While the rest of the country is reveling in the early days of spring, up here we’re still held quite firmly within winter’s clutches.
Case in point, on Friday night we went from this…
To this…
Fortunately my mom just dodged the storm on her way in on Friday afternoon, but that also meant the only thing available on the docket was “let’s hang around the farm in the snow.”
That said, neither one seemed to mind.
See you tomorrow!
j.s.
I had a few extra moments in between meetings yesterday and, rather then write on here, I spent that “free time” outside ridding us of one of the two Stacks of Shame.
And it became clear whilst doing so that I’ve been lounging around way too much these last 4 months of winter. I was completely worn out after just 20 minutes of wood stacking/raking/wheelbarrowing.
It’s going to be a long spring planting season if I don’t shape up a bit.
And, to add credence to this theory, this is a stack of jeans that no longer fit me…
I’m debating whether to donate them now or cling to the (potentially misguided) belief that I’m going to lose a couple inches ’round the midsection when I start working outside on the farm again.
And while we’re on the subject of the outdoors, it appears that winter’s not entirely through with us yet. We were alerted yesterday afternoon about a winter storm that’s blowing in tonight/tomorrow, and early estimates said we were in for a foot of snow over the weekend. (They’ve actually backed off that number a bit since.)
So a quick grocery trip on the remote chance that we lose power for a while will be in on the docket later this evening.
In other news, Doris has been teaching the new girls some of the irritating habits that the old flock had. Specifically, launching bird turd all over our porch…
See you next week.
j.s.
Bit of a pity party there yesterday; sorry about that. We’re all actually doing okay.
That said, I told myself when I started writing on here that I wasn’t going to shy away from the difficulties of special needs parenting. It doesn’t do anyone any good to pretend life’s a triple-skip through Fluffernutter daisies…
And in doing so ignore the very real challenges that we deal with every day.
But! Daph had a pretty good morning today.
She did climb into bed with us sometime around 4am and proceed to scritch-scritch-scritch–scritch the side of my leg with her toenails for about 90 minutes, though. And I dare any of you out there to try and keep your sanity through such a barrage of keratinous midnight torment.
Fortunately mine’s long gone, so I was immune. (Boy ain’t been right since ’84.)
Otherwise we’re all doing fine. Chickens are doing their thing, happy that the snow’s (mostly) melted.
And then there’s Daisy who is, I mean, Daisy’s still with us…
But as you can see she hasn’t developed nearly as much as the others. That and she looks like she’s smuggling a kilo of cocaine in her trunk there. Not sure what the hell’s happening with that.
Anyway we’re keeping hope alive for now.
See you tomorrow.
j.s.
I suppose it’s undeniable that I’m struggling to maintain the daily writing over here.
I’ve just gotten another new project at work, so at this point I’m pulling 8:00 – 6:30 shifts in an effort to simply keep up. But, given all the layoffs at my company a couple weeks ago, this is just where we are.
It’s sad to me that the New American Dream is simply to keep your job.
Anyway I don’t have a whole lot of time. (I’m actually still getting Teams pings while I write this.)
What I find to be equal parts sad and interesting is that Daphne has begun to struggle, behaviorally, more over the last week while my personal time has become increasingly thin.
She’s wailing more often than she has since…hmm, last summer-ish? Conservatively I’d say she screams/cries about various things 6 to 10 times a day, every single day. And yes, a 10-year-old that screams and stomps and cries and throws things, but can’t actually answer you when you ask what’s causing them to behave that way, is as every bit exhausting and frustrating as it sounds.
I don’t want to confuse correlation with causality here, but it’s enough for my eyes to narrow.
Alas, not sure any of it matters. Until I somehow manage to become independently wealthy so all I have to worry about all day is spending time with/taking care of my daughter, this will be how things are.
Okay, see you tomorrow hopefully.
j.s.
I know some of you will understand what I’m talking about when I say that earlier this week, my Friday was shaping up to be the harbinger of a long weekend. My only meetings were blocked time for reports, lunch, and an hour of “Focus Time.”
But then Thursday happened.
All I asked for was a “overly booked Microsoft Outlook meeting calendar.”
Uh, anyway. Thursday happened and today has been one long blur of meetings.
I’m finally out, though, and more than ready for a Friday beer.
It also cooled off quite a bit today. We got an inch of snow this morning (it’s all already melted, thankfully), and it’s relatively windy and cold. Enough to where I had to spark the woodstove again for what will hopefully be among the last few lights until November.
Otherwise everything’s moving along apace here. Jen’s birthday is this weekend so we’re celebrating that with some family in town. Otherwise we’re just taking things easy, like we do.
That said, I was met with significant disappointment when I checked the news this morning.
There is a library that I pass on my way to the monthly gaming meet-up that sits right on the Canadian border. And when I say “right on” the border I mean directly atop it. Half of the library is in Canada, the other half is in the U.S, and there are doors facing both countries that enter into the same building.
I always found the concept of a shared library between countries to be a lovely and intrinsically human thing. The idea that we share our knowledge and art with whomever wanders by, no matter which side of a wholly made-up line they lived on.
And it was… Right up until today.
Now I don’t care who you voted for. I’m friends and family to more than a few people who voted for Trump, and the content of who they are as people adds up to more than their political leanings. I am of the (increasingly unpopular) opinion that we may disagree on politics, but that doesn’t mean we’ll never agree on anything.
That said, I feel confident that not a single one of them voted for this. This antagonizing attitude toward Canada. I mean, shutting down libraries that are symbolic of our lasting fraternity with our northern neighbor, all because a claimed .06% of fentanyl has passed across that border? (I’d bet dollars to donuts the amount of contraband that flows the other way is significantly higher…)
Anyway, I simply do not understand how this possibly makes us better as a country. It’s silly, and the grown ass men and women in Washington should know better.
Okay, off soapbox.
See you next week.
j.s.
That’s been one of Daph’s favorite sentences to spell out on her talker of late, and can’t say as I disagree.
So I thought I’d go through a few of the things that’s she’s been doing amazingly well, with a solid knock-on-wood caveat in the hope that I’m not jinxing anything.
So first, she’s been sleeping quite well most nights, and comes careening into our room at around 6 or 6:30 each morning for snuggle time before she gets ready for school.
Speaking of school, her 3rd grade year continues to go fantastically well so far. (Somehow there are only about 11 weeks left until her summer starts. Yeesh.)
She routinely gets drawings from her friends in class. Like this one:
The little girl who drew this has been in Daphne’s class for the last 4 years, ever since kindergarten. How amazing is that?
And, of course, I regularly post videos of our post-dinner evenings on the couch spent working with her talker.
Finally, as the weather warms she’s getting more and more time to play outside again.
All this to say that things are going along pretty well.
Obviously our days are not without significant challenges (She seems to be particularly surly with pre-pubescent hormones this week, for one…) but overall she’s going great.
Which she’ll be more than happy to tell you herself.
j.s.