My brother and I have this tradition where we try to give each other the worst Christmas presents possible. And if you haven’t been following along, we’ve basically turned White Elephant into a serious art.
I told my brother that I needed more decorations for my new house… This is the present that arrived on my doorstep:
A giant wall decal of two seniors I don’t know riding a golf cart…
Meanwhile in Utah, my brother opened a personalized calendar, meticulously made with love and care by his dear, dear sister. Merry Cringemas Bro.
Here’s a video I made of our Christmas Morning. Enjoy.
I KNOW! You thought I was gone for good! You thought you would never have to dust off this old blog ever again. Oh ho ho how WRONG YOU WERE!
It’s actually been so long that I have to re-learn how to format this blog. What is this new layout, WordPress? This is so weird wtf.
2020 was a year huh.
Understatement.
I had a lot of soul searching to do. A LOT. (Tell you about it another post) Right now I’ll just give you a little rundown on what I’ve been doing since I ghosted this blog…
Match: Stayed home.
April: Stayed home.
May: Stayed home.
June: Wow, we still doing this? Okay, stayed home.
July: Stayed home.
August: Stayed home and turned thirty.
September: So this is a forever thing, right? Stay home for the rest of my life.
October: Stayed home with spooky ghosts.
November: Stayed home with turkey.
December: Stayed home for Holly Jolly time.
Yep, just survival mode. But, despite the sad emptiness of this website I HAVE BEEN WRITING. A lot. I mean really A LOT.
March: Journaling through my crippling anxiety
April: Journaling…
May: Journaling… (wow I now have an actual 400 pages of journaling how did that happen???)
June: Editing my Beatles Book
July: Beatles Book
August: Beatles Book
September: Beatles Book (Oops, said Beatles Book too many times and summoned a poltergeist)
October: Outlining a Paranormal Thriller for NaNoWriMo
November: Winning NaNoWriMo
December: … Should I start blogging again??
So now that you’re all caught back up, you can enjoy your weekly awkward story time or whatever it’s gonna be. (I’m not doing a schedule this year because that’s going to ruin my element of surprise.)
I needed a calendar last year. (2019) So I finally decided to make one of those personalized Shutterfly calendars. But I kinda sucked at it and it ended up having all this random blank space, so instead of fixing the format I just decided to fill it full of month-to-month predictions. You know, just what I thought maybe we would be doing in July or October or whatever. And honestly, it kept us all entertained all year!
So now (2020) I decided to look over just how many of my monthly predictions came true and how many did not.
I posted them here, so you could see each one:
January
“See a lot of Uncle Jeremy”
True
After we really started to struggle with The Residency, Dan’s brother came down for a couple of weeks to help out.
February
“Meet Donjeta”
False
My brother Collin had an Arizona trip planned so that we could meet Donjeta (his then-girlfriend, now wife). They had to cancel last minute due to an unexpected surgery and we didn’t meet her until March
March
“Deal with difficulties at work”
True
We terminated our residency in March.
April
“Jack will suddenly like nursery”
True!
My painfully shy firstborn did not want to be babysat. He did not want to run off and play at the playground. And he REALLY did not want to go to my church’s nursery class. Then one morning in April, just like I dreamed… he decided he was over that phase. And none of that stuff was a problem anymore.
May
“Have a hard time potty training, but a surprisingly easy time transitioning boys to new beds”
Mixed
They both still suck. Casey transitioned easily.
June
“Have successfully made it through residency and start the job hunt”
False
Already had the job
July
“Be trying to extend the contract on our apartment”
False!
We briefly considered leaving our apartment and renting a house but ultimately signed a lease renewal in early August
August
“Be going to Utah for a wedding”
True!
Both my brother and close friend ended up choosing August for their Utah weddings
Dan worked on Thanksgiving so we stayed in Arizona. I wasn’t even going to cook a Thanksgiving meal but caved the day before.
December
“We will move into a house”
False
But December is when we decided to become serious about the home search process
Pretty interesting. I got it about half right. 50/50 chance your random prediction will come true! I ordered another Shutterfly calendar for 2020 with 12 more predictions. So tune in next year to see if the 50% still holds up…
valmanwill.com 