Posted onNovember 26, 2020|Comments Off on Happy Thanksgiving (or My First Time Celebrating Solo)
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I know there is a lot of hard stuff going on in the world right now, but there are still things to be grateful for. I’m very grateful for my health and the health of those I care about. Even though I’ve had multiple friends get sick, most of them have been able to fully recover or almost fully recover. I know that I am very privileged and lucky that this is the case, and I know that this can change at any time. But for now, that’s the biggest thing that I’m grateful for this year.
For my entire life, I have celebrated Thanksgiving with my family. It’s always been 3 or 4 generations together and it’s our big family time each year. This year, we are all celebrating with our own households. So for me, that means I’m celebrating alone.
I’ve never been alone for Thanksgiving before. I think the closest I’ve had to this was the year my parents couldn’t make it for Thanksgiving due to my mom having chemo and I was the only person from my immediate family there. But I was still with aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. I’ve never been without a member of my family for Thanksgiving, but I also know that this is how it has to be. Being separate this year will hopefully allow us all to be together next year and for many years to come. It’s been tough to be ok with this idea, but I know it’s for the best.
I am going to attempt to make a little Thanksgiving for myself today. I’ve never made Thanksgiving food before, so I can’t guarantee that I won’t ruin it and will end up eating a microwave burrito or something. But I’ve decided to try to make a few things. I’ve got sweet potatoes so I can make a sweet potato casserole with pecans and marshmallows, green beans so I can make them with shallots and bacon, and a half turkey breast to roast. I don’t have stuffing or a lot of other things that my family usually has at Thanksgiving (and I don’t think I’ll be making gravy since the only thing I would maybe need it for would be the turkey). I also don’t have any Thanksgiving dessert, but I have some other dessert stuff I can have instead. Hopefully, I can make this food without ruining it and I will feel like I have a taste of Thanksgiving.
I hope that you all are safe and enjoying today. I know that it’s not easy to be happy when many of us are spending today alone when we normally are with family. But I’m trying to spend today focusing on the good and positive and the idea that I will be with my family again soon. And when we are together again, I know we are going to appreciate it so much more than we ever have. If this year has taught us anything, it’s to not take the smallest things for granted. I always assumed that being with my family each year was a guarantee. Now I will appreciate it more and never just think that it’s automatically going to happen.
And maybe next year I’ll have some funny stories to share with my family about how my first attempt at making Thanksgiving on my own goes. If I ruin it, it will be a good story. If I’m successful at it, it will still be a good story and maybe I’ll be able to help out more. No matter what, I’m sure I’ll have something to share with everyone and it will be entertaining.
Posted onNovember 20, 2020|Comments Off on Missing Family (or Things Hit Harder This Year)
Today is my grandma’s birthday. It’s not the first birthday to happen since she passed away. But it still feels fresh in a way in my mind. I forgot to turn off the reminder alarm on my phone to buy my grandma a birthday card, so I got the alert a week ago. I think before that happened, I almost forgot that her birthday was coming up.
I didn’t completely forget because I know her birthday is around Thanksgiving, but this year has been so odd that in a way I forgot that Thanksgiving is next week. So that reminder to buy a birthday card (which I have now removed), just brought things back to reality to me. And it hit me with a double punch. First, missing my grandma so much, and second, realizing again that I will not be seeing my family this year for Thanksgiving.
When the pandemic first hit, I know a lot of us tried to stay optimistic about Thanksgiving. It was half a year away so we thought that this might be done by then and we could have a family Thanksgiving. I remember when flights went on sale and I talked to my mom about if I should buy tickets. She told me to wait to buy them because things were still a bit unsure. I think it was over the summer that we finally said as a family that Thanksgiving wasn’t going to happen. I was supposed to have a small family Thanksgiving meal early with just my immediate family, but I missed that last week since I was sick. My parents did bring me some leftovers so I had Thanksgiving food, but it wasn’t exactly the same.
