We're Back with Big Changes and Fish Fry-day

Hello there! It’s been FOREVER since I’ve been here. So much has happened. We bought a house. In another state. We are in the process of selling our home that we love so much. We are moving to the new house soon. We got VACCINATED! Because life as we know it has not really resumed, at least not the full swing of it, it’s hard to recognize all the ways things have gone back to normal. I was just reading through some posts from about a year ago, looking for the lemon pie recipe that Emmett wants to make, and those old posts kind of floored me. No one was going to school, or leaving the house for that matter, the timeline for a vaccine was totally unknown. People were hoarding toilet paper. We didn’t know if we would even have jobs through the summer. Crazy times. We have so much more stability now, which is a huge relief.

For us, the big changes coming up are self-imposed. Like so many people, we re-evaluated our lives and what we wanted out of them during the past year. We decided that a more flexible post-pandemic office schedule would allow us the freedom to move further away from downtown Chicago. Ever since we had kids, I’ve longed to live in a small town, away from the hustle and bustle of the city, the traffic, the frenetic energy that I get more than enough of at work. We knew we didn’t want to live very far from Paul’s family. So when we found a small town just outside of Milwaukee that seemed to be the perfect fit for our family, we decided to look for a house there and miraculously (really, it was, given this housing market), we found one!

Look at us! Fully vaccinated! We went to church for the first time in AGES to celebrate Emmett’s first communion. It felt so normal (I’m pretty such normal has a new meaning now, more like fantastic).

I’ve always wanted an old farmhouse and after many months of searching Paul found her. She’s beautiful, with so much character. Well, right now she’s loaded with unpacked boxes in every room but she’ll be back to her old splendor soon. I couldn’t help but notice when we took a moving truck over how different it was from last time we moved, ten years ago. Yes, there is so much more stuff. But also, it was so much more exciting and fun, the kids were running all over the house finding hiding spots and checking out every room, laughing uproariously the whole time. It really hit home that in the last several years we made all these happy little kids. We made a family. So it seems it will never be quiet in the new house the way it once was in our current one, before the babies. And there will be so much to discover in our new community. I'm really looking forward to this next chapter and feel lucky that we get to have this adventure together.

That said, two real estate transactions, an out-of-state move, a job change (I’m still at the same company but in a new role) and the ongoing global pandemic have taken up a lot of my time in the last several months. Which is why I haven’t been here. Oh, and also all of my pots and pans are in boxes at the new house though we are still living in Chicago most of the time through the end of the school year. Moving y'all. It’s a process. I’m still cooking though, growing little people demand it. And I’m really looking forward to having people over for dinner again now that we are vaccinated. It’s been so, so long.

I made batter-fried cod today because it’s Emmett’s favorite food. Even though I hate deep frying at home, I wanted to know how to make it, just in case (of what? I do not know). It was so simple, really good and not messy at all. I’m not sure why I always tell myself deep frying is messy, because it never really is in the end. I followed this recipe but instead of making sandwiches, we just ate the fish with hash browns (I’m trying to make sure we eat everything in the freezer before we move), coleslaw and tartar sauce. It was super easy and quick - perfect for a Friday night. The fish came out crunchy without being overcooked inside. I was so proud of myself.