2021 in a Letter

 

2021, what a year… we just rolled with it! 

2020 ended with Gloria getting Covid from her mom, Anita, on Christmas Eve taking Anita home from the hospital after her positive Covid test.  Thankfully they recovered without any major illness, but we had to have a socially distant Christmas here at the house and cancelled all our usual Christmas plans with the rest of the family.  We had a home plan in place in case anyone of us caught it and it worked. Neither Baylor nor I caught it from Gloria.  Her mom recovered at her home and had plenty of help there.  Both recovered by New Year though Gloria still issues with tastes and breathing difficulties. 

I am still working from home and Gloria is still working in person at the depot, so I guess this is our new normal.  Since I do not know when I will be going back to the office, I bought a desk and set it up in the dining room.  That just moved me off the dining table in the same room to the other side of the room.  But I have an office window and have it decorated with many plants, candles, a disco ball, and a rainbow prism.  It is quite nice. 

It finally happened; our son is a teenager as of November 16^th.  But backing up a few months, Baylor finished sixth grade going four days a week in person and one day working from home.   It worked out well enough though he said he preferred the two days in person, three days at home better.  Of course, he did.  The end of the school year came, and we all looked forward to the summer off.  

June was quiet, which lead into a tumultuous July and August.  The middle of July, Anita was taken to the hospital due to not feeling well and very high blood pressure.  She had several tests done to figure out what was causing it and experienced a mild stroke during one procedure. Her kidneys finally failed completely, and she was put on dialysis at the hospital.  After about two weeks in the hospital, she was moved to a rehab.  On August 14, she was released to our home which is where she will be staying for the foreseeable future.  She is not able to live alone in her condition and dialysis is only 6 miles from our house and would be 35 miles from her house.  It has been a shakeup in our lives but the right thing to do for family.  She has dialysis three days a week which is hard on her but has actually helped improve several of her other issues by taking the excess fluid off of her heart and lungs. 

With everything going on the end of July/early August, our planned camping vacation with my parents was cut a bit short for Baylor, his friend Kartikey, and myself.  But we made the best of the time we had playing in the lake and having as many fires as we could build.  We have plans for camping in June 2022 and I am looking forward to the new park we are heading to. 

Jake, Roxie and Grimm are all doing so well that we decided to add another cat to the mix to make it even boys and girls.  We brought Evelyn home the end of October and she is just a darling addition to the crew.  Not everyone is thrilled to have her, looking at you Grimm, but the rest of us are loving her up.