2020 Recap – Major Plan Changes, One Very Difficult Year for Everyone

Writing this 2020 recap I had to keep stopping myself from bringing up everything we already know that we all lived through (and are still living through…) A plague, Australia on fire, quarantine, the tiger king… (Carol Baskin definitely killed her husband) $1200 subsidy checks… all in the first couple of months… where would I even stop if I started recounting everything? And my brain pretty much just stopped recounting stuff after April because there were JUST TOO MANY MAJOR HISTORICAL EVENTS AT THAT POINT.

So I’m going to try to stay in our household in this 2020 recap lol though there is NO denying how much this year impacted all of us.

Before the whole world went to hell though I did manage to finish my living room!

I started with repainting the whole room plus the Chimney.
I added a skirt to my Sofa Table Charging Station.
I built shelves out of one of my Grandma’s old ladders.
I built a Shelf that included a hanging for one of my Grandma’s Quilts
I also upholstered a Coffee Table!
I also built a Serving Tray out of an old Window
(and took that idea even further)
making artwork out of old windows too!
See the whole Living room reveal here.

This was a particularly tough year for me. Besides all that was going on in the world that was totally out of my control my Mom was also diagnosed with cancer.

Lodi lived a couple of hours away but was spending his weekends here (and any other days he could depending on his work schedule). When quarantine was looming and his house sold it just made the most sense for him to move in or we thought we might risk not being able to see each other for months.

I wanted him here even though I was a total wreck.

Getting to this place in my life, through an awful relationship and divorce, left me with major trust issues. This home was my safe place to handle those things in life that I have no control over.

(And Lodi and I had only been together a few months at that point.)

Him moving in and all of my plans and my life in this home changing shook me hard. It felt like my little safe place was in danger and that, combined with everything else that was going on with my Mom and in this world, hit me like a freight train.

Of course I can’t speak for him but Lodi’s own mental health took a hit too.

His entire life changed as well. Between quarantine and moving here he wasn’t able to see his kids, friends or family anywhere near like he was used to.

Bizarrely, my day job exploded. The introvert, who would have loved to stay home, was frantically sprinting through her essential day job along with her coworkers, barely holding it together, in the middle of a fricking plague!

2020 Recap, historically busy.

I made what should have been years worth of upgrades and changes for my company into the digital era in just a matter of weeks so employees could work from home etc.

I have never known stress at my day job like that before.

Changes that the older generation had been fighting against that left me utterly brain dead at the end of every day. Changes I am thrilled to have finally implemented but seriously – not like that.

I also had this blog to keep going besides and doing all I could do to be there for my mom through her many months of treatments.

The extrovert, who would have loved to be working, Lodi was stuck for three months in the house both because of quarantine and because it was really hard to find a job here in early 2020.

Moving from a big city where he never spent a day at home or a day alone to out here in the sticks with nowhere to go…

He was desperate for human contact when I would get home from work and I didn’t want to be talked to, or touched, or even looked at.

It was REALLY hard on us both.

I don’t shift gears easily.

I plan WAY out with house projects and for this blog so it really took me awhile to put back all of the plans I had for 2020 and focus on what now, suddenly, needed to get done since Lodi moved in.

With his furniture and extra stuff filling the garage now the basement, which I had had no intention of touching for years if ever, was now a mandatory section of this house that needed to be finished.

Fortunately Lodi is as handy as I am and started in on that big job (at least a little out of boredom) during quarantine.

You can see how he completed the ceilings.
How we finished the floors together and
How we finished out the walls and the trim.
And how we finished out the lighting too.

(The full reveal of the basement living room is coming out here in a few weeks.)

During all of the work we were doing on the basement we also tackled the guest bedroom and gave it a complete head to toe makeover as well as a full makeover of our main floor bathroom too.

When spring arrived in Minnesota I found some solace in “normal” things that I always look forward to. The garden, the weather, the heat and opening all of the windows after so many cold months.

Normal, simple things, like caring for the property or having a bonfire truly helped me deal. (Though, I admit, I did not put the time in to my garden at all this year like I normally would have. I just didn’t have the time.)

Annie became a real north country Minnesota doggo just like Lodi became an official Minnesotan.

Unfortunately for little Annie her transition included a case of Lymes disease and two broken teeth! Antibiotics and dental surgery later and she returned to her chubby (sometimes annoying) sweet, little self.

Grandma’s perennials returned and bloomed gorgeously again this year. 2020 recap, another reminder that life does just go on.

I did something in August I think I will forever be glad for. I climbed up in our old barn and took what will almost certainly be the last photos of our falling down hay mow.

Even after an awful hard freeze in late September here we enjoyed a long and lovely fall giving us even more time outside and on the deck than we could have hoped for.

We changed and added a lot of seating and did a whole bunch of rearranging. Check out the reveal here to see the new table top, coffee table and bar we put in.

Lodi also helped me replace the old conduit rails with new wire cable rails that I’ve wanted for the deck for years. We took full advantage of all of our improvements and enjoyed them all summer and fall.

The last of my mom’s treatments took the two of us to Rochester and the Mayo Clinic alone together. It was absolutely some of the hardest days of my life and I feel terrible typing that because I didn’t go through anything in comparison to her.

She conquered cancer though and got through it.

Looking back, writing this post, we achieved a lot this year, though I never would have agreed with that if you had asked me anytime in 2020. There was not a single second of this whole year that I did not feel like I was behind on everything.

I guess that makes sense a little though.

Our world was in a state of anxiety and worry and panic and that translates differently emotionally for everyone.

For me it was I’M NOT GETTING ENOUGH DONE because that’s just my go-to in stressful times. And with the whole world seeming to be freaking out with, “What are we going to do?! DO SOMETHING!” My state of being went right along with it.

I remember thinking, “I’m giving way beyond what I have to give. I’m going to have a break down and its gonna be a going postal moment over something totally trivial.”

By the end of 2020 though I was starting to feel better.

My day job slowed down.

Mom beat cancer, she was truly on the way to a full recovery.

Lodi and I were finding grace and our lovely normal.

He moved in with me at my worst of times and there were moments when I wondered if we could possibly make it. Moments when I felt like I had nothing left of myself emotionally, physically or even time-wise to give him.

There were such good times too though, moments when I looked at him and was so relieved to have him in my life. Moments when life was sweet, sitting out on our deck together, just glad to be alive in that space of time.

With the basement living space complete we emptied out the garage and finally got it back to park our vehicles this winter. Besides that we got one other job done that was on our before winter bucket list.

We replaced the old back door with a window in what will soon be a new room and moved a new exterior back door into the workshop.

The old door had been in terrible shape and letting out a ton of heat all winter long. The new door is insulated steel and even boasts a new doggie door that I built as well!

Because we got through so much of our heavy lifting early on the holiday months were the best of 2020 for me. I began to relax a little for what was definitely the first time all year.

We had a lovely Xmas and I think we can learn something from the forced, much quieter, holidays of 2020. Though we missed all of our friends and family dearly, we won’t be returning to the normal, anxiety-ridden, holidays of the past.

Having what felt like an actual vacation over Xmas was wonderful!

And we all totally deserved it after this year of all years.

So glad to see 2020 end!