my unexpected life

 

i'm back!

did you miss me? i can't believe how long it's been since i've written. back when i was lonely and unhappy i couldn't go more than a day or two without writing but now that i'm happy it seems like writing is the last thing on my mind.

but i really do want to change that because i want to document everything about my new unexpected life. every day i have new experiences in motherhood or being part of a couple with someone new after 30+ years of being mrs. taz and i want to always remember every step of the journey.

so we're still working on the new house and it's a process. i've always heard that home renovation can be a real test of a couple and i can definitely see why but we're still doing well and finding some time to just be a couple (or a family if the kids are with us) rather than get bogged down in all the projects that still need to be completed or sniping at each other out of frustration. the man of the place is taking good care of us and making this house into a real home although i know he's more than ready for everything to be finished so that he can rest when he gets home from a long day at work without having way too many projects hanging over his head.

we took time out to visit the county fair and picked up our first bit of "artwork" for the wall - a family photo taken on our land back in december. it's printed on a wooden crate and i think it turned out very nice. we put it up on the wall next to the front door so we see it every time we leave the house.

shortly after our fair weekend, my sister came for a visit because she was doing some job training less than an hour away. since she lives 7 hours from me and we don't get to see each other all that often (especially since COVID) so it was a real treat to spend some time catching up. she's intrigued by my new life, especially the fact that i'm a new "mother" after decades of being childless. she even bought the kids presents from their new aunt so, needless to say, she was a big hit. it was nice knowing she was in the area last week and i started missing her the minute her car left the driveway; hopefully we can get together again soon.

in other news we have spring break to look forward to. my man has to work so i've taken a couple of days off from work and planned fun activities for the days we have the kids and we're also planning a long weekend at the beach - our first family vacation. i am so very excited about that!

i thank God every day for these 3

whirlwind

 

yeah, so i haven't been on here in a while - sorry! believe me when i tell you, life has been a roller coaster ride and i feel like i haven't had a chance to catch my breath in weeks.

the first big news is - we're all moved in to the new house! oh my gosh, that was quite an endeavor and there were times when i didn't see how it was going to happen but at 11:58 pm on new year's eve we finished moving the last load. we had our new years kiss in the living room and then dropped our exhausted bodies into bed for a long sleep. it wasn't the romantic new year's eve of my dreams but maybe it was even better- a truly new start at the beginning of a new year...nah, i would rather have been out partying or doing something romantic. lol

christmas was magical, it was amazing to see it through the eyes of the kids. because so many of my adult christmases were just taz and me, this was a completely different experience and took me back to my childhood.

and then the real fun stared, we had one week to get everything from chris's small house moved into our new house, clean and paint his old house while we also had to work our full-time jobs because neither of us had any time to take off. it was quite the effort and i must say i was exhausted, overwhelmed and probably more than a little cranky that week. it was not the relaxed holiday week that i had been hoping for because i hate moving (and i probably mentioned that out loud more than once during that week) but somehow we actually got it all done and did a good enough job that chris got his entire security deposit back. whew!

i wish i could say it's been all smooth sailing since then but the reality is that the first couple of weeks of the new year have been rough. relationships are hard at times and sometimes we have to think long and hard about what we want. sometimes people do stupid things that hurt. the first year that taz and i were married was rough too and i thought about walking out more than once. looking back now i realize i would have missed out on 32 mostly happy years and so many memories but at the time, i could only see whatever pain i was feeling right then. i'm trying to apply the lessons i've learned to this new relationship, knowing that love isn't something to throw away when things get messy but that i always have to balance that with respect for myself. 

the new house is great but it's still a major work in progress. we had no running water or kitchen appliances for the first couple of weeks. we now have a refrigerator and stove but no kitchen sink and the water is an on again/off again thing because of a mysterious leak that keeps the meter running constantly so we keep having to shut it off. our landlord is supposed to come out this weekend and check the water lines running from the main street to the private road that leads to our property. i can only hope that they get it fixed so that we can have consistent water. i have never been a fan of roughing it but at least i'm getting better at it.

i still have my house but it's getting emptier every day as we move things into our new place. it's weird to watch it become less and less mine but it's time and i'm (mostly) at peace about giving it up. i intend to have it emptied by the middle of february so that i can set a closing date before the end of that month. it will be hard saying goodbye, i have no doubt of that, but it will also be a relief. it's truly the end of an era and time to move forward.

forward is my word for 2021.

