Islay...

It’s habit for me to check my calendar several times a day and it’s beyond odd to watch the plans our family had drift past unfulfilled. I should be in Scotland right now with the hubster. We were going to tour Islay and hit our favorite Scotch distilleries before moving back to the mainland where he’d go to a conference and spend his days talking about biomedical engineering while I tried to nail down my Patterson ancestry at the Genealogy Society in Edinburgh. For now we’re enjoying other adventures around Atlanta and the trip has a new home on the calendar. #PlansChange #FingersCrossed #IsleOfIslay

A New Season...

And just like that our kiddo is safe and sound in his new place in Indy, ready to take on the summer with family and friends. While I miss him like crazy and this house is WAY too quiet without him, I’m not sad. He’s earned this time to create, and take a few summer courses, and stare at the stars a bit. I’m proud that he’s independent and confident. And I'm glad we no longer "own" any storage units (we had four at the height of our move)! #NewSeasonOfLife

Twinning...

This is my mask making partner in crime and sweet friend Christi Opstad. She and I each hit the 1000 masks sewn mark this week as part of the service project work we're doing on behalf of our Daughters of the American Revolution chapter (as part of the larger national DAR project). Christi owns a business, is homeschooling in quarantine, manages her farm and staff and still finds time to sew and make instruction videos. She takes all of the incoming requests for masks and manages distribution like a pro. She's the purveyor of the ribbon and always has a smile on her face and I'm blessed to work alongside her. P.S. She also has great curls and sometimes people get us confused with one another. I can't think of a better person to be confussed with!  #PhiladelphiaWinn1000club  #CurlyGirls

Hard Things...

Vanderbilt Mansion, March 2020

It's getting hard around here. That gut wrenching, life has to move forward, he's got to go back to Indiana hard. For almost two months, time has felt limitless and I've stumbled around not knowing or caring too much about what day it was. Now there's a date on the calendar and I am hyper aware of every minute that's passing. 

Having our kiddo home for this quarantine has been such a blessing, a shiny silver lining in the middle of the mayhem. I was dreading missing summer with him but I know I've been given something far greater than a period of time between two calendar dates because this time has been different. We've had concentrated time as a family that we wouldn't have had with everyone running the 100 different ways our old lives demanded. This time has been good morning hugs, hot chocolate late nights, serious dinner conversations, ice cream runs, and sunny drives to nowhere. It’s been new music, old favorites, after dinner concerts, and dancing in the kitchen. It’s been game night with us losing to our ruthless teenager time and time again until we finally broke out Wii bowling. We’ve endured fraternity initiation week here, celebrated a birthday here, hidden Easter eggs here, taken college finals here, and nursed the broken heart that comes with saying goodbye to a high school sweetheart all right here.

I’m going to miss this kid something fierce when he leaves in thirteen days and I won’t sugar coat the fact that it might very well be worse than when he left for college. We moved from his childhood home the day after we dropped him off last fall and we started over here without memories of our family in this house. We’ve had a clean slate to create something new and quarantine has allowed us to do so in grand fashion without worrying about watching the clock the way we’ve had to with holiday breaks and a weekend visit. I have a ton of amazing memories now, all of them made right here so it should come as no surprise that my selfish heart already wants more. I know I’ll be counting the days until his next visit home.  #BuehlerLife