Outside

I turned chicken litter into compost! It took a couple years, but here it is...

James loves a good shoveling party. He's in it to dig holes and fill buckets. Matthew, however, told me once in a quieter moment, "I don't like being outside. I just go there to be with you." Hmmm. You should have heard him cooing at the rhubarb plants today, "You're so delicious! You're my favorite plant in the whole garden. So sour and a little sweet. Perfect. I'm not saying other plants are bad, I'm just saying I like you a whoooole lot more."

Feeling Like a Million Bucks

I just fixed my fridge.

Yeah, I'm that awesome.

It wasn't a big repair, of course, just an inconvenience that I finally got around to fixing, but I did the research, ordered the part, and installed it properly today. Now you can get ice out of the freezer door again :)

I also had a painful experience with a former friend this week that finally got me to stop wondering "what if..." and "why not..." about our failed relationship. It's now clear that there's no degree of "casual relationship" I can maintain with this person without causing myself significant harm. I finally, finally, finally feel fully at peace about that. And I wouldn't feel that way if I hadn't had that last encounter. Who'd've guessed?

Finally, I'd like you to meet our two newest neighbors:

There's no point naming them because I'll never be able to tell them apart, but I can't help it...I'm thinking "Fluff" and "Buff" bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! 

I got more seedlings out of my house and into the ground today. That always feels good.

Tomorrow, I've got a 6am appointment at the lap pool followed by a series of running drills and a couple hours at the community garden. My first triathlon is next week and a few days after that is our big planting day at the community garden. Got a lot to prep for both of those events! So excited!

Robert is 11!

Happy Birthday, Robert! This has been quite a bizarre year for you and our family. Covid. Sigh. But Covid restrictions have grown comfortable to you now. You resist their changing back. And you resist shots. You really, really don't like shots. That's why you didn't want to talk about or plan your birthday this year. We couldn't even mention it to you without getting a crusty look in return. You weren't eligible for the meningitis vaccine until you turned 11 years old, so I made the appointment for the week after your birthday. That appointment cast a dark cloud of fear and gut-wrenching anticipation on you. Sorry about that. Fortunately for us, the nurse administering your shots that day was VERY good. You said it felt like someone just pushed a pencil onto your skin for a second. No sting. No pinch. What a relief!! What a tender mercy.

You're eleven years old now! You were relieved when you learned that your birthday fell on a Wednesday, which meant that you would be attending school from home that day. No one singing you "Happy Birthday" in person. You were even more delighted when your teacher reminded the class that they would be singing "Happy Birthday" to you, but promptly forgot to make them do it...until the next day *sigh*. One day reprieve is nice, though.

Opening presents. James gave you one of his favorite rocks. Dad gave you a chess board, I gave you solar robots and the first 5 Wings of Fire books. Erin gave you rainbow slime and a photo frame filled with pictures of Ruby :) You cooed and sighed over those Ruby pictures for a long time. Erin getting a dog has clearly been one of the best things in your childhood experience :)

You chose root beer floats for your birthday dessert. Kinda hard to stick candles into floating ice cream, but we sang anyway!

That was your birthday day. I would LOVE to take some time to share my insights into who you are as a person, but I know you too well for that...

Your greatest priority these days is NOT being embarrassed in front of your peers. Your second greatest priority is that you are to be understood perfectly, and accurately, especially if the situation involves any perceived wrong-doing. So, ANYTHING personal I write about you could be a horrific embarrassment and a betrayal of your trust.

*SIGH*

I don't think these things will matter as much to you as an adult as they do now, but I can't be sure. I'd rather err on the side of caution. I'm explaining this to you now because that seems to be how you and I do everything these days :) We spend a lot of our time together explaining why we said/did/felt the things we said/did/felt. Usually after some sort of misunderstanding. It leads to a lot of deep talk. You are remarkably in tune with your motivations once you take a moment to explore them. I admire that. I admire a lot about you. Maybe those are things I can share that won't betray your trust...things I admire about you, Robert...

...your sense of personal responsibility. You meet your obligations, as promised, every time, on time, without prodding from anyone else. It's amazing.

...your concern for others' safety. You anticipate danger and let others know when you think they're being unsafe.  

...your willingness to talk something out. You don't storm off in frustration when you and I have a misunderstanding. You stick it out until it's figured out, as long as your conversation partner remains calm and logical :)

...your closet is so stinkin' tidy.

...your budding sense of humor. You have a dry, sarcastic sort of humor. Your nonchalant and flippant remarks run in opposition to your deep and intense emotional life, which makes you a tough kid to read sometimes, and pretty darn funny.

You are an important and valuable part of this family. I love you. I love what I learn from you. I love what you contribute. Congrats on reaching 11 years of age intact...no cavities, no stitches, no broken bones, never been stung by a bee or bitten by an animal. Do you even have a single scar?! Wow. Maybe I should feed you more sticky candy and make you play outside blindfolded more ;)

Covid Dose #2 and other snippets

--A second dose of Pfizer vaccine got into my arm this morning. The person administering the vaccine was considerably less careful than the person who administering my first dose, leading to what I felt was excessive stinging and wiggling around *ouch!* but it's done. Done! I got a sticker :) which will now reside on my guitar case forevermore.

