Just regular folks.

Friday night, we went to Main Street Friday Vibes holiday event where there was pizza, cookie decorating, gingerbread making and sheet cake eating. All our favorite holiday things.

There was a group photo…I tried to get a friend, Tiffany, in the red shirt to put her arm around Edda so she’s face forward and we (the adults) wouldn’t have to be in the picture, but alas, it didn’t work that well so Jeremy ducked behind her to hide himself a bit.

Because we aren’t having Christmas at home, I didn’t get to do my most favorite Christmas tradition which is that around Dec 15th, I stop opening boxes that are delivered to the house and I don’t wrap them and I just put them under the tree. And then we randomly open them on Christmas morning. My favorite memory is of Vince opening a gift and saying “windshield wipers!”. But now that we don’t have little kids, we’ve totally eased up on the gift giving. Jeremy and I don’t exchange gifts, Vince asked for a deferred gift like when his phone explodes or he drops his laptop into the bath that maybe we can help him buy a new one. And Edda is the buddha – needs nothing. I had to wrap a total of seven gifts this year – for two Secret Santa exchanges and I went through and decluttered my gift wrap drawer and used different wrapping paper for each gift and I found ribbon, bows and stickers and I USED THEM ALL. I need to no longer “save things for later” – I need to use them all with gusto!

We had a rowdy and quick Christmas brunch with the DC Martin’s on Saturday where some of these gifts were opened. My favorite exchange was that Edda was Eric’s secret santa and got him…..an electric toothbrush. Hooray for holiday oral hygiene.

And another quick Saturday night dinner with my folks where we were gifted picture frames and had 5 burrito bowls. I tried to get Jeremy to order only three, but he wanted each person to have one and it was way too much food…but at least my parents will have leftovers for a few days. We left Elka there to be dogsat, she was a little reluctant – but little does she know that on her birthday on the 28th, my parents are going to make her a really nice steak for dinner. She’ll be three. My dad is turning 83 on Christmas day. I hope he gets a nice steak too.

We flew to ABQ on Sunday meeting Bob and Katherine at the airport and settled into a hotel in town. We are trying a different tactic this year and not immediately driving 5 hours to Gila, instead we drove the next day. This allowed us to have a leisurely dinner at a tex-mex restaurant where I did get my desired 3 meals for 5 people ratio and also this wonderful strawberry margarita in a cactus glass.

This dinner was only 10 minutes walking from our hotel, so we all had alcoholic drinks (save Edda) and were able to walk home through a nicely decorated park.

We spend Monday mostly driving and shopping for food.

The light is devine, the air is dry and the cell service is spotty. But we’ll be together. We are only 5 now, but Emy and Seth are also here and will join us for dinner and then later in the week, we’ll swell to 17 people. Fun times!

I slightly injured my thumb – self diagnosed as trigger thumb. People who are most susceptible to it are women over 50. Bingo! Turns out you need your thumb for lots of things. I hurt it while I was sleeping. Gah. It’s a swollen tendon or something which I estimate will take about a year to heal.

Jeremy went to Julie P-C’s fundraiser last night for some political action. Jeremy thinks Julie will run for Congress someday – thank goodness someone with a good head on their shoulders wants to do that mostly thankless job. Jeremy found out there is space on the planning commission in Rockville, probably the most powerful commission in Rockville. I think Jeremy would be good at it, but they have weekly meetings that often run until midnight. We have not been keeping as close tabs on local Rockville politics, but the city council is young now, maybe kind of fun to work with?

