Today's collection can be best summarized by the phrase WILD CHANGE. Everything about our life changed in this year of marriage, and we had no idea ANY of it was coming! Hang onto your hats!
Month 85: A Beautiful Last
We had no idea this was going to be a "last" for us, but it was. This was the month in which we, for the last time, served as narrators in one of the music productions at our church. And though I loved something specific and unique about each of the times we participated, this was my favorite one. I loved the songs, I loved the narrations, and I loved being able to serve together with Ryan in this way. This became our last time to participate partly because by the time the next scheduled production rolled around, we would be deep into a pandemic, and then we would move away. We had no clue about either one in this month. We thought we would do these forever. But if ever I had to pick a finale for something we've been involved in, this was the perfect finale.
Month 86: At-Home Dates (Trendsetters)
Here's something adorable: I felt like the start of 2020 seemed very busy, so I instituted something new, different, and fun in our lives: at-home dates! If I had only known what was coming, right? :) We did a handful of at-home dates this month and actually had a lot of fun with it. One of my favorites was the Rootin-Tootin Date Night, where we did a taste test of a handful of root beer varieties and then made floats! Super fun!
Month 87: Date Night on the Canal
One of Ryan's great surprises for me landed this month. He rented an Airbnb for Valentine's Day, and we had the most romantic evening in a tiny apartment, overlooking the canal and skyline of downtown Indianapolis! We had burgers at a fabulous restaurant IN the same building where we stayed, and there was a coffee shop there, too! I loved it. We had no idea this was our final outing for many months!
Month 88: Life Goes Virtual
This may have been the strangest month ever. The pandemic arrived in full force, I began working from home for our church. Ryan's job at the rehab hospital paused, and he was relocated to the main hospital. We searched for toilet paper (with the rest of the world) and began a close relationship with Zoom for everything from church to game nights. I think I went 23 straight days without setting foot outside the front door of our house and completely forgot how to drive. We all thought it was going to be just for a couple of weeks, but...
Month 89: Strange Solitude
...it wasn't. This was the month in which we celebrated our first major holiday, completely alone. I was probably one of the strange few who was excited to try it. I planned a whole meal and we ate our Easter lunch on the sun porch at our Kokomo house. It was delicious, and I felt that I had accomplished something meaningful by pulling off a full holiday on my own. A couple of other notable memories from this month included...Ryan filming an Easter monologue for church. It was a multi-hour filming production with no room for error, and post-production, they discovered his mic batteries had died partway through. He had to go back in and voice it sentence by sentence to make it match. Amazing. And we had Ryan's quarantine birthday. I turned our porch into Giordano's pizza and we had the best time together!
Month 90: Ryan's Amazing Birthday Bash Planning
This was MY quarantine birthday month, and Ryan did a fantastic job making the birthday special for me. He planned an Anne-of-Green-Gables-palooza! He made an entire menu of foods based on the books (all from scratch) and decorated our guest room with a ton of Anne printables. He rented the movie and watched it with me. It was so much fun! I loved the thought he put into it as much as the event itself! And though it wasn't blog-news yet, this was the month we learned about WillowBridge and submitted our application for employment. Life was about to change even more!
Month 91: Vacations and Vocations
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We started this month with a quarantine-style getaway. We rented an actual tiny cabin in the Hocking Hills of Ohio for a nice-and-distanced hiking getaway. Everything about the trip was grand except...they closed the Hocking Hills State Park, so hiking there wasn't an option! We still had a great time at our little cabin (with its hot tub!) and found some other trails to hike so the whole trip wasn't a bust. We also interviewed for our job at WillowBridge, found out we were chosen for the Community Advocate position, and I resigned my job at the church. It was a whole lot for one month! (We also started packing and unofficially sold our house in this month.)
Month 92: New Home, New Job, New Everything!
And this was the month we moved! We said our final goodbyes to Kokomo, moved to Grabill, began apartment life, and started a new job in a field neither of us had ever before experienced. Most things in the world were still shut down, so this was a very strange experience. There were no grand goodbye or hello parties. There was so much we could not do that would have been helpful TO do for this transition. But we did it together, and we started a whole new adventure.
Month 93: Finding Our Place
Moving in a pandemic is wild. Living and working in the same building is wild. Finding a new church in a new town where you know no one (in a pandemic) is wild. Starting a new job in a new field (in a pandemic) is wild. We spent this entire month trying to settle into our new apartment, figure out our job, figure out our boundaries with our tenants, learn the ropes of the job, figure out our new little town, and close out the last pieces of our Kokomo life. Wouldn't it be grand if life came with a manual? I am so proud of how we navigated this. It was all so new and different, and we just grabbed hands and jumped!
Month 94: New Adventures
Living and working in the same building meant we needed to find some new ways to get away and rest. This month brought about TWO new ways we enjoyed doing just that. We bought a little tandem kayak, named it Fletcher, and really enjoyed kayaking on the river near WillowBridge. And at the end of the month, we bought our beloved Abby the RV! This picture of her is ROUGH! Reminds me of how far we have come with her interior decor! We had no idea at the time that these two purchases were going to be among the best decisions we made during our WillowBridge years!
Month 95: Project Time!
One of our favorite things about Abby the RV was redoing the inside. Throughout this month, we spent all our spare time in the RV, doing demo, painting, dreaming, and making it our own. This was a great way for us to get away from work, spend time together, and decompress. It was so much fun! And the first thing to go? THAT COUCH!!!!!
Month 96: New Normals
By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, we were used to celebrating holidays on our own. Between the pandemic and working them at WillowBridge, I felt like an old pro, preparing our holiday meal for two and enjoying it in our apartment! We spent the month prepping for Christmas, celebrating holidays with our tenants, and enjoying our newfound teamwork as a couple.
So there you have it! Another round of memories! :)
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