Welcome back to my Discovery series, where I am using the next 2 months to get my house and mind ready to be a 42 yr old part time law student as a divorced mom of 4 with a full time job.
Wow where has the time gone. I must say, I am thankful to have had this summer to prep for this next season as honestly without, I would have been more of a nervous wreck come this fall. Having the summer has allowed me to think through what could work, what would be needed and even space for trial and error.
Ok with that said, let’s jump into the updates because there are plenty.
Now after our family vacation this summer, the main focus when I returned was to only be on food. Cooking all of the prep meals I’d identified earlier in the summer to help make the transition into being a part time law student a bit easier. Well, because I am Traci, I always seem to find a way to up the ante, add more to my plate of things that could be nice but maybe not needed in that moment. Enter the “study café”, transforming my unused dining room into a cozy, study, eating, gathering room for the family since we will all be in school.
Also, since my last update, I was able to secure the furniture needed to turn my room into an office/bedroom, and thanks to facebook marketplace and my handy neighbor, I was able to get them for free. My goal is to use split the room in half essentially, one part for the office and the other for the bedroom with a clear line of separation, hence the additional furniture.
Man even writing about this feels over whelming knowing that time is flying by.
Lastly, I started the assigned law school prep course this week and wow wow wow! Now its not the content that’s is hard, it’s the adjustment you have to, well need to make, in your schedule to make it all work oh and stay sane at the same time.
Ok lets get into it!
Now don’t get me wrong, it’s been a great transition so far and to be honest has been on my goal sheet for some time. But why I would pick now to do it…. The world may never know.
For a reference, here is how it started, a wide empty space with your standard furniture. Honestly, it just felt cold. While the table fit the space, the rest of the furniture was just there… no real personality. I also have this thing with paying for something and not using it. Part of me would love a tiny home with no wasted space, so you can imagine how much this room just nagged at me. Daily walking by it, but not in use. Square footage that probably should have gone to a different part of the house, but I digress. So, like I said, it was always on the list of one day that has clearly turned into today.
Since I had already painted my foyer this bold terracotta color, I knew the rest of the house needed to be a bit more neutral…. Well, also because my kitchen is a soft denim blue. What can I say, I love color! First step was to get the walls painted, then shop for the couch.
Because I work in retail, I have this thing about paying “retail” for certain things. Especially when quality fabrics are not always used in the new products ( you can thank my fabrication class in college). So, with my inspiration picture in hand I hit the thrift stores in search of a couch to use as a dinette. This was impossible! I knew I could make a couch and loveseat work but I also wanted the sectional look.
At the end of one Saturday, now in my 5th thrift store of the day, I saw a couch. Could it be the couch…. Maybe. I was on the fence. Structurally, it was the best I had seen all day, the pattern… well it could grow on me but the size was perfect. And in the world of thrifting, it’s important to know what your non-negotiables are as your selection is not wide. After consulting my project partner (my twin teen daughter), we got the couch and I spent the next week ordering (and returning) things, shopping facebook market place, oh, and painting to get this room pulled together.
Having a budget really kept me focused on the big picture here. Also, so thankful that a few of the pieces in the room were actually free, score!
Ok so while the room is not done, we are definitely on our way. The majority of the orders have arrived and are waiting assembly… this is where that helpful handy man comes onto the scene.
In Progress: Study Cafe Transformation
Oh father dear! My dad is pretty use to the “Daddy, when you have some time…” call. Since I am type A person, I send him a list of things that need attention and he carves out a weekend or a day (depending on the list) to come over and knock it out. This list might need to be a weekend, but I’ll be sure to cook and keep him well fed!
Now let’s talk about food and meal prep.
Earlier in the year, when I ‘restarted’ this substack, I listed out meals I wanted to make in advance to help with the transition into law school. Now that the summer is finally here and the kids are on break, I have more time to actually cook the prep food. Now in an ideal world, I would take a week off work and just knock these out. But realistically, that is not an obvious choice. So that leaves the weekends mainly (when I don’t decide to randomly add a new project to the list).
