Just regular folks.

It’s freezing here.  I know, it’s freezing almost everywhere in the country.  Lots of indoor treadmill running where I’m hoping for a few days of above freezing temps to melt the ice so I can head outside again. At least I have lots of company these first few weeks of January.

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Hooray!  Edda’s wheelchair got new brakes today.  That only took three months or so.  We are still missing some arm straps and a bolt for a swivel brace that locks the frame in place, but it’s usable on the bus.  I hate this new wheelchair design, it drives me bonkers.

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Jeremy took me out for empanadas tonight – a place in Bethesda.  We usually avoid having dates in Bethesda because, in the past, whenever we go to Bethesda on a date, something goes wrong and we end up getting mad at each other.  But this date went well despite the choice of location.

We saw a Swedish movie – Force Majeure, a dark comedy about marriage.  Jeremy found it much funnier than I thought he would.  He can be particular about movies.  So much so that I will go to a movie myself without even thinking of inviting him.  Perhaps it was the two beers he had during the movie that helped him enjoy it.

After two weeks of holiday, we couldn’t even manage 2 days in a row without a disruption in our schedule.  The snow storm was forcasted to hit Rockville at 4 am and peter out by 9 am.  So when we awoke at quarter to 6 and checked our phones in the darkness of our bedroom (two little glowing screens in the pitch black), we saw that school was delayed 2 hours.

We groaned and got up anyways because no matter the schedule, Edda’s up by 6, which means we are up by 6.  But Vince got to sleep in at least.  But there was some optimism in the morning because the kids would GO TO SCHOOL eventually.  But the snow didn’t stop and they cancelled school at around 8 am.  By that time, Vince had painted Edda’s toenails and I had decluttered some filing cabinets and found these super cute school photos of Vince circa 2007.

Vince made me lunch.  He can be an excellent from-scratch cook (Jeremy is teaching him well), but he knows with me, he can coax me into a fish stick lunch.

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Of course, I needed to go shovel my mother’s driveway.  I couldn’t do it until late in the day today.  I actually asked her very early in the morning to call someone and pay them to shovel her driveway and if she couldn’t do that, I’d be there by 5pm.  I called her at 3 pm to see if anyone had shoveled her driveway and she told me that she hadn’t gotten anyone to do it, but she insisted that I not come over to shovel.  I asked her how she intended to leave the house without falling over snow and ice.  She said that she would wait until it melted.  I sighed.  I don’t think it’s going to get above freezing for 4 days.

Anyways, by the time I got there at 5 pm, she had shoveled the whole driveway.  Remember, my mom has fallen and broken her shoulder just not so many weeks ago.  My mother is crazy.  I understand this means I’m crazy too.  As I left her house, she called happily after me, “See!  I’m not old, I can still shovel snow!”  

We had another turkey on Saturday night.  How many times can Jeremy cook Thanksgiving?  I think this is turkey #3 since T’day 2014.  Jeremy also is trying to reduce the number of half empty jars in the fridge.  We are eating a lot of pickles and our fruit has been decorated with maraschino cherries.   It’s kind of retro festive.

Its been awhile, but thought I would make my reappearance on the blog. Things that have been happening recently:

• Football playoffs – some friends of long suffering franchises have had thier moment in the sun (Bengals, Lion). They continue to suffer. They continue to be better than the Washington football team.
• Games – played Ina bridge tournament over the weekend. Messed two hands in the very beginning that psyched me out. Was upset for awhile. But managed to eke out 3rd place overall for the 99er stratified pairs. I have some mild obsession to gain ACBL master points. 
• Other games – Kevin got the board game Eurorails, for himself. An interesting crayon game where you actually draw with crayons on the board as railroad tracks. Slow, and somewhat random. Not sure this is a game that I fully enjoy. Lawrence will not be playing it again as we spend 6 hours on the game the other night. 
• Dating – won’t go into too much detail here as this is a public forum, but am enjoying myself and learning about myself. One fun side note is that I really get to explore the city a lot. I get to try out that cool bar where the girl lives. I get to eat at that fun new restaurant across town. 🙂
• Misc – teaching people how to drive manual is fun. Spinning out on an alpine road is not. 

These are all the socks we own.  It was getting confusing because the kids’ feet are as big as my feet (or bigger) and they keep stealing my socks.  And then the socks get lost or dispersed throughout the house.  Last week, my pile of unmatched socks filled a whole laundry basket.  I was inspired by a friend of mine who encouraged me to just let go of the unmatched socks.  She had just thrown away all her unmatched socks and felt liberated!  So I did it.  I sorted all the socks, clarified who owned which pairs and threw over 20 unmatched socks away.

Now the new year can really start in ernest.  The socks are in order.  Tomorrow the children are back at school.  We are back at work and we will all find matched socks in our drawers.