2021 was a difficult year. Still in the midst of covid, the first half of the year was quiet with the kids doing remote school for the most part. The world moved forward without too much hoopla, activities were minimal and things just cruised along. Then it July 2021 happened and the world came to a startling stop. We lost my mom and everything from then on was just plain harder. The period from July 16 to the end of August was a mess of emotion and travel and pain and tears and difficult days and weird disjointed nights. Between July 16 and the end of August I went 38 out of 45 days not in my own house-that's a LOT for a homebody like me. I flew to NC on a Saturday, spent a week couch surfing between NC and VA for my mom's funeral, went directly to NC for a beach week unlike any other, leaving two days early on Thursday with the hope of having a couple of quiet days to collect myself at home before the family returned only to turn around and leave for Maryland the first of the next week to be with Kim and Jeff while Owen had his surgery...days and days at a hotel in Baltimore, then a few frantic days at home before we loaded Daniel up and hauled him down to Florida to move him into school. Any one of those things would have taken an emotional toll-all of them, on top of each other, in the middle of a pandemic, while working full-time and still taking care of a family? Things were hard. On top of all of that, Jason took a new job as a sous chef at OCC and while he loves the work, the job part of it is challenging. He spent a lot of hours driving up and down I35 and as acting chef and general keep-things-moving-forward guy. The hospitality industry is a mess in the best of times and in the middle of covid its just a hard place to be. I think that he enjoyed the challenge and learned a ton but it was also very, very stressful for him and the hours were hard on everyone. In the final analysis, 2021 was a LOT.
Here's to 2022.