Even though I don’t see my family too often, I feel pretty close to them. I talk to my aunts and cousins throughout the year. Sometimes we are able to see each other more than once a year, but even if we can’t it doesn’t feel like any time has passed when we get together. I know if I needed something, I could call anyone in my family and they would help me. And seeing everyone once a year has been something that I have done for every year of my life. So missing out on it this year is hitting me really hard. It’s the only big tradition that my family has, and we can’t do it. I know that missing it this year is the right thing to do and it will keep us all healthy and able to have many more Thanksgivings in the future, but it doesn’t make it easier.
I am very lucky that everyone in my family is healthy and able to be safe. Even though I have a few family members who work in hospitals, they have what they need to protect themselves. I know that so many people can’t say that, so I am so grateful that is the case with my family. And while I loved my grandma so much, a few of us have said how we feel a little relief that we don’t have to worry about her right now. If she was still alive, I can’t imagine how difficult it would be for my family to be worried about her constantly since she was in a nursing home. And with the type of dementia that she had, I don’t know if she would have understood why nobody could visit her, and she might have been very upset with us all.
And at least my family has been able to be together once since my grandma passed away. We were able to have a little time to celebrate her life and share memories last year at Thanksgiving. I don’t know if you ever feel closure with someone’s death, but it did help me feel a little more closure that we were all together and remembering my grandparents. I think it also helped me come to terms with things because it almost felt like a fever dream when I found out my grandma passed away. I needed that time as a family and I’m so glad we were able to do that. But I still wish we could continue to have that time together this year.
By my grandma’s birthday next year, I hope that I will be having an easier time with it. I know that with other people who have passed away, each year their birthday is a little easier and a little less sad. I still miss them like crazy, but the day is more about remembering them and not mourning them. And hopefully by Thanksgiving next year, my family will be able to be together again and this missed Thanksgiving will just be a blip in our lives.
Posted onNovember 13, 2020|Comments Off on Not The Family Visit I Planned On Having (or An LA Afternoon)
One of the most upsetting things about getting vertigo is having my weekend plans ruined. I was supposed to be with my family in Santa Barbara and I had done lots of things to get ready for that visit. When I first got vertigo on Saturday, my mom was trying to be optimistic and told me that maybe I would wake up on Sunday and feel ok. And I wanted to believe that too. But that’s not how it worked for me.
I tried to not be too upset about missing my family time, but it was impossible to not be. Fortunately, my parents said that they would come down to LA to see me one day so I didn’t miss all of my family time. I would still be missing some of my family, but at least I wouldn’t miss all of them. So this past Monday, my parents came down with the dog for a few hours.
I was still not doing that great on Monday, so I couldn’t do much. I was able to walk a bit more than I had the past few days, but I was pretty much stuck on my couch (which I guess is better than being stuck in bed). I kept apologizing to my parents for not being a good host and not being able to do much, but they understood. And it was nice to just have some time with them and the dog and not feel like I completely missed out.
I had missed what was supposed to be our family Thanksgiving on Sunday evening, but my parents brought me some leftovers so I could still have Thanksgiving food. And they brought other leftovers so we could have lunch together. That was really awesome and I appreciated my parents doing that. And for the majority of the time, we were just hanging out on my couch since that’s all I could do.
But it also had been a while since my parents were at my house so they were checking out the changes I had made since they were there the last time. And there were a few projects I wanted my dad to help me with and we got them all done. We actually almost forgot about some of the projects since I wasn’t preparing to work on them with him, but we did get them all done. Nothing was too big, but they were projects that I couldn’t do alone so it was good to be able to accomplish those and feel a bit productive (even though I wasn’t able to help much at all).
And we also exchanged Hanukkah gifts since I was going to do that over the weekend. And my parents took the gift I got for my brother and sister-in-law back to Santa Barbara for them so I didn’t have to ship it. It was not how I planned on exchanging gifts, but at least I didn’t miss out on some in-person gift giving.
