This is one of those posts that I starting writing months ago and then thing after thing happened, focus dwindled, and creative distractions took over. I apologize in advance for the rambling. Blogging has been very hard for me over the past few months. I am sure that I’m not the only one.
Just a couple of weeks ago we FINALLY got out of probably the worst year of many of our lives… 2020. I don’t even really have the words to describe it all. There was just SO MUCH… TOO DAMN MUCH… going on in the world, and in our lives. I am SO glad that year is behind us. We have been in dealing with COVID and everything associated with it for 10 months!! It’s almost hard to believe. But then 2021 hit, and wow… umm… yeah. It was like 2020 took steroids and became 2021!
At the beginning of 2020, I had major goals. I was going to work hard, blog more, save more money, take an awesome anniversary vacation, and get my life in order. I was on the right track. January and February went well. I was on a roll. And then we started hearing about a mysterious illness. And then March arrived. We heard that things were getting worse. People were getting sick by just being around other people.
On March 16, we received an email to temporarily work from home… for 3 weeks. 3 weeks! The world thought that just chilling out and having people mostly stay home for 3 weeks would do the trick. We know how that went. It was like a bad movie that kept getting worse, and it still is.
Now, here we are in January of the next year and the world is still not back to normal. We have been dealing with this now for 10 months. 10 MONTHS!!! It’s been so long that TV shows have had time to make new episodes including storylines about COVID. Some of us have lost friends, family, coworkers, and classmates to COVID. At this point, over 402,000 people in the United States have died of COVID. That is a very staggering and very sad number.
As for sheltering in place, for some people, staying in this long might seem like a lifetime. But, if I’m being honest… I do not mind the solidarity at all. I do not mind being at home. I actually LOVE being at home. I can find plenty of things to do. And, I’m blessed to have a husband and 4 kids, so my home is rarely empty. However, I do enjoy my alone time when I can get it. I have only been to the office a handful of times over the past few months.
Like many, we decided to make the most of our time at home. I kind of haphazardly started a garden. I ended up with a lot more garden than I anticipated, and I loved it. We worked on our yard. We expanded our patio. We got a fence. And we did a couple of home projects. However, when I tell you that everything we have had to do has required waiting or problems, that is no exaggeration.
For the longest time, I’ve had a phrase when it comes to us and things that we try to do. Everything good requires waiting. There’s always just one more thing that we have to do to accomplish XYZ. Last year was certainly no exception. Of course, COVID provided a ton of challenges for everyone. All the things we all take for granted were either on hold or greatly delayed. And since so many people were staying home, home construction projects, getting materials, and everything else associated was delayed.
The was all happening at the same time as the world basically blowing up. We were dealing with COVID, there was unrest all over due to the George Floyd killing, and more. THINGS… JUST… KEPT… HAPPENING!!! I never thought I would live through anything like that in my lifetime. But, what hurts me more is that my children had to experience it.
We celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary in June 2020. We were so excited to finally get a nice romantic vacation. We were excited to get away to an awesome resort. But, like so many others, we had to cancel that. On our 5th anniversary, we made dinner at home and ate in our yard. Since we were supposed to be in Mexico, at the last minute I decided on a cheap, cheesy beach themed dinner with accessories from Dollar Tree. LOL!
If I recall, the temp dropped, we got cold, and came in the house. LOL! It was not what we had planned, but it was what we could do at the time. So… now our awesome anniversary vacation is delayed. But, we were together and healthy, and that is what was important.
Since we canceled the vacation, we decided to put that money towards our yard and extend our patio. We got some quotes, picked a company, and had to wait. They were awesome. We had originally hoped to get it done by the 4th of July so that we could enjoy it on that day. But, since they were backed up, we had to wait… and wait. And… since it kept raining we had to wait. The fence was finally completed on Sept 3, after also having to fight for a permit for the fence that we wanted for over 3 weeks.
We happily pulled all of the new chairs, cushions, candles, and decor that we had waiting out and set it up. We were excited! Also, during this time our new gazebo arrived! We assembled it over the next 2 days.
But, then another wrench in the plans! An AT&T rep showed up on Sept 5 while we were assembling the gazebo to let us know that the fence installers hit a line while installing and that they would have to dig up a part of our yard to fix it.
I will spare you most of the boring details. If you are my Facebook friend, you know them. But, long story short… it took 2 different sessions of digging, weeks of waiting, and my having to call, tweet, and post before it was finally filled the hole on Sept 28. And THEN, they did not fit all of the dirt back in the hole so we went from having a hole to having a hill. It took another couple of days to get that right. And all of this was done just in time for it to get cold here. It was 26 days from the time AT&T showed up to the time they were finally done fixing the hole. If you are interested, view my YouTube video to see the completed fence and patio.
Soon after that, we lost my mother-in-law after complications from surgery, not too long after she was diagnosed with cancer. It was a huge blow and completely unexpected.
The end of the year was just a whirlwind of emotions, interruptions, and almost neverending stress. I could not handle one more thing last year. Not one more!! But, of course, there was the election, more unrest, more craziness. It was so much. It’s all just so much!! And it is still not over. But…
Hopefully, we can now start to heal now. I am hoping so. And I’m focused on moving all of those goals that I had last year up to this year. But no… they are not resolutions!!! I will not say that.
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