After 10 years of marriage and 3 kids, this past weekend my husband and I finally came to the realization that we are, in fact, adults. We don’t really know when it happened. It feels like we blinked and suddenly we are in our mid-30’s and spending our weekends not relaxing, but running errands and doing “stuff around the house.”
Everything Started Innocently Enough
It all began with our family outing to the local art festival. Who doesn’t like to walk about the park and look at expensive art with 3 little kids with grabby fingers…in an on-again/off-again rainstorm!? I think that once you reach your mid-30’s you like to torture yourself like this. It starts off as a good idea until it just isn’t anymore. After hitting every prize wheel around the circle, making our own clay flowers for an art installation, and talking my eldest out of spending his 4 prized quarters on a bottle of water just so he could “buy something”, we set aim for the library book sale.
The book sale is something that we look forward to every year, and this year they added an amazing twist to their low-low prices – fill a tote for $3! You can never have enough books so we loaded up 2 giant tote bags {in addition to the one I filled during their pre-sale – #booknerd} and we are now the owners of 3 gazillion new books. They are currently scattered from the four corners of my house and will eventually reside on one of the bursting bookcases.
Then after lugging our book booty 3 blocks back to the car, we headed to the local buffet for lunch. What says mid-30’s more than taking your kids to a place where they can basically eat pizza, muffins, and ice cream just so that mom and dad can have soup and salad? Nothing does! Thankfully since they were loaded down with new books, the fighting and pushing typically associated with meals in public was kept to a minimum.
The Moment It Hit Us
While at lunch we debated heading to Target for some family necessities or going home first to rest {it had been a long morning}. I reasoned that if we went home, there was no way we would go out again because that is how our weekends usually go…so off to Target we went.
Somehow we managed to escape only buying a few items that weren’t on our list {unfortunately none of them were from the Hearth and Hand collection}. When we were halfway back to the car, my husband re-routed us into the Home Depot so we could get a part we needed to fix the toilet.
This was the moment.
I felt like that scene in Old School where Frank talks about his busy Saturday. How did this happen to me? Didn’t I just graduate college? It feels like yesterday I just got married! Oh goodness – I’m an adult.
It Gets “Better”
That evening as we set into relaxation mode {you know, watching old episodes of Grey’s Anatomy and playing on our phones} we started chatting about updating our bedroom. A new comforter. Maybe some quality sheets. Something a little less “frat house” like our current piecemeal arrangement of comforters and sad looking pillows. Next thing I know I’ve placed an order on Zulily where I saved quite a bit of money and I didn’t even have to leave the comfort of my yoga pants and threadbare comforter.
When Sunday rolls around and we are loading our systems with coffee we try to figure out what we should do with our day. The original plan was to deep clean the kitchen {we know how to have all of the fun} when my husband throws out “Why don’t we go to IKEA?”
What? Yes! Of course! I love IKEA and I’m not quite to THIS part of mid-30’s yet!
So I hop on their website and discover that they are having a HUGE IKEA Family celebration with discounts, special events, and free gifts. It is like they KNEW we were planning on coming! So we pile into the car and off we go.
The plan had been to just get some new kitchen chairs. Nothing crazy. By the time we checked out, we had our new chairs AND a table AND an entertainment center…and all of the little togowiths like placemats, light bulbs, and a lantern. We doubled our original upper limits budget. Crap. This should have been a sign that something was about to go terribly wrong.
First, it started to rain as we walked to the car. Then, we realized that we couldn’t fit the kids and our purchases in the SUV at the same time. So I had to drive our assortment of IKEA goodies home while me husband waited with the kids. Fine. We don’t live around the corner, but it shouldn’t be much more than 1 hour round trip before I could get them. Then my car starts running LOUDLY. Like, scary loud, but I had to ignore it so that I could get back to pick up my family. This has now led to my car being towed to the shop for inspection and hopefully cheap repair!
The Mid-30’s Acceptance Sets In
Finally, after all of the adventures of the weekend, we begin rearranging our entire house and assembling our new living room/dining room combo. Out with the old and in with the new. Our house now looks fresh and seasonally fall with actual decor strategically mixed in with the assortment of Pokemon cards, video games, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid books.
So there you have it
I am the definition of mid-30s with my home improvement projects and Netflix binges and I am trying to embrace the changes that come with this phase of life. Why fight it? It’s not going to change anything!
Now if you need me, I am going to put on my mommy yoga pants, pour myself a glass of white wine, and smell my fall scented candles. I am mid-30’s, hear me yawn!
