This and That

I set out to write at least one post per month and hit the ground running with two in December.  I missed January, and February is drawing to a close so I’m just going to write a little about what’s going on in my life.  Takes the pressure off of coming up with something creative and meaningful!

Ali just started Volleyball and Blythe just finished Wrestling season ~ she took 3rd in both her tournaments and pinned a kid in her very first match, the kid’s a natural!  Too bad she lost interest~ and is also still taking art classes a couple of times a month.  Since we currently live 30 minutes from town and I drive them to and from school and then to and from practices, games and art classes, I spend a whole lot of time in the car.  They also go to their dad’s 3 weekends a month, which means 3 hours of driving for me, 3 Fridays and 3 Sundays every month.

Luckily, I’m able to have a flexible work schedule where I work from home during the week doing bookkeeping and other behind the scenes winery-related stuff and then one of the two tasting rooms I work for on the Saturdays the kids aren’t with me.  It frees me up to be able to be really active with the girls’ school and extracurricular activities, and also be social in the tasting rooms when they go to their dad’s.

Nathan and I were able to buy out his former business partner ~ who was also his ex-wife, whom he continued to work with for several years, making things extra interesting ~ from his winery a little over a year ago and things have been so incredibly good.  We came up with a 5 year plan than started with the buy-out and we hoped could finish in a property of our own with our own house and winery facility.  Currently we lease everything: a tasting room in town ~ which we will continue to do, because commercial real estate prices in town are astronomical ~ where we pour wine on the weekends for tourists, plus space for our barrels and production from another winery that Nathan makes wine for, and then a home on the same property, which is absolutely, stunningly beautiful.  It’s honestly one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been, much less called home.

Fortunately, the ex and I have agreed to sell off the properties we own together, so that we can each make a fresh start.  He and his fiancee are looking at houses about 45 minutes closer to us than they are now, so that will be awesome for the girls.

With the hope of some cash coming up soon, Nathan, the girls and I have been looking at some properties near us.  Our hope is to find something that’s still far enough out of town that we can enjoy the scenery and go on hikes, but closer to town so that driving to and from doesn’t take up quite so much time every day.  In order to have a working winery facility, we we’ll have to find a minimum of 20 acres, so fingers crossed on finding something perfect, even if it’s not quite so gorgeous as the spot where we live now.

Life is pretty good!  Busy, always, but in the best possible ways.  The girls are both doing tremendously well in school.  Ali’s consistently gotten all A’s, and although 1st grade doesn’t give out “grades”, Blythe is also doing very well, meeting or exceeding all of the benchmark goals for kids her age.  They’ve both made some wonerful friends in our new community and fit in as though they’ve been here all along.  It’s odd for me, sometimes, to think about how different of an experience we would be having if Blythe still had all of her health issues.  The school where the girls attend take food allergies very seriously and have gone above and beyond for the kids who have them, so I think, maybe, things would still be pretty ok.  But man, oh man, am I grateful for the changes and improvements.  I could never have asked for anything better.