I went to yoga with my friend Kristen yesterday. It was cold in the studio. brrrr. And then we went out to lunch together. Edda did not have school yesterday – a work day, so thank you Jeremy for managing Edda during the day. After lunch, I turned down an invitation to hang out in her hot tub to head home and manage the pickup and drop off of Edda for her camp, which was open.
Today, I took Elka to the dog park right when it opened and she was the first one there but she did not know she was the first one there and sprinted from the entrance gate into the field and then spun around and looked at me and asked – where are my friends? But no worry, her friends were there in about 5 minutes. She got a good workout in and good socialization.
I went to my church yesterday for the first time in over a decade. It’s the UU church down the street and I still maintain my membership because if I did have to pick a church, it would be this one and generally speaking, I’d like my ashes scattered there (half there and half in Big Basin, that beautiful space where you can really feel god), unless Georgetown Medical School takes my body for Anatomy 101, and if so, I’d like a space in their cemetery which they do offer for bodily donations. It was interesting to see the changes that have happened since the pandemic, it’s now completely set up to have each service broadcast live. You can see there are two large screen flanking the stage and the seats are angled in such a way that the default is looking at the screens – which I did not like very much. Even though I’ve been gone a long time, people did recognize me and say hello and welcomed me back.
I have to say that even though I still give money to this church and generally speaking, I do endorse their philosophies, I have a tough time with any organized religion these days. I much prefer spending my time out in the community living out my true values rather than sitting in church. They say they honor diversity and inclusivity, yet, remains overwhelmingly white and straight – which I don’t feel like exists when I’m out in my local community anywhere else I live my life. But I did feel quite moved by the sermon and I’m happy that I went and participated and saw what was going on.
Also, selfishly, I went because I won an item at their annual online silent auction – this beautiful Zuni (I know, I know) bracelet which was bought in the 70s and never worn. And I, surprisingly, love it very much. The photo on the website was very dark and blurry, and one can never really tell how much one loves jewelry until you wear it and sometimes even then not for a while, but I’m enchanted.
This is Eddie. I’m still not sure if any of the horses like me of if they just tolerate me. Please like me! I like you… i think. please don’t step on my foot or kick me! hahah. It’s been wet and muddy outside and the horses are generally out in the pasture 24/7 except to eat and get groomed, so I spent a lot of time using a curry brush getting caked on mud off of Eddie.
Jeremy’s been downtown a few times this week for meetings. I love having him out of the house because it feels like before times. I do think my efficiency goes up in an empty house. I don’t fault Jeremy at all, he hardly bothers me during the day, but I’m always aware of him in the house, moving around.
Look at these beautiful buildings!
The weather has been crazy here, as it has been all over the country. A week ago, it was so so cold. Yesterday, it hit 80 degrees in DC. I was driving around and had to text Jeremy that “I can’t believe I’m texting you this in January, but I think the AC in the van is broken” which it is and was driving me crazy.
Because of the weird snow/heat wave thing, on Thursday, we had this impenetrable fog all around town.
Friday was the hot day and Jeremy shot this beautiful Capitol shot.
I took Elka to the dog country club where she was very, very happy.
After I decluttered the house, I decided that I needed to put up on the walls everything we’ve collected over the years. First, it’s just to get everything out of storage and onto the walls to see it, I don’t really want anything in “storage”. Second, I watched like 10,000 decorate-with-me videos over Christmas and I was like if these people (mainly women) can put up and take down stuff all over their house seasonally like at Target which is an incredible amount of work, I could at least drive some nails into walls and having things up for the next 15 years. Second, visiting particularly two people this past year: Paul, who remodeled his house between our visits (last time, it was like visiting a dorm room) and like had artwork all over his house *just so* and Keyla, whose kid requires 24 hour care, had like changed out light fixtures and painted rooms and decorated with murals (and I have to also say Sheila, whose house has always been lovingly curated and I’m eagerly waiting to visit their next new house they are working on), so I’m slowly doing stuff.
Like hanging groups of Ikea posters centered above a bed. Normally, I wouldn’t have cared for these Ikea posters I bought on a whim, but my friend Julia likes the artist Sam Toft and told me that the dog in these pictures is named Doris and now I’m charmed. It’s funny how things can grow on you over time.
