2020: Quick Recap

I can't believe it's been over 2 years since I've posted. So much has happened, both in the world, and here at home. I can't fully re-cap more than 2 years, but I need to get some things out so I can keep moving forward.

Where was I? It was February 2020. I was struggling. My daughter and I had traveled to Disney World in January. In February the rest of my family went skiing in Vermont while I got 5 glorious days to myself. Never could I have imagined it would be the last extended time I would be alone in the house for over 14 months.

The last day my kids were in school was Wednesday March 11. They shut our district 2 days early because 2 parents were complaining of feeling ill. The kids and teachers never got to go back to to get their things. Since both kids were moving up schools they didn't get to say good-bye to those schools. They would not step inside a school until October.

On March 18 we had to say good-bye to this little guy. He was almost 15 but had kidney disease and had been declining. He had been waking us up to feed him and his sister for years and after he was gone we joked that we would to sleep in. No, a month after he was gone, his sister took over, but since she is deaf, she meows really loudly and we haven't slept through the night in 2 years.

So after dreaming about working from home permanently, all of a sudden everyone was home. But I quickly found refuge on the weekends with road trips. I think I am one of the few that put 4,000 miles on my car in 2020.

We went to all the New England states, but went to Maine a lot. Like 16 times. The border is only an hour away. It was a wonderful escape. We rent a house in Maine for a week in August (after having to cancel our planned (and booked!) trip to Southern California.

We didn't see our relatives much in 2020. I think I saw my mom only 4 times. Her retirement community was pretty locked down and I was so worried about infecting her. It was very sad to celebrate milestones without them.

In May we celebrated 15 years - we recreated our favorite steakhouse meal at home and the kids served us!

It was wonderful to get away and being able to take pictures because being home so much was definitely very difficult. I will touch upon all the stresses and how I handled it in a separate post.