Just regular folks.

Our heater broke two nights ago, so the house is…cold. Well half-cold. We have two heaters, one for the upstairs (geothermal) and one for the downstairs (gas). The downstairs one is 20 years old and the motor burned out. We had our guy out yesterday to diagnose the issue and fingers crossed today, they’ll have the part and get it installed. I’m grateful that our bedrooms and offices are warm. It was 19F last night and will fall to 14F tonight. The downstairs is hovering around 57-60F.

Jeremy was going to be slightly upset if we had to replace the entire system because he wants to carefully consider the replacement because he doesn’t want to replace it with another gas furnace. But we might have had to do that with the pressure of a cold snap. And then we’d have a gas furnace for another 20 years. So he’s thinking about the system he wants installed in the near future because it’s going to need to be replaced sooner rather than later. Of course, we didn’t size the geothermal to do the entire house because…it was expensive and I didn’t think we could spare the money back then, but now we all wished we’d sized it bigger. Oh well. Hindsight is a thing.

It was too cold to eat dinner in the downstairs and we were contemplating having dinner upstairs. But instead we used it as an excuse to eat out at our favorite place A&Js, it’s fun to introduce Joab to Taiwanese food which he declared is really good. I’ve been trying to dial down just a little how much I’ve been eating since Christmas, so it’s been a few weeks since we’ve ordered a lot of food and I’ve eaten to complete satiety. Jeremy was in charge of the ordering and he ordered generously. It was glorious.

Did I write about my new year’s resolution? They are very different from the usual ones. I like setting them and then I usually never refer back to them again. 1) If I’ve decided to do something, don’t insert the “gah, I don’t feel like doing this” as I’m doing it. Like sometimes (examples): my job, watering the plants I love, changing sheets, going outside, etc. I’ve already decided I’m going to do it, why make it more unpleasant for myself? 2) Enjoy the things I’m supposed to enjoy as I’m doing them! Sometimes I can get grumpy doing fun things. 3) Beauty <- I have no idea what that means, but I want it all. All the beauty.

I’m learning to crochet with megan – we are working on the same kit! I’m going dutifully in order of the kits (once-a-month, though I’m on kit 2 and just received kit 6). Megan is hopping around all the kits and doing the ones she wants to do. This was totally predictable as our personalities are different in this way as well. I’ve also lost one of the squares I’ve done and an entire ball of dark purple yarn.

Oh, also I’m trying to not watch too much youtube. I like, inexplicably, watching shopping haul videos, it’s very soothing. So I’m replacing it with actually watching movies. Turns out I can watch a lot of movies if I’m not watching youtube videos. I’m doing a Letterboxd movie challenge which gives a theme for each week and you are supposed to find a movie that fits that theme to watch. I’m enjoying that challenge, I also discovered that the library has its own video streaming app with lots of great films FOR FREE. I’m trying to lengthen my attention span, I’m upset that I can focus only on short video or short essays, I’m going towards movies and books and trying to not reach for my phone and/or the internet while I’m reading or watching. Though it’s 10,000x more stressful than watching a youtube shopping video – I mean a good movie has tension in it and the feeling like – OMG, are these people going to die?! – which is the exact opposite of a shopping haul.

A fun weekend – very social, but also chill. Friday, I drove to Tysons for lunch at Founding Farmers with a group of coworkers. It’s amazing that you can work with a bunch of people for two years and not really know what their body looks like or what mannerisms they have eating lunch. Working from home is super convenient, but you do lose lots of things.

Friday night, we went to Friday Vibes at Main Street and it was karaoke night. Megan, along with Edda, Ginny, Emelina and Joab came. Jeremy was a little under the weather, so he stayed home. It was fun, Edda clearly had a nice time. Friday nights are always a bit tiring, but vibes is always fun.

Joab loves kareoke night, he sung I Just Died in Your Arms.

Saturday night, we went out to dinner with my parents at a place that had a special on Peking duck. Delicious! I’m trying to get Edda to look at the camera. 🙂

A few months ago, I got a landscape designer to draw up plans for the backyard and the front yard. It’s a challenging ecosystem because we have shade, bad soil and lots of deer. And I wanted, as much as possible, native plants. The designer was a lot of fun to work with as she spent an afternoon at our house and then drew this design on graph paper which I really love! (I want to frame these someday). Of course, I don’t know any plants she listed so I would have never been able to plan this myself, but she thought of all the different seasons and how they’ll give different colors in spring, summer and fall and how tall they would be and how to block more traffic noise (we live really close to the freeway).

Right now, our backyard is a Japanese stiltgrass wasteland that grows knee high for years and I’ve done nothing about it. I see the invasive tree of heaven encroaching from the sides which I’m going to try to kill with herbicides this summer. Jeremy really wanted to return the back half to trees, so that’s what we are doing. I did get a landscaper to quote me to put it all the plantings in, but man it was a lot, I totally didn’t want to pay for that, so I’m going to try to do it myself. Bit by little bit. I’m a little afraid that the deer will eat all of it in the nanosecond I’m on vacation, so I don’t want to spend out a ton of money to have it be a buffet for deer. Even if the deer didn’t eat it, I also didn’t want it all to go in at once and then I’d be overwhelmed taking care of it because I don’t want to hire out the garden work (at least not right now).

Yesterday, I went out in the middle of the day – so cold and snow covered yard, and marked out the grid and then placed flags for the center six trees. I’m dreaming of spring.