Also, I struggled with buying frames for all our posters. All these are cheap posters and I can’t really buy the frames used because they are all different sizes and so really need to be specially ordered. This butterfly poster hung above our fireplace for at least 10 years covering the holes for mounting the TV, but it was crookedly hung in a too-large frame with no matting. And I kind of hated it all the time for the last decade, but I decided to buy the frame and now it delights me to no end. Maybe I do like pretty things. (Bad photo, I know).
All the family photos go on the wall against the staircase. So many of when the kids were little and not many from recently. We’ll try to change that.
On Wed night, before we left for Houston, we were awaken by our fire alarms firing randomly throughout the house. And they continued to misfire during our entire weekend away even though we were trying to troubleshoot before we left for vacation. Now that we have smart speakers in the house, we’d get a notification that a fire alarm was going off and they did go off every few hours. And then we’d check the cameras to make sure that the house wasn’t engulfed in flames. I think they are misfiring because (as the internet tells us) do go off when it’s very cold outside. But! Also! These fire alarms are from 2006! We’ve never replaced them! So we are in the process of replacing them all.
Also, Jeremy’s blog has gotten nice traction – including this nice write up on twitter. Jeremy spent the weekend watching the numbers on his blog go up and up and broke 1,000 while we were in Houston. Jeremy was *giddy*. One thousand view is as viral as these things go, so Jeremy is super famous in his field now :). So happy for him!
This weekend was a quick trip to Houston to see our old au pair Keyla who lived with us in 2015. I went to her wedding in the spring of 2021 in Denver and now they’ve relocated to Houston with two kids!
We had a snowstorm on Thursday night which closed schools on Friday – I was almost certain our Friday morning flight would be cancelled or horribly delayed, but neither happened. We left a little delayed because we needed to be de-iced, but made up enough time for most folks to make their connections in Houston.
Keyla’s youngest daughter, Zoe, is 8 months old and they found out around September that she has this. Zoe was hospitalized for two months while they were figuring out the diagnosis and trying to stabilize her. She came home early December with a ventilator and all the accessories needed for her care. I had talked to Keyla a number of times briefly during the hospitalization and I was heartbroken and worried about her and her family; I wanted to lay my own eyes on the family and the baby.
And I found a very happy and content baby – growing and smiling and learning. Keyla and Mark don’t have a lot of family around, but they do have nursing care for 16 hours of the day which helps a lot, but it’s still a lot a lot. Keyla is amazing and calm and such a good mom.
I got to hold all the babies! I read to Zoe and I painted faces and played Peppa Pig with Lucy.
Jeremy and Edda both came also and it was, actually, a very nice break for all of us. Jeremy cooked dinner both nights and also helped fix plumbing issues. This pipe was overflowing with water and had flooded the backyard. I turned off the water, but had never seen this type of structure before. Jeremy and Mark used the internet to figure out what it was, how to fix it, order the part for delivery and within 12 hours of discovering the leak, it was fixed.
It was cold, cold, cold and that is why the plumbing was broken, it froze and burst. We managed to go to a park on Sunday morning and then head to the airport, where our flight, again was delayed, but not cancelled and we made it back home by 9 pm.
Two snow days here. About 4-5 inches of snow and school has been cancelled. Elka got some good (local walks) in and we watched the kids in the neighborhood go sledding.
So nice to see the snow, I know it’s a hassle, but it’s also a gift – as these things always are. I thought we’d never see snow again in the DC metro area.
Spent yesterday morning at the horse place. I got to: feed the horses, lead horses from the pasture into their stalls, I got to groom horses (including asking nicely for the horses to give me their hooves so I could clean them), and then I got to muck the stalls. They gave me older and the most docile of horses and still, they often refused to give me their foot. Oh well. This horse: Yuzu, thought her face was itchy and used the entire front of my body as a scratching post rubbing her face up and down and up and down my body. That seemed fun but weird too. I find dogs much more appealing than horses, but maybe I can learn to like horses.
There were lots of volunteers there. The staff are mostly young women (including like 4 Sarahs), but the volunteers were mostly older men. They showed me around the property and where to put things. After the shift was over, at about noon, I sat in the volunteer lounge where there were others gathering for lunch. I packed a lunch because I knew I’d want to eat before I drove 40 minutes home. It was wonderful. Outside, physical labor, nice people, always some work to do – no complaints and now the Wed morning crew is expecting me back. I’m not appropriately dressed, I need overalls and some waterproof muck boots, but you need to volunteer at least 20 hours before they print you up a name tag, so I’ll finish that before I buy any new gear.
