Hi there, 2021. It’s Candice.

I decided to try a 31 Day Blog Challenge I found on Pinterest, but it’ll be more like 31 weeks…let’s just be honest.

Today’s prompt is simply to introduce myself and post a recent picture. At first, introducing myself felt silly because I’ve been writing this blog for a long time now. But I realized that it’s not silly to reintroduce myself to the world, especially as we crawl out of the burning wreckage that was 2020. A lot about me has changed since that first story in 2016. A LOT. So, here is me as of 2021.

My name is Candice Maxwell. I married my husband, Matthew Maxwell in 2015. He is a computer programmer and makes music in his free time. Like myself, he loves movies and board games.

In 2018 we began the process to become Foster parents and in December of that year, we got August. We also fostered a brilliant little girl for 9 months, who we got in February of 2019.

2019 was a very hard year for me. I was constantly sick. I had a bowel problem, kidney stones, and became sick with what they thought was cancer, but turned into a whole bigger mess. I lost my great aunt on Black Friday and I was up to my ears in misery from politics both national and local. I hated 2019 so much that I have a Spotify playlist called 2019 Can die in a Dumpster Fire.

I was so excited for 2020. I was turning 30 and I had planned an adult prom to celebrate. I love even numbers and I was just ready to get my life back on track. In January I got a good job in my field and things looked like they would be finally good.

Then March came and I sat in Black Sheep downtown and watched our town have a mutual panic attack as the pandemic became all too real. The pub crawl for the next day had been canceled and businesses all over Charleston lost thousands of dollars.

Since then things have been a rollercoaster of yay and fuck. In June I finally was allowed to have my 2nd teeth surgery, but then I was forced to wait until roughly 3 months later to have my dentures. The only plus of the pandemic…masks. During this time I had to see my dentist once, sometimes twice a week.

In August we adopted August! The biggest day of our lives. But my dad hasn’t seen us or August since last Christmas, so I miss sharing these moments with my family.

So who am I now? I am a mother and a wife. I am a self-published author now working on her second book. I am a thirty-year-old who works in her field, but who is applying to grad school at Marshall. I wear an upper denture and now after ten years, I wear glasses again.

So that’s me. For the most part. Who are you?