Grey Gardens

 So we finally named the cottage.  We will call it "Grey Gardens".  It is named after the famous Grey Gardens and if you have never seen the movie or documentary you need to see it immediately.  It is basically about a mother and daughter and the mother tries to keep the daughter with her at her house (Grey Gardens) forever.  And since my kids are never going to leave me, I felt the name was perfect lol.

Yesterday we went up to the cottage for the day to start making it our own.  I couldn't do too much but the kids were super helpful!

When starting to take down the wallpaper we discovered 9 layers of paper and the walls were getting damaged.  Soooo I may have talked Mark into letting me wallpaper the place!  I LOVE wallpaper but Mark hates taking it down BUT he may go for it now!

We did find this magical surprise in the kids' bedrooms when took up the carpet!  

Then we had our first dinner at Grey Gardens.  We enjoyed delicious subs from a local deli.  It was the perfect first meal. 

We are so excited to make this place our own.  The kids are at such a great age and they are so involved and helpful.  We are already making some great memories!

On Saturday I was lucky enough to steal a friend's reservation for a fun lunch at Juicy Burger inside and igloo!

It was the perfect day for it and thank God I had some extra sunglasses in my car!

We all agreed it felt like being on vacation because it was so toasty warm in there!  

Thanks Carolyn for having hockey and not being able to use your reservation!  We loved it!

Womb Removal And Big News

 We have some big stuff going on here lately!!!  Two weeks ago I had a hysterectomy.  It was a long time coming and besides some crazy restless legs, I have been feeling pretty good. 

I have been spoiled rotten by my amazing family and some of the best friends in the universe!  Every time I turn around someone is sending a card, flowers, treat, meal, gift card, or funny and loving text message.  I seriously have the most amazing people in my life.

Even some of my amazing students have spoiled me!

In other, better news.  We have some exciting news!!!  Everyone who knows me, knows how much I love the beach. It is my happy place and now....

WE HAVE OUR OWN COTTAGE!!!!!  It is just a few doors down from my in laws and for years I have walked by it and said, "This one is perfect for us!"  and in January it went up for sale!!! So early this week it was official and we closed. We are beyond excited and we can't wait to get in there and make it out own.

Other than that we have just been living our usual lives.

Claire has been knitting.

And Oliver has been living his best life playing hockey!

The weather is getting nicer and I can't believe that it is somehow March already.  This has been a wild year and I am excited to see what the future has to bring!!!

Exposed

 So last week I was exposed to someone with COVID.  So I am quarantined until Monday.  Even though being stuck home stinks I am so grateful for a job that is flexible and that I can work from home a bit.  I am also thankful for Netflix and Hulu.

Plus I love getting Oliver on the bus. I love our little driveway chats!  I was also able to drop Claire off at school, which I can never do that was a plus.

I went to get a COVID test today. Even though I have no symptoms I want to make sure we are being safe and I don't want to spread it to anyone else.

All of the volunteers were wonderful and so friendly. They even gave me a little treat bag for coming in.

It is so crazy that this is our new normal but hopefully by all of us taking the precautions we can keep the numbers down and keep everyone safe.

COVID Stuff

Not too much going on around here lately.

I am hybrid teaching now, which has been interesting.  I LOVE having the kids back in the building but for someone who is not great schedules this is a little tough for me. But I have an amazing aide and it is all working out!

I spent some time reconnecting with my "high school bin"!  I found old notes, pictures, and calendars.  I spent hours rereading all of this stuff. I am so glad that I kept all this stuff!

In order for the students to return to school we need to have random COVID testing done.  I was the first one done and it was really no big deal at all.  I will do this everyday if that is what it takes for the kids to come back to school.

But the best news is that last week I got round one of the COVID vaccine!  I am so excited to be moving forward from this whole mess.  Of course I have some concerns about the vaccine but I also have a lot of concerns about COVID so I chose to trust science!  Fingers crossed that we are moving on from this whole mess!

 

Happy New Year 2021

 

New Year's Eve has always been a special night that has wrapped up my most favorite time of the year. I am usually so excited to see some of my favorite people, use my good china one more time, have a house full of friends, see the kids have a blast, listen to Christmas music one more time, and just get excited for the year to come.  This year I still did most of these things just on a way smaller scale. 

We still had our fancy dinner.  But this year Mark didn't get to prepare this meal with his buddy Nick.  Although that was sad, this the kids helped.

I still got to use my good china one last time, just on a smaller scale.

And the food was still amazing!

And the company was even better.  I love this crew so much and I am so glad that I have such an amazing family.  And this is the only family picture we got of the whole Christmas season!

And we still had champagne and held our silver change and made our wishes at midnight.  Hopefully they all come true!