Last year I started making the kids breakfast burritos as a way to ensure they had a warm meal before school, or at least put my mind at ease that they had the option (some mornings they grabbed them but didn’t eat them). Well this kind of turned into a routine for us, making them on the weekend and them warming them up in the morning before we left. Since that worked so well, why change it I thought.
So far I have made:
40 breakfast burritos- but honestly we probably need double that to get us through the first month, so not done with that yet
20 Salmon Croquettes- those are for me to either eat on the way to work or once I am there, we will see
30 sweet potato pancakes- also for me and thinking this is either for work days or weekend mornings, when I am up before the kids studying
4 weeks of Bone Broth- Not necessarily breakfast, but I do drink it first thing in the morning before doing anything else
But as you can see, I still have a few more breakfast items to tackle and one behemoth of a mountain I have been avoiding… BISCUITS.
I know these are suppose to be so easy, but some how I have found a way to over think them. I genuinely hate buying frozen biscuits when I know they are so easy to make and freeze. So like most things that are a challenge for me, I am determined to overcome it. Biscuits… you have met your match!
Now the plan is to get all of the breakfast items done in the month of July and spend August solely focused on dinner. The kids will be back in school by then so what I am thinking is when I cook dinner, I will focus on the meals on my prep list and just make double. One for dinner and one to freeze. In addition to continuing the weekend cooking and prepping.
I am sure, well if you made it this far, you are thinking, where in the heck is she going to store all of this. I Do Not Know. While I have a chest deep freezer, it’s full and so are the freezer sections of my other two refrigerators. I can say some of that is either prepped food or food to be prepped so that space will take care of itself. However, if I am being honest, that chest freezer has some things at the bottom I just know need to see a trashcan. I am hoping once I clean that out, I will have opened up more space.
But honestly, I already know it won’t be enough. Not to fully cook and store this list. Unless I get a new standing deep freezer, I will have to prep cook mid semester to get me through until the end. Stay tuned, because I don’t have an answer to this yet.
And finally the prep course. The course is mainly around introducing us to concepts, skills and vocabulary that we will encounter once law school starts. Almost like a soft launch, a small taste of what to expect so you aren’t fully blind sided. And I must say I am eternally grateful. While the content is not hard, the consistency of logging in after work and focusing has been an eye opener.
What I find interesting is that I took an LSAT prep course where my class was at night from 7pm-11pm and the goal of that was to give me a taste of what to expect. So you would think I would be accustomed to it or unbothered. Complete lies!
I knew going back to school in my 40s would present obstacles I did not face in my 20s, but man. I can say immediately what I notice is my energy levels and to me that equates to what I put in my body. So now my mind is thinking how I will need to alter the food I eat during the day to ensure I have the energy to pull from after work. Versus waiting until dinner to fill my tank back up. My tank needs to be full before I get home, then have food to eat on while in class. Just my initial thoughts, which could change but that’s where I am so far.
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Also I think I may have underestimated the “class after work” concept. Now granted we all come home after work and do “something”. That could be cooking or cleaning or resting or the gym, you name it. I am choosing to take classes, so still something. But there is something about coming home and mentally turning your brain on or never turning it off. Not going into auto pilot. It’s real and it’s a shift. Even as I write this I keep hearing the comments from previous post say, remember it’s temporary. And it is, and I will have to do a better job of remembering that. Temporary discomfort for future gain and benefit. Hard but worth it.
Ok there you have it, the latest updates in my prep for law school. If you even made it this far, I commend you because I know it was a lot and honestly, thank you. I started this substack as a way to document my journey for me, a way to capture this lift shift live, while it was happening. I never expected this many people to also be curious about my journey and want to follow along, let alone contribute and support it. So thank you. If you are or aren’t a subscriber. Thanks for reading a moment in my life’s journey.
-Traci
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