End of 2020 (the ultimate annus horribilis)

It's hard to believe it's been ten long years since I last wrote about a annus horribilis (a horrible year). This time of year always has crazy mixed feelings for me because of how 2010 and 2011 ended in such different ways (nevermind what we had to go through to make that happen). 

We recently celebrated the twins turning nine. They are huge (I'm buying them 12/14 clothes...) and dealing pretty well with this nutty year. They are doing well with remote school (halfway through 3rd grade!), but unfortunately given the pandemic their activities have been scaled back considerably and/or moved online. We finally got a pet bunny just before Thanksgiving after months (years?) of begging and a PowerPoint research presentation. His name is Cookie. We are getting more settled in our new house, but still annoyingly trying to sell our old one. After six months on unemployment, I did all my regular annual work in Oct-Nov this year, which was a bit much, but we are obviously thankful to come out of this historic year better than we came in. It's a strange feeling, similar to one we had in the long 2008 recession, when the world is falling apart around you, but things are going well for you (except for when they aren't, see infertility).

Even though this is really an introvert's time to shine (though not so much if you are also a wanderlust), Covid also brings up so many feelings given all the loss we've experienced. It makes you grateful that all the people we've lost in recent years weren't lost to a pandemic that precluded us being together. It makes you worry about your remaining two grandparents (step-grandmas) in the rural Midwest in their fragile mid-90s and your three remaining parents in their 70s, especially a mother with preexisting conditions like asthma and RA, and siblings who are cancer survivors and those who work in health care. It's made me think about how I've spent the second half of my life as a post-viral long hauler. It's been 22 long years since I came down with a relatively mild case of mono early in my senior year of college, which single handedly changed the trajectory of every single aspect my life since then. My education, professional and personal lives, relationships, everything is different than it would have been had I not gotten sick and am now still plagued by CFS. I also had to reconfigure my life ten years ago because of infertility and parenthood that meant I already had a pandemic friendly WFH job and life before this year. How's that for foresight (aka trauma)...

The only lingering issue with the kids was getting them to gain a bit of weight. Enter quarantine and the Covid 15 and that problem is now officially solved for Alistair, though it means I have to actually have to make an effort to lose weight for the first time in my life. Our basement gym is now set up and I have a driveway a mile long to shovel. Watch out pool season, we are coming for you!

Wear a mask, stay home, and get your jab. Happy New Year!

How it started...how it's going...

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Happy Holidays!!

So it's September...

Which is my favorite month by far, but it's been a crazy year for us all. I started a post back in the winter about the seemingly pressing issue (at the time) of the kids trying to qualify for gifted and magnet programming (she did, he missed it by a hair, oh well, it's almost time to test again). Little did we know school as we knew it would be ending soon.

I took the kids on a great trip to Boston for President's Day weekend when things with Covid were starting to look hairy and then the shit really hit the fan. We stayed at the Seaport and the Boston outbreak really took off the week after we were there. Our planned trips to NYC for Spring Break and Nantucket this summer unfortunately couldn't happen safely.

The kids have been home for six months (now two weeks into 3rd grade) and for the foreseeable future, ditto the working husband, and my work project got put off in early April (and just got green lit again today for next month!), so I've been experiencing my very first taste of compensated unemployment, yet not at a lack for seemingly endless things to do. 

We found a new (to us) house in April near our old one and then moved in in June. We bought it from a lovely old lady whose late master carpenter husband built it with his friends 50 years ago and they raised their six kids here and (bless her busy perfectionist heart) she had the whole house completely redone to sell it (so I didn't have to!). We were thinking of building new, out of desperation, but I didn't think I (or our marriage) would survive that many decisions. I couldn't talk the kids into changing schools where we are all happy and the hubs didn't want to relocate either. It's rooms and closets are bigger and it has an amazingly huge yard, which is hard to find in our built up suburban area, and it's been a wonderful change, especially given all the time we've been spending at home. Now we just have to sell our old one of 15 years... 

Where the hell does the time go? A decade ago I was still trying desperately to get pregnant. 25 years ago I graduated from high school and moved to Boston and left Wisconsin forever. My first boyfriend from my new life in Boston just died a few weeks ago. My college bio classmate Maeve died in April, along with her 8yo son. Yeah these are crazy times. We are all still healthy, thank goodness, and my family is going crazy not being able to come see our new place.

The kids have done great with their upper expanders (now out after a long delay, they were due to get them out the day everything shut down), now a retainer, and lower braces. And the lowers come off in a just a few short weeks. We thankfully didn't lose any treatment time even with three plus months of no adjustments.

It has just started thankfully cooling down after yet another record setting hottest summer ever. It felt like a very long sweaty hotflash. Next big project is putting in an inground pool (next spring hopefully).

He's not even taller than her, they are both 4'9" and climbing, it's just hair...

Watch out THIRD GRADE!