My my my my my! Two years since my last post on this page and I decided to drop in and mention a few huge life changes. Every once in a while I feel an urge to start blogging again (indeed, looking at my drafts, I nearly kickstarted it up again in February 2015), but ultimately I always decide to put my efforts towards other activities (like sleep, and you’ll read why). I do miss the feeling of community; I never managed to make many super deep connections through blogging, but there are still people that I think about every so often because we regularly commented on each other’s blogs, or suddenly I’ll get an email on my blog account (I read every single one and I’m spectacularly awful at responding) and it will remind me of what this blog used to mean to me.
So, yeah. Anyway. In case you happen to still have this blog in your blog-reader-of-choice, here are some things that have changed over the past two years!
I’m still in Belgium, that hasn’t changed, but we moved into a new house that we bought! Ahhh! What a tremendous decision, a very big and very expensive decision. I could write many rambling words about the roller coaster of emotions that follows when buying a house, like the joy of discovering that behind the attic walls, where you thought was insulation, there is … nothing. Just a void that leads to the roof. Yeah. We’re in the process of renovating it, some things completely and at once, some things in small fits and starts. Now that we’re about six months in, I can see the bigger picture and I’m much more excited about where we’re heading with this house of ours.
I have a new job! My former employer went through a massive restructuring and I was laid off (along with ~200ish others) a few short weeks after returning to work from maternity leave. Luckily, a feverish job hunt has been successful and I’m really excited to start at a new job in a few weeks.
(Maternity leave, you say?) Yes! We’ve welcomed a charming little lady into our family! I could write pages and pages about the change from one to two kids, the impact she has had on my life, the differences between their birth experiences, how my son is adjusting to having a little sister, my experiences with Belgium’s bureaucracies and services as a new mother, etc. But I won’t (at least not now), mostly because I’m very tired (a major side effect of having two young kids).
I sort of have a new blog, although it’s mostly a secret for now. I want to be in a better routine of posting on it before I share it more widely (I may decide to “rebrand” my social media presence one day), and for now it’s mostly posts about finished sewing projects (but since my sewing stuff is currently shoved in a dusty corner, waiting for the attic “project room/bedroom” to be finished, there aren’t any new posts being written anyway).
Hmm, that’s the big news. Other smaller accomplishments include getting over my two main fears of steep stairs and riding my bike, making (slow) progress on learning Dutch, and generally continuing to make small steps towards becoming a productive member of society. (It’s much harder than it seems, I know now that we’re all just pretending most of the time.)
Comments are still off, emails are still appreciated (kirstin at ivorypomegranate dot com) but I’m still terrible at responding.