A Bit of Catching Up

 

  Oh my goodness, we had a wonderful time while Tate, Josh and Lauren were here for a week!  Jeff and I enjoyed those baby snuggles, coos, smiles and his little "snorts". 😍  We were able to get the whole family together one night and celebrate Bradley's birthday early while his Uncle Josh, Auntie Lauren and new cousin Tate were home.  We also had many nights of family here for dinner and even had my sista/other mother to my boys Roni up for dinner one night so she could meet Tate.  We had lots of photos taken, which I will do a separate post on once all of them have been uploaded from the rest of my crew.

   Now that Josh, Lauren and Tate are back home in Las Vegas, life is starting to return to semi normal, but the excitement is not over yet.  Jaysn, Rachel and Steven came out for a visit and told us they put an offer on a house.  A day later, they found out the offer was accepted!  The house sits on 2.5 acres so there is lots of space for Steven to run, climb trees and for Rachel to be able to have a garden.  Congrats to them all!!!  They are even talking about getting a dog, which I think will be a wonderful idea since Steven LOVES dogs. 😊 Oh, Rachel also is going to be going back to SEL where she used to work and Jaysn has been working for years.  She is really happy about that because it will be a lot less stress and the benefits there are amazing!  We are really happy for her and know this will take a lot of pressure off her. 

   Chris, Heather, Bradly and Isaiah are adjusting to Chris being on 12 hours work shifts again, which is also the overnight shift.  It is a rough one and will take awhile for them to all get used to.  Since Chris is a police officer, his shifts change over the year and by the seasons.  He will also most likely be getting more overtime put in which will come in handy since they just bought a much needed new to them car.  They picked up a nice Honda Pilot after seeing how nice my parents' one is.  We are really happy for them since Heather's car was on it's last legs. 😀

   Jeff is also back to work again after being off for a little over a week.  Last night was his first night back and after us both getting used to sleeping at night when the kids were here, it has been an adjustment.  I have a feeling this week will be really rough for Jeff as he makes the switch back and gets used to doing the heavy lifting again that comes with his job.  I'm not doing well sleep wise without him here at night either.  I tossed and turned for much of last night.  I have a feeling that I will be making the switch back to sleeping during the days when he does since that works better for both of us.

   Covid-19 cases are once again on the rise here in our area again with the additional tragic deaths of 4 more people last week in our county alone.  Our town also has seen 5 new cases within the last 2 week period and we only have a little over 600 people here. It is scary to see the numbers going up so quickly and all the despite the increase in people being vaccinated. I know the Kent variation of the virus is in our state and the Brazilian one is in Idaho already.  I am wondering if they have made their way up here to our little part of the world yet since the increase is so sharp and the death rate is picking up. 😢  Looks like that little bit of freedom we had to actually be able to go out to eat and such is coming to an end for the time being.

   Jeff and I have been busy tackling a lot of projects here around the house and have a lot more to do.  We got the back guest bedroom all set up for the kids while they were here and I am hoping to keep it company ready at all times now.  I am finding myself retreating to it for naps also, which is now going to come in real handy with Jeff back to his swing shift.  We have decided that we need to do some painting, replacing of doors and trim, installing a fan in our bedroom and a few other projects when the weather warms up again.

   Speaking of the weather, we went from that polar vortex to temps expected near 60 this week! 😎  I went outside yesterday and found that my primroses are already starting to bloom and that the rest of my Spring bulbs are putting up shoots!  I am hoping that we do not get another deep freeze or killing frost because all the plants now are waking up and I need then to do well this year.  I bought some more flower seeds and want to create an English Garden type bed right off the back porch since we don't have a dog who will be digging it all up this year.  I think it will look really nice there and make the view from the back covered porch even nicer.  We had thought about possibly moving to Idaho sometime this year but that has been put on hold now so I will continue to just enjoy my little paid off home and increase the beauty and productivity of the gardens.  Jeff seems to be more accepting of this also since we really do not want to incur any more debt but rather sock away even more money into savings.  You never know what will happen in the future and I want to be prepared financially.

   As for now, we will keep on living our happy frugal lives and try to stay healthy and avoid the dreaded virus.  With Spring coming, I am even more hopeful since I can once again get out into the garden and grow some more of our own food.  I love seeing things bud out and seedings pop out of the ground.  It fills me with a sense of wonder and thankfulness for all we have been blessed with.  We really are fortunate and having the kids and grandkids all together again just filled our "love tanks" to the brim.  Hopefully we will all be together again in June for a few days...looking so forward to that!  Be blessed all!