Ciao, 2021

“Another year over, a new one just begun…”

I’ve been thinking for a while now what to write for my annual year-end post, and I honestly have no idea this year. After meeting COVID in 2020 and having life as we knew it flipped upside down and all around, this year was kind of – meh. We knew that the only way forward was through, so that’s what we did.

Not to say it was a bad year, just nothing really exciting. A look back ~

The Good:

Despite having COVID earlier this month (well, all of us except Lana, somehow!), we are all fully recovered and appear to have no lasting side effects so far. Ryan’s taste and smell aren’t back to 100%, but thankfully none of us had very serious symptoms.
Ryan’s job is secure.
Our houses are still standing and in working order.
In-person school is working out great for all the kids, even with a couple quarantine periods. Middle school has been much less scary for me than I imagined. 😉
Science! Ryan, the big 3, and I are now all fully vaccinated against COVID, and I got my booster just last weekend. The big kids were in between their 2 doses when we got COVID, and I fully believe even having that little bit of protection from the first dose helped them. They all barely felt worse than a bad cold. The poor twins were hit pretty hard, but fortunately they are better, too.
The big kids moved upstairs and the twins moved into their own bedroom for the first time in their lives!
We’ve paid down a big chunk of debt, which always helps one’s sanity.
The twins were potty trained this year, which also helps my sanity and allows us so much more freedom to do stuff as a family. No more diapers!
I lost my shit WAY fewer times this year than last year, which I’m sure everyone has appreciated.

The Bad:

I lost both my grandmas this year. I didn’t see either of them very often anymore, but knowing I’ll never get to again stings. I will be forever grateful that I got to have one last conversation with each of them before they died, but I’ll always wish I could’ve been there in person to say good-bye.
The global pandemic caused by COVID is still raging, and I don’t know that there’s really any end in sight. At least not for a while. Which reminds me, I need to get some new masks.
Politics in general, racism, unnecessary hatred, war. All topics that I’m not going to touch right now but that I’ll just leave there.

In looking at my list, I’m very thankful the goods outnumber the bads. That’s the sign of a pretty great year, right?

I will say, this winter break has been one of the best times I’ve had with our kids. This Christmas was exceptionally fun and magical, and I’ve just had an incredible level of happiness the whole time. We tracked Santa and loved all the preparations for him and the reindeer, we’ve played lots of games, had a couple movie nights, gone ice skating for the first time for the kids, walked to the beach to hunt for sea glass, and just hung out all together. The twins get a little bit easier daily, and watching all 5 of them play together and interact more as people instead of kids and babies is amazing. We got very lucky with this bunch, that’s for sure.

Here is a pictorial look at this winter ~

All at home to start the month thanks to COVID

So there’s 2021 in a tiny nutshell. Not overly good or bad, but there. Like I said last year, this recent history has taught me to have an even more take-each-day-as-it-comes outlook than usual, which I think has helped me, personally, immensely. I do feel much more stable and optimistic going into 2022 than I did going into 2021, so we’ll see what it brings.