Nelson Family Blog: 33 years old.

Today is my birthday. I am 33 years old. And this is the weirdest birthday I have ever had. My work is completely different, my social life is completely different, and I haven't seen any extended family for at least 3 months, and probably won't for even longer. I am so sick of Covid, and so ready for normal life to resume, which doesn't seem to be a possibility any time soon.

Life really isn't so bad, it's just different. The weather has been really nice lately, so it has helped that we have been able to be outside enjoying the weather. Elliott has been out of daycare for 2 weeks, so it has been a little bit of a crazy shuffle to keep track of him while John and I worked full time. But we made it, and Elliott was super excited to head back to daycare today. A little bit of normalcy returning. Emma was also happy to be back at summer care after a crazy weekend of late nights and bonfires.

Our days are spent at work and at home, with an occasional grocery store trip. But only one adult can go, kids are not supposed to go into grocery stores at this time. Luckily, we do escape to Jim and Barb's house pretty frequently, which is a really nice change of scenery. We have been helping in the greenhouse quite a bit, which has been crazy busy. People are going crazy for greenhouse products right now, Barb is sold out of a lot of her garden items, and it's only the beginning of May!!

The news keeps us informed of how many daily new cases of Covid-19 there are, and how many people died each day from Covid-19. We can't really escape the news, so the best thing is just to shut it off once in a while and just focus on things that make us happy.

The city is starting to ease some restrictions a little, which is nice. They opened the parks back up and we have been on the bike trail a couple times, which the kids loved. And I had some really good bonding time with Elliott over the two weeks he was out of daycare. That kid is so much fun one on one. We sure stayed busy every day.

The newest thing in our household is that Emma and Elliott made some neighborhood friends, and they get to just run over a couple houses down (with permission) and play with their friends. They think this is the greatest thing ever, and we enjoy that they have some kids their age to play with as well. And we have gotten to know the kids' parents. It has been nice to finally have some neighbors we can visit with and hang out with. One good thing about being stuck at home all the time is that we finally have met some of our neighbors! The only down side is that our kids are not very tactful, and think they can just run over to their houses at any time of the day, so we are working with them.

Home schooling is still rough. We are down to our final 2 weeks, which is amazing. I cannot wait until we are done with it. Emma is a nightmare with the school work. She thinks everything is too hard, whines and complains the entire time, and then puts in about 30% total effort. She writes really messy, doesn't answer the questions correctly, and doesn't even use proper grammar. And she doesn't care. I don't know how to make her care about homework. I think she has just mentally checked out since she is not going to school anymore and the weather has been so nice. So, we are trying to just get through it. Hopefully this doesn't set her too far back in the fall. And hopefully we are back in school in the fall. These kids will need some stability this fall!

I just worked 10 hours shifts for the last 4 days, so I have a couple days off now. Yay! John and I are going to get some lunch (and probably eat it in the car) and do a little shopping over lunch. So, that will be a nice little birthday treat. Otherwise I am just looking at a pretty low key birthday, which is ok.

Here's to year 33. :)