I started my Rent the Runway monthly membership again on Monday. I put it on hold for the past 3 months because it felt wrong to order clothes for delivery just so I can wear new things at home. Also, I felt like an asshole walking into the UPS store with a mask on and a bag of clothes to return. But things are starting to open up again and we are starting to venture out. Slowly, but we’re feeling out a new normal for the summer. I really loved the trying new things to wear and this summer I was planning on wearing loads of dresses that I will rent. I am not a dress person. I haven’t been since I was 7, over 30 years ago. I would only wear a dress or skirt when I had to because I was really embarrassed by my body, or I think that was it. I am heavier than ever now and honestly, I don’t really care what other people think of me anymore. I want to try new things and so I am going to try dresses for the summer. I am currently wearing a dress that is to gorgeous to wear working from home… I don’t care. I am comfortable and happy. And it’s really the little things right now.

Speaking of little things, we put up the hammock in the backyard and it’s my daughters new favorite hang out. It will be mine too. The basketball hoop for the garage comes Monday. That’s going to be super fun. We got a bunch of new board games last night and had a family game night. Since we can’t go anywhere for summer and the kids aren’t going to camp, we are making sure to add lots of fun things around the house for the kids and us to do. I’m actually getting excited watching it all come together now. The next project will be washing and painting the kids play set in the backyard. My daughter wants to turn it into a “Restaurant with a drive through and a little living place on top”. So that’s the next project since we finished garage. We painted the wall of the garage and let the kids spray paint whatever they wanted. I think it looks awesome.

My flowers and plants are growing. I never thought I would be a gardener, but I am officially talking to my plants when I water them. We bought 2 new rose bushes for the front yard and planted them. They looked really pretty and then they started to look really wilty…. and then they started to look dead. For the past few weeks I have been giving them extra care and water and it seems to be working. There is a lot of new growth and new buds forming, and not wilty. I don’t think that’s a word, but that’s what I am going with.

I have 4 planters on the deck with flowers overflowing in 3 of them… One box I used a different (cheaper, it was on sale and I am a sucker for a sale) soil in. The soil you use really makes a HUGE difference. I added better soil to the flower box that wasn’t growing very well and it seems to be helping. I am using that box as my experiment box. Whatever works in there I use for the roses in the front. It seems to be working.

I have cucumber plants, loads of all different kinds of peppers, 6 tomato plants (cherry, grape, big boy, and yellow), eggplants and arugula. Everything is growing. My daughter counted yesterday 30 pots (including the planters) spread out around our deck to catch the sun. This is my new hobby and I am all in. I never would have thought.

We had a training at work on Monday. “Brave Conversations: Understanding Racism”. It was interesting and I am happy that my job is offering these things. For the past few weeks I have been reading and writing and talking to my husband (he’s Dominican and I am white). I want to understand what I unknowingly take for granted and be able to recognize when that happens. I have never been nervous about my children or my husband before because of the color of their skin. I always just thought their skin was beautiful. It just never occurred to me that we were different. Or that my husband and I experience or interpret ( I don’t know if that is the right word. Maybe have had different dialogue?) life differently. I mean, I know he always resorts to the worst possible case scenario, but so do I… I thought that was just our normal.

I know that the way our world is set up is wrong. Everything from the police, government, welfare, healthcare is so convoluted. It’s been made that way on purpose. And it always boils down to money. I was so confused trying to understand it all that I never registered to vote because I didn’t feel like I should vote on something I didn’t understand.

Honestly, everything that is happening has opened my eyes. The way we are getting information on Covid and how the economy is more important that peoples lives. The way we let these people just do whatever the fuck they want with no consequence to themselves. The racist fucking president in office. I’m so sick of what my kids are growing up in. I registered to vote. I am going to educate the crap out of myself and stop being a blind, dumb bystander. That was my fault. I made a choice to ignore it, and I was so wrong.

A lot of the information in the training I was already aware of just from watching documentaries on Netflix (13th, if you haven’t seen it, watch it) and reading articles on the internet that my husband and I have been sending back and forth to each other.

I never really understood were race and racism came from and the truth is, it was made up. The only reason why our skin is different colors is because of the sun and our bodies needing to be able to absorb vitamin D to survive. Wherever your ancestors are from, if they are whiter, it’s because they lived in colder climates and needed to be able to absorb more sun when they could. If they are darker, they lived in warmer climates and were outside more and therefore didn’t need to absorb as much. That’s it. Race was literally created by white people and based off nothing scientific… at all.

I want to educate myself. I want to understand how the country was built and I want it to change. I want to be able to recognize internal, interpersonal, institutional and systemic racism. I will do everything I can to help it change. Donate, sign petitions, read and read more, have conversations, speak up, be active. Black Lives Matter.

That is where I am at this week. How are you doing?