We are now in very sunny North Dakota. The sun is too bright here. It fades everything so quickly. We've been here since mid-March. We bought a house that needed the basement to be finished. There were 3 months of construction and most of our stuff was still packed in boxes in the garage while the construction was ongoing. This included all of my book. I had no idea how much my bookshelves full of books were like a security blanket for me until this. After 5 months of living here, the construction was finished in time for my birthday in July. Then there was all the unpacking that then had to be done in the basement rooms. We are only just now hanging photos and artwork. Hopefully by Christmas it will feel more like home and be cooler outside.
Thursday, September 30, 2021
Sunday, March 7, 2021
Books Read in 2020
Despite the upheaval that my family went through in 2020, I was able to get some books read although it was far less than I usually read. I'd just come home so exhausted from my job I wouldn't even have the energy to read let alone be creative. This year I have a more to look forward to and the adventures that come with it but I plan to make plenty of time for reading in as many forms as possible.
BOOKS
STORIES
AUDIBLE
2020
2020 was a terrible year for most people. For us it was incredibly stressful even before the pandemic hit. In October of 2019 my husband lost his job when his position was eliminated. We thought he would have a new job by the first part of 2020. In the meantime, and this is going to sound crazy, we followed through with a trip we had planned to visit our daughter in Japan. We spent Christmas and New Years with her (two and a half weeks total) and it was awesome. But the job my husband had interviewed for, that we thought was a done deal, fell through.
In November of 2020 my husband's father died unexpectedly. He was then dealing with his grief, trying to manage his father's estate, and trying to find a new job. I've never seen him so lost as I did in the months to come.
By March 2020, just as the pandemic was getting a foothold, I had found a job. I worked as a scheduler for a local hospital chain. In the months that followed I learned to book mammograms, CT scans, ultrasounds, MRI's, and much more. It was a difficult job keeping all the information for the 8 different hospital locations straight - each location had different rules for the different tests. It was all draining for me as an introvert to talk to people all day long and my empathy continually got the better of me. Everyone calling in had something serious going wrong in their life. I'd come home absolutely exhausted. But it was a job and it provided insurance and income for my family - that's what mattered.
At home my husband at first had trouble with this role reversal (there was also this deep depression as well). He had never filed for unemployment before. Luckily he filed before the crush from the pandemic and lock downs. He began keeping house and making dinner. If I'm honest, he did a much better job of keeping the house clean and he's a better cook than I am. He also had to keep track of the appointments and services for our son. He began to see what it was like for me while he worked. It was eye opening for both of us. We were doing everything we had to do to stay afloat until better days come.
In January of 2021, after applying for over 200 positions across 63 different companies, my husband was offered a position as a Research Agronomist in Minot, North Dakota. He's been there since the end of January. We will be moving there as a family in a few days. I look forward to this new adventure in an area of the United States of America that I've never been to. Hopefully, I can get back to this blog and more creativity in the coming year!
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