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That has been the word since late last week. We had a heatwave about 2 weeks ago where temperates were about 15º higher than normal. The past few days it has been 20º+ higher than normal, and today was the hottest day yet.

The deck on my tractor at work broke on Saturday night and I welded it back together this afternoon. After I was done, it was so hot out I was actually nauseous from the heat. This was the first time this has happened all year. I ended up going back into the house and waiting a few hours for it to cool down a bit before testing out the deck with a cut.

To give you an idea of how hot it was today, here’s what the weather was at about 7pm this evening.

In fact, I’m writing this in bed at almost midnight and it still feels like 77º outside. This is crazy for the first week of June!! The only good thing about this heat is that we got to spend some time at the pool this weekend which was simply fantastic!

I got a message last week from the people who bought the houses in Hanover Green from us back in September. They were just about done with renovations and wanted to know if we wanted to come see what they had done to the place. Totally curious as to what they had done, we took them up on their offer and met them there on Saturday afternoon. Let me tell you….wow! They completely gutting the main floor and changed the whole floor plan. They made a totally usable kitchen in the back of the house, something we couldn’t afford to do since we needed that bedroom, combined the old kitchen and living room into one large space, put a semi wraparound porch on the outside, and turned the upstairs into a bedroom. It’s the perfect place for an elderly couple to live, which is exactly who they are renting to. In fact, the couple is moving into the place in 9 days. We stayed there for about 25 minutes shooting the shit and they said if I ever see them working on the front house while I’m in town to stop by and they’ll be more than happy to show me what they’re doing. That’s pretty awesome since I had never even met these people before because of closing conditions during COVID.

This is the last week of school for the kids. In fact, they only have 3 days left. After that they are on summer vacation. Jess isn’t done until last week but I’m pretty sure she could tell you how many minutes she has left if you asked her.

And as for me, I’m still going for test after test for my health. In fact, I just gained yet another specialist that I saw last week who sent me for so many tests it’s actually filled up 2 pages! That brings my list of new doctors up to 3 since my hospital stay last month. The only thing that I can tell you about all of these tests is what I don’t have. So far nothing has diagnosed what’s going on and while it’s good that I don’t have some of these conditions/diseases that I’ve been tested for, it would be nice to maybe get an answer or two in the process. Oh well.

I’m off to bed. I have 3 more days of getting the kids up early for school and then I can turn off my school alarm until September. That will indeed be a nice feeling.

I was thinking about my Facebook situation last night. Was I really missing anything by not having it? No. Was my day better yesterday by not zombiely doom scrolling through it all day? Yes. So I think I have made a decision. Even if I do get my Facebook page back, I think I am going to close it down.

I know some people are going to be asking, “If you think it’s unhealthy then why do you continue to doom scroll through it everyday?” The answer is akin to a car crash — sometimes you just can’t help but stare and not look away at the mess in front of you. Sadly, I don’t have the self-discipline to look away. So, I think I am officially done with having a personal Facebook account. I’m pretty sure my mental health with thank me for this down the road.

Last year we bought the house we now live in during the beginning of the pandemic. In fact, the governor shut down the state 24 hours after we closed on the house. 

So what’s life been like to work on an old house, move in, work, and deal with 2 other houses all at once durning a pandemic? Stressful would be an understatement. We’ve had to work around supply shortages, changing mandates, sporadic industry shutdowns, and personal issues. And I’m not even going to get started about the politics of the last 12 months. Ugh. Thankfully we, like most other people, we managed to find a way to adapt and overcome most of these hurdles.

Sadly though, some things didn’t make it through the last year. While my wife and I were happy to buy our first home together and put down roots in a new community, some people just couldn’t find themselves to be happy for us. While I cannot say for certain what went on in these people’s minds, what I do know is that the loss has been theirs. Whether it’s because we didn’t come begging for financial assistance, ask them to look over the property before hand, moved to an area they didn’t agree with, or the simple fact that some people just can’t be happy for other people – I don’t know. What I can tell you is that they have missed out on a year of seeing this house being transformed from a neglected shell, to a loving and magnificent home. They’ve missed out on seeing our kids grow in the last year and be the happiest they’ve ever been. They’ve missed out on birthdays and Holidays that will never come again. And worst of all, none of them seem to care, which in a way is a blessing because we finally got to see who they really were and what they were really about. 

Now not all of this has been bad. We’ve had other family members and friends rally around us and be excited and happy for us. We’ve spent birthdays and Holidays together, enjoyed swimming and cookouts during the summer, spent many hours laughing around our fire pit, and most of all, become closer because a lot of the people also left their life as well. The old saying ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ has never been more true in the past year. 

In the beginning, we stressed over these issues and wondered if it was something we had done to garner this kind of treatment. After talking about the situation to several people, we quickly realized that we did nothing wrong. Our crime, of which we are most certainly guilty, is that we chose to be independent and to make a better life for our family. Some people apparently couldn’t handle that. We’ve all tried to mend those relationships and we’ve been shutdown every time. So instead of wasting more precious time trying to change people’s minds and apologize for doing nothing wrong, I’ve decided that I personally am done. If this year has taught the human race anything it’s that life is fragile and unpredictable. My wife and I have lost too many people we’ve known to Covid-19 in the last year. Life is too damned short to waste on people who obviously want nothing to do with us. And that’s okay. I wish them well in fact. I hope they enjoy their lives to its fullest potentials. And if maybe someday they change their minds that’s okay too. But that won’t make up for all the years lost or words that were said. When it comes to family, they’ll have missed out on seeing our kids grow up. And when it comes to friends, they’ll have missed out on the people we’ve become who we may not be the same people when we last spoke. The pandemic has been a horrible experience, but in a way, it’s also been a blessing. It’s brought our family closer together than we have ever been and it’s shown us what’s really important in our lives. That far outweighs anything, or anyone, that we’ve lost along the way. 

Stay happy, stay safe, and live well.