Welcome Back

 Oh, hey! It's been a little while, huh? 

Haha understatement of the year. Could life have been more crazy over the last 14 months? When I last posted at the beginning of 2020 about recapping 2019, I lost a bit of interest in blogging. I just didn't have it in me to write posts about how boring a winter in Maine can be without an indoor, about how Ellie and I bobbled through deep sn*w in frigid temps just so neither of us went stir crazy haha.

Dreamy and my youngest on Christmas 2019

Ellie on the right, her momma Rejoice on the left

And then of course, March 13 arrived and everything changed. My own struggles pale in comparison to others, but it was an incredibly tough end of school year to say the least. 

I posted this to my Facebook on day two of quarantine, homeschooling, and teaching online. It was rainy, my two children were already cranky about our new schedule, my oldest had to do a chemistry lab in the kitchen which made the youngest REALLY JEALOUS, and it took me ten hours to edit seventeen essays because I had to also play referee, housekeeper, and snack bitch. I mean really, mandatory lunging for everyone at that point seemed prudent!

Then in April, my dad unexpectedly needed an emergency quadruple bypass open heart surgery, which of course was stressful enough on its own but was compounded by the fact we were in the beginning stages of the pandemic. Just when I thought I was at peak level of stress, you find out how much more you can handle. For a full week my day was framed by morning and evening calls from my dad's surgeons and nurses since I was not allowed to enter the hospital. I had to move in with my dad when he came home after his surgery, since he lives alone, and that was on top of trying to teach my two kids, teach my students, take care of the farm and all the animals. It was trying to say the least.

In hindsight, my family did OK last year. My dad made a full recovery, neither my husband or I lost our jobs, and none of us contracted COVID-19. (I was fully vaccinated a month ago on April 9!) However, even though others had it much harder than we did, everything was still stressful. I felt a terrible fear of the unknown and what was to come that I have never felt before, but I can acknowledge we made it through without too many scars.

Thankfully, I did make it to a few shows in 2020, but there was definitely
a time I thought the entire year was a wash!

I did earn my National Board teacher certification at the end of 2019, which was a career goal of mine. I also was accepted into a doctorate program for curriculum and instruction through the University of Louisiana Monroe in an online four year program. My first class started on March 9, 2020, just four days before we were told the school were I teach was shutting down.

I mean, I definitely needed to find ways to cope haha.

Being in lockdown was rough, but ultimately we developed a good routine and did our best to cope with all the new protocols. I felt lucky to have my horses at home, so I could still see them and ride.

Real talk, I love being home so after a while I kinda liked it haha.

My youngest started kindergarten this year, which was wild during a pandemic.
Peep his rubber barn boots he insisted on wearing to his screening in August 2020 haha.

We got the official word at the end of July that we were going back to school full time in September. I had such weird mixed feelings at the time. Looking back, this has been the most difficult year of teaching I have ever had since I began teaching in 2001. We have a combination of full time, hybrid, and fully remote students and different grade levels in our school have been quarantined multiple times over this school year. This is not a good way to teach, everyone is stressed, and we teachers are trying to do our best for our kids. We have 23 school days left, as our last day is June 11, and I honestly feel like I mentally and emotionally need this break more than I ever have. It is not surprising to me my district is struggling to find anyone who wants to stay on to teach summer school. 

I guess you have to laugh or you will just cry!

So yeah, being in front of a computer screen all last spring and then spending SO MUCH TIME reading and writing for my grad classes made me completely lose interest in blogging (and Instagram and other forms of social media tbh). But I have tried to keep up with reading what everyone is up to in order to stay connected. I am feeling small tugs to start blogging again, so welcome back! Stay tuned for lots of catch up posts about Ellie and Rejoice adventures!