After a few hours, my parents headed back to Santa Barbara. I was exhausted from being out of bed so I didn’t mind that it was a short visit. I would have liked it to have been a longer visit, but I knew I couldn’t handle it. But at least I had a little visit and a little social time. I needed the in-person social time for sure, even if it wasn’t what I planned on. I wish I had a few days with my family and not only a few hours, but it wasn’t meant to be this time.
I’m not exactly sure when I’ll see my family again. It might not be until next spring, which is a while away. But it seems like the most likely time I will see them. But at least I got a little time this week to be with them. And when I get to see them again, I just hope that I don’t get hit by vertigo again.
Posted onOctober 30, 2020|Comments Off on Finishing Holiday Shopping Before Halloween (or Thank Goodness For Internet Bookmarks)
I take so much pride in getting people awesome gifts. I know the best gifts don’t have to cost a ton of money, and this year that’s more important than ever. I don’t have much extra money to spend (I’m still spending more than I should, but I’m working on it). But I still wanted to get Hanukkah presents for my family like I do every year. And I really like to make sure that I find presents that they will really like and might be things they wouldn’t think of getting for themselves.
Because I find presents that they might not think of on their own, I do tend to get a lot of random things for people. But they are random things that I truly think that they will love. I don’t know how long I have felt this way about gifts, but I know it’s been a long time. I know it goes back at least until I was a teenager. Back then, I would start planning out gifts maybe a month or so in advance. I know that’s more in advance than some people do, but for me, it didn’t feel like enough time. So I started planning better.
I know what gifts I will have to buy every year. I know when birthdays are happening and I know I do Hanukkah presents with my family at Thanksgiving. So planning it out is a pretty set schedule. I do still occasionally have a time crunch with figuring out gifts, but more often I am considering a few options when it’s close to the time I will be shopping. I always am seeing things online in various lists or looking through catalogs that have different types of gifts. And no matter what time of year it is, whenever I see something that I think would be right for someone, I save it in a bookmark in my web browser. I actually need to be a bit more organized with that because it’s just a single bookmark folder called “Gift Ideas” and I should organize it by person. But I have a few dozen things I’ve seen over time that I like as possible gifts for the people in my life.
I don’t always shop from the list. Sometimes I like to do some extra shopping to see if there is something else that inspires me. For example, this year for Hanukkah I got one gift for my parents and one gift for my brother and sister-in-law (Rory already got his gift early). The gift for my parents was something I saw on a list online about a year ago and I knew it would be something they could use. It’s not a big gift and it feels a bit silly, but it’s something I know they will use a lot and they wouldn’t have thought of for themselves (sorry to be vague, but my parents sometimes read this blog and I’m not spoiling their gift). But for my brother and sister-in-law, I wasn’t feeling too enthusiastic about the things I had previously saved as bookmarks for them. So I did a bit of online shopping and had a discussion with my mom about some potential gifts. And I think I figured out the perfect thing for them!
I’ll be seeing my family soon and that’s when I’ll be bringing everyone’s gifts. We are doing Thanksgiving as a small family unit before Thanksgiving this year. So exchanging gifts will be earlier too. I’m not totally sure if everyone else is planning on doing gifts then, but they all know that I will be doing it. It saves me a bit of money to not have to ship gifts later, and if I can save money doing something easy then I’m going to do it. And fortunately, I already have everyone’s gifts at my house. I just need to wrap them (since I’m not flying anywhere I can use wrapping paper again) and then bring them with me in a little over a week when I see everyone.
It’s a bit crazy that I’m done with all my holiday shopping before Halloween happened, but it’s also nice. I don’t want to stress over presents and knowing that they are done is a little bit of calm in my life right now. And that also means I can start looking at potential gifts for next year now so I’ll be ready in a year when I’ll be doing my holiday shopping again.
