THE GOODS BLOG: Erika's Precious Little Life - March Edition

Can you believe that it's March again? Already one full year since the shit hit the fan? Everything felt so terrifying this time last year (and we couldn't buy toilet paper)... Now I kinda feel like an old pro at this pandemic thing. I'm certainly way more rational about it. A year ago I felt like the virus was everywhere and it was coming to kill me. I feel far more level-headed now. What a year. I don't think that any of us will ever forget it.

Written March 23rd, 2020.

Covid has continued to improve even more in Alberta. We are entering "Step 2" of our "Path Forward" as of today which means even more relaxing of the "lockdown" measures that we had been living under. (There are four steps in total.) The most exciting part of this for me is that I will be getting yoga classes back in the studio! I am trilled about this news! Alberta also tests every single positive Covid test for variants (I think we might be the only province that does this?) so I think that gives us a pretty clear picture of exactly what is going on. As things currently stand, in Edmonton there is 0.06% of the population with known active cases. The active cases in Edmonton have gone down to 1,014 which is far less compared to this time last month. I think that hospitalizations have been able to drop so significantly because every single person in a long-term care home in the province has now received both of their vaccine doses. Thankfully, another month has gone by and the elementary school that Archie’s preschool is in has still not recorded any cases at all. I feel closer and closer to the end of this whole thing. February was pretty quiet. We really haven't seen anyone or done much of anything. Plus it got really, really cold. Like prohibitively cold. Although, I can't complain because overall this winter has been incredibly mild (except for the roughly 2-3 weeks when it was extra freezing). However, indoor dining did open up again and we have been enjoying eating in restaurants and feeling more normal in that sense. Valentine's Day was fun! We had heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast, got special drinks and sat in a cafe, ate lobster rolls for dinner, enjoyed hot chocolate bombs for dessert, and then Tim and I had a romantic camp-out in bed with a special cheese board that we ordered. It was all wonderful!

We also celebrated the thirteen year anniversary of the day that Tim and I met in person and went on our first date! We thought that it would be fun to recreate our first date since we live in Edmonton again, where it all happened (complete with dinner at the same restaurant and watching the same movie). It was really cute and I love that we take the time and effort to do these kinds of things with each other.

This building used to be a Chapters with a Starbucks inside of it. This is where we first met.

My "winter project" of SELLING ALL OF THE BABY STUFF has been going very well. I still haven't posted it all but I've already made $345 from my sales. Most of it has been pretty small items that have all added up! I still haven't been able to sell my biggest ticket item, my double-electric Medela, because I've learned that you aren't allowed to sell breast pumps on Facebook Marketplace. So that's annoying!! I've also had some exciting things going on lately with my food blog! First of all, I was awarded my 2021 Yelp Elite status (which really wasn't much of a surprise) and this means that I get to join in on Elite Perk events... Which mostly just means that I get to enjoy free food. I've been having a really great time sliding back into the Edmonton food scene and have already felt like my work is being noticed. We have also added a new component to my "brand" which is short YouTube video reviews. Please subscribe to my channel so that I can eventually get rich? (I honestly don't know what the end game is here, ha ha!) The videos are mostly Tim's project (I'm just the face) while the written reviews are still my main priority and passion. I'm also starting to post Instagram stories on my Insta page which is definitely something new for me. It does feel cool to expand on what I'm doing!

And lastly, I saw another human and it was Nicole!! I actually cried when I saw her because it suddenly occurred to me that I miss my people incredibly much. I cannot wait for life to be more normal again.

I'm looking forward to the end of winter and so much more freedom. It's coming. Life with Archie: It has been somewhat challenging keeping a four year old entertained when it's super cold out. Part of me feels like I'm all out of f*cks to give. Thankfully he has also become really self-sufficient at figuring out his own things to do.

Archie loved Valentine's Day and our house is overloaded with chocolate.

Archie is still having a wonderful time at preschool. We enrolled him into the same preschool again for next year. He'll be joining the four year old class which takes place three days a week on Monday, Wednesday & Friday. We've been really happy with his preschool experience at Green Circle and definitely want it to continue. (A note to everyone in Ontario: Alberta only has one year of kindergarten, not two. If we were still in Ontario, Archie would be starting junior kindergarten in the fall. In Alberta, he does not. He will start kindergarten in the fall of 2022.)

Beach Day!

Archie has also started telling us that when he grows up he wants to be a race car driver / chef / inventor / “needle doctor” / engineer. So he's going to be pretty occupied with all of his career endeavours. The biggest news this month is that Archie finally got a big boy bed and he is very excited about it! It was time. We certainly maximized his crib (as a daybed) but it had finally gotten too small. The bed that we got him is a twin size and hopefully he'll use it for a long time. (I slept in a twin until I was like 20 so...)

March feels like it should be spring now and I just want to roll around on some grass. Can that be soon? We have literally nothing at all going on this month whatsoever. I am starting to feel a little bit stir crazy. The very end of the month is Spring Break and Archie will be out of preschool so I've been tossing around a few ideas... First, I WISH that my parents could be vaccinated by then and that they could come visit. But since that's probably unlikely, I was thinking that it might be fun to drive down to Calgary for a couple of nights. But who knows. We'll see. THIS MONTH’S SHOUT-OUTS!:

March 7th is Susan Murphy’s 39th birthday!

We're getting old!!! Wishing you an extra special day where you feel truly celebrated! I hope that you'll be able to get to Tofino sometime soon for a raincheck on your birthday plans! (I still haven't celebrated my birthday properly yet either.) I love being in touch with you on a daily basis and I CANNOT wait until I can make an island trip (and never leave). Miss you lots. Love you! <3 March 12th is Kristen Smith’s 37th birthday!

You are absolutely CRUSHING IT as a mom right now and I definitely know how hard that can be! For this reason I really hope that you get beyond spoiled on your special day and treated like the freakin' goddess that you are. I haven't seen you in way too long and that makes me sad. I love you a whole lot, my lady friend. <3 March 19th is Sarah Swalm’s 10th wedding anniversary!

TEN whole years already!! I hope that you and Adam can ditch the kid and do something special!