Life Update 2020 — Perfectly PKU

Me at the Kitten Lounge in DC last October

2020. What a year it has been. I can confidently say that this year is not what anyone expected. This year has turned my life topsy-turvy, and I know that it has affected how and when I’ve been posting to this blog. A lot of it has just been lack of motivation due to stress and uncertainty about the future. I wanted to use this post as a way to sort of give you a glimpse into what’s been going on with me and how posts on here may be a little different this next upcoming year (but, really, who knows).

At the beginning of this year, before all of the COVID-19 stuff took over our lives, I made a New Year’s resolution. I normally don’t make these, as I never tend to follow through with them, but I thought it would be a good way for me to set some goals for my blog for this upcoming year. This October will be the 2-year mark of me having this blog. The first couple years were more so about me getting this blog started, and less about consistency and growth. The goals that I made for this year were to post consistently, to reach 1,000 followers on Instagram, and to be more active on Instagram.

My first goal of being consistent about posting, was to give myself more structure when it came to posting recipes and other content. I really like the process of posting a new recipe onto my blog and then sharing it with everyone on Instagram. The main reason for me creating this blog was to share recipes with all of you. When I use the word “consistent,” to me that means posting a new recipe once a week, give or take a few. At the beginning of the year, I actually got off to a pretty good start and was posting pretty consistently. It was about March when that consistency really started to slip. But what else was happening in March? Oh yeah, coronavirus started impacting life here in America.

Before I get into that, let me touch on my second goal. I made the goal of wanting to reach 1,000 Instagram followers, not because numbers give my blog meaning, but because I want to be able to reach as many PKUers as possible. Now I haven’t shared my blog on any Facebook PKU groups yet, but that’s mostly because I wanted to get consistent and feel more confident about knowing that I would be able to post every week. I do think that I need to share this to some of those groups though, because I know that not everyone is on Instagram and I know that many people in those groups are interested in recipes and other PKU content. My third goal is sort of related to this second goal. I want to be more active on Instagram, doing things like stories and sharing more posts, not only my recipes. I did do a few stories earlier this year, but I haven’t done any recently. Before this blog, I was never huge into sharing much on social media, so I think it’s just something I’m still trying to get used to.

Now let’s get back to the haunting of 2020, COVID-19. Before all of that happened, I was planning on staying at my old job for at least another year. I was also planning on moving into a cheaper apartment this summer, as my current one was just too expensive with the money I make. Both of those plans for me changed drastically.

So last year, I was working as a teacher’s assistant at a special ed school. I started in October, so it was already into the school year, but everyone I worked with was super welcoming. I really enjoyed working there and working with my co-workers. After seeing how that first year was going, I realized I liked working there and wanted to stay for another year. I’ve been struggling lately trying to figure out what to about my career path. I’ve been stuck in limbo between taking an academic route and becoming a special ed teacher and following the behavior route and pursuing my BCBA. While working at the school this past year, several situations made me realize that I should follow the behavior route. I planned on working at the school for another year, to hopefully become a little more financially steady and then shift gears again.

This is where COVID-19 changed my work plans. This summer, I was going to work at their summer camp and then continue working the next school year. But with COVID, camp was obviously not open in the same capacity as it would have been. I made the decision to work as an ABA (applied behavior analyst) therapist for the summer for a couple of reasons. One, I needed to make sure I made enough money to pay my bills. Two, there was a risk that I would lose my job this year because of the financial impact that COVID-19 had on the company I work with. Working as an ABA therapist set me up so that I could easily come back to work in the fall, but also gave me the security of knowing that if I were to lose my job, I’d have a back-up (and what a lifesaver that was).

In August, I got an update from work (the school) about whether or not people would be laid off. The update was that the company had officially made the decision to lay people off, but they had not made decisions on who they would be letting go. I made the best decision for myself, an chose to leave the school and work full-time with the ABA company. So I’m currently adjusting to this new job now, and it’s been going well. Making this decision is setting me up for my work plans for next year. Next fall, I want to start courses for my BCBA. I am basically getting back towards my original goal a little earlier than I had planned. With all the craziness of 2020, I do feel like I made the best decision for myself.

All the boxes (mostly from formula) I used to pack for my move

I also mentioned how this affected my living situation. As I said earlier, I was going to find a cheaper apartment to live in for the next year. Because of COVID-19 and my job situation, I didn’t think living on my own in a $1200+ rent apartment would be the best decision. I made a really difficult decision to reach out to family and see if I could live with them for the next year. Sending that email out to my two aunts was probably the hardest thing I did all year. I am very proud of myself for being able to support myself and be independent, so asking to move in with family, I had to admit to myself I needed to depend more on people than I wanted. Even when my one aunt agreed to let me live with them, I feared that they would turn around and change their mind. It wasn’t until I actually moved in that stopped stressing about where I was going to live for the next year.

This is the reason that my blog posts may be different or not as consistent this next year. Living on my own, I was not sharing a kitchen and could cook whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Now that I have to share a kitchen, I want to be respectful of my family, and I also don’t want to take over their kitchen (which I easily could). Fortunately, we are on different eating schedules, so I will be able to cook when I need to. But because I probably will not be so experimental in the kitchen next year, I am going to try to write more article-style posts, like this one, related to PKU.

TL;DR: COVID-19 changed my work and living situation. Because of my new living situation, my content on this blog may include more article-style posts and maybe less recipes for the next year.

Also check out: The Insurance Struggle, The Road to Calgary