Spring Again.

Hello. 

I am...shockingly behind on reviewing books. I've been trying to get back here and catch up, but Spring has arrived and utterly distracted me. I'm over here decluttering toys and sorting my kids' wardrobes and plotting home improvement projects. It's a lot of sudden action after a slow, boring winter.

March coming back around again did some weird things to my brain. The air, the weather, the vibe all felt like it did when our community shut down. It's not that last March was altogether terrible for us. We were all at home and safe and healthy and had everything we needed. But it was so...unendingly unknown. And something about being back in March and springtime made the past year feel like it wasn't real. Like I'd just been standing in line all this time, somehow going through the regular life motions but still just waiting for my turn. Just a weird feeling I'd never had before.

But now we're stretching our arms and legs - stepping out of hibernation and into action. And it's been both energizing and time consuming. I'm still over here, reading all the books (I'm working on #22 for the year), but I'm also helping the kids do the school thing and giving the house some much needed sprucing and yadda yadda.

And I feel like there's so much to share that a bullet list would probably be ideal, here.

• I'm starting a Happiness Project today. I mapped it out for the spring season (rather than for a month or a year), so there's 90-some days of challenging myself with 12 different goals. It's not so much that I'm seeking out extra happiness as it is attempting to be intentional and purposeful with the time remaining before Matt and I can get vaccinated. And in case you're like, "But wait, don't you already have that 21 for 2021 list? You really need more goals??"....my goals are mostly based off that list, with a little extra detail and fun thrown in. I'll share it all later - on the other side of the project.
  
  
• We tried to buy a couple houses last week. Ha. Sounds flippant but it's also accurate. We got preapproved to attempt buying something that was out of our league but meaningful. (Long story.) Because we'd gone through the process we attempted to throw our pre-approval at something more reasonable, but were shut out because there had already been 43 showings in 4 days and they didn't want any other attempts. Sigh. This market is brutal, and going up against that Boomer cash (you know, bought a house for $150K 20-30 years ago but sold it for $500 now) is a battle. It hurts, and I hate it, and pray for me as we continue on in our house hunt. I may not make it out with my sanity in tact.
  
  
• We've had some lingering home projects that are like 80% done, and other things we've been meaning to tackle but haven't started, and the struggle of floundering through the real estate market has inspired us to tackle it. I'll share more later, but I'm pumped.
  
  
• Last week, our newest neighbors murdered three trees. Yeah, I said murdered. They weren't dying - they weren't riddled with the ash borers. They were just "inconvenient" so they took them down. It was heartbreaking to watch, and the vibe in our yard is entirely different, now. I hate it so much. This is spawning the need to move asap, and I'm also seriously considering planting a row of maple trees riiiiiiight along our property line this summer. 
  
  
• It'll probably be another 2 months (or more?) before Matt and I have access to getting vaccinated, and our oldest *might* get his in time for next school year. I believe the studies on 12-16 year olds are expected to be finished then. But my little two still won't have access and I'm definitely not ready to jump back into normal contact until they do. That said, our social gatherings will largely be outdoors, so I want to invest some extra time and love into making the yard special. I ordered a bunch of flower seeds this morning from Botanical Interests (they have free shipping today (3/20) to celebrate Spring fyi) and I'm going to spruce up all the things. I'm V excited.
  
  
• We're expecting a string of actual Springy weather here in Buffalo this week. Which should make sense, but we don't usually get Spring-Spring until like, the end of April. I'm fully expecting us to return to wintery weather after this, but I am going to enjoy every second of sunshine and 60 degrees we get this week.
  
  

Okay okay, so, that's a lot of boring life stuff, but I swear it leads me to sharing some of the fun things ahead. I'll be back like crazy soon with tales of updating my living room, sourdough adventures, and maybe finally some actual book reviews. Peace out girl scouts.