--This morning marked the first time I swam laps in a public pool since Covid struck last March. I would never have considered this before my first dose of vaccine. The pool I'm using is much closer, much smaller, and much easier to get an appointment to than the pool at the Y. I'm also glad that the facility is closed to the public except for restricted lap swimming hours and a few select deep water aerobics classes. Looking at my very wrinkly, very health-conscious neighbors in the other swim lanes, I'm willing to bet that 80-90% of them have been vaccinated already. This seems a worthwhile risk. My high-risk family and friends are completely vaccinated. I'm completely vaccinated. Bobby is half-vaccinated. Our kids are still at risk for some time, but I feel like I can breathe a little better now. Things are changing!

--Speaking of breathing, my body hasn't forgotten everything about swimming yet :) I didn't drown. Nor feel like drowning. Mostly. I did NOT attempt a flip turn. It was difficult sharing a lane with someone who uses such strongly scented soap/perfume, but I was grateful for the reminder to keep my distance. My upper body has a lot of muscle to build back! Ugh.

--I write this blog post as several grown men tromp across my roof scraping and slamming and stomping. The hail storm last year did enough damage that our insurance will pay for a new roof. Yay! 

We've already had ONE hot day this year that warranted getting wet.

The Evans Family Robin Sanctuary has attracted its first mating pair of the season.

They're an ambitious couple, aiming for four chicks. Four! James noted that was a lot like our family.

Speaking of James, have you seen his hair lately?!

Back to Normal

I spent some time reviewing my goals and making timely progress on several of them. The nightmares have gone, returning me to my usual dream programming of old roommates, travel to strange places, snippets from things I've read lately, and an assortment of the bizarre and unpredictable made normal :)

Recurring Nightmare

I've been plagued with bad dreams lately. It's really starting to grate on me, so I thought to write it out here and see if I can make more sense of it outside of my head...

The dreams are all variations on a common theme: I want to do something or get somewhere, but things keep happening to slow me down or run me off course. 

I wanted to get back to my car just off campus last night, but my legs were like lead and my vision was blurry. In my dream, I understood this as a condition that came and went. It was a little frustrating, but not infuriating...just keep going. I wanted to cut through a building, but to get to the back door I had to wait in line and return a mask I had borrowed. When I grabbed the mask to return it, I realized there was another mask that I would have to return in another building as well. Both masks were a little dirty, but I didn't want to take the time to wash them and come back again. I finally got through the line after tripping over someone's baby stroller and had to exit out a different door from the one I wanted. I checked my map to see how close I was to my car...so much further...I had been going the wrong way...but if I just turned here, it wouldn't be too much further...I entered another building. People were working behind their desks...receptionists and such...there was a puzzle tower you had to figure out in order to get out the back door. I skimmed the instructions/riddles quickly to see if there was a trick...the receptionists' whispered conversations made me think there was a simple trick to it. I could tell it was broken, though, and not going to help me, so I went back out the front door. The receptionists were amazed that I had figured out the trick so quickly, but I hadn't. I couldn't have. There was no possible way for me to solve that puzzle. I had just gone out the only way I could. Then there were planned explosions near my parking garage (tearing down an old football stadium) that I had forgotten were scheduled for that day. The construction increased traffic and blocked the road with pieces of building...I thought, "Aw, man, this is terrible! Okay, let's find another way."

The meaning of these dreams should be abundantly clear, right? I subconsciously feel obstructed and distracted from the things I want to do. But in this case, oddly, it's not a crisis. It's not life or death. It's just a litany of small, unexpected, spontaneous events that keep me from doing something very ordinary, very common, very not-urgent. It's frustrating to be obstructed, but the thing I'm working toward isn't really that important anyway, so it doesn't really matter. None of it matters. I'm just doing stuff because it's there. 

And maybe that's it. Maybe that's the part that's bugging me most of all...sure, I'm constantly interrupted and distracted from my goals (I write about that pretty often on the blog), but maybe it's more bothersome to me feeling like my goals just aren't that important or meaningful anymore. Am I bored of them? Have I given up on achieving them? Are there things I'd rather be doing instead?

*sigh*

I'll spend some time re-examining my goals this week. Maybe I need a change, or maybe I just need a refresher course on what I want to do with my life ;)

Easter Weekend

Friday night, the kids had their first sleepover at Erin's house in months. They were crazy excited all day. They just couldn't stop moving around and checking the clock. Once they left, Bobby and I enjoyed Indian take-out at home and watched Wonder Woman 84. Dumb, dumb, dumb. I was so disappointed. Bobby called it a superhero Hallmark movie. That's pretty darn accurate. 

Saturday, I got to do some physical labor for Solidarity Gardens (a community outreach project of Sola Gratia Farm). It was fun to be in the company of like-minded (masked, socially distanced) folk prepping 5000sq ft of community garden space. I'll be back there a lot this week finishing up what we started. 