Posted onOctober 13, 2020|Comments Off on Reflecting Back On Last Year’s Convention (or Photos Bring Back So Many Memories)
I know I’ve written before how sometimes I forget that it’s the anniversary of some important moment in my life until social media reminds me of it with an “on this day” post. Sometimes that reminds me of something good and sometimes it reminds me of something not good. But whatever it is, that post or photo brings back a ton of memories. This time, I almost reverse-engineered that idea. I knew something was coming up and I searched for the photos that would show me the date.
One year ago, my grandma passed away. The one year anniversary of her passing was actually this past Sunday. And I knew exactly what date it was because it was the same night as the National ConventionGala. I know I wrote a little about things in both of those posts, but I didn’t tell the full story of what happened and my memories of it.
I had a feeling my grandma was going to pass away during Convention. There was no reason for me to feel that way, but I did. I knew she wasn’t doing well, but her health had been declining for a while. The first time that I really heard that she might not live that much longer had been last September, but there wasn’t a timeline we were all thinking about. We just knew that she was slipping away and we had to be grateful whenever we could see her. I was hoping that she would make it to Thanksgiving so I could see her one more time, but I knew that it might not happen.
The day she passed away, I spent most of my day doing official Convention stuff. We ended around 5 and then I went to my car to get my clothes to change for the Gala. I changed in a room that was set aside for anyone to get ready in and I walked back to my car to put my day clothes and makeup away. And when I was walking back to the hotel to hang out before the Gala started, I saw a text from my dad. It didn’t say much. It was something like “Text me when you are doing at the Convention”. I think my parents thought that I’d be heading home after things were done, not that I had the Gala. But I knew I couldn’t wait until after the Gala was done. So I found a couch in the lobby and called my dad.
I knew it had to be one of two things. Either my grandma died or something happened with my sister-in-law (she was pregnant with my nephew then). But right before I called my dad, my brother and sister-in-law texted me to let me know they were having a boy, so I knew it was about my grandma. My dad and I didn’t say much on that call. He said that she passed away that afternoon. My grandma was in her room taking a nap after lunchtime and she passed away in her sleep. It was peaceful and that’s all we could have hoped for. I don’t think she was in any pain at the end of her life. I don’t know how aware she was of most things. I’m just grateful that she wasn’t hurting.
After the call with my dad, I was pretty hysterical. A friend of mine saw me, asked what happened, and went to find some tissues for me. He sat with me for a while until I calmed down a bit. The entire night kind of went that way. I randomly cried a lot. People found out what happened and tried to comfort me. I know I could have gone home and skipped the Gala, but I knew that my grandma would have wanted me to be there. And I didn’t want to go home and be alone. I wanted to be around my friends, and that’s exactly what happened at the Gala.
It was a weird night for sure. I was grieving but also trying to have fun. I didn’t want to be crying as much as I did, but sometimes it just hit me really hard. But I was always around a friend and whoever I was around made sure I was doing ok. I was seriously so grateful to my friends that night because I’m sure it was a bit weird for them too. But nobody made me feel bad about being upset or when I needed a shoulder to cry on.
That night was a bit of a blur for me. I know it’s because my brain was processing so much and I was also worried about how the rest of my family was doing. But I tried to enjoy things as much as possible. That’s why I don’t have a lot of photos from the Gala. I didn’t do a red carpet photo because I was still crying so much. I don’t have a lot of photos with my friends because I was not thinking about it. I took some photos of the awards during the Gala, but that’s about it. The only photo I have with my friends was a photo that my friends dragged me into. But I’m so glad they did that because it is one happy memory I have of that night.
And my smile in that photo is real. I was having a good time at that moment. And I’m glad I have that moment to remember that night by. Not all my memories are sad ones, even though that photo does remind me of some sad things too. But it also reminds me that I have amazing friends who were there for me and made sure that I was ok and had a good time at such a weird moment.
I remember so many things when looking at that photo. Even though I have a few other photos from that night, that one, in particular, is the one that brings so many memories back. I looked at it again on Sunday and took some time to remember my grandma. It was a bit of a sad day because of everything else going on in the world. But I’m glad that when she passed away, I didn’t have to be alone and I was able to be supported by so many people.
