Highlights of 2020

It goes without saying that 2020 was a crazy, ridiculous year. But as I look back on all that happened, I'm so thankful for all I was able to accomplish and experience. And that doesn't even address the fact that I'm healthy, safe, and well-provided for. I spent quite some time last year realizing and thinking on how privileged I am, and how I'm going to live in light of that. God has blessed me in many ways, but He also calls me to love my neighbor and to share with those in need. This year, I want to continue to seek Him in how He has called me to do that in my life. But moving back to the past, here are my highlights for 2020:

• Kylee and Lemar got married!
• I won a giant stuffed llama in the Christmas grab-bag at Grandma B's.
• Katherine, Anna, Evie, and I had a super fun IKEA adventure involving delicious food, photoshoot shenanigans, and fascinating chandeliers.
• Mary Ann got her ears pierced and all of us girls made a fun trip of it.
• Winnie invited Anna and me to go with her to a Feed My Starving Children event on Valentine's Day. This is something I look back on fondly as one of the last things I went to before the world descended into chaos.
• I was off of work for 3 weeks due to Mom being sick. I loved being home, playing games with my family, drinking whipped coffee, and eating other quarantine treats.
• I finished the entire series of The Office TV show. 
• We had an amended Father Daughter Banquet at home. Mom, Stephen, Grandt, Kristian, and Joseph cooked and served an amazing multiple-course meal, and also provided entertainment during dinner. We all dressed up and danced on our driveway past nightfall. It was a magical quarantine night.
• I had the honor of standing up as a bridesmaid for my dear friend Sharyssa as she married Dakota!
• Khyrstyn left Illinois to move to New Mexico. I was sad for myself, but very excited for her. And now I get to visit New Mexico whenever I want. :D
• Mom, Chloe, Katherine, and I celebrated Katherine and Chloe's 21st birthdays and I had my first tequila shot.
• We helped Uncle Nick and Aunt Lydia move across the park into a beautiful house.
• I knit Mary Ann the sweater I promised her years ago.
• I got a Twitter account.
• I celebrated my 23rd birthday with drinks and food at Greenhorn, more delicious food at home, and some wonderful presents from my siblings including Han Solo/Princess Leia bookends from Katherine.
• I visited Sharyssa and Dakota at their house, and saw the new Little Women movie with Sharyssa.
• I watched Hamilton (the musical) and became obsessed with the soundtrack.
• I celebrated my 2 year anniversary at Culver's.
• We got TWO surprise albums from Taylor Swift. And I bought a T-Swift shirt.
• We spent several days at a cabin several hours away from home. It was one of my favorite family vacations!
• We visited Josiah in Chinatown, masked and socially-distanced, exploring several parks and enjoying our own personal pizzas. What a luxury!
• I bought my first laptop, which I'm using right now to type up this post.
• Mom, Mary Ann, and I flew out to Texas to visit Madison at her farmhouse. It was especially enjoyable to see Mary Ann's excitement at seeing the ocean for the first time!
• I had all my hair dyed red - professionally! (I've enjoyed having Kool-Aid dyed tips, but it was fun to have it done "for real".)
• I was able to spend three weeks in New Mexico with Khyrstyn! Our adventures included mountains, maple leaf cookies, dinner parties, a super fun photo shoot with Maggie, and lots of pizza and coffee, hehe. I also really enjoyed fellowshipping with Khyrstyn's group of friends there. 
• While I was in New Mexico, Katherine, Anna, Mary Ann, and Julia repainted and reorganized our room.
• We celebrated Apple Butter Day, and while it looked a lot different during this pandemic, it was good to be able to have it still. 
• Kylee and Lemar had their baby Oliver! I'm clearly not biased, but he is one of the cutest babies ever. 
• Due to Covid complications, I was off of work from a little before Thanksgiving past Christmas Day. Once again, I enjoyed spending more time with family, especially over the holidays, and I got a lot of reading and sleeping done, haha. I'm glad to be back at work now though!
• Johnathan and Chloe got engaged!!!
• I bought a puzzle from one of my favorite yarn dyers and most of my family helped me put it together over the Christmas weekend.
• Khyrstyn came home for Christmas, and I was able to spend a few days with her. We went and got Chick-fil-A peppermint shakes, which was very important, because I almost went a Christmas season without one. The horror!

Quarantine Things

We're entering our 8th week of quarantine, and I can count on one hand the number of buildings I've been inside since the middle of March. But you all know what that's like so I'll continue to the main point of this post which was to share some pictures of what my family's been up to.

Joseph has made more flatbread than you can imagine. This is some he made into little "cookies".

Mary Ann and Julia grinding wheat for Passover.

Anna cut her hair and I was there for moral support or something. Haha

Lots of card-playing going on!

Anna has made quite a bit of whipped coffee. It's delicious.

"Book Club"

Julia's been drawing from pictures and she does so well!!

The detail!

Messing around with pattern blocks...

In line for a drive-by birthday party

We had a picnic for Katherine's 21st birthday. 

