Stormy Weather

Well, four months somehow blew right by me since my last post. Not a strong start to the year with my goal of writing at least once a month, but here we are.

Full disclosure: our family life has been a hot mess – sometimes in a fun and energizing way, other times in a depressing and exhausting way. I offer the following as honest examples of what we’ve been wrestling with. All of this has gone down since the last time I posted (and this is far from a comprehensive list):

Foster Parenting

We became a family of five with the arrival of our foster son, Baby C. Baby C has a few significant medical needs, which take up a lot of time in both doctors’ visits and our self-education on the relevant conditions. If you haven’t been following along with our foster parenting journey, you can learn more about that here.

Getting Cozy with our Local ER

Our oldest son has also been in and out of the hospital, and he’s currently there as I type this. I won’t get into details of that in this post, but rest assured I’ll need to process it in writing at some point soon.

Suffice to say, having any kid needing a lot of attention from doctors means you spend a lot of time doing things other than posting on your hobby blog.

A New Job for the Hubs

This one is overall a huge positive. My husband is now a full-time real estate agent in addition to a full-time teacher. This exciting phase of having him wheeling and dealing for his real estate clients when he’s not with students will only last until the end of this school year (when he retires from teaching), and it is SO much fun to see him enjoying it!… But it’s definitely a bit busy.

All the Therapies

I finally decided I needed to properly work through the emotional $&^*storm that was 2020 (and the ongoing aftershocks). So I got a new therapist, got some new SSRIs, and trained for 2 decently challenging trail races (one in March, one in April). The commitment to mental and physical health is not a new priority for me, but what I had been doing before 2020 had simply stopped working. I had to swallow my pride, adjust my strategies, and ask for help from some new sources.

I think I’m on a good track now. We’re well on our way into a spring season that sucks a lot less than last spring – despite the current challenges – so that’s something! And I’ve re-set my goal to post here at least once a month.

By the way, if you’re reading this and you were at all sentient during the past year, I know you can relate. Your situation may even be a lot harder than mine. It’s been a crap time for everyone, and I’m definitely not asking for any pity. I just felt like it was time to put words to the past few months, and I guess that’s all this post is.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite pics from the past few months. Even though I had some truly gorgeous and epic photos from the same trip, this picture somehow captured the chaos, discomfort, annoyance and joy that are just part of it all – part of vacations, part of regular life, part of relationships.

It seems fitting that we’re all a little damp and haggard-looking, and there’s a storm raging right outside the windows: