Life Lately January 2022

January always feels like a really long month, and this year was no exception. It started off with a big snowstorm for this area, and then just getting back into the swing of things at school after winter break is always challenging!

I couldn't get it together enough to order Christmas cards in time, but I did manage to order "Happy New Year" cards and finally mail them on January 8! While I don't really make resolutions, in the spirit of the new year, I did set a challenge for myself. I also knew if there was any hope of me keeping it up throughout the year it would have to be something fun I would want to do. Since my niece loves getting mail - as does my nephew, even though he's still pretty little - I decided to send them 365 postcards this year! The first 20 postcards each had a geography fact on it, and the ones I'm sending now have a funny puns and cute cartoons on them. Hopefully I can keep finding fun ones to send them throughout the year!

better late than never

the first bunch of postcards
for my niece and nephew

I love winter!

the first day of school in 2022
and my calendar page was perfect

remember the cat that visited last year?
she came back and hung out with me
in the garage for a while!

she really wanted to come inside,
but I couldn't let her in because of C's allergies,
so instead I just texted my best friend
a million times asking for advice on what to do
LOL!

enjoyed a sunny, cold walk in the woods

such a beautiful final season

received this toll bill from LAST JULY
when we were in Colorado...
six-plus months after the fact

I'd seen a lot of people doing
the ten year photo challenge, so I made this
version with two of my favorite fictional teachers

framed this beyond perfect print that I got for Christmas

finally hung up the puzzles we completed and
framed way back in the summer of 2020

also hung up this picture I got for C...
eight of our favorite places we've visited:
Barcelona, Paris, Reykjavik, Prague,
Tokyo, Phuket, Singapore, Oslo

a very exciting gift from my mom

the most gorgeous suitcases that we
plan to take on some grand adventures

Happy Tails to you!

Extra Winter Break

The last official day of winter break was last Sunday and we went to brunch with my best friend and her husband so that she and I could commiserate about how quickly the two weeks had passed, but thanks to a snow storm, we ended up having five extra days off school! It was actually a pretty significant amount of snow for this area, and it was wet and heavy, so it caused a lot of power and transportation issues. The weight of the snow caused many of our trees to bend/fold over and we had a lot of broken branches in our yard.

We also lost power, but fortunately, it was restored after a few hours. During that time, our neighbor came over to check on us and see if my mom was ok because they had a generator and they wanted to be sure she had power for her oxygen concentrator. I was so touched by this! We explained that she was living near B1 and S1 right now because of covid concerns with me being around so many people at school each day, but honestly, how incredibly thoughtful of them to come over to check on us! (And just FYI, we do have a generator for that exact reason of my mom's oxygen concentrator, but we weren't about to use the generator just for the two of us!)

We also live on a hill and our road is private, so we don't have any snow removal services. One of our neighbors has a snow blower, and many times, when there has been less snowfall, they've cleared a path down the hill so that we are aren't all snowed in. However, this was some serious snow and it was just too much for their snow blower. They managed to find someone who would come and plow the road for us, so by Tuesday afternoon, we were able to get down our road safely. 

There are only five houses on our cul-de-sac, and we generally all keep to ourselves, but when we need each other, I know I can count on them!

I've made no secret of the fact that I absolutely love winter, and it was so unbelievably beautiful after the storm! This extra week off was such an unexpected gift and although reality will set in when I return to school tomorrow, this has been a very lovely start to 2022!

C was going around our yard
shaking the snow off the trees
in hopes of fewer broken branches

how my bun and the ears on my hat
looked after shoveling

by later in the day,
the sun was out

the day after the storm

a winter wonderland

pretending we're back in Canada

Happy Tails to you!

2021: A Look Back

2020 was not a good year. We all know that. When it finally ended, I was hopeful that 2021 would be better.

Turns out that such optimism was poorly placed. At least it felt that way when I sat down to write this post because the final three months of the year were so terrible.

However, when I actually looked back at the entire year, the first nine months of the year were pretty good, which is saying something since we're still dealing with a global pandemic.

Not only is this an excellent example of the primacy/recency effect, it also perfectly reflects how I have lost all sense of time since March 2020. It doesn't seem possible that some of these things happened in 2021 because the end of the year went by so incredibly slowly for me.

The best adventure of the year was deciding to go to all 50 states in 2021, a checklist we completed in September! So many memorable moments as we worked our way around the country...especially spring break in Hawaii, driving to the Arctic Circle in Alaska, and staying at Crater Lake Lodge. We spent hours, days, and weeks in the car together and our summer road trip was an incredible quest that we hope to do again someday! We went to WDW for C's birthday, took Ginny for countless rides, walks, and even her first hotel stays, and I got to spend a week at WDW with my mom, just the two of us. We also went to four new baseball stadiums (Cincinnati Reds, Texas Rangers, Atlanta Braves, and Minnesota Twins) and one new hockey arena (Seattle Kraken), and were so fortunate to spend a week in Portugal. We also finally saw C's parents after two years, even though the reason for the trip to Canada was to attend my grandma's burial service.

There is of course, one event from the year that overshadowed everything else. Losing our Ginny. It was not only the most devastating thing to happen this year, it was one of the worst experiences of my life. It's been 85 days and it still sometimes feels like it just happened. However, whenever we are overcome with grief, we remind each other of all of the entertaining things she did and we end up smiling and laughing at our memories of her. She was so special because she was with us when we lost our other seven girls, and because she was with us - and particular C - every moment during this crazy pandemic. She was such a gift and we miss her every day, but we are carrying those happy memories of her and each of her sisters with us into 2022 and beyond.

Happy Tails to you!

27 Years!

On New Year's Eve, we celebrated our 27th wedding anniversary! We originally had a trip planned, but we decided to postpone it and stick close to home, so we ended up getting tickets to see John Oliver at the Kennedy Center! We got a hotel so that we wouldn't have to deal with driving home after the show, so we spent the day in DC, went to the show at 9:30 pm, and made it back to the hotel just in time to ring in the new year!

We are huge fans of Last Week Tonight, and John Oliver's stand up is just as entertaining! Plus, the Kennedy Center is a beautiful venue, and C and I had not been there since 1989 when we were on a band trip from Canada. That's a pretty embarrassing realization, given that we live so close to it. We are definitely going to make an effort to attend more performances there!

Since it was our 27th anniversary, I found 27 pics of us from 2021 and it was a nice little trip down memory lane! Despite devastating challenges that life sometimes throws our way, the pics are proof of some very happy times this past year! At the end of the day, as long as we're together, it doesn't matter where we are or what we're doing!

remembered to bring the sparkling wine
for a New Year's toast

forgot to bring glasses with us,
so we had to use these
LOL

thankful to be navigating
this crazy world with him
by my side

Happy Tails to you!