Closing in on a year

Somehow it’s been almost a year now since the kids last got off the bus. 6 months from today I am hopeful they will return. I was able to secure my first vaccination (no easy task), but it will still be months for Dave and longer for Jack. Still, it did feel like one small step to a return to some sort of life. 

In the meantime:

The cat played sexy beast;

I switched dentists (this felt like the best way to try and move on from the trauma, this is the view out of his window);

We celebrated Valentine’s Day;

I scrounged a few last things from the garden (and started preparing for this years garden) before 

Two solid weeks of insanely bitter cold (-22 anyone?) and constant snow (including one 8 inch day, but an inch every day or so on top of that) arrived. We had two solid weeks of snow days (which was strange Bc it really makes no difference to us now);

I made a rainbow quilt for March;

We lounged;

The cat decided he would like to eat basketball players;

And grew almost as big as grant; 

And that’s about it. 
 

Today it’s going to be 65 and the birds are singing and the sun is shining and I am not so patiently waiting for spring. I’m starting to go a bit mad from so much time in the house. There are only so many times you can clean out the pantry and Jack would like to know if I just like making work for myself at this point. (The house is starting to look pretty shabby around the edges. It’s been a lot of living this year.)

11 months of pandemic

Somehow it’s now been 11 months since the kids last went to school. Missouri is last in the nation in the vaccination efforts, and neither my mother (69 with copd) nor I (autoimmune disease) have received a shot yet. That part currently feels hopeless (and today I need to write the governor again). 

The kids and I are already counting how many days of school we have left. Usually I dread summer vacation, but pushing three kids through virtual school every day is such a drag. 

We finally got a little snow. 

Bitter  cold is coming so I cleared out the last few things I left in the garden boxes this fall Bc they weren’t yet big enough. These are still tasty! 

We continue to fidget with some areas of the house to improve them. We fixed up a basement closet which helped me finish the last of storage area organizing. Next up cabinets in the laundry room, but building supplies are in short supply and insanely expensive, so it’s a long wait for the two I need. Dave’s dreaming of finally finishing the master closet, but I swear you can’t buy a single thing at IKEA right now. Hopefully we can finally fix the driveway too, but $$$$ Bc the housing market has gone completely insane. 

The kids are growing so fast that I can barely keep them in clothes. 

I tried to order seeds for the garden and even those are in short supply. It seems nothing escapes the pandemic panic. 

I’m off to bleach laundry grout. Fun!