Posted onSeptember 30, 2020|Comments Off on Another Family Day (or The Best Father/Daughter Project Yet)
As I mentioned the other day, I recently did a full 2-week quarantine so that I can spend time with my family. It’s not easy to do a full quarantine, but it’s worth it to see my family. I know I have to do this to make sure that I’m not sick and I don’t get anyone sick. If I wasn’t taking these precautious and someone got sick, I would never forgive myself. So doing the full quarantine is a small sacrifice to make in order to feel good about seeing people who I do not live with. I can’t wait until I don’t have to think about this before seeing my family (or being able to see my friends), but I just remind myself that this is will end eventually and it is what we have to do in order to have our future.
Just like my other recent visits with my family, this was just going to be for the day. It’s not that long of a drive (only about 90 minutes each way) and it’s just easier to be there for the day than it is to pack up everything that I would need to spend the night. Plus, if I was staying overnight, it would only get me a few more hours as I would be going home the next day. So doing a day trip is just easier for me. I’m sure my parents would love it if I stayed longer, but they understand why I don’t.
This time, we were going to be hanging out at the rental house my parents were staying at because they had the dog with them! I hadn’t seen Tucker since the baby shower, so I was so happy to see him. He can’t be inside my brother and sister-in-law’s house because they have a cat. So to let him hang out with all of us, we had to be where my parents were staying. But that also worked for another reason.
I take a lot of pride in finding awesome gifts for people, and I was starting to think of things I wanted to get for Rory. And something that kept coming up in random searches that I was doing was busy boards. A busy board is basically a collection of things that babies and toddlers like to play with such as light switches, doorknobs, wheels, different types of locks, and stuff like that. And while there were some really nice looking ones that I knew I couldn’t make, in general, they didn’t look too fancy and it seemed like something I could do. Or at least something my dad and I could do together.
So I talked to my dad a month or so about this idea. The original idea was to make this for Rory’s first birthday. So we weren’t in a rush for anything. We both said we would just look around to see what we could find that would be good things to put on a busy board. We didn’t think we would need to buy a ton of stuff. Most things could be random things we had as extras from other projects. And then a week or two before I was going to see my family, my dad and I started talking more about the type of board and holder we would use for this. We wanted to maybe work on it when we saw each other, but we had no idea how to actually make it stand up and be safe. We looked at a few different ideas online like artist easels and other pre-built things, but we ended that call not knowing what to do. I promised my dad I would do more research.
But the next day, my dad texted me to stop the search. I guess he got inspired because he went to the hardware store, bought some wood, and built this.
And it actually can flip and be used the other direction so it doesn’t have as much of an angle! This is way better than anything my dad and I were looking at online. I was shocked that he was able to build this and do it so quickly! And he said that he would have it painted before they were in Santa Barbara so we could work on adding the gadgets together.
We were going to have a few hours before my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew came over after I arrived; so when I got there my dad and I immediately got to work. We had a bunch of tools to drill holes and get everything in there safely. And we had figured out that we might give Rory his present early (instead of driving it back and forth) so we were extra motivated to get it done before they arrived! We had a little bit of planning to do so we could figure out what should go where, but that ended up being pretty quick. And we made an awesome team with getting everything installed. My dad did most of the hard work and I did the prep work (like getting the correct screws and washers ready). It still took us a few hours, but we got it done! And I am so proud of how it looks!
My dad and I have done a lot of projects together. It’s something we like to do and we are good at it. Our go-to ultimate project for a long time has been a screen door we built years ago. It came from a box with instructions, but we did have to do some customizations. But this busy board was completely from scratch. Honestly, I think it’s the greatest thing we have made and I still can’t believe how it looks. I’m so proud of it and this easily beats the screen door!
Rory is still a little too young for this, but he was fascinated by it. We let him try to play with it, and he was so interested in what things were. He just didn’t know how to do them just yet.
