Here We Come, 2021!!

Hey, everyone! Happy New Year! I hope you all had a fantastic day. I don't know about you but I'm excited and nervous to see what this new year, 2021, has for us! I have many things I personally want to improve and many things my husband and I want to accomplish as a family in this new year. How about you?

As I thought back about the year 2020, I realized my family had many blessings to be thankful for despite this very crazy world and the pandemic. Here are a few I wanted to share with you.

• Blessing #1. January 1st, 2020 we bought a dependable car suffice for our family, more our style and quickly paid it off by selling the car we already had. My husband found our new car at a great price for the type of car it is and low mileage for the year. Unfortunately, after we bought it we wrecked twice, in the beginning and mid parts of the year. However, everything was able to be fixed, we still have it and its in good running condition! My husband was able to repair the parts on the car for less than the collision place estimated for them to fix it, so long story short we were able to cash in the amount and do the repairs ourselves for much, much less and put the rest in savings. Also, no one was terribly hurt in either wreck.

• Blessing #2 (in disguise). The crazy world wide pandemic hit. My husband was out of work for about three weeks. I know what you're thinking... how is this a blessing? Well, our house needed some TLC for quite a while, inside and out and so, with the money that we had saved from the first accident and the stimulus checks we recieved, we decided not to sit around and do nothing. We, or should I say, my husband, (I helped doing what I could, which was mostly making sure he had a full stomach, was staying hydrated and cleaning up outside from his projects) got to work. In the three weeks he had off our little mobile had been resided and a nice covered deck built on the front.

Here is a picture of when he bought the mobile home...

Before my husband moved in he put a new roof on it and new windows but this is pretty much how it looked on the outside for the first two and a half years we lived in it.

This is what it looks like now...

I really couldn't have been more happy the pandemic came when it did! My husband and his helpers did a fabulous job in my opinion! Of course we still have to do some landscaping but it is so much better than it was, don't you agree?

Thanks to my dad and brother-in-law coming several days to help, the projects were quickly completed! Also, the weather couldn't have been more perfect during those weeks of them working outdoors.

Isn't it wild that this crazy pandemic actually helped us out in some way?!

• Blessing #3. Our little girl turned one! I blogged about her birthday and how I decorated. (Here's the link to that) She definitely is our little blessing! Our hearts are so full of love for her.

• Blessing #4. My husband and I were able to take a much needed extended weekend stay in Leavenworth, Washington for our third year anniversary. It is such a beautiful place and we had a lovely time being together!

• Blessing #5. We all three made it through 2020 with just a head cold for about a week, no other sickness! We're thankful for our good health and that we still have each other!

This was just a few of the many things we had to be thankful for from the year 2020.

Even though there were a lot of things that just didn't go as planned and the year just didn't feel right and holiday festivities were canceled and other fun things were shut down and the world just seemed so depressing, from all of that it taught me to focus on the things that matter most and blessings I've been given, whether big or small, and things I've learned.

I wrote this in hopes that someone reads it and is reminded that despite all the negativity and anxiety, that is so easy to focus on, to take a minute and reflect the good from this passed year, trying as it may have been.

If you didn't have a very great passed year, my hope and prayer for you is that this one is much better than you expect it will be. Let's try and be more positive this year!

Here we come, 2021!

-The Lacie Willow

{Aurelia Harger}