First of all, it’s completely wild that tonight is Christmas Night and I’m sitting at home watching Disney+ while my husband (yes you ready that correctly) is sleeping in the Lazy Boy nearby. This year was both the longest and shortest feeling of my life.
In January by BF proposed and we started planning for a fall wedding, little did we know at this point that the world would have other ideas for our plans.
Early in March we said good-bye to BF’s mom who had passed away from lung cancer. We had a beautiful celebration of life in her honor at the elementary school down the street from our house. She had so many friends and family members who came from all over to share memories and celebrate the life she lived. I like to think we sent her off in style.
Shortly after the celebration, the world came to a grinding halt. We entered the early days of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. We were sure it would last a few weeks and life would be back to normal by Memorial Day. We were so wrong, here it is Christmas, and we’re still in the thick of it. From March – July I was only working about 16 hours a week, I was fortunate though, the company I work for received a grant that would cover payroll for everyone, so I was still paid full-time wages. BF’s hours were cut back drastically as well, and he was also lucky enough to work for someone who was able to keep him on at his regular salary. All the days began to blend together and it made wedding planning difficult and confusing. It was hard to make plans not knowing what the world would bring over the next few months. We had some choices to make, do we move forward and still get married during a plague year or do we postpone?
By the time summer was winding down, it was clear that this virus wasn’t going anywhere, and we decided not to let it get in the way of us starting our lives together as husband and wife. We went forward with our September 18th wedding date, just completely scaled back the guest list to immediate family and held the ceremony in my grandmother’s backyard. My brother officiated, my sister and his brother were our bridal party/witnesses, and we walked each other down the aisle. In short it was intimate and perfect. We would have loved to have been able to celebrate with more people, but it just wasn’t in the cards for 2020. Maybe we’ll have a big party to celebrate our 1 year anniversary, maybe we’ll go on a big trip. We have the rest of our lives to decide.
Shortly after the wedding, my husband launched a cottage business from our home. The Sisquoc Baking Company provides our community with freshly baked breads, scones, bagels, and pretzels that are so delicious they can turn just about anyone into a carb-aholic. The business is growing by the day and it’s really fun and exciting to see everything come together.
Backtracking just a bit, this summer we also adopted a flock of chickens. There has been such a learning curve in becoming Chicken Parents, but I think we’re getting the hang of it. We have a rooster (Kyle, named after the famous YouTube rooster of the same name), Camilla, Dolores, Gertrude, Sofia, Blanche, and Dorothy. Gertie hatched some chicks, but they don’t have names yet. One I like to call “Penguin” because that’s what it looks like, but we’re waiting for the gender reveal to really give them names.
Bugsy is still a big part of our little family, and he seems to get along really well with his new feathered siblings. We celebrated his 20th birthday this August, mostly just by loving on him a bit extra, I’m pretty sure dog parties are frowned upon during pandemics.
I hope everyone reading had a wonderful holiday season for whatever days you celebrate even though this year was so different that years past. I hope everyone can spend time with their loved ones soon and that this virus gets beaten in the near future. Stay safe and try to remember that everyone is going through something, so whenever possible try to be patient and practice kindness. Here’s to hoping 2021 brings us back to some sort of normalcy. Cheers everyone.
Adventures of a Girl Named Lauren 