This photo is also the first time he sat up unassisted, so I guess the busy board motivated him to do that! And I know that as he gets a little older, he’ll love it even more. He’ll play with the different things that spin and move. And I hope it will keep him busy for a while so my brother and sister-in-law can get other work done and know that he is entertained! And in the future, my niece will hopefully enjoy playing with it too! I can’t wait to see him really enjoying it, but the few moments that he was playing with it while I was there was enough to make me feel so good about what we made.
Besides letting Rory play with the busy board, we had family dinner that night (the cookies I made were for dessert). We also spent some time hanging outside because the weather wasn’t too bad. And when we were outside, Tucker seemed to want to be a part of the conversation too.
After dinner, my brother and sister-in-law needed to go home to put Rory to bed. And I started to get my stuff together so I could drive home. I was able to spend almost 8 hours with my family, which really was awesome. Of course, more time would be better, but just those 8 hours revived me a bit. It had been so long since I had a hangout like that and I needed it.
And fortunately, I won’t have to wait too long before my next family hangout. Usually, my family does a big Thanksgiving with my extended family. But this year, that just isn’t possible. Between travel and trying to keep people safe and healthy, we just can’t get together like we normally do. So my immediate family is going to do our own little Thanksgiving. And because house rentals and other things are more expensive during the holiday, we are doing Thanksgiving a few weeks early (this was actually the original plan for the extended family Thanksgiving too). So I am only about 6 weeks away from seeing everyone again. That does mean that I am about 4 weeks away from another quarantine, but like always, it will be worth it. And I can’t wait until I get to see everyone and get to spend a few days with the family!
Posted onSeptember 16, 2020|Comments Off on Another Full Quarantine (or I Don’t Know Why This Feels Different)
I mentioned yesterday that I’m doing another full quarantine right now. I’ve done these twice before and it’s always because I’m getting ready to see my family. Doing it a third time was something I didn’t even have to think about. I knew that if I wanted to see my family, I had to do a full quarantine. This was something my brother told me to do the first time I was going to see everyone, but I also assumed I would have to do it. Although the first time, I misunderstood and did a month of full quarantine. But now, I know it’s 2 weeks.
Doing a full quarantine means I don’t leave my house, even to do essential errands. I don’t go out for anything other than to take my trash to the curb and to walk across my driveway to do laundry. It’s not that different from what I normally do. I don’t do most of my errands in person. There are a few places that I can’t get delivery from or that it’s much cheaper to get if I go to the store. But for the most part, I have everything delivered to me. But even though I don’t leave my house for almost anything, doing a full quarantine feels so different.
Maybe it’s just the idea that I can’t go out to do errands. I don’t necessarily want to go out and about, but knowing I can’t do it feels different. There are things I’d love to go out and get from the store, but I just can’t. If there was something that I needed urgently and I couldn’t get it delivered, I know I could message a friend to see if they could go to the store for me. I’ve done that before with stuff from Trader Joes. But I hate having to ask friends to do errands for me (even though they are doing it when they are at the store too). It’s silly because I would do it in a heartbeat for anyone. I just don’t like having to ask for myself.
Since I knew this 2-week full quarantine was coming up, I tried to make sure I did my errands that had to be done in person at a store ahead of time. I actually didn’t have much I needed to do, so it was easy to get them done. Of course, as soon as I couldn’t go out I realized there was something I wanted to get that I forgot to do. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I could probably wait until after my visit with my family. And if I end up running out of something, I can either find something else I can use or I will ask my friends if anyone is going to the store so they can help me out. I think part of this time has made me very paranoid about running out of things I use. I am trying to make sure I have purchased whatever I need before the one I’m using runs out. For example, I use a specific shaving cream from Trader Joes. In the past, if I ran out in the shower, then I’d go to Trader Joes that afternoon to get another one. It wasn’t a big deal. Now, when it’s starting to feel like it’s getting close to empty I want to go out to buy a new one. I know that I can use something else and that it’s not the end of the world if I have to use a slightly different product, but I like having things that are familiar to me.
