Random Life Update January 2023: Writing, Travel & Queso

This is horribly late, I know. I’ve just been putting it off for some unknown reason. XD Happy almost Valentine’s Day! I hope you all have a lovely time celebrating. I will – with queso. *heart eyes* True love, guys, true love.

Anyway. XD January was a very full month and an awesome, stressful start to 2023.

WRITING

Crazy Writing Week happened at the beginning of the month. I was not sure if I’d be able to do it. For the past years, I’ve devoted every free second of that week to writing. This year I had to work. But I decided to give it my best and set my far too high goal of 7,000 words a day – 50,000 total.

Shockingly, it wasn’t nearly as hard as I had imagined. I wrote from when I woke up to when I left for work and finished up whatever I had left when I got home. But I did it!!! I barely got all 50,000 words in before the end of the competition.

It was a whole lot of fun. Jehosheba and I were, of course, on opposing teams. Again. *sad sighs* And my friend, Kaley as also on Team Reigndeer. 😦 But my friend Rosy and I were both on Team Penguin. An unbeatable combination.

WE WON!! AGAIN. I’m so proud of my team – they just always seem to win. *smug smile* It was a super close competition, though! In total we wrote over 5 million words. Insane!

BIRTHDAYS

January is a big birthday month here. Daddy had his on the 3rd. He and I both didn’t have work that day, so it was awesome to be able to hang out and celebrate the whole day together. ❤

The parents had a chiropractic appointment that morning so I made a special breakfast while they were gone. Homemade strudel pop tarts. Since we didn’t have puff pastry, I had to make it myself. The whole thing took like three hours. Even though I made a double batch, it ended with one tiny measly pop tart for everyone. But they were delicious all the same.

We spent the rest day playing games, celebrating our awesome Daddy, eating delicious food (fried crispy chicken sandwiches), and giving gifts. ❤

Next was Nahum’s 14th birthday. My goodness, when did he grow up? I just blink and my siblings aren’t little anymore.

Nahum’s birthday was on a Saturday, so I was home. Such a blessing!! We – again – played a lot of games, ate a lot of amazing food, and hung out together. My family is the best.

Mama’s birthday was at the end of the month. We decided to go to Austin, TX over her birthday week. There is a lot of winters and cold here in UT and we wanted to have a little break. Plus, what could be a better gift than traveling?

Mama’s birthday was so awesome. ❤ We visited an art museum in San Antonio, walked around a bit in the freezing cold (*sighs*), made memoirs, ate birthday cupcakes and incredible garlic naan, and gave gifts. ❤ So thankful for my Mama.

The Trip

We were so excited to get somewhere warm and away from the ice and snow. Texas is the very definition of heat.

Except it wasn’t. Not when we were there. We happened to visit during the one week of ice and freezing weather. Goodbye to all of the outdoor activities that we’d so carefully planned. *sniffles*

There were several days when everything was shut down. We kind of just wandered around. XD Drove a lot, stopped at a grocery store to buy gum and honey, read for hours, and grieved over the fact that all the donut shops were closed…We hung out at our airbnb quite a bit and watched a lot of Hercules Poirot mysteries. And Dr. Who. It’s Baruch’s latest obsession.

Thankfully, it warmed up towards the end of the vacation and we were able to do some walking outside as well as the other indoor activities that we had planned.

We visited two bookstores and Jehosheba and I each found six books to treasure. The boys spent the whole visit wailing and whining about how bored they were. *sighs* Oh, how little they know the immense value of literature…

We also ate a lot of queso. And tex-mex. Ah, food. My beloved. Texas has you covered.

WORK

My goodness, so many changes at work in January. Our beloved director and our sweet manager both left after serving for 20 years. It was…really sad. *sniffles* . Our new director and new manager are good, but it has been a change as new people step into new roles. It made me realize just how much our director and manager have led us and how insanely hard they worked and how much they gave. ❤

We also got a new client. She is our last client – our house is full now. Eight people, man. It’s crowded here! She is super sweet and adorable. She’s our youngest client at 24. She has a G-tube which is something I’ve never dealt with so that’s been a learning curve.

I was so stressed out the whole first week she was there (which also happened to be the week that our manager left). I spent a lot of time by myself and had full-blown I-cant-stop-crying-and-I-don’t-know-whyyyyyyyy meltdowns over the stupidest things. XD

But I’m better now and have gotten back the hang of things pretty well. *nods* Surprisingly not as hard as I imagined. XD Why does that always happen, I wonder??

Other Life Stuff

We got a new van to replace the wrecked one. It’s awesome!! In the past, every time we took trips, our Honda would break down and we’d find ourselves at an auto parts store in the middle of nowhere while Daddy tried to fix the vehicle. Our Toyota didn’t have one problem driving 20ish hours to Texas and 20ish back. So happy!

We got a lot of snow. Daddy, the boys, Yoveil and I went sledding one Sunday afternoon. That was a ton of fun. Such good exercise as well. Dovid enjoyed it – partially. Almost every time he went down the hill, he’d panic, stick his feet out and that would send him flying off the sled. He’d end up with a face full of snow and tears burning paths down it.

We also went to Nickle Mania – an arcade with a mixture of new and old video games. Sensory overload, man. Everything was so loud and bright and blinking and covered in germs. But I ended up having fun. Packman is enjoyable. XD We ended the day with hot cocoa from Scheels. *heart eyes*

That wraps up in January! How was the beginning of the year for YOU? What did you do? How do you entertain yourself in freezing cold weather?

~Hattush