This week, our evening caregiver Ginny is off. So we are doing Edda’s pick up at aftercare at about 6 pm. This may highlight the need for a second car. I volunteered at Main Street yesterday from 6-7 pm. Jeremy dropped me off at the beginning and I walked home afterwards (1.5 miles) – so it took me about 30 minutes to walk home. And today, I would like to go to guitar lessons which is also at 6 pm – Jeremy could drop me off before picking Edda up, but this is 2 miles from the house, so 40 minutes to walk home. (Jeremy does offer to pick me up, but it’s trouble to load Edda up into the car again for a pick up and he’s home cleaning or learning spanish or getting Edda ready for bed) Or maybe I’ll be lazy and not go to guitar lesson. So we talked about getting a bicycle or e-bike. In 2008-2010, I regularly biked to the train station in the cold/dark to get to work. Could I do that again on a regular bike for non-work things? Would I love an ebike enough to preferentially take it over a car in the driveway? That would be the DREAM. To prefer the ebike over the car. There are a lot of things that I do within about 2 miles of the house. Here’s the list: grocery store, UPS store, bank, running track, church, guitar lesson, main street volunteering, swim center… It’s hard to know really until you try. I always think I’m going to be lazy honestly. Then when you actually do it, it’s a nice surprise.

We went to Edda’s last holiday party at her school – she won’t be in public school after this year – the year after she turns 21 which makes us sad. We brought the fancy cupcakes, we brought gifts for the staff. Jeremy brought out his holiday vest. We’ve known Edda’s program has been under a lot of stress this year and well, it was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day for everyone. I went home and cried and I wasn’t even part of it. My heart and soul go out to the teachers and staff who we love and appreciate all day, everyday. Hopefully it all resolves soon, but perhaps it won’t. And then the program falls apart under the weight of burden that it carries everyday.

I took Elka to the public dog park yesterday and the entire thing is mulched with wood chips which is great, but because it was rainy and wet outside – it was very muddy. I forgot to bring an Elka towel with us and so the car is dirty. Elka had a great time, lots of zoomies. I need to buy a tennis ball chucker.

I’ve discovered a reading subreddit (r/bookclub) that has helped me read more books this year. I don’t read that much usually, but I enjoy this online bookclub. They play a yearly “bingo” – this year, I started mid-year and I got a row. This year, I’m going to try to get an “X” or a “+” and see how it goes.

Dani’s parents gave us fancy popcorn of all different varieties so I was keen to try them out – taste test of sorts.

We brought out our popcorn popper which is always in danger of being decluttered, but it was not decluttered! We were ready to have lunch with a side of popcorn.

We spent the weekend celebrating with our friends. Jeremy made a beautiful three-layer lemon/raspberry cake for Ginny’s baby shower on Saturday.

He did a super great job on it. So professional!

We had to leave before trying the cake! Gah! It’s OK. Lots of people make cake that they don’t get to eat.

We went from one party to the next where we celebrated my father’s 83rd birthday. A little early, we are not going to be in town for Christmas (his birthday), so we celebrated Saturday night. We got an apple pie and banana cream pie as dessert.

Sunday, we sold our minivan. We sold it to our friend Tom who needed the accessible chair more than we did (we manage Edda pretty well in a regular sedan). We took off our beloved personalized plates and I returned them to the DMV this morning. And then I cancelled the insurance on it and I also took Vince off our insurance policy. We had left him on it because sometimes he came home for summers and/or the holidays but this holiday season will mark over a year since he’s been home! Yikes. It’s as if he doesn’t live here anymore.

I did some plant chores yesterday. Jeremy said that I have a plant hobby which I guess is true. Sometimes I get into a hobby rut where I think that hobbies are a waste of time and then I have to reframe it. So here’s a plant that I was watering yesterday – it grew a branch out of its drainage hole. Do you see it?

Kind of cute.

I’ve been learning about keeping carnivorous plants too. Here’s my venus fly trap that’s not doing too poorly. I have not fed it any insects yet. Apparently, it does not need any bugs to survive – just bright light and distilled water…regular tap will kill it.

Dog park day!

Foggy morning!

This weekend was milder than it has been for weeks it seems like. We brought Elka to the dog park – since her old one closed, we haven’t been in the routine to bring her to the other one yet. It’s still pretty close to the house, it’s just been so cold.

