Life Happened, but I’m Still Here …

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I disappeared a little over 2 years ago. I ‘ve missed blogging, but life happened. Here it is in a nutshell.

Life happened, but believe it or not, I’m still here. While my daily interaction has been on the back burner, Happily Homegrown has still been part of who I am. I have been updating this site and responding to comments & emails while keeping things up to date on the back end.

But, for the most part, things had to go on the back burner for the last two and a half years.

Yes, things got shelved more than a year before COVID put the rest of our lives on hold.

So why did I disappear? You see its a bit of a long and twisty story, but I’ll see what I can do to share it …

In late winter 2019, we began the process of preparing our home to go on the market. Anyone who has ever put a house on the market can tell you, the preparations can become a full-time job on their own. From the repairs that have to be done to those that the potential buyers share in their feedback after each showing, there is always something to do. Never mind the rest of your responsibilities like a job, homeschooling, family, friends, etc. Trying to sell a house is all-consuming.

Our house officially went on the market in May 2019. Since I was the one who was home during the day (although I was still actively homeschooling our three children), the majority of the house stuff fell to me.

Packing.

Cleaning.

Repairs.

Painting.

Preparing for each showing.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

I just didn’t have the mental capacity for a whole lot, and something had to give. Blogging was it. My sanity and sleep were close to follow.

After a few false starts, we had a viable offer on our home and a settlement date for September 2019.

While all of that was going on, we were also coordinating all of the moving plans with my inlaws. You see, we weren’t just selling one house, but rather selling two homes to purchase one new home so we could be there to help my inlaws now that my father-in-law was on the kidney transplant list.

WHEW! So yeah, a lot of moving parts to try and coordinate and keep track of.

Ok, so in September 2019, we went to settlement on our new home and we moved in and about a week later my inlaws moved in. We postponed the start of scouts and the start of school. My husband took a month off of work so we could focus on getting settled. We started to find our groove … right in time for Steve to return to work, and scouts to start up, and then all of life happened. That groove went right out the window.

Our school year finally started in November that year. Ah! The benefits of homeschooling! But, even with the later than usual start to the school year, things just didn’t feel right. I didn’t feel settled. So, I focused on the children and our family, and blogging stayed on the back burner.

When COVID hit in March 2020, only six months after the move, I thought this would be the perfect time to start writing again. I would have so much time now that the shops were closed and our activities were canceled. I was going to garden, learn to quilt, and write a lot more.

And like so many of us that swore we would do something with our newfound time, I did nothing. Life happened whether I was actively doing something or not.

I wouldn’t say that I was anxious about what was going on in the world. It wasn’t depression either. It was more of an overwhelming and looming feeling that wouldn’t go away. Like I was always … ALWAYS … waiting for the other shoe to drop. For more bad news. It gave me a lot of time to think.

I wondered how people could be so stupid to go out and about their day while they were sick. Didn’t anyone ever tell them that if they had a fever they should just stay home?

I wondered how my great-grandparents dealt with the Spanish Flu in 1918. How did they feel about having a baby (my grandmother) in its aftermath?

I wondered if rationing was going to return nationwide as I saw grocery stores place limits on much-needed items.

I wondered how many more times I was going to hear the new normal” and if my great-grandparents hated that phrase as much as I did.

I wondered how 100 years later, we could be dealing with another pandemic when hygiene and medical science had such massive advancements. I then wondered why common sense didn’t have as many advancements in the same time frame.

But most of all, I wondered if I was enough. If I was doing enough for my children. For our family. For our scouts. Was I covering enough during our homeschool day? Was our homeschool schedule really working? Were we doing enough of the scouting requirements to make up for not being together in person? Was I spending enough time with each of my children? Was I spending enough time with my husband? Was I doing enough around the house? Was I doing enough of everything and anything?

The constant questioning myself made me feel even farther away from the person I was before the move. The person who, at least some of the time, had her shit together. The person who felt settled. The person who was used to a little bit of chaos, but didn’t have to deal with * waves arms * all this on top of regular life.

Through most of 2020, I fought to find some bit of normal and hold on to it.

Come 2021, I realized that normal was overrated.

I was tired. Exhausted really. But not just physically exhausted, mentally exhausted as well. It was just all too much.

By June, I was ready to disconnect. Our summer was filled with opportunities to spend time with family and reflect on not only all of the nonsense since COVID, but also on all of the upheaval in our lives that started back in early 2019. And if I’m being honest, probably as far back as 2017 when we started to talk about selling the house and moving my inlaws in with us.

I realized that I had not found my groove with homeschooling or even really with spending time as a family since before the move. I needed my routine back. I needed to get all of us back on track. My husband and I talked about things, and since then, we have been working on strategies for making our lives run more smoothly. To get our household in order, and our homeschool in order. I’m so glad that we are both on the same page with how important this is for all of us.

This year, our school year started on September 1st, and Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts resumed shortly after. Last week, my youngest started Cub Scouts again. Things are starting to feel settled for the first time in a long time. So I figured, why not share the craziness that has been our last 2+ years, let you all know that I’m still here, and see if I can start doing this blogging thing a little more often again, and maybe fall in love with it as I did before when it all started back in 2010.

So that’s it in a not so neat tidy package. Life happened, and like good friends, I’m hoping we can pick up where we left off. So until next time (and I promise it won’t be another two year) …