Doing a full quarantine is totally worth it so that I can see my family soon. It’s also the only way I can see them and feel like I’m not putting anyone at risk. There is no way that I could get my family sick if I do my quarantine properly. And I don’t want to be scared if I could pass it to someone else. So this isn’t just for everyone else’s safety, but for my peace of mind too. And getting able to see everyone is worth any sacrifices I have to make. I want to be able to see them and I can’t wait until I get to be around people I love! I’m about halfway through my quarantine and I’m counting down the days until I get my reward for doing it!
Posted onAugust 26, 2020|Comments Off on Having Fun With Photos (or My Brother And Nephew Are Twins!)
Even if we weren’t in a pandemic, I’m sure that I would be getting a ton of photos of my nephew from my brother and sister-in-law. I probably would be going to Santa Barbara more often than I have been able to do now, but the photos would have still been a constant thing. And I love getting new photos of Rory. He’s already looking so big and I can’t believe how big he will be when I get to see him again (which will hopefully be in a month). And while the photos do make me sad that I’m not there more often to see him, it does make me happy to see fun little things that he has been doing, like going to the pool for the first time.
A lot of the photos are just of Rory being cute and smiley. And of course, those make me smile and make my day. And the other day, my brother and sister-in-law sent our family text group some new photos of Rory. And there was one photo that made me stop to stare at it because it looked so familiar. I realized that it looked almost identical to a photo of my brother when he was a baby.
I called my mom and told her to look at the photos that we just got and that I knew there was a photo of my brother that matched. I couldn’t describe the photo too much, I just knew it looked like the one we were sent of Rory. I thought the photo of my brother had him in a gray or blue outfit, but I wasn’t too sure. Fortunately, my mom knew exactly what photo I was talking about. And because she is so organized with her digital photos, it was only a few minutes before she could find the exact photo I was talking about. She sent it to me so I could make a little side-by-side comparison to text to the family text group.
To me, they look like twins! Their faces, their smiles, and how they hold their hands are so similar! It probably helps that they are posed the same way too, but I have said since the first time I saw Rory how much he looks like my brother. But now, I see it more than ever!
And everyone in my family agrees with me that they look like twins. I think they all liked that I put the photos together (I’m known in my family for making collages and other photo things). There isn’t a lot that makes everyone smile, but photos of Rory always does that. And I think the side-by-side photos made everyone smile too!
And now, my brother and sister-in-law are expecting another baby! They are having a girl this time and she will be here next spring! I wonder if she will be another twin for my brother or if she’ll be a twin for my sister-in-law. I guess we’ll see when she’s born next year. I am excited to be an aunt again and to have another member of the family! Hopefully, by the time she arrives, things will be a bit safer to be around others so going to meet her won’t be as intense of a situation and I can be there more often. But if not, at least I know I will be getting a ton of photos!
Posted onAugust 11, 2020|Comments Off on Officially Getting A New Cousin (or A Zoom Wedding)
There are so many things that we are doing these days that nobody would have expected to do before the pandemic. Virtual hangouts are so common that many people have Zoom fatigue. Even though I know people have live-streamed weddings before, that’s usually done for people who couldn’t be there (like how my grandparents watched my brother’s wedding on Facetime because they couldn’t fly). But now, if you are getting married almost everyone has to be on Zoom. And that’s exactly what happened with my cousin’s wedding.
My cousin Danny and his partner Alisa have been together for a long time. And from the day I met Alisa, I have felt like she was my family. She and I always call each other cousin, even though it wasn’t official. But it was official enough for both of us. Even though we felt like we were already family, I was so excited when Danny and Alisa announced their engagement and so it would be official!
I don’t know how big of a wedding they had been planning on having, but I do know a lot of things had to change because of the pandemic. They were keeping their original wedding date (August 8th), and they just had to make adjustments to keep things safe. So they had only immediate family in person at the wedding and everyone else watched on Zoom. I was very ok with that because that meant I got to watch it and that’s all that mattered to me!
