Living in the age of COVID | This WONDERfilled Life

I haven't posted a blog since the beginning of February...and that whole Twenty in 20? HA! I'm not counting it out but it certainly has been put on the back burner.  Right after I posted in February we had some things happen here at the house...in an effort at keeping ourselves safe I will just say that we were the victims of an attempted home invasion...TWICE...and I was home both times.  I spent February looking over my shoulder, depleting our savings in upgrading parts of our security and having new security doors ordered and installed on the house.  It was traumatic and time consuming and I didn't sleep well for weeks.  In fact I didn't sleep well until our new doors were installed.  I had about 5 days of blissful, we're going to be okay sleep and then the P-A-N-D-E-M-I-C hit.  What. The. Fudge.

So I don't have to tell any of you how crazy this has all been.  It's kind of weird and also endearing that we (the entire world) are all going thru this, together, at the same time...I mean I realize that there are definitely different levels of hysteria, lock downs, fear...but pretty much everyone out there riding this big blue planet knows what's been going on.  Super had a great comment the other day in talking about transcripts, not just for P but his college students, no one in the world will look at a transcript from Spring 2020 and NOT remember the COVID-19 Pandemic...won't happen...you don't need to explain anything...people will just "know" and that's kind of a crazy concept to wrap your head around.  Again...the WHOLE WORLD.  At any rate we have been "Safe at Home" for seven weeks today.  I went thru many emotions the first few weeks.  The weather here in the mid-west is hit or miss in the spring and I definitely had some bad days, especially when we had longer stints of crappy, wet, cold weather.  But I sort of feel like I can see a light at the end of the tunnel.  Managing my time has taken on a NEW meaning once again.  We had just settled into a schedule with P in Kindergarten when her school district went on strike for almost three weeks...then the holidays...then back to school, and now she's been away from her class room for seven weeks and will not be returning this year.  So we sort of lugged ourselves into a new "normal" and new routines...In my depression over the current events I just sort of stopped playing my horn.  My job (my industry really) was one of the first to go...and keeping things on track with two little kids leaves very little mental or physical energy for wanting to learn new things at the end of the day...but I've decided that I've moped long enough and I want to focus on the things I can change, fix, and control so I set up my new backdrop last week and have been playing with it.  I took some photos this morning of my newest make and I decided I might try and get back to blogging more....although if we're friends on Facebook you know that I have blogged about our day every night we've been under a "stay at home" order!

The sun is shining, my lawn mower batteries are charging and I am gearing up for a spring of change, and refreshing our home.  I'm devoted to clearing out the crap I've been sitting on for years and organizing what we want to keep.  I have projects in mind (musical and otherwise) that I have very little excuse to not take a stab at. So....Happy May Day! Here's to new growth and new opportunities!!

******************************************************

I've lost over 50lbs since last August...I'm in dire need of new clothes so I treated myself this Easter (since for the first time since I had kids I would actually be celebrating with them and not playing a church service) and made myself a...DRESS.  I usually feel like a troll in a dress but this is so light, and flirty and fresh....I already have another one planned out in my head! In the sewing world May is also known as #memademay and I think this may be my anthem this year as well! 

This is the Flutter Wrap Dress by Patterns for Pirates.  Don't let the flutters or ruffles intimidate you.  Take your time and be patient, it's a way easier sew than it looks! I enjoyed getting dressed up to take these photos! I've been experimenting with the placement of my new photo backdrop...I still have some lighting issues to fix, but if I wait until everything is "perfect" I will never share so...here's a few of my less than perfect dress pictures! HA!