5000sq ft!! That's twice the footprint of my house. Bigger than my whole backyard. A huge, huge project. Just small enough, though, that it still needs to be done completely by hand. I'm gonna learn so much this year. 

These make me happy:

 Baby plants under my grow lights.

 

I was amazed this turned out as well as it did:

German Chocolate Easter Bunny Cake

 

Erin came by this evening for Easter dinner and games. I offered to show her the baby bunnies we were growing in our garden and she said yes. Matthew wanted to come, too, but he was already in footy pajamas and couldn't go on the dirt. Erin gave him a piggy back ride!! She's such a cool aunt. I pulled back the leaves and fluff and there they were: three perfectly formed little bunnies the size of hamsters. Not much longer now, I don't think, before I can close up the garden again.

After Easter dinner, we played a game that Bobby introduced to us last week. You start with three cards that let you 1) create/choose a game board, 2) invent a rule, and 3) create a new card for the deck. Players take turns creating new cards, making new rules, and following those rules and cards until there's a winner...as defined by the rules and cards and game board, of course. The playing field is WIDE open, you see, which leaves a lot to interpretation, so only play this game with people you generally love and enjoy so nobody's feelings get hurt too badly. 

When we played it for the first time last week, Robert got whipped into a frenzied state of trying to control absolutely everything: "When you draw this card, you need to make a cake from a recipe book of Alice, Mom, or Dad's choosing, and make it exactly as written." James gleefully did his best to sow chaos: "When you draw this card, kill the person to your right." Matthew just had us kissing and hugging each other. Alice was laser-focused on winning: "When you draw this card, Alice wins." She won three times, actually, before the game was over (per the rules). Bobby was a terrific devil's advocate, and I just kept drawing the hugging and kissing cards so I never got to make a rule or a card or put a piece on the game board *UGH*. 

Playing it tonight, though, was a lot more fun. Robert chose to read in his room and James chose to dig in the digging hole. That left 3 adults, Alice, and Matthew to play. Such a different mix!! We had to tell secrets, compliment someone in the room, quack like ducks, give things to Alice to burn, kiss and hug (Matthew's contribution, of course), roll for other people, and edit the rules over and over and again. The first rule was not to tell anyone what to do during their turn. If you did, then you couldn't talk until your turn came up again. That one burned me several times. Whoops! But in the end, Bobby and I tied. 

Matthew discovering the joy of Robin Eggs candy as lipstick.

James and Matthew in the digging hole. It's James' favorite project right now.

Celebrating

Today, I'm celebrating Easter and General Conference and the miracle of a painless injection that defends me and the people I love from a virus that has killed 2.85 million people worldwide in the last year. 

This is my pasty white arm, if you can't tell.

Hope on the horizon, but a lot of work yet to be done. 

Keep wearing masks. Keep physically distancing. Avoid crowds. Protect those who need extra protection.

An opinion writer for The New York Times nailed my Covid lifestyle perfectly when she wrote this:

"Now we’re in the midst of a global crisis that seems almost perfectly engineered to make us meaner. We’re cooped up. We’re isolated. And as I wrote late last spring, we can’t find flow — not while working, caregiving, cooking, cleaning or even watching reruns of bad TV — because the demands of the kids, the house, the job (if we’re fortunate enough to still have one) collide with one another, subdividing our days into staccato pulses of two-minute activities before we switch to something else. It’s all disruption all the time."--Jennifer Senior, Mothers All Over Are Losing It, The New York Times, 24 Feb 2021.

All disruption all the time.

But not forever.

Thank you, God. Thank you, science. So much to celebrate.

Comic Fun

Alice's Spanish teacher has her using Pixton EDU to create comic strips for a couple of projects. I thought our family would have fun dinking around with it, too.

Alice created this one about life with Matthew and James...

https://share.pixton.com/qrdfwqjMy Family My Family

More in the works.

https://share.pixton.com/qrddrsg https://share.pixton.com/qrddrsg

Chirping Surprise

I was watering my garden this afternoon and heard the strangest little chirping sound near my feet. Could it be a squirrel? Then I saw where the noise was coming from...a bundle of chopped leaves was bouncing up and down with each chirp. What?! I called James and Matthew over to investigate it with me. I was pretty sure it was a toad coming out of hibernation or something awesome like that. I carefully pulled away the leaves and found...fur. The chirping got louder and bouncier. WHAT?! Oh no. I know what this is...

 

Baby bunnies...about 10 days old by the look of them. I think we chased their mother from the garden a couple days ago and secured the fence gaps. I should have suspected something then. Oh well, we reopened the gaps and will accept any necessary garden damage until these little kits graduate to solid food. I really, really, really thought I could avoid growing bunnies this year. 

As much as it irks me to have my blueberry bushes gnawed to nubbins and my carefully nurtured baby plants nibbled out of existence, I can't help but admire those clever, persistent mamas.