 Even though we have been having our New Year's party for 8 plus years, for the last four years we have taken a group shot in the same spot.  Usually we are all stressed out and I am making everyone sit still.  Then I have to take like 10 pictures because I want them to all be perfect.  Everyone is usually pretty patient with me and I end up getting a great shot every year.

2017

2018 (this was wild year lol)

2019

2020

I was so mad this year because the picture came out blurry.  No matter how many times I made everyone retake it, it still came out blurry.  I should have known then... But what I wouldn't give for a blurry picture this year.

2021

I tried to get the kids and Mark to sit for a picture but no one wanted anything to do with it. It just didn't seem right without everyone in it (and Uncle Nick pulling his shirt up, as Claire said).  So here is the picture spot in 2021.  All alone.  Until next year picture spot, until next year. I can't wait.

I try to stay away from resolutions and just try to live my life a little better than the year before. Last year everything slowed down and I am beyond grateful for my amazing little family.  Throughout all of the madness and as much as I hated the whole COVID thing, I will be forever grateful for the time I spent with my family.  We bonded in a way that we will change us all forever.  We learned that us Komosinskis can adapt to any situation and truly make the best of any situation. And we learned that if we feel like giving up we can lean on each other to help.  Whenever one of us started to get down or negative the rest of us just helped out, without even thinking about it. So I am glad to see 2020 go but I will forever be grateful for the memories (I even became a tent camper, who knew?!).  So let's go 2021, we are ready!

COVID Christmas

 We set the time for 7am this year and the kids gave us a little window to wake up slow.

THEN HE CAME!  HE CAME!  SANTA CAME!!!

Claire and Oliver waited so patiently for Daddy and me to make our coffee (and Oliver's warm milk) and get the fire started.

Oliver loves his warm milk!

The kids took their time this year and decided that we should all take turns opening our gifts.  It worked out really nicely and we all enjoyed seeing what everyone got!

Then there was the hot mess aftermath!

After the madness we had a fancy breakfast!

Then a masked up visit from Nana and Papa to exchange gifts with them.  After they left Grandma and Grandpa masked up and stopped over too.

Oliver loved his new hockey bag!

After our visits we had another delicious and fancy dinner in the dining room and then we got cozy again and watched Mandalorian.   

I missed everyone so much. I missed the loud house with Christmas music blaring and everyone talking loudly.  I missed eating and laughing and taking pictures.  I missed seeing both sides of my family visiting and having fun. I missed being exhausted when everyone left.  I missed doing it all over again on Christmas day.  It stinks that it had to be this way, super stinks.  Like cry in the shower (again) stinks.  But, I watched my kids both days and they both still laughed and had a blast.  Oliver still ran around excited counting down the days. Claire and Oliver still loved picking out presents for family and wrapping gifts. Santa still came and made the kids happy. Even though we didn't get to see our whole family (and that crushed me), we still got to see some of them.  It was wonderful and calm Christmas. One we will definitely never forget.  And I am grateful for the cozy, calm holiday with my little family.  This too shall pass and I will always remember that we made the best of an awful situation!

COVID Christmas Eve!!!

 

To say that I was sad that I couldn't have our usual Christmas Eve party is an understatement.  I was devastated and heartbroken, like soul crushingly heart broken.  But I did what any good Mom does, I cried it out in the shower and then did my best to make a really crappy situation as good as I could!

After not sleeping and checking the weather 678 times we set up the pop up tent in the driveway, set up some hot chocolate and chili in the garage, and built a fire outside.  Then we invited a few family members and friends over to say a quick Merry Christmas!  Even we couldn't have our usual party, at least we could say, "Merry Christmas" and quickly exchange gifts safely. 

And guess who still made a special appearance?!  SANTA! He must have known we were outside ;)

Everyone masked up and got a chance to still tell Santa what they want for Christmas (although we skipped the lap sitting).

Oliver loved showing off his Santa mask!

And we just happened to have a chair for Santa to take a load off and visit with the kids!

Then Santa brought out his book for names for the naughty and nice list and played a dicey little game of finding all of the kids names!  Everyone was on the nice list, thank God (even though they spelled Giada's name wrong).

Santa still had presents for the kids!

And we still got our usual picture!

Not the usual pics but still pretty great!

We all loved seeing Santa! 

After Santa left everyone headed home and we set the table for a nice quiet but fancy Christmas Eve dinner.

Root Beer always tastes better out of a fancy glass.

After dinner we cleaned up and put on our jammies!

Then we got nice and cozy to watch our favorite Christmas movie!  After Mickey we all watched the Muppet's Christmas Carol for the first time together and decided it was a new favorite!!!  After a wonderful evening we all headed to bed to wait for Santa!