05.18.2023: life recently

It’s been awhile hasn’t it? I know I promised that BTD has going to have an update at the beginning of May, and it’s now perfectly in the middle of the month, but sometimes life happens fast- and it’s hard to write it all down and update a website in the moment! I’m sorry ya’ll, but I’m sure none of you were losing sleep over my dry blog updates.

Recently I was in Chicago for a work “conference,” my car was totaled on the way home from said work trip, I had to plan a dinner for 41 people with less than 48 hours’ notice, AND threw our second rollout party for our project, and that was just one week of this past month. Outside of that I’ve been a single mother to Finn (Matt’s been gone on a work project for the past month), a dog sitter twice, and I can’t think of anything else but I was busy!!!!

I’ve missed writing, and I have to say now that I’m here, doing the damn thing, it feels freaking GOOD. All that to say, I’ve missed talking to you guys (even though sometimes it feels like I’m talking to myself), and I’m back!

From May 4th-6th I was in Chicago for a work reunion. My girlfriend/coworker, Lauryn, and I drove up together to save the environment (go green lol), and left Thursday morning to arrive at the Chicago Hilton by check-in at 3pm.

What came next, I was not prepared for. I had heard from veteran employees that our company balled out on events like this, but I was not expecting to get a massage upon arrival, a JBL flip speaker, essential oils, personalized poems, and everything else that did in fact come with the experience.

The next day and a half were much of the same with some professional development courses sprinkled in amongst the company Kool-aid being passed around. We had our choice of an excursion, and alongside my besties, Lauryn and Sean, our company paid for our admission to The Chicago Art Institute AND the additional Salvador Dali exhibit, which if you know me is such a big deal because he is *the* artist for me. Chefs kiss for surrealism.

I’m incredibly grateful to have a job that gave me the opportunity to connect with so many coworkers- it was fun to meet people who are working in Alaska, Finland, Hawaii, etc, and all the places that maybe I’ll end up at for my next site. The company does something like this every year, and I’m so excited to do it again, especially because it’ll be in Cancun, and I can bring Matthew.

Saturday morning was supposed to be our return travel day but loads of us decided to take an extra day to have fun by ourselves and not be shuttled around the city corporate America style. This was when I split up from our little work group and spent the day with Aaron, a friend from high school that I’ve done a horrible job of keeping in touch with, but whom I love fiercely. We spent the day catching up and gossiping about old friends, both of which are some of my favorite activities. We spent the evening with his friends and went to Boystown for a bit of fun. Watching his friends prioritize me coming to town in support of Aaron was really heartwarming to watch, they were funny and welcoming, and it was easy to have fun with them all. They all did so good.

The next day on the return trip home was when Shawnee passed away. Lauryn and I were an hour outside of Des Moines when we saw the sky turn gray and we checked the weather, 15 minutes past that we had entered the thunder storm and within a minute of being inside it’s perimeter we heard the pings of hail against the roof of the car.

By the time everyone on the road had stopped and we were able to pull over on the side of the road, our windshield had been demolished. Smashed glass sprayed over both Lauryn and I, and the hail gave no sign of slowing. As the hail continued to batter our already spiderwebbed window, we put on our sunglasses to protect our eyes and pulled ourselves in the backseat as it became ever more likely that the windshield was going to give way to the extreme weather.

I remember at some point while we were crouched the back seat, I looked at Lauryn and in the same breath began to mourn the death of my car, and thanked the universe that we had slowed down before the massive hail had come down upon us. We both agreed had we been moving at 75 mph, when the piece of hail that had demolished my window arrived, I wouldn’t have survived the impact. I am incredibly grateful that the only injuries that came from the incident were small cuts on my hands and arms.

Now, I’m in the middle of the whole insurance/buying a new car process, I haven’t been given the official word that my car is totaled, but seeing as though I could eat soup out of some of the dents to my frame, I’m going with the suspicion that I am going to have a new monthly payment on my hands. Which, please let me bitch and moan about this for just one second, I paid my car off in last year to the month that my car was totaled, and I did this in the hopes of not having both a car payment and a student loan payment simultaneously. I’m incredibly bitter this happened right before student loans pop back up again. But such is adulthood, I guess.

I’m trying to keep my spirits high, but the cars I dreamed of buying “next” are definitely not in my current budget, so I’m trying to manage my expectations. It does not seem as though I can have both leather seats and Apple Carplay, big sigh.

Outside of the car drama, life is still busy. Matthew has been out of town for work since the beginning of April, with only a few days here and there that he’s been able to come home. He’s promised that he’ll be home permanently by the beginning of June, so I’m living on a prayer that holds true.

Most recently this past week I was car-less, had only 48 hours’ notice to plan a dinner for 41 people, and also had execute our “Rollout Party” on May 11th, so I was working on massive amounts of stress without a lot of tools. Special shout out to Lauryn for letting me use her car as a storage unit for all our drinks, Sami for her Sam’s Club membership, and Jen for picking up catering, I have no clue how I would have pulled off the event without them all (especially bc I didn’t have a car until the day after!)

I’m excited to enter a slow era at work, and a busy time of life with spring turning into summer here soon. I love waking up with the sun out and the sky bright, it makes it easy to enjoy life and the space I’m in right now. I look forward to days with all of our windows open and hanging our laundry on the fire escape. Life is good when it’s warm out.

I’ve been off my reading game and have been relying solely on audiobooks for reading at the moment. Let me know what you’ve been up to, and what you’ve been reading recently, you’ll be hearing again from me here soon.

until then,