What a year this has been. When I last wrote a year ago, we were considering buying a house here in France. We decided we definitely wanted to shortly after that and I started looking at listings, but we hadn't gotten any further than that. Then one day as Cristian was walking home from the train station he ran into one of the men who works at the agency we rented through and he asked if we'd be interested in looking at a house. A couple of weekends later we looked at two houses, and loved the 2nd one. We were a little worried we were rushing things to jump into buying a house we saw on the first day, but it fit almost perfectly with our wish list, so we put in an offer. Buying a house is a slow process in France, so it took around 3 months from then until we finally bought the house and we moved in on January 25th. Then, somewhere around 6 weeks later, just about when we were feeling settled and ready to host a house warming party, the whole world ground to a halt. We were on a strict lock down here in France for 2 months. I left the house once a week (with a signed affidavit saying where I was going) to go grocery shopping and Cristian didn't leave at all. School was shut down and we had 3 days to figure out how to do distance learning. I'd never imagined trying to teach elementary school online and the first couple of weeks were a challenge, but I soon found some sort of rhythm, spending mornings conducting small group video calls and afternoons making video lessons and recording audio for powerpoints.
Having a new house with a yard and garden was such a lifesaver for me. Weathering lockdown is easier when you have a green space. I started vegetables from seeds I got from the grocery store and despite my less than ideal growing conditions, eventually nurtured them to the point I could move them outside. I'm still waiting on my tomatoes, but we enjoyed a harvest of sugar snap peas. There's a mature cherry tree in our backyard and we had an amazing cherry harvest and tried canning for the first time, making jars of jam as well as chutney, barbecue sauce and cherries in syrup.On May 11, we ended our super strict lockdown and things gradually started opening, including schools. I was extremely anxious about wearing a mask all day, and nervous about reopening too soon and all of the measures we'd need to follow, but starting back to normal life really helped me mentally and emotionally. And masks, while certainly not my favorite, turned out to be not as horrible as I'd feared.
School finally ended on June 30, and despite the nearly 3 months that I didn't teach in person during the school year, I'm still so ready for a break. I have a long to do list to tackle this summer, getting ready for going back to the classroom again next year, perfecting my French, and doing some not-so-fun administrative tasks I've been putting off.
It's funny writing this 1 year update now that I feel so settled. Presumably I'll be in the same country and same house for years now that we've bought a home. But I still like the time for reflection- changing countries and jobs aren't the only changes in life! I'm hoping that the next big change I'll get to experience will be becoming a mother. After all, we have this big house with bedrooms to fill now. 😉