Family Zoom call for Katherine's birthday 

Joseph made a LEGO figure of all the kids in the house at one point.

Me, Katherine, Anna, Mary Ann, Grandt, Kristian

(Mary Ann, Grandt, Kristian) Julia, Joseph, and he made one for Lottie too. 

Mom went to get coffee from Brewed Awakenings to drop off for someone and Katherine, Anna, and I came along and we got Big Chills. Which is a white chocolate peppermint frozen coffee and is one of the best things. I haven't been to Dunkin' Donuts since sometime in March. Can you even believe that?

Highlights of 2019

• The Sharpie Squad (JoLeigh, Evie, Katherine and Anna) invited me to to go on their annual IKEA adventure 
• Spent Presidents Day at the Shedd Aquarium with most of my family and Melissa and Jeff
• Found a signed book at Barnes and Noble by one of my favorite authors, Morgan Matson. And bought it. :)
• Mom taught a Classic Literature class at co-op and we got to talk about Pride and Prejudice for three classes 
• We flew Kaitlyn to Chicago over spring break to surprise Anna for a belated birthday present 
• Finally went to the American Girl Place 😂😍
• A bubble tea and frozen yogurt place opened up in town and I spent a lot of time there during the year 
• Dad took us girls to the Father Daughter Banquet
• Read the To All the Boys I've Loved Before trilogy
• Saw Avengers: Endgame on the Thursday night it opened
• Saw Mom perform in an Alumni Trombone Choir at Millikin
• Went to prom and danced and sang the night away
• Katherine and Johnathan graduated high school
• Josiah graduated from Columbia College Chicago (well, walked for graduation. Graduated in December 2018) I was so proud. I cried like five times.
• Bought a LEGO set with my tax refund
• Met Chloe Anderson and enjoyed many hours of adventures with her & company
• Watched Mary Ann, Grandt, Kristian, Julia, and Joseph play softball and/or baseball 
• Lived alone for a week while most of my family went to West Virginia and got to spend a good amount of time with Khyrstyn and also Sharyssa. So I wasn't alone and not necessarily at home most of the week haha
• Became a trainer at work
• Khyrstyn and I flew to New Mexico for a few days
• Anna and I saw Tenth Avenue North in concert. It was amazing!!
• Apple Butter Day 
• Kat visited us from Ohio and we had a girls' weekend with movies and tea and Khyrstyn and Chloe joined us as well 
• I got a new phone. Seriously, it has so much more storage and an awesome camera, it definitely makes the highlight reel
• Went out with Mom for margaritas 
• Took Anna and Mary Ann out to Chili's for Anna's birthday 
• Dunkin brought peppermint mocha back. Bless. I've had it iced, hot, latte versions of both, frozen, in hot chocolate. Can't go wrong.
• Khyrstyn and I did a scavenger hunt and rated the various vanilla ice creams in Joliet 
• Knit Katherine her Fightin' Words mitts
• Celebrated Stephen's 25th birthday at a Thai place in Chicago along with Mom and Katherine 
• Bought an "ugly sweater" Guardians of the Galaxy shirt
• Celebrated Mom's 50th birthday
• Participated in National Novel Writing Month for the first time. I wrote every single day in November for a total of 12,044 words. Not a novel, but progress nonetheless. 
• Went to the Sing-It-Yourself Messiah and Khyrstyn got to come at the last minute!
• Madison came to a visit for a long weekend
• We tore up our carpet and put down a new floor in our living room and dining room. I helped pull up staples for a couple hours, but Dad, Johnathan, Mary Ann, and others worked really hard on it. It looks so nice!!

Hope

Before I posted my annual Highlights I wanted to post, not a lowlights exactly, but I want to address the fact that this year was not just sunshine and rainbows.

This summer was really, really rough for me.

June was all right. The first week of July most of my family left for a week on vacation while I stayed home and worked. I did have fun being home alone and deciding for myself where and when I did things, though I was working quite a bit so I didn't have a ton of time to myself. But there were definitely moments I was freaking out, "I can't do this! I need my mom!" :D Work was pretty crazy too. It was hot and everyone wanted ice cream. All. The. Time. They didn't stop coming! We had some new managers who were still getting the hang of things, and that made it more stressful.

My family came home, of course, but things with me got worse. I started getting super depressed and I wanted to quit my job so bad. Or fire me! That way I don't have to make it happen. Cause I didn't want to do anything. It was around this time that I became a trainer at work. I'd wanted to be a trainer almost ever since I'd started at Culver's. But it seemed to come at the worst time, like a cruel joke. I had new responsibilities and everyone was excited for me. "Aren't you excited, Rebekah?" No, actually, I wanna quit. I wanna leave this place and never come back.

But I didn't quit.

I pushed through. I'm not sure how. I'm not sure how I made it through the summer not missing a single shift and managing to do at least a passable job on my worst days. Well, I know how. It wasn't me. God pulled me through. It definitely wasn't me.