The wedding was pretty early (since they are on the east coast and it was a morning wedding for them), but I was happy to be up and watching it. And since the Zoom was just for us to watch (and not them to see us), it didn’t matter what we looked like while watching. And it made me so happy to get to be a small part of their big day!
Everyone looked beautiful and I was smiling the entire time while I was watching. The camera running the Zoom stayed in the same spot the entire time, so we didn’t get a lot of close up looks, but soon after the wedding was done some photos were being posted online and I could see more of Alisa’s gorgeous dress!
I’m so happy that Danny and Alisa got married and Alisa is officially my cousin now! And I’ve already told her that when things are safer again that they need to come to CA to visit us so we can have our first official family hangout! I’m looking forward to that!
I’ve seen people joke about having Zoom bingo with checking off how many things you’ve done during the pandemic. I know Zoom wedding or baby shower has been on every bingo chart I’ve seen. So I guess now I can check off Zoom wedding!
Posted onJune 30, 2020|Comments Off on Another Santa Barbara Day (or A Little Bit Of Social Interaction)
I’ve been in isolation for about 3 1/2 months now. I haven’t left my house much. My biggest adventures in the world have been going to urgent care and seeing my family for a day. I rarely leave my house for errands and have been relying on delivery services (and yes, I do tip generously for the deliveries). Isolation has been tough on me. It’s very lonely. I’m used to being alone, but not lonely. And the lack of social interaction and physical touch is very hard to deal with. But fortunately, last week I got to change that up a bit.
My parents were down in Santa Barbara visiting my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. And since they were there for a few days, they asked if I wanted to come up to see them all. And of course, I said yes! Besides feeling lonely and wanting to be around people, I wanted to see my family!
And I will give this disclosure like I did when I saw my family again. I only went because I had been isolating myself for a length of time without going out for errands. My family is all in medicine and I followed all of their guidance and rules. I didn’t do this without thinking it through or ignoring the fact that we are in a global pandemic. I didn’t know how close I could be to my family or if I was going to be required to wear my mask the entire time. I was prepared for whatever they said.
When I got there, I wasn’t wearing my mask while hanging out with my family because we were able to sit far enough apart. Plus, none of us have really been going out in public at all so we’ve all been pretty isolated for a long time. And it was so good to get to see my family and talk to them in person! I’m grateful for phone calls, texts, and video chats; but there is no replacement for in-person interaction.
And Rory had gotten so big since I had seen him! And his little personality was really coming out. He was very clear in what he liked and what he didn’t like. He had this really adorable look of frustration from time to time. I hated that he was frustrated, but I loved that you could tell that he had so much he wanted to say and express to us. I have a feeling that he will be very chatty as soon as he can talk.
And I got to hold him again too! Because I have been isolated for so long, I was able to hold him without wearing a mask. He’s pretty wiggly and was looking at everything around the house, so it hard trying to get a photo with him looking into the camera. This was the best that I could do.
We spent a lot of time at my brother and sister-in-law’s house, but we also went out for a walk. One of the main streets in Santa Barbara has been turned into a pedestrian-only area, so there was a lot of room to walk around without being too close to anyone else. I hadn’t really been out like that in months, and it was so nice to get to do that. I still was wearing my mask, even without people being that close to us. I have to be careful and cautious and it was an easy thing to do to stay safe.
Once we got back to the house, we had family dinner and then I had to head back home because I had something I had to do early the next morning. But I had gotten to spend a while with everyone and it was exactly what I needed. I needed to feel connected to people again to get ready to go back to being lonely.
I know that I am lucky that I got to do this. Not everyone is close enough to family to go to see them for the day. Not everyone can isolate the way that I’ve been able to so that they can be safe around others. And I am so grateful that I got to do this again. I don’t know when I’ll be back to see family again, so I am just grateful for the opportunities that I have had to see them. And when I can go again, I know that I’ll feel so happy that I can go.