December already?

Hey there! Just wanted to check in and see how everyone is doing on this fine December morning.

I continue to be good, life is busy, Christmas is right around the corner. Yikes!

Actually, I'm pretty ready for Christmas. Chris and I have been out shopping for the kids and I think we have pretty much everything bought including stocking stuffers. I have presents for Chris sitting in my office and I've already exchanged presents with my little sister so I'm going to sit back and enjoy the next few weeks.

We went out as a family last weekend to cut down our Christmas tree - my first time to do that! It was an almost magical experience walking through the rows of trees with the most beautiful sunset in the background. We found the perfect tree for us and we'll be decorating it this week with the kids. Perfect!

In other news, we're busy renovating a house for us to move into. We desperately need more space so we found a real fixer-upper with 4 large bedrooms but it needs a LOT of TLC before we can move in so that's pretty much what we've been doing each weekend. We had hoped to move in on December 1 but, because of an old trailer and trash the previous people left behind, we can't get the electric company out to turn the power on yet. Now I'm a go with the flow kind of person (for the most part) but I can't live in a house with no power...and it has no toilets right now either. So we wait. At this point we're praying that we can get in there right before Christmas. We get the kids Christmas morning and we'd love to have everything ready to bring them straight to the new house on that morning with everything ready to live there. Wish us luck!

I had a little artwork put on my back this past weekend, my birthday present to myself. That's Kuromi. She's a Hello Kitty character with an edge - she's sweet and mischievous, just like me. I had her drawn as a sugar skull because I love them. I love the tattoo but man, there were parts of it that hurt like hell because they had to be colored in. Yikes, I almost cried!

My family came to visit this weekend, it was the first time we'd seen each other in a while not counting the quickie lunch my sister and I had back in August. 

We had our holiday dinner yesterday, my brother in law made turkey and dressing and my sister did her famous hash brown casserole. I was able to just sit around and enjoy, what a treat! It was all delicious and I have enough leftovers to make my lunch all week. It was such a thoughtful thing for them to do and I really appreciate it. I wish we lived closer. They got to meet Chris at dinner on Friday night and they said they were very happy for me so that's another hurdle passed. 

I continue to have a good relationship with Chris's kids and his grandson which makes me very happy.

In fact I now take the kids to school 2-3 mornings a week, one more step on my motherhood road. If you'd told me a year ago that I'd be doing things like that, I would have thought you were kinda crazy but it just seems right and natural.

It's beginning to look like Christmas at my house too. I'll be putting it on the market in January (already looking at offers from those "we'll buy your home" kind of places) but I really want to enjoy one last Christmas in there before I have to say goodbye.

Merry Christmas y'all!

October

 

Yikes, it's been almost 2 months since I posted - bad Jonni.

I'm not even sure I remember everything that has happened in the last 2 months but it's all been good. Chris and I are still happy, still planning a future together, still enjoying family life with the kids, still moving ahead on selling my house and now we're renovating one for us to move into by the end of the year. We've been on a very long road trip to Texas and back, right through a hurricane, and we never had a cross word between us, maybe because we were too busy laughing and joking or maybe because we had very little sleep so we were just too exhausted to fight - who knows. LOL

 My man doing something manly with a circular saw in the backyard.

New puppy #1 

They lifted the nursing home restrictions a bit so I finally got to visit with my mother in person after not being able to for 6 months. Of course, each time they get a new COVID case they lock the place down for 2 weeks so in 2 months we've only had 2 visits but I've got another one scheduled for this week. I totally understand and agree with all the restrictions, it's kept the residents safe, but I also know that her precarious mental health was slipping and it's been good for her to see me.

Our new house is a bit of a hot mess right now (and I'm being overly complimentary, believe me) but we're making (slow) progress and I can't wait to share "after" pictures with you in a couple of months. It's SO much bigger than where we're currently living - 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, huge living room and a nice sized dining room. It's going to be awesome and it sits on a big piece of land with so many possibilities. My favorite part of the renovation process is sitting with Chris and dreaming about all improvements we want to make. My least favorite part is standing for hours in a house with no air conditioning (or electricity or running water - no toilets!) painting and cleaning - I was not cut out for manual labor. LOL And yet, I love that we're doing it together. Chris probably wishes I could learn to love it quietly with no grumbling...yeah, like that's going to happen. Dream on, big guy.

