ohhh, brilliant tip re: family photos. thank you! I also love November because it’s when it FINALLY cools down in Phoenix 🙂

@Caitlin- another November fan! Seriously – it’s a great month.

I really like the muted fall colors of November in New England and will also put in a plug for getting family photos done early in the month. Photographers aren’t as stressed as they will be closer to the holidays, we don’t usually need to be completely bundled up here, and it’s still close enough to the holidays so that my kid looks about the same two months later and I can use the photos for Christmas cards.

We did a big addition/interior reconfig to our house back in 2014 with a 4yo and a 1yo. Some things hat helped: we hired a remodeling co that served as the General Contractor and also had a person who coordinated the “design choices”, not an actual interior designer but she would tell us when it was time to pick out tile, carpet, etc. One of the things that saved a TON of time and stress was giving her parameters up front. So instead of poring over ALL THE POSSIBLE tile choices, I’d tell her that we wanted an ivory matte 12×24 tile or ivory patterned berber carpet, and could she narrow it down to 5 or fewer choices. This was amazing and I wish I had figured that out sooner. I’m also a satisficer so I didn’t need the absolutely “perfect” one, I just needed one that I liked and figured there would be a lot. Same for paint colors. I told them “warm white” and asked them to bring me 3-5 choices and I picked one. We also hired our 23yo neighbor who was in interior design school to help with some of the more “interesting” choices, and I wish I had reached out to her earlier bc she had some great suggestions. Her price was very reasonable since she was still a student but she also knew a lot of current trends and materials from her classwork.

@Elisabeth – oh, so sorry about the basement/foundation issues. Those are the worst. But yes, this too shall pass.

@Anon. Oh this sounds so much like me!! I have A LOT of anxiety wrapped up in our home but also feel like I shouldn’t communicate this to others because doing renovations IS a privilege…yet I hate every minute of it. I even dread when it’s over because then I critique every decision I’ve made. Sigh.

After YEARS of apartment living, four years ago we purchased our first house (where we still live). It was older and needed work, but had solid “bones.” Within a week we discovered major issues that required jackhammering a giant hole in our basement floor and excavating the entire perimeter of our house. All the mature landscaping we loved – gone. Beautiful lush lawn; now a giant mud pit. It was so demoralizing. Most of the major work happened when I was solo-parenting (my husband traveled about 60% of the time for work) in the middle of a particularly cold, miserable winter. So I was suddenly juggling little kids, contractors, decisions, legal battles, extensive work on insurance claims, and major bills. I lost 10 pounds in a handful of weeks from the stress.

I actually started to “fear” our house; it had been such a traumatic start.

Now we’re doing more fun (?) updates – replacing 50-year old windows, upgrading the old wood facade on the exterior of our house, building a small addition. I wake up with a pit in my stomach most days even though reno work is currently paused. I just know another wave is coming soon! I keep waiting for this house anxiety to resolve…but maybe it won’t until if/when we move?

The contractor comes tonight so we can make a giant push in ordering materials. I guess the only way through is through…right?! This too shall pass.

@Elisabeth – I’m not saying that I’m *not* losing my mind over here…