Bonus Post

 I've been having trouble sleeping at night (no problem napping during the day though...) so I think now is as good of a time as any to go through and update this blog on a few life changes that have happened since I was regularly writing in 2017/2018.

I bought a house in 2018. It is this little two-bedroom home on a cute street in a quiet neighborhood. The perfect first home, in my opinion. So perfect, in fact, that I did not sell it when I bought a bigger home in 2020. There are home tours of both houses on my Instagram highlights, if you're interested. (@blittany)

The story of how I bought my second house is really cool, I think. In early 2020, interest rates had fallen significantly, and I decided to refinance my little house to get rid of my PMI and lower my interest rate. In the midst of that, I was still reeling from the changes of working from home and COVID isolation, and I started therapy. The therapist I was seeing recommended a daily routine to signal that work was done for the day and build in some artificial compartmentalization between work and home. I decided that each day at 5:00 I would get in my car and drive to my church to "park and pray." I was reading Sheed's Theology for Beginners (highly recommend!) and my prayer life was pretty consistent. (And for me, consistent equals good most of the time.) Around late March, early April, I randomly decided to look at houses on this app my realtor had given me when I bought my first house. There is a neighborhood I would drive past every day on the way to the Church for park and pray, and I called my realtor and asked for him to set up a search to email me every time a house with at least 4 bedrooms in that neighborhood came on the market. I saw a few that I liked in April but didn't think much of them because I was not quite ready to buy anything. I needed at least one more bonus check for the downpayment and I needed to make sure my refinance had already wrapped up, which was going to take about a month. A few weeks later, one of the houses I'd seen kept coming up in my mind while I was praying. I looked at the app and it said under contract, so I tried to put it out of my mind. Fast forward to the end of May- the refinance is done, I had an extra bonus check, and I was ready to keep looking. I logged on to the app and that house was still listed as under contract. I called my realtor and asked... is this normal that it's still "under contract?" over a month later? He called the sellers agent, and the contract had actually fallen through that week. We went to see the house, put an offer down, and after some back and forth about the roof, I closed on the house on 9/11/20. While there are some things I would change and might eventually change about it, overall, it is my dream home in my dream neighborhood, and I hope I never have to move again. Consider these roots put down haha. 

I've also been so blessed to be able to travel a decent amount since I last updated the blog about my Yellowstone trip in 2018. Later in 2018 I went to Northern Europe and did a loop around the entire Baltic Sea. I got to see the Northern Lights in the Artic Circle of Norway and Finland, I took an overnight ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki. I visited Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. I began my love affair with Poland. I saw the Berlin wall. I went to Mass in 9 languages. All by myself in 16 days. 

In 2019, Katelyn and I took a trip to celebrate our 30th birthdays in the Bahamas, where we stayed at Sandals and had the BEST time. 

2020 was out for international travel, but I did go to Virginia to see my sweet Katie marry Michael. I spent Halloween in Denver with my goddaughter Elizabeth and her parents Allie and Michael. I visited Caralyn in NOLA in December.

I also lost my dad in December of 2020. He was only 58. I might write more about him later, but please pray for the repose of his soul!

I'm not sure what happened in 2021- it kinda seems like a blur.  I do know that I spent a great deal of time in the pool in my backyard, and now I really wonder how I ever lived without a pool in Texas in the summer. I'm in that thing every single day from May to September. I think 2021 was the year I took a pretty awful road trip to Ohio to celebrate my grandmother's 84th birthday. 

In the Fall of 2022, I took another Eurotrip. This time to Prague, Salzburg, Vienna, Ljubljana, Trieste, Zagreb, Budapest, and of course, Krakow. Seeing where JPII grew up and lived was definitely a highlight. 

In the Fall of 2023, I got to go back to Europe again (are you sensing a theme?) and this time it was to Brussels, Bruges, Luxembourg, and Amsterdam. It was a great trip- and I actually ran into a friend from high school who lives in Amsterdam now (completely unplanned.... it was SHOCKING.)

There are lots of things I can say about each trip- maybe I'll write about them soon. Maybe not. We'll see. 

This year we're changing things up though... the Eurotrip will be in the Spring! I'm going on a roommate trip to London, Edinburgh, and Dublin in May!