Is this thing on?

Pardon me while I clear this space of the cobwebs and dust bunnies that have accumulated over the past few months.

I could use the excuse that life has been busy AF and I just haven’t found the time to sit down and blog, but that’s not 100% true. While life has indeed been busy with work, kids, and everything in between, I just haven’t felt a pull towards this space. Neglected, it certainly was.

I won’t even go to say that 2021 will be a turning point for the blog. After the manure-filled dumpster fire that 2020 was, I’m not making any promises. But – I do want to do a least a little better and make a valiant effort to at least park my ass at the keyboard at least once per month.

And so, here I am!

Since my last few posts of 2020 mainly consisted of book reviews, I suppose I haven’t really given a life update so to speak. I’ll see if I can summarize things the best I can …

Norah started kindergarten in September and it has been WONDERFUL for her! She’s grown so much intellectually and I’m so thankful that school was able to resume for the students. I honestly don’t believe virtual learning would be the best option for her, and her teacher is absolutely the BEST.

Isla started grade 3 and she’s loving it as well! Being in a 3/4 split class has been great for her, however, I’m apprehensive of her befriending the “older” kids in the class. We’ll see how this pans out in the long run, I suppose.

Both girls started dance in September as well, Isla in her 3rd year of ballet and Norah in her 1st season ever. Norah is really enjoying it, more than I had anticipated, which is great! She seems to really enjoy tap dancing (no surprise there) so I’m curious to see if this is something she continues to do.

Isla was also offered the opportunity to do a solo routine, and she’s doing really well! It’s hard to say what the festival season and year end show will look like right now, but it’s teaching her discipline  regardless, which is a bonus.

Over the summer and into the fall, I managed to get in four running races! One of the local running organizations busted their asses to put together a handful of COVID-safe races, and each one was amazing. I managed to finish in 2nd place for the 5K distance for females, so that was definitely my humble brag moment of the summer.

I’ve missed a few book reviews, but I did manage to finish reading 27 books last year in total. It’s likely peanuts compared to most, but I’m happy with my reading routine and the pace works for me! I don’t have a set goal of how many books I’d like to finish this year, but if I made my way through 25 I’d be happy!

2020, of course, was not all sunshines and rainbows. If you follow me on Instagram, I had posted that we had to say goodbye to our wonderful rescue dog, Campbell. The vets found a cancerous tumour on his spine and after a few weeks of keeping him comfortable,  we felt it was his time to cross the rainbow bridge.

Christmas, as it was for mostly everyone, was oddly quiet this year. While it was a nice change, we certainly missed the chaos that surrounds the day and look forward to the potential of being with our friends and family this year. The girls were spoiled rotten (likely to compensate for the lack of family time, lol) and I couldn’t have asked for a better holiday for them.

So there you have it! The last few months of 2020 were pretty great overall. While it’s dumpster fire is still smoldering a lite, hopefully it gets put out fully sooner rather than later in 2021 and we can return to whatever “normal” was.