Wow.
I knew it had been a long time since I wrote on here, but almost two years? That's a record, even for me.
Where do I begin? haha. Maybe I should do a summary run down...let's see.
2020: The covid pandemic hit. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and too many others... and BLM. A lot of working at Starbucks. New York banned plastic bags. Fully in swing with my Masters in Science Communication, finally. In November, Cal took me to spend a weekend at a tiny house resort upstate and it was UTTERLY AMAZING. While there, my brother jokingly mentioned that Cal and I could start our own resort...and we took it seriously. On the way home, we started looking for properties.
2021:
January 2021: Calvin and I decided to use our covid relief stimulus checks and the covid-related unemployment he was getting to save to buy property. We started watching a ton of videos on what to look for when buying property and how to build tiny houses. My dad got hurt at work: broke his hand and tore something in his shoulder.
May 2021: Combined, we'd saved up $5000. We happened to see a 1.3 acre property on Zillow in VA for $8000 that looked pretty good, and I said you know what? We should go see it. So, on a whim, we drove 9 hours to a tiny town in the bottom of VA and had a look at the property, and while we were traveling, the price dropped from $8000 to $6000.
We bought it. Cash.
July 2021: Calvin asked me to marry him. I said yes. (cue happiest happy music). The same day, my niece gave birth to her son, and the next day, my childhood friend Kim gave birth to her second daughter on her kitchen floor (el gasp). All are healthy and thriving. We started taking trips to the property to plan out what work needed to be done on it - it's undeveloped land, just trees. No water, electricity or septic installed. However, there is public water at the street, and electricity available just across the street. During one of our trips, we realized that Google maps had really lied to us, and our property was MUCH narrower than we'd previously believed. If only we could have the property behind it, too....
August 2021: We looked up county records to find out who owned the property behind ours, and it turned out it was two little old ladies in their 80s. Sisters. By this time, we had saved up another $7000, so we decided to ask them if they would be willing to sell. A point in our favor was that they were land-locked, which is what it's called when your property is surrounded on all four sides by other people's property and you have no way to get to it without crossing someone else's land. They initially asked for $9000, but we told them that we had $7000 in cash and we owned the property in front of theirs. They agreed to the $7000, and in September we closed on our second property, 4.7 acres.
September 2021: We became the proud owners of 6 acres of land. We also applied for and got our marriage license. The past few months were also a whirlwind of helping my dad, taking him to therapy and doctor's appointments, and dealing with workers comp lawyers.
October 2021: WE GOT MARRIED! It was a beautiful little event, technically what you'd call an elopement, by a lake in Central Park. Only a few guests were there - our closest friends, a few family members. My dad and Kim's mom were the ones who did our vows - and Kim's mom was so happy, because years ago she had asked me if she could be the one to marry us when the time came. The next day, we took a mini-honeymoon to VA to work on the property and to have some time to ourselves. We got to know the couple who owns the farm behind our property, and they were so excited to find out we'd just gotten married, they had us over for dinner, gave us a tour of their house and property, let us feed their donkeys, and ride their 4x4. It was really fun.
November - December 2021: Nothing much happened. I live with Calvin now in his mother's house (she's moved upstate into her new home). His sister lives downstairs and we have the whole upstairs to ourselves. I was finally able to bring my kitties to come live with me and they're as happy as can be. Married life is good. Really happy. Wait...nothing much happened? Not true lol. In November I got really sick for 3 weeks with what might have been a flu but felt more like covid. During that time, I helped my dad apply for a mortgage and we all went down to VA because he put an offer in on a house and it got accepted! But he backed out at the last minute...sigh. Cal and I are still scratching our heads on that one. He could have been a home-owner right now.
Other 2020-2021 things that happened: I got a scicomm internship and it turned into a fellowship after that. SUCH FUN! Finally doing good, real scicomm work. I did my first actual research, too, and wrote up a paper that is nearly ready to submit for publication. I got interviewed on Instagram live by two scientists about the scicomm that I do, and my page grew significantly. I randomly started an aesthetic cozy gaming instagram account in March 2021 and it grew, well, not exponentially, but WAY faster than I remotely expected. I also started a scicomm podcast. :D
2022:
My how the time flies.
January 2022: Can't think of much. I know it was good.
February 2022: I hit 1000 followers on my gaming account and I launched an Etsy shop, Gamer Noir Collective, selling stickers and prints with Black girl cozy gamers in mind. It did really well at launch, and the occasional order still trickles in. This was my last semester of my masters program, so I was really focused on that, plus working in the scicomm fellowship capacity and loving it.
March and April 2022: My internship/fellowship supervisor left her position and got a job with the EPA (how cool is that) and trained me to take over. I've been filling in for her since she left, and I applied for the job vacancy, too. I was on a science and society virtual panel (one of 3 guest speakers) at the Bay Area Science Festival and I got interviewed by Kid Pundit (a 10 year old prodigy on YouTube) about scicomm and the CDC. Went to my supervisor's going away party and met everyone in person for the first time, AND found out the school of journalism director speaks fluent Swedish. We totally bonded and had a whole convo in Swedish/Norwegian. Also...my period was late...for the first time ever.
May 2022: On May 6th, I took a pregnancy test. IT WAS POSITIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my gosh. Just, oh my gosh. We've caught up to the present time, now. May has been a whirlwind of morning sickness (oh so bad) and finding a midwife/OB. Calvin is excited and when asked, says he's basically feeling "all the emotions" which is the same for me. I finally had my first prenatal appointment yesterday, May 31st, (they took 7 vials of blood, the darn vampires) and had my first ultrasound too. DUDE. The little jellybean has a beating heart. You can SEE the heart beating. It was surreal. Calvin recorded it and even though the technician told us that the printer wasn't working, she tried anyway, and it printed!! So we have a photo of our little jellybean. This is so....wow. Happy-making, as the Pretties would say. I've gone through so many emotions since finding out - panic attacks, excitement (I made an entire registry the first week after I found out and then skeeved myself out somehow and haven't wanted to look at it since - don't worry, I know it's still early so the registry is still private). I've broken down and ugly cried twice since the morning sickness got real bad. For the last two weeks I've been non-functional. It's been all day, every day, with nothing really helping and I haven't even been able to throw up to get some relief.
Strangely enough, though, I forgot to take my prenatal one day this past week, and the next day I was almost fully functional. I didn't take it that day either, and by the third day I was fine. Come to find out, prenatals make EVERYTHING WORSE. Nausea, constipation...ugh. So I asked the midwife what to do, and she told me she's not surprised - apparently all I REALLY need is folic acid and a decent diet. So as of yesterday I started taking just a folic acid supplement, and I'm really about to throw those prenatal vitamins in the garbage. Two weeks of my life in misery, and for what? SMH. I'm still dealing with the constipation...
But yeah. There you have it. Today is June 1st, 2022, I'm a married woman, happy, and about to become a mama. The little jellybean is due mid January of next year. Hah. After all I've battled with...who would have thought? You know...it's true what that therapist said in the meme online...counter your negative thinking with "What if everything works out? What if all your hard work pays off?" And what Mark Manson said (or maybe it was someone else he was quoting - and I'm paraphrasing from memory) "Unless you are completely dead: mentally, emotionally, and physically, you cannot anticipate your life 5 years into the future. So get over the conflict about your life's direction and take risks. You cannot lose what you never had, and most losses are in the mind, anyway."
And the one that's helped me the most, because it's really worth remembering and implementing: Stop worrying about what could go wrong and start focusing on what could go right.
After all, if there is even the slightest possibility something could go wrong, that statistically means there is a possibility it could go right.
Love ya.
