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- Hi, my name is Kara, and I hate gardening.
There, I said it.
There truly aren’t very many things in my life that I wish I could outsource. I pretty much enjoy (or tolerate well) a lot of tasks that a lot of people find annoying. However, I really, super hate gardening. What’s worse: I have all these fancy big dreams of having a beautiful yard – full of flowers & pretty plants – and yet the moment I pull a shovel out to begin working on it, I feel like giving up. I just loathe it. And so – that’s why my yard is in the shape it’s in. It’s a mess. Every year, I have all the best intentions of “finally” getting out there & cleaning it up, and yet every year passes & still, I’ve done next-to-nothing.
Thankfully, my sisters are pretty amazing gardeners (and they actually enjoy digging around in the dirt). They came over this afternoon & we worked and worked and worked at cleaning things up & preparing to plant. It’s not done – not by a long stretch – but it’s a start. - Yesterday was Derrick & I’s 10th wedding anniversary. Once upon a time, we had talked about maybe going away or doing something grand to celebrate, but with quarantine-life still in full swing – all of those ideas fell to dust. I won’t lie, I cried – I couldn’t believe that my big tenth anniversary was going to come & go, and Derrick & I wouldn’t even be able to go out to dinner to celebrate it. Of course, then I felt silly because people are facing much worse things – and I am very thankful that we have each other & that we’re all healthy. So, we’ll just call it a “bittersweet” feeling.
We agreed not to get each other gifts but instead to save our money so that hopefully sometime in the near future we could go away on a little trip. We did find a way to make the day special though – Derrick came home from work early & we went over to my parent’s house for dinner. They watched the kids upstairs, while Derrick & I had a romantic candlelit dinner downstairs. It was definitely memorable! Not what I was expecting, but I’m just thankful that we were able to have a little bit of time by ourselves. - We are going on 6 weeks of quarantine after all – Kara’s starting to go a bit insane.
- The hardest part about all of this quarantine – businesses being shut down – uncertainty stuff, is that the future is so unclear. And, I’m not sure how you are – how you make it thru hard days – but for me, I am a “looking forward to something” kind of person. I make it thru rough days with the kids because I’m looking forward to a date night with Derrick. I make it thru monotonous days because I’m looking forward to a trip we’ve planned. I make it thru tedious tasks because I’m looking forward to going to my parent’s house. I am constantly looking forward to something – and with the future being so uncertain (and several of our roller coaster trips already being canceled) – I feel like I have nothing to look forward to. And honestly, that’s the worst part about all of this. Our days haven’t really changed much – our schedules are still pretty much the same – but for example: today was supposed to be season passholder day at Kennywood Park. We were supposed to be at Kennywood for the first time today. And obviously – that didn’t happen. I have been looking forward to today: April 25, 2020, for months (and it was a perfectly gorgeous day to boot) but now that COVID-19 has come to play, we have no idea when Kennywood will open for the year. And for me: that’s the worst part of all of this – having everything stripped away & having nothing to look forward to.
- In other exciting news: Leander attempted to eat a stink bug this week. They just seem to love our house, especially this time of year, and when he came across one on our 3rd floor one morning this week, he (apparently) thought it would be tasty to eat. He spit it out pretty quick, but Mommy was pretty grossed out for quite some time after that.
- I finished a project that has been 3 years in the making this week! I wrote the final “chapter” of Derrick & I’s love story! It’s crazy that I started that project 3 whole years ago! I honestly never intended for it to be this long (it ended up being 26 “chapters”) – I originally figured I would write a few blog posts & it would be a fun “series” – well, 26 posts later & it’s sure a “fun series” alright! Of course, if you know me, you probably laughed out loud at the notion that I would ever be able to write something “short” – I love to write & since I was going for it, I decided that I might as well include every single detail that I could! Of course, in our reminiscing & remembering & me digging thru old emails, I’ve uncovered a few stories that did not make it into the chapters I wrote on my blog – but that’s okay. I plan to add them into my own copy & then, maybe one day, I’ll actually get it printed as a book or something (wouldn’t that be the most amazing family heirloom??) If you are not sure what I am talking about, you can check the whole our whole love story out here!
- Yesterday was a really big day for me – I officially finished the “Couch-To-5K” 8-week program! After starting the program several times in my life – this week was the first time I have ever made it to the end. To be honest: I still don’t really like running. I was hoping that after 8 weeks, it would really grow on me & I would find that “runner’s high” – but I haven’t yet. I have realized though that running for long stretches of time, on a treadmill, in my basement, is super boring. Listening to podcasts definitely helps, but it’s still so boring. I’m sure that going outside & running outside would be a completely different experience – I just don’t see myself being able to try that anytime in the near future (I have 2 children. I run in the mornings, but Braelynn is always awake when I go downstairs to run, while Leander is always asleep. I would have to wake up before Derrick goes to work in order to actually leave the house to go running, and well, that’s not happening – Derrick leaves for work around 6:15am.) Anyways, I think I’m going to try to find some interval training (I’m not even sure if that’s the right word – I kind of just made that up) because I found that to be much more enjoyable & doable on the treadmill.
- I made my official YouTube “debut” this week! Derrick had asked me a few weeks ago if I was interested in making a video for his YouTube channel & I said, “Sure!” I had a blast putting it all together & it went over fairly decently with Derrick’s audience (so far, I’ve only received 1 “nasty” comment out of over 100 nice ones!) Needless to say, I’ve got the “YouTube fever” now & I’m excited to not only make more content for Derrick’s channel, but I’m pumped to create some video content of my own!
- Speaking of video content: I gave it a go this week! I made 2 separate attempts to film a simple “introduction” video to put on my website. The first time, I was completely unprepared – for whatever reason, I thought I could just talk to the camera & come up with something amazing straight out of my head. Newsflash: I failed. The second time, I was a little too prepared – I had written a script, but I couldn’t figure out how to read it while looking into the camera. It’s okay, third time’s a charm, right?
- I’m just really tired this week. The kids haven’t been sleeping well – I’m pretty sure Leander has more teeth popping thru – he’s been awake several nights this week for long stretches of time. And Braelynn has been super restless too – crawling into our bed in the middle of the night & waking up ridiculously early in the morning (like, 5am). So, I’m just tired.
