I’m really bad at this whole blogging thing. Seven years since my last post, and that one had what, a two year gap between it and the post before it? Honestly, for most of that period of time, I had completely forgotten my log-in information to this site. That happens when you never use something…
I meant to start writing again at the beginning of this crazy, Covid existence we are all rambling around in back in March, but couldn’t bring myself to start. After all, my experience is much the same as everyone else’s, filled with anxiety, fear, frustration, anger, boredom…etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. There have been flashes of fun. There has been a TON of eating. And a good bit of crafting. So, I guess that’s where I should focus.
Backstory: I picked my kids up from school on Friday, March 13 and they haven’t been back since. That’s 129 days. 18 weeks, 3 days. 4 months, 1 week. Yep, I’m dwelling on that. Think about it. For most of us, summer break is about 10 weeks. By the time “school” officially ended this year, our kids had already been home that long. Yes, they were still attending “school” online, but they had been home for 10 WEEKS! I love my kids an awful lot, but that’s a long time for us to be home and together. Admit it, by the end of summer, most parents are sooo ready for school to start and counting the days. School ended and we were left with another 10 weeks to go…if we’re lucky. Where we’re sitting now, Bean and Potato, who are now 13 and 9, will be going back to school in 24 days. We are all completely ready. They miss their friends, their teachers, their busy life. So do I. I miss actually being alone in my house. I miss my friends, too. One would think that with nothing to do all summer we would have seen each other more, but that hasn’t happened. We’ve seen a few people, but for the most part, we’ve all kept to ourselves and our own Covid life.
I just started a paragraph outlining how we have spent the last 18.5 weeks, but even I don’t want to relive that! Suffice to say, there was no family vacation this year, no camps for the kids, and very little in the way of sports. Summer swim, but that ended this past weekend. Bean will return to her year-round team this afternoon, but there’s still no pool time for Potato’s group. Fingers crossed our team gets back to our regular pool soon.
I have so many thoughts about our current world environment, but I’m not sure I can pull any of them together for a coherent post right now. This post will just get things back swinging and trying to remember to write, then I can choose a topic to focus on for future posts. So, snapshot of who I am right now:
I’m a mother of two. My daughter is 13 and amazing. Yep, I’m that proud mom. She’s not perfect, but she’s still incredible. She’s smart, athletic, beautiful, and strong. She’s not always as nice as she could be to her little brother and we’re getting more flashes of teenage attitude, but for the most part she is kind, caring and helpful (when reminded that help is needed). My son is now 9. He’s pretty awesome, too. Handsome as the devil and smart as a whip. He can be a bit lazy at times and stubborn. He always wants to be right. But he loves his friends, his stubbornness translates into loyalty, and he is all about justice and valuing the rules of fair play. Basically, you can take from this that I am an incredibly proud mom who thinks the best of her kids, but knows that they are not perfect. Even on days that we frustrate each other, I wouldn’t trade them and am well aware of how lucky I am to have them.
I’m married to an amazing, hardworking man who gives everything he has to provide us with a wonderful life. Unlike our son, he is never lazy. Just like our son, he’s got a stubborn streak a mile wide that also expresses itself as incredible loyalty. This period of time has been very hard for him, not only because of the financial uncertainty that all business owners have faced during the pandemic, but his unhappiness that he has been unable to provide much in the way of fun for our kids. Vacations and adventures are very big in our family, but now is not the time for them. I know some others disagree and have carried on with their travels, but it’s just not a risk our family felt comfortable with right now.
That’s the family. Who am I? My main identity really is wrapped up in being a wife and mother, and I’m still a Knitter (yep, with a capital K). Since my last attempt at blogging I’ve added weaving and spinning to my skillset. I consider myself a fiber artist and love all things wooly and warm! Over the years, our family has been insanely busy, so my cooking skills didn’t evolve much and we ate out or ordered take-out more than I care to admit. Things have started to change in the last four months…still love to eat, we’ve just been doing a lot more of it at home. A LOT more of it. And there’s a lot more of me to show for it. Right now, I’m not happy with myself or my health. I hope to change that soon.
Our family also now has three cats, Lucy Fur, Winter, and TJ. We didn’t mean to have three, but we got TJ from my MIL right before the shut down started. So I guess we qualify as crazy cat people…
This post is about the Love portion of my blog title. While rambling a bit at times, I hope you can take away from it that my family is the center of that Love. I will follow up soon with a post either about Eating or Knitting!