Hi friends! It is a complicated time of year for me. We are coming up on the one year anniversary of losing my mom. I’m trying to gather up the will to turn on her phone, something I haven’t done in probably 10 months. Yes, we are paying for a phone that will never text me back. Grief is hard and weird and surprising in the worst ways.

On the other end of the spectrum, my birthday is also coming up! I love my birthday and I celebrate the entire month of April because why not? We have so few built-in opportunities to celebrate ourselves as adults so yes, I love my birthday.

My biggest news is that last Friday I finally got my vehicle back from the mechanic! My catalytic converters were stolen in May of last year and between all the damage done during that theft and backordered parts, I haven’t had my vehicle in 10 months. It was just sitting in front of our place until early December and then I was finally able to get it to a mechanic but then it was there for months (no fault of his, it was the backorders). Am I happy to have my vehicle back? Yes, absolutely thrilled! Am I terrified of someone else doing something to it or even stealing it? Yep!