Also, this seems like such a small thing, but I had the gutter people come to clean the gutters out on Saturday (we have so many tall trees around our house, they are always full of leaves and debris, I swear, I could have them cleaned every month forever and they would always be full) and finally, after years of leaf mismanagement (me) and drainage that was clogged from leaf debris and all the drainage exits covered by years of fallen leaves and dirt and unlocatable by me for at least 16 years – I’m like…thank god the water runs from the roof, along the gutters and down through the drains and out the backyard and not straight down next to the foundation of the house. I can see all the exits in the backyard, all the drains have cleanouts and…hooray for things that work. Now, fingers crossed I can keep it all working.

On Sunday, we drove to Wilmington DE to celebrate Katherine’s birthday. Bob had a lovely concert – a trio Beethoven and Brahms. I haven’t seen Bob play a concert in a very long time, so it was so nice to see him perform. Apparently, he thought the piano was too loud, but he is sitting right next to the open grand – so it’s hard for hime to judge. I thought it was well balanced among the three instruments. I forgot my cough drops, I need to remember for any concert, talk or whatever that I need to sit quietly for a long time, there is always I moment I need to uncontrollably cough…for whatever reason. Jeremy saved me with some gum.

Then we went out for a celebratory dinner to celebrate Katherine’s birthday. A small, but lively group. Olivia from NYC, George from Baltimore and Jeremy invited his college pal, Dan.

Katherine wanted a princess cake for her birthday and this is not such an easy cake to find. Olivia kindly brought this one from a NYC bakery – we could not find one in DC. Happy birthday Katherine!

Look at these goofballs. Haha. It’s always fun to catch up with Dan. We did not bring Edda – Eliana was kind enough to stay with her into the evening. Edda, for whatever reason, has been super vocal for about 6 months now. She “talks” all the time, bursting out with vocalizations over sermons, classes, gym sessions, dinner and phone calls. It’s been…difficult to bring her places where she’s supposed to be quiet even though everyone is very gracious and understanding. Thanks to my parents who kept Elka for the day as well. I think there were some meatballs eaten and everyone was happy.

Friday night, I went out to celebrate Kristin’s birthday with a few of her girlfriends – who I did not know. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in this kind of situation, but it was just the four of us and because Kristin is lovely, her friends are also lovely, so funny! We went to Great Sage – a vegan restaurant. Delicious. I came home and Jeremy asked what we talked about and I said – “IUDs, period blood and vasectomies”. Hahahaha. It was a lot of fun for a Friday night! I had a mojito!

This was my tiny present to Kristen. I’m in a weird gift giving mood these days. I’m trying to not add clutter to anyone’s home, because I’m in such a declutting mood for our own house. This is not easy to do.

Nine miles in the cold on the canal at 10:30 min/mile pace on a Wed morning! About a minute per mile slower than I could do about a year ago. About a minute and a half per mile slower than I could do it five years ago, if we go back 10 years, there might have been a week or two in there that I could do it at a whopping 2 min per mile faster. It’s OK, getting older and slower. Does it feel the same? In many ways yes, it doesn’t matter what the long pace is at you can get that worn out feeling that comes from physical labor in the sun and cold, but in other ways, you can’t get it back. Back in the day, sometimes – probably 1 out of 10 runs – you could feel yourself almost flying – like leaping through the strides. Now, I can feel like I’m almost feeling it. Does this make any sense? Good enough. I used to eagerly show up at the canal in the cold and the dark if my days were full and run the workout before other people got out of bed, I’m much, much, much less willing to do that now, if the day is too full, I’ll let the workout go and it’ll be OK. I’m grateful for sure, nothing hurts. Mostly. My joints are stiff when I wake up in the morning – a new thing that started happening this year. I inexplicably slightly dislocated my thumb this week while I was sleeping (!) – I noticed it at 2am, but it had popped back into alignment by the time that I has really woken up at 6 am. It’s still sore about 48 hours later. This old body of mine, grateful for you, please carry me through. I’ll try to take care of you and I hope you’ll take care of me.