this home, our first home, and my answer was our front porch. It’s unusually deep, perched well above street level and tucked behind a mature tree. Shady and private enough to work from on even the hottest summer days, it also played host to dinner parties, friend hangs, and tables set for Articles Club. On its sturdy boards we carved pumpkins, played in the sand box, read chapter books aloud, ate lunch, set up the chess board, spit cherry pits over the railing, waited on siblings to return from play dates and grandparents to arrive from the airport. The string lights were magic; the wreaths hanging on the gates each December, a source of deep personal satisfaction. And I can still feel exactly what it was like to sit cross-legged under the spinning fan, cooing at baby June as she learned to roll on a soft blanket. We’d head out there after work and daycare and just chat — for an hour, easy. That porch was an aerie, a world unto itself in the most ordinary of places. While the glorious view below will not always be ours, the sweetness will be. On my calendar:— Seeing The Sound of Music with June! After a few false starts for her “experiential” 2024 Christmas gift, this is where we landed. We are both so excited for a night at the theater together.— Our fall family mountain trip, this year to Boone. We’ve had more trips than usual to WNC in the last few months but you won’t catch me complaining. These mountain weekends are always some of the sweetest of the year for our family.— A weekend in New England! I’m flying to a dear friend’s baby

Big update over here, friends: we are under contract to buy a new house. !!! This came to pass in a quite unusual and stressful manner, because the house went on the market while we were in Maine. (Our realtor, to boot, was also on vacation.) We submitted our offer on Sunday night, learned there were multiple offers and submitted a new offer (and then another one) on Monday, and finally found out our offer was accepted on Monday night. We came home on Wednesday night and saw the house for the first time on Thursday night. While we hadn’t stepped foot inside, we were familiar with the house – it is in our same neighborhood, right around the corner from one of Shep’s buddies, and is one we had had our eye on for over a year. It checks a lot of our boxes – cul-de-sac location, flat driveway, separate dining room, bigger backyard, space for an office, even the possibility of a mudroom – and we are super grateful. That does not mean that the last few weeks have been without challenges. I wish I could say we’ve been uniformly blissful and brave, but alas I am a person who deeply dislikes change. In addition to staying on top of the piles of paperwork required to buy and sell a home – as well as fixing things up around our current home, coordinating completion of the rest of the punch list, streamlining our belongings and beginning to pack what remains – I’ve been on a bit of an emotional roller coaster. I am excited, of course, and grateful, but also fearful of leaving the security of our current corner of the neighborhood and all the good we have here, fearful of something “better” coming on the market in

June is home from camp, we have sunny + cool northern travels to look forward to, we’re still enjoying summer and yet have also eased into back-to-school prep — in short, I’m feeling good. I hope August finds you in a contented place, as well! If you, too, are straddling seasons, I pulled up a few posts that might be of help for us both: Our favorite family read aloudsMy takeaways from Habits of the HouseholdSimplifying kids’ artworkOur kids after-school jobsThe email I send to my fellow parents in both kids’ classesAnd my series on Christians in public school (start here) And now onto the goals… On my calendar:— Our annual trip to Maine! This year, we’re going further north to Acadia for part of the time and traveling with friends. I’m looking forward to experiencing something new on this very-familiar (and very-beloved) trip.— Shep and Annie’s joint birthday adventure. We’re once again taking the train ride to Greensboro’s children’s museum with a few friends and they are so excited.— The first day of school! Fourth and first grade for June and Shep and a new Montessori preschool for Annie. What I’m loving right now:— Good news on the concealer front: since Counter no longer carries (at least for now) my beloved formulation, I ventured to Sephora to find a replacement. A kind gal led me to Kosa’s clean brightening concealer and I’ve been very happy with shade 2.3N. (I rounded up all my current clean beauty favorites here if you’re in the market! These are the products I use daily, except for the perfume which is for special occasions :))— My dear friend Nancy’s podcast has been turned into an ice cream flavor! Triangle locals, I think her creation (that’s it up at the top) goes back into the vault now that July is