February could have gone down in history as the worst month ever following Dad’s death, yet it wasn’t. My friends made sure of it. I felt very loved and celebrated. And we spent a lot of time doing happy hours at Mom’s as was customary pre-Dad death. Other than a snafu or two, the month was fine.
March is proving to be even better! I’m writing this from Palm Springs, and SVV and I are heading to Holland at the end of the month. Though I spent zero nights away from home in February, this months kicks off a busy year of travel for us after two years of slooooow going thanks to the virus who shall not be named.
The Highs
My birthday came and went. I’m 39! Last year of this decade of life. I’ve joked that in my next life I’d like to be born in June, as there’s no more depressing month than February. It rained and rained and rained for what felt like 28 days. But my sister planned a little surprise dinner for me with friends, then I had dinner on my actual birthday with other friends, and it was one of the best birthdays yet.
The best surprise of all. My cousins came to visit! Even though they’d just been in town for Dad’s funeral, they drove across state from Memphis to surprise me for my birthday (*cue all the tears*). Best cousins ever!
We finished our kitchen! That was big cause for celebration! And when I say “finished,” I’ll forever mean 90 percent because there’s always something to do (toekicks and backsplash in our case right now).
I’m speaking at two conferences in the next month. In a week, I’ll be the dinner speaker at 2022 CVB/DMO Blizzard in Manchester. In a month, I’ll be a panelist at TravelCon, my third year as a speaker, this time in Memphis. If you’re going to be at either event, let me know!
We finally got most of the tornado damage up. After it took SVV, Josh and me an entire day just to take chainsaws to one tree and chop it up, we hired a professional tree service to do the others. It was a huge hit to the wallet, but I’m so glad we didn’t have to do it, and they did a great job.
We also kept a few of the better pieces and had a woodworker come mill them for us so we can build some live edge furniture in the future (you know, because we need more hobbies!).
We went to the theater twice. So many people have been asking how my mom has been doing, and outside of taking care of her grandkids full time, she’s had quite the social calendar from Preds games to the two TPAC shows we saw this month, Mean Girls (meh) and The Prom (so cute!). We just renewed for our 27th season of the Broadway series, and this next year is even better with Hamilton, Les Mis and Aladdin all returning.
I spent so much time with friends in February. The best way to keep your mind off of spiraling into a grief vortex? Surround yourself by people who love you, which is exactly what I did via Galentine’s events, engagement parties and happy hours at home with friends.
I had one family shoot, and it was a fun one. After doing more than 30 family shoots over the holidays, I scaled back until spring/summer, but it was fun getting to shoot my childhood friend Shelley’s newborn daughter and Elizabeth Jennings’ four older, adoring brothers.
The Lows
I received an assignment from a very hoity-toity shall we say paper of record only for them to redact the contract because I shoot imagery for tourism boards all over the South. How that made me unqualified and non-biased to write about waterfalls is beyond me, but this really gave me rage this month. Papers like this really reward elitism and punish us gig workers who have, you know, bills to pay.
I’ll probably write about this more in detail in the future. For now, here are some cute photos of Charlotte and Mac because I’m obsessed.
