2021

I think most of us were probably ready to see 2020 end. There were some great things that happened despite the craptastic year that it was.

1. Ummm, I got an extra 3 months off with my kids. Yes, it sucked moneywise and the only thing that got us through until unemployment (which under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have qualified for), was the insurance money that J got when his Dad unfortunately passed away about a month before safer at home orders in WI. Other than that, it was absolutely glorious. I’m clearly meant to be a SAHM. Too bad our budget requires me to work.

2. Roo Bear was placed with us. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s the last time I blogged. He turned 8 months on Christmas Day. The girls adore him. It’s looking like it could go to adoption. We’re praying it does because I don’t even want to know the trauma it would cause to all of us but especially the girls if we had to say goodbye to him.

3. Virtual learning meant that our babysitter is was able to come on as my daycare assistant this year. it’s been fantastic having a helper. Also, her Mom is Bella’s 3k teacher and she has quickly become one of my best friends. We are so alike it’s a little crazy.

The worst part of 2020 was definitely not being able to see my Mom much at all. She was very involved in my kids life so it was hard on all of us for the kids not be able to go stay there once a month or so like they’d been doing most of their lives. They are going over tomorrow to spend the night since we haven’t been by anyone since the 24th. Everyone is excited. Especially this Mama!

No one outside of my family and a few close friends know this but J and I almost split up in April. I had moved the girls and I to our rental house because it was empty. On the 3rd day, I was driving back there after picking them up from our house (they’d spent the night with J) and out of nowhere, I prayed that we wouldn’t get a call for a placement. I don’t know why I did that because we hadn’t gotten a call in over a year, but I did. When we got back to the rental about 30 minutes later, I had an email from the foster coordinator asking us if we would take Roo. It was such a God thing that I called J, we did a lot of discussing ing in a short amount of time and we decided to say yes. We haven’t looked back since. We still had a lot of hard times throughout the summer but things have seemed to start really getting back on track the last month or two.

So now here we are. 2020 is finally over. We’re 19 days away from the greatest day since Obama left office and I’m 50 lbs heavier than I was on my wedding day and 64 lbs away from my goal weight. Therefore, you my lively readers are going to be stuck being my accountability partners. The plan is to blog every night and post pics of what I ate to hold myself accountable. Hopefully I will have the energy to do this each night. I’m doing low carb because I’m hoping this will really help with the ridiculous amount of inflammation I have in my body. Currently, my hands are pretty much constantly numb and in pain and my right thumb doesn’t bend. If it does get forced into a bent position, it is excruciatingly painful. So here we go…

Day 1:

Breakfast was 2 eggs scrambled with broccoli, onions and a little cheese sprinkled in and about 2.5 pieces of bacon by the time I got done sharing with the girls.

Lunch was rotisserie chicken with a little cheese sprinkled in with diced avocado and a little basil pesto mixed in. I came up with it off the cuff and it was really good.

Dinner was chili, no beans with cheese and sour cream on top. Normally I’d put crackers in there too but skipped them. I did forget to take a picture though.

I managed to stay away from snacks and stick to coffee and water for drinks. I feel hungry but that’s not surprising with the amount of crap I’ve put in my body daily. I’m guessing I’ll feel hungry for the first week or so.

I hope you are all doing well! I promise I won’t just post about food but will update you on the kiddos also. For now though, Happy New Year, my Friends! I look forward to being more active on here again and hopefully getting back in touch with many of you from my pre kiddo days when I had this thing called time. 😂

Lots of Love~Dawn