I’ve been watching the deer eat our neighbors’ bushes. It’s very cold outside and I’m curious about what the deer will eat and/or not eat. They eat a lot of things.

Jeremy went to his first dog training class. Elka didn’t get to go, only one dog was allowed to go and someone volunteered their dog before he could. This adorable six month old golden retriever.

Snow days! I picked up Edda from school early on Friday because the storm was moving in and 2/3rds of Edda’s teachers were like, OK! We really want snow days, so…let’s wear our pajamas inside out, sleep with spoons under pillows and flush ice cubes down the toilet. I was going to implement these tactics, but alas, I didn’t have a chance to because they cancelled school early on Sunday afternoon. And then we rejoiced (or at least all the teachers rejoiced). Haha, Dave, my friend in Minnesota, says everyone in Minnesota is jealous because in MN, the ground is BROWN. It’s not supposed to be brown ground in MN. lol.

Edda is bored, we are hunkered down. It’s a cozy feeling. Jeremy did all the shoveling – I send him hearts. We had a long argument on Sunday morning about hanging maps on walls, but now we are A-OK.

I’m so happy I got fencing around my test tree before the snow fell because I can see where the deer go through the yard. And they did go through a lot, but totally ignored the tree. (They will eat the tender baby branches even without leaves in the winter, for sure.) They messed with the compost pile, but that is a feature not a bug. OK, I’m confident I can keep deer away from baby trees. I ordered six baby trees for the spring: white oak, witch hazel, serviceberry and redbud. I bought the smallest, cheapest ones I could find and fingers crossed that they will not all die in my care. I’ll spend more on the wire cages and the metal stakes. I’m going to try to channel both my mother and my mother-in-law, both great gardeners with completely different styles.

My guitar teacher moved to the studio to new space near the Home Depot and my friend Howard and I had fun trying out the new electric guitar set up. In this new location, he’s next to a quilting store and a bridal store, so in the band room, he’s putting everything through headphones which is so cool. Everyone will have headphones and you can decide to hear more of the singer, or only the bass or just yourself, I guess. So much fun. I’m not in a band yet, I’m patiently waiting for the day when Billy tells me I’m ready. Which may be never.

During lesson time, programs after school were cancelled, and then after care for Edda was cancelled, but not right away – so this involved a lot of texting during class – back and forth with 1. school, 2. after care, 3. ginny – first with confirming that aftercare was open and then…whoops, no, it’s closing! I told Ginny not to come because of the snow and I feel bad because I’m basically cutting her hours, but then it snowed a bunch and then I felt righteous not endangering her life. Elka both likes the snow, and hates the salt. It hurts her paws.

My hand-me-down orchid is blooming! I guess it thinks it’s Hawaii enough in the house because it’s certainly not Hawaii-like outside the house.

Megan is putting on a series of art classes at Main Street, so I volunteered to help her out.

Fun! Notice I have a permanent name tag that I wear a lot. I wear it whenever I’m in a group of people in which I don’t know everyone’s name – which is a lot of times.

Happy new year! It was a nice 2024 – I traveled a lot which was both nice and tiring, Vince graduated from college – a big deal, I was very itchy with two cases of poison ivy. I really excused myself from social media and scrolling the news as a hobby as well, that feel really good to not know instantaneously what is happening in the world. I try to check in once a day, usually a 10 min audio catch up from NPR or NYT – ten minutes is enough. I had to replace all that scrolling with something, so I read more books and I’ve really hit my stride with practicing guitar (I think I’ve reached the advanced beginner level – woo hoo! working on hammer ons, pull offs, slides – it’s a lot of fun, very challenging, but doable). I’m going to start watching more movies.

I’ve cut back on running and added strength training to the mix. My body takes longer to recover and bounce back, but that’s ok and often I wake up tight and sore. I’ve cut way back on eating carbs in the house, though I try to not limit out of the house.

New year’s day, I took down Christmas in the house. Our tree keeps losing needles, how many more years can it keep going?

I’d like to add gardening to the things I do next year, the most important to me is to start small trees in the backyard – I’m looking at you white oak and red bud. And in order to do that, I need to protect the little trees from the deer. This dogwood is like 10 years old and every year, it gets demolished by the deer and each year, we try to protect it. Granted, the first 7 years I was busy with other things – it had a flimsy little fence around it and then for the last 2 years, I first covered it with netting (deer ate through it), next I covered it with finer, heavier duty netting (deer ate through it, though not as much) and yesterday, I did what I should have done in the beginning, I cattle wire fence, four heavy landscaping poles and eight landscaping staples into the ground. Fingers crossed this will work and if it survives the hungry deer foraging in the winter, I know I can protect a bunch of new trees. Fingers crossed.

Happy new year! While we were gone, my parents graciously took care of Elka. Elka’s birthday was the 28th and we were not going to be around for that, but my parents picked up the slack by not only buying a steak, but also a sheet cake with “Happy Birthday Elka” on it.

Look at these two, both loving steak and sheet cake. (My father’s birthday was on the 25th, I’m hoping he got some meat and cake as well on that day!) Happy birthday to you both! Thank you for taking care of each other.

Home. We got home late last night (Sunday the 29th) and it was a very nice holiday. There were lots of nice meals with the Martins and lots of down time and very nice weather. We saw old friends and met new folks too! And now we are back home. Jeremy (and Edda) have a few more days off. I’m working a bit. And we roll towards the new year!