At the beginning of October we celebrated this guy's 6th birthday with a weekend at my place and everybody loved spending hours in the swimming pool. All along I wanted to have my house back to myself for a couple of months so that I could make some happy family memories before having to sell so this weekend was everything I could have hoped for. The fact that we've done it another time since then and we have another weekend coming up is just icing on the cake. Speaking of cake, the birthday boy's oldest sister made this cake for him and it was amazing.

The birthday boy got a puppy as a gift so that's new puppy #2. She's teeny tiny and a bundle of energy with a BIG personality. The two puppies together are double trouble, believe me. By the way, I literally "woke up like this" because the kids thought it would be funny to open the bedroom door and let the puppies in while I was still sleeping and then take a picture. Have I mentioned how "adorable" they are? Yeah, I'm loving every minute.

Scenes of hurricane damage on our way home from Texas.

Us before leaving for Texas and us 80 hours later on the side of the road with a blown tire 25 miles from home just being goofy for the camera. We got about 4 hours sleep in the truck in a Waffle House parking lot during the whole trip, I think I changed my shirt but I don't think he changed clothes the whole time. My hair was horrible and I was tired and hungry but I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat.

My first drive-in movie! We did have another child with us but she was in the bathroom when we took the picture. It was fun but a little hot, the kids couldn't see from the backseat so I switched places with them so then I could barely see so we ended up out at the picnic table by the concession stand which kind of defeats the whole purpose of a drive-in, I think. At least now I can say I've done it.

We took the kids to Legoland and had such a great time that we ended up getting annual passes so we can go back as often as we'd like. It was my first time in any sort of theme park since the pandemic and I can see they are taking precautions to keep people distanced and safe. It's hot wearing a mask all day in Florida but we did it - the kids were even better at it than the adults were.

There, I think you're all caught up now. In between home renovation and fun, I'm at work every day, keeping my head above water, dreading next month's 2 year anniversary a bit, trying out my cooking skills, figuring out I really don't have any cooking skills, waiting for the cooler weather to start and looking forward to Halloween this weekend even if it will look different than it usually does. It's still my favorite holiday and will be even more fun with kids this year!

road trip!

Good morning!
I really am trying to be better about writing but apparently they like to have me do a little work at the office rather than sit around writing blog posts...who knew?
So, I finally went on my long anticipated road trip to Georgia this past weekend. Remember way back here I talked about my research project and mentioned that I needed to take a road trip to a WWII Flight Training museum in Georgia? That was a whole year ago and things kept coming up to keep me from going - first it was a hurricane, then I broke my arm and dealt with that pain for months, then I got new roommates and then COVID closed down the museum.
Well, I finally got off my ass and drove up there last Saturday and it was awesome!

The museum was exactly what I'd hoped it would be and gave me a very good feel for what pilot training would have been like in WWII. The volunteer on duty was knowledgeable and friendly and I had the whole place to myself so I could linger as long as I wanted and take lots of pictures.

My research deals with women who trained as military pilots during WWII but the museum that covers that is in Texas which is too far for a day trip. Since the women followed the same training regimen as the guys I figured this would be a good way to start my research and at least it made me feel like I was making some progress.

I started my trip at 7am and made sure I had all the necessities with me - mask, sunglasses, adorable hat, notebook for notes and, of course, road snacks. Doritos make a great breakfast, don't let anyone tell you any different!

By far, though, the best part of the day was meeting up with my little sister for lunch. I'd driven 4 hours up to the museum then I drove an hour back to the restaurant. She drove 4 hours from her home in Alabama just so that we could see each other for the first time since November. I have missed her so much even though we've kept in touch; there's no substitute for sitting across from each other and talking in person.

We spent a couple of hours talking and eating and although it wasn't nearly long enough, it was perfect. We had so much fun that we've decided to make it a regular event so that we can keep updated on each other's lives.

The sweetest part of the day was that the waiter left a buttload of these little minty chocolate candies and Lisa didn't want any so I took them all. Nearly a week later and I'm still enjoying a couple each day.

I got back home by 7pm so it was 12 hours away from home and 8 hours of actual driving. I guess that's a pretty long day but I wasn't tired at all. I really felt energized by doing something fun, something outside of my normal routine. It makes me want to hit the road again soon!

There was a surprise waiting for me when I got home to Chris's place but that's a story for another post.