And it got better. Sometime in September I started to feel like myself again. I couldn't tell you why the depression comes when it does or how it leaves when it goes. Over the seven years I've dealt with it, I haven't figured that out. I just know that every time it's hit me before, it does leave eventually. I make it through. I'm not going to lie, it's scary. To not know if it might hit me tomorrow, or to wonder how long it will last when I'm in the middle of it. I try to just take it one day at a time. I know it won't last forever. There is always hope.

I don't know what 2020 will bring. But I am hopeful. I know God will bring me through, sunshine or storm clouds, and everything in between.

Life Lately

(I had this whole post written up and all these pictures and hit undo one too many times and lost. the. whole. thing. Hopefully, I can rewrite it and get the same basic points across-without it being filled with rage. Now, I did accidentally delete it right after I was telling a story about my road rage the other day so maybe I got what I deserved. Maybe this was my consequence for driving aggressively.)

It's been so long since I wrote about normal old life. It's very different than it was a few years ago, at least for me. I've hit my 9 month anniversary at Culver's, and moved up to 30 hours a week, though the schedule hasn't quite caught up yet. Wait, I think maybe this week is my first regular week at 30 hours. There was one week where I worked that many because some people were gone, but it wasn't normal. I just checked the schedule; I'm still at 25 for this week. I still have to work Thursday, which is when my family's having Passover, and Good Friday, which is one of my favorite services. :'( I'm trying to have a good attitude about it. Today is my last day off until Easter, but they're all pretty short shifts so it's not too bad. In other work news, I passed my drive-thru certification a couple weeks ago. Now I just need to get my custard certification before I have my trainer's assessment. They've been talking about me becoming a trainer for months now and I'm finally feeling ready for it. I think I'm mostly looking forward to getting a specially-printed Team Trainer name tag. Maybe more than the raise, haha.

Besides work, I'm still helping out at our homeschool co-op. Or rather, I was, since the semester ended last week. Though I'm sort of more of a student than an assistant. I was a student in two out of the three class times this past year; High School Bible and Economics. And Economics ended early so I got to join in on the last few weeks of Classic Lit that Mom taught. We read Pride and Prejudice! It was nice to read it over the course of a semester and take it in slowly. I've read it around five times, but usually over a few days or a week. And to talk about it for a class time? Or several class times? It was amazing!! I'm not sure what the other kids thought, but I LOVED it. Last semester, I helped the preschool nature class, which was super fun. At that age, you never know what's going to happen or what they will say, and while it can be stressful, it's also exciting. :) This semester, I sat in on the elementary/middle school art class, which was also really cool. There's talk of a high school art class next year, and I'm hoping for it...

One of the main reasons I wanted to write this post, which I originally started a few weeks ago, was because I was thinking about how family dynamics change over the years. At one point, we were an all-or-nothing family, mostly out of necessity, I'm sure. Either we all did something or none of us did. It's been many years since that was true, and I've gotten used to Stephen and Josiah being gone and Katherine, Johnathan, and I having busier schedules and not being around all the time. It's normal now for several people to be missing at any given time. Now it's strange and special when we are all together. But the other night I came home from work and found everyone watching Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. And by everyone, I mean, Dad, Mom, Katherine, Kristian, Julia, and Joseph. Stephen's off at school in Chicago, of course, and Josiah's livin' it up in the city. (Haha, actually, livin' as a starving artist. OK, not starving. Just a super-cool artist.) I don't know where Johnathan was that night, maybe he was just in his room or the garage or something. But Anna was off with friends watching and/or playing volleyball, and Mary Ann and Grandt were babysitting. I was used to Katherine and Johnathan being out and about, but not the next three. When did they become old enough to go hang out with friends by themselves or babysit children?!? And it's a good thing! We were all created to grow up and become our own people. It just kinda hits me sometimes, and it feels strange. It feels strange that things that used to be strange...just aren't strange anymore!

I love that we're all growing and changing and becoming the people God made us to be! It's exciting and beautiful, but definitely bittersweet too.

The Father Daughter Banquet two weeks ago. I think this was actually the night before I was having all these thoughts. :)

Johnathan had a Jimmy John's gift card and offered to buy a sandwich for someone if they would buy bubble tea (or froyo) for him. We have a new bubble tea/froyo place in town and I have been there an embarrassing amount of times in the last few weeks.

We flew Kaitlyn out during spring break to belatedly surprise Anna for her 16th birthday. This picture was taken in the overly girly bathroom at the American Girl Place. In terms of the rest of the store, though? I was a little kid again... 

Josiah playing piano at Aunt Juanita's building. I really like the juxtaposition of this picture.

Great Grandma White and Joseph. It's crazy to think of the 93-year age difference here. 

When "everyone" went to see The Lego Movie 2. Super great movie, btw. :D

Josiah and I at the Shedd.

Mountains, Gandalf!! (With Pictures)

(I've had this in my drafts for so long cause I wanted to add even more pictures, but I thought I'd post these today and maybe another time I'll add more.)

The slightly more wordy companion to this post.

I squealed so hard when I saw the mountains in the distance.