2021 in review

I feel like maybe the last thing I want to do is revisit 2021, but you know, there were some real high points, so let’s do it.

January

I turned 46. I sat around the fire pit at my friend Jen’s house and it was all I wanted to do for my birthday – so it was perfect. Spending time with my friends was what made 2021 bearable, but it happened so infrequently, so that is what made it terrible.

February

Mardi Gras! I spent a lot of January preparing for this, the Schitt’s Creek house float that I participated in. It was one of the high points of 2021. I had so much fun making my Moira costume (and Jen’s!) and helping with the creation (mostly telling Chris what to do) and then on Mardi Gras day, seeing all the people and BEING INTERVIEWED BY THE BBC.

You know, in case you wanted to watch it.

That wasn’t the only excitement in February. The boys were also enrolled in a COVID vaccine trial (Moderna) and we learned later in the year that they actually did get the vaccine (first one in February, second in March.)

March

Really, not much happened. Well, I got my vaccine. That was nice.

April

My sister & fam came down for Easter.

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Our yard renovation was completed!

May

I went to visit Kiki! We baked a lot.

Linus was hospitalized for asthma. (He’s fine.)

June

Things were looking up. We found out the boys were fully vaccinated. Was it over? We were able to take off our masks and do things! I took the boys to a couple of soccer games. We ate at a restaurant! We booked a trip to California! Life was back to normal! I call this “the golden time.” Boy were were we naive.

July

My blog turned 20.

We got devastating news in the middle of the month when my sweet cousin Molly died suddenly. I still can’t believe it.

The boys and I went to California to visit Evan and Jennifer and Ellie. It was a lovely trip, even though it was under a cloud of sadness. Things still felt normal. We went to Disneyland and to an LAFC game and to the beach, and I got to meet my best friend in person finally. (She’s 3.)

This is when the golden time ended. LA had re-introduced a mask mandate not long before we got there. Delta was coming. Thank god we went when we went, or we wouldn’t have been able to go at all.

August

We got to hang out with the Murphys, which was wonderful.

The boys started 8th grade.

We went on a terrible road trip. Thanks Ida!

September

We finally got to go home! After spending 11 days in Houston and Baton Rouge, we were ready. And that’s about all I can say about September.

October

I went to the Rosebud Motel with my friends. That was fun.

That’s about it. Oh, I did some sewing.

The boys finally got to start soccer again. Or was that September? I don’t know. One of those months.

November

KIKI CAME TO VISIT! That was awesome. We did a lot of stuff around the house and ate at restaurants. Things were starting to feel normal-ish again.

I made a quilt!

Obviously it was Schitt’s Creek themed.

We had a quiet Thanksgiving, just the five of us.

December

My sweet baby boys turned 14!

My mom turned 75 and my brother and sister came in for it.

Finally, we celebrated Christmas with Grandee and Larry and negative COVID tests.

On to 2022!

Christmas 2021

We had a nice Christmas. Quiet. Also, 14 year old boys are very hard to shop for.

As usual, I took them out individually to shop (how many years have we been doing this? I’ll have to go back and look) which was lovely. It was right on the cusp of Omicron taking off, so we were able to eat inside this time (I just remember last year sitting in the parking lot of Five Guys, which just isn’t quite the same.)

We had our traditional Christmas Eve dinner – steak. Yum!

Then it was time to read The Night Before Christmas and take the stocking pic.

I was quite proud that I didn’t have much to wrap that night, I’d gotten it all done. But I did spend much of the day finishing George’s present, a collared shirt with fabric from Spoonflower with keyboard keys all over it because he’s a big ol’ nerd.

relaxing with a cozy fire and my coffee before the boys woke up (or rather, before I let them out of their room)

And don’t you know, I didn’t take any pictures while we were opening gifts. Just being present (no pun intended.)

The boys got a new chair to sit in while rotting their brains on video games, and some clothes, and cases and cords and other electronics-adjacent accessories and all in all they seemed happy with their gifts.

I got a sous vide thingy, and a Ziggy puzzle, and a necklace, and a new Kindle, and some Schitt’s Creek things, and so all in all, I think I did the best of all, but I might be biased.

That Ziggy puzzle is really really really hard, btw.

We had the traditional eggnog French toast for breakfast, and I started drinking mimosas (we had a lot of orange juice, what can I say) and then we all took the traditional Christmas morning COVID tests (all negative) and then Grandee and Larry came over (also negative) and we ate air-fried turkey (yum) and cornbread dressing and spinach and homemade bread (my mom and I both made some and the boys preferred my mom’s but that’s fine) and cheesecake for dessert.

So that was our Christmas, and it was low-key and, oh, 80 degrees, so that part sucked, but otherwise, was really nice.

Evan and Jenny in Baton Rouge

My mom turned 75 on Friday (fun fact, she was born the same day as Eugene Levy) and my brother and sister flew in to celebrate. It was nice. We took her to Ruth’s Chris for dinner because we are good children.

Some pics from dinner:

and then George brought the boys and Ziggy on Saturday so they could hang out. And I drove my brother all over Baton Rouge so he could use his vintage super-8 camera to shoot footage for some upcoming movie that I won’t understand.