66 Weeks Behind Us (Weekly and Final Update)

 66.

 

66 weeks behind us since the pandemic hit the state of Georgia full force. My final weekly update.

 

15 months of living my life drastically different from how I lived it before. It's been tough (and it's been even tougher on a lot of other people) but I have no regrets regarding my choices.

As I write this, 602K people have died in the US from Cov!d-19 since the beginning of last year...

If you lost a friend or family member to this horrible virus, my heart truly goes out to you. So many things could have been done differently and should have been done differently in this nation.

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Moving on to more positive things...

 

Let me talk all about everything that went on in my world last week and this past Sunday (lots of happy stuff!)...

Bri and I tried a new peanut butter and chocolate brownie recipe that she found on the internet. I wasn't too sure about how it would turn out, but it came out super yummy...

B already found another recipe for some Oreo cookie concoction she wants to try to make and I told her we needed to slow down a little. I'm already suffering from some pandemic weight gain. Baking all these sweets isn't going to help my situation. Heh.

Bri and I also checked out our neighborhood pool...

We didn't go to our neighborhood pool last year due to Cov!d, so we hadn't been to the pool since the summer of 2019. We had the pool to ourselves for about 20 minutes and then families started coming in - which was fine. It was a really warm day, so it was perfect for getting in the water and relaxing by the pool.

Bri and I had a movie afternoon (in our theater) and watched "Wish Dragon." It is a Chinese take on the story of "Aladdin." It was super cute and we really enjoyed it...

My furry girl is as clingy as ever...

She is really clingy with all of us, but she is super clingy to me - I think because I am her main food source. Heh. I had to run an errand last week and Doug took the photo of her watching me drive away. My cat does this. No joke. LOL! 

Friday was the day that started our family's "celebration" weekend. The weekend consisted of my birthday and Father's Day. Another cause for celebration was that Bri officially hit the two week mark after her second vaccine which makes her now "fully vaccinated"...

A great day indeed! 

My parents came over on Friday to celebrate my birthday and Father's Day a bit early...

It was such a nice morning/afternoon.

Saturday was my actual birthday. I turned 48 years old and I had never even heard of "Juneteenth" until two years ago (but I won't go into the fact that there is so much history I never was taught.) Now my birthday falls on a federal holiday - crazy! So happy Juneteenth everyone!

For my birthday, we watched "In The Heights" in the afternoon...

I know there is a bit of controversy surrounding it (which I get), but I thought it was a great movie. Very entertaining. It definitely gave me some "Miami feels" (even though the movie is located in NY). I definitely had a feeling of nostalgia for my first home.

Also on my birthday, I got breakfast in bed, a delicious cake and a night out to one of my favorite restaurants...

 

And I received so many wonderful gifts from family and friends...

Briana painted the beautiful pot for me - and it took her several days. She needed several coats of paint to create the orange-y/peachy color for the pot. Then she did some outlining in gold and painted on blueberries. Doug helped her order a blueberry plant. She did such an amazing job.

I may have mentioned a few times that I love the show "Sch!tt's Creek." Heh. People also seem to somehow know I love cats and drinking wine. LOL!

 

Thanks to everyone who gave me gifts, sent me cards and texts, wrote me FB messages and bought me meals. It all made my birthday very special. 

Sunday rolled around and it was Father's Day. I made Doug a yummy egg/sausage/cheese skillet for breakfast, he opened cards and gifts and then he watched soccer in the afternoon. Then D, B and I headed to our favorite Cuban restaurant "Papi's" for dinner...

Papi's is the first restaurant we've eaten at since the pandemic started in which we didn't make a reservation first. When we arrived, we noticed there were still clear partitions between booths and the servers were still wearing masks - which was nice. The food was so delicious! We really had missed eating there.

We really had a great week. One of the busiest weeks we have had in a very long time. Our summer ahead looks quite busy, which is how our summers used to be. Last year was just so different. I like having a good mix of busy and not so busy during the summertime.

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Instead of focusing on the negative worldly stuff in this last "weekly" post, I am going to post some positive things I've been observing...

A much nicer, more caring, healthier, less toxic Wh!te House in the U.S...

A renewed relationship with our allies...

 A tougher stance against tyrants and dictators...

A pandemic that is beginning to dissipate due to belief in science and vaccines...

"Normal" life slowly starting to come back again...

People speaking out loudly and proudly about the importance of diversity (race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, generational)...

And there is a lot more I could list. In my opinion, things are slowly headed in the right direction. I have some hope again.

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I saw this picture on social media the other day and it really spoke to me...

This is very true.

As I said in my last post, I need to start focusing on being happy. Trying to figure out what makes me happy and who makes me happy...

This last quote really spoke to me. Life can be pretty difficult. I've had my share of difficult. I'm still feeling quite a bit of anxiety, anger, resentment and trauma at the moment. I'm trying to work on that. I still deal with chronic health issues. I worry about my Chinese-American daughter living in this post-pandemic America. But, I have to try to start living my life in a more normal way even though I am a bit wary about it. I need to have faith that these vaccines are as protective as the experts are claiming. I have been waiting for a very long time for things in life to get "less difficult" and it's not really happening. Every time I turn around, there seems to be something else smacking me in the face. I'm not sure life will get any easier anytime soon. 

So, I have to figure out how to be happy even though life is just plain hard. I have to focus on my present and future more than my past. I am going to focus on time with my daughter and husband - who both make me so happy. I have to continue to set boundaries. I have to try to focus on my happy moments. Hopefully, that will bring me the overall happiness and peace I am searching for. And it may not happen quickly, but I hope with some more work on myself, I'll finally get there. Fingers and toes crossed.

I think stepping away from this blog and social media at this time (just for a little while) will be good for me. A good start for me to find my happy again.

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So that is it. My last weekly update. Thank you to all of you who read all of my posts through the pandemic. Thank you to those who supported me and who are on the "same page" as I am about so many issues. Writing every week has been very cathartic and really helped me get through this tough time. I may have lost some readers due to expressing my views, but so be it - it's my blog, my space, my feelings and my passion. It helped me process everything that's been going on around me.

I think after 66 weeks of faithfully updating, I think I've earned a bit of a respite. I won't be gone forever, just a few weeks. 

Thanks again everyone.

See ya on the flip side.