Life Update: Glass Half Full

Judy Blume, in all her molty splendor, is a pretty good visual of how life is going, currently.

I’ve always been a glass half full kinda nerd. But, damn sometimes the glass is half full and you suddenly realize it’s actually half full of warm piss. And there’s someone else’s lipstick on the edge. (This photo is a hazy IPA, btw. I’m crass but not that crass).

I’ve been absent on the social medias for a few months, and if I’m being totally honest, I’ve been barely stuttering along for about the last two years, popping in and out as I have been able. I figure it’s long past time for me to offer an explanation—which is not something that I have been eager to do. I love what I do here, but I have always maintained very strict personal boundaries—I have never been one to air out every. single. little. detail. of my life on social media. I know there are a lot of content creators who believe the only way to be *so authentic* is to be fully, unequivocally transparent about everything from the painfully mundane to the painfully traumatic. And, that’s certainly one way of doing it. It’s just not how I do it, for better or for worse. And I ain’t sorry about it.

But.

I know a lot of people have been concerned about my absence (I deeply appreciate those who have reached out and checked in), and I have a lot of professional projects/sponsors that have had to be set on the back burner and I just feel like, at this point, I owe everyone an explanation.

Get on with it, Kate.

So here it is, in a nutshell (how did I get in this nutshell? Look at the size of this bloody great big nutshell!)…at the beginning of 2023, we began the process of moving my mom, Gail, in with us. She had been living about an hour away from us in the local mountains for roughly 13 years (if you’ll remember, we squatted with her for 9 months between the time we sold our last house and bought our current one) and she was at the age where it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to be up there on her own. The process of preparing her and her home for sale, putting it on the market, and selling it and moving her was overwhelmingly rough both physically and emotionally. This came directly on the heels of Jonathon and I moving our own household in 2021-2022 which was also physically and emotionally depleting, and we hadn’t even really gotten a chance to recover from that before taking on the enormous task of moving her. The entirety of 2023 was spent fixing a lot of deferred maintenance on her house and dealing with that move and I tried my best to continue to work through that time and be present on social media but when I tell you I was exhausted. I was e.x.h.a.u.s.t.e.d. And unfortunately for me, when I am exhausted, the very first thing to vaporize is my creativity. Which is the cornerstone for basically everything Drinking with Chickens. But I soldiered through, clinging to the understanding that we’d get through this and then I’d be able to return to a normal pace of life and work.

My mom officially moved in with us in late August of 2023 (the weekend we had The Hurricane in SoCal—remember that? LOL. So on top of moving her we were battening down the hatches and preparing for a possible hurricane which ultimately turned out to be a heavy rainstorm). Initially, she was supposed to be buying a condo near us somewhere, but the pickings were slim in that department and very quickly we shifted gears and began the permitting process for her to build an ADU cottage on our property. We knew it would be a challenging process but everyone agreed that the end result would be worth it. Oh—and I should also mention: part of that project is that she is also putting in a pool for us. So. It felt like a pretty great deal all around. We were all excited and chomping at the bit to get it going.

I really thought 2024 was going to be a year of finally settling into our new house, of my mom settling into her new little house, and me putting my nose back to the DWC grindstone. I was so excited for it. But The Universe was like: HAHAHA HOLD MY BEER.

In early 2024, out of nowhere, my mom was diagnosed with a very rare, very aggressive, late stage cancer. Intensive treatment began immediately. The cottage project was put on hold. I became her full-time, round-the-clock caretaker. All aspects of normal life came to a screeching halt.

I’m going to spare the gory details and skip ahead to where we stand 9ish months in. My mom is ok-ish. Treatment has been successful, but not without complications and set-backs. In fact, I am writing this post from the hospital as we deal with another one of said setbacks. But out of respect for her wishes and privacy, this is the extent I’m going to share (that is also part of the reason it has taken me so long to divulge what has been happening—she is a very private person). And I would also like to request that while I (and she) appreciate well-intentioned people who want to jump in with cancer advice, I’d like to respectfully opt out of that. This whole thing has been a pretty big, steep learning curve and part of what we have learned is that people really want to tell you how to cancer. And I just want to go ahead and say no thank you. Well wishes gratefully accepted, however.

We collectively decided that we should start back in on the guest cottage project in July, but the permitting process has been a pretty long slog. We are finally breaking ground in the next few weeks! Which is so exciting. But also terrifying. But also exciting. I’ll go into more detail about that project in a future blog post.

So that is where we currently stand. Life has not been “normal” for us since we moved in 2021 (and I guess I should just go ahead and group 2020 in there, too, right?). These past 4 years have seen the loss of 5 human family members. And the loss of 3 beloved, beloved pets. Life has never felt more precarious and more precious. I look around every single day and find a lot to be grateful for and our animals are a huge source of stress relief and laughter. Seriously, I don’t know how I’d survive without them. And I am constantly grateful for the friends and family who continue to check in and help where they can (despite the fact that we have basically been fully isolated for 8 months due to my mom’s immunocompromisation). Mostly, I am eternally grateful for Jonathon, who continues to be my and my mom’s biggest support. This has not been easy and it has not been pretty. He is a goddamn saint.

So what does this all mean for Drinking with Chickens? Well, up until this point, it has obviously meant massive interruption. As many of you have realized, this has translated to scarcity in social media posts and, yes, sadly, it means no 2025 calendar (but, I definitely intend/hope to do a 2026!). Moving forward, I intend/hope to get back to a more consistent online presence and workflow. Chicken fingers crossed. The heart of this brand and social media is and always has been celebration. And there just hasn’t been a lot of that in the past few years and I’m not one to fake it. But I feel it coming back into my bones, and I hope you’ll bear with me as I slowly get my head above water and back to the joy. And back to the cocktails. And back to the house and garden renovations. We HAVE actually been working on the house renovation in bits and spurts along the way, and I have lots of exciting things to share in that department (as well as documenting the pending cottage project—or as I like to call it, The BunGAILow, and pool build), but overall, those projects have definitely been sloooooooow and disjointed for the two years that we’ve lived here. We’re getting there, though. We’re getting there.

Thanks for sticking with us.

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