Welp, we’ve got a snow squall coming in for the first day of March, and then in the fifties (F) for the rest of the week which I am interpreting as Winter’s last blast followed by Spring sticking her toe into the calendar to test the breezes. We can still get slammed with snow in March but we’ve had a for-the-most-part very mild winter (THANK YOU, WEATHER GODS) and I’m looking forward to the previews-of-coming-attractions warmer week ahead. Spring is my favorite season (in a close tie with Fall, I’m a change junkie) so this makes me very, very happy.
What good stuff blew your way this week?
Done with my annual after holiday diet. I reached my target, feel good, and ate pizza on Friday. Made cookies yesterday – I can’t seem to make them come out soft – they are either dry or not cooked in the middle, but the flavor is excellent, and I have been handing them out to all and sundry, none of whom are complaining about the texture.
Was also very virtuous with tasks yesterday, so only have to do laundry and go feed sister’s cats. I anticipate much reading and cookie eating.
For two weeks, we’ve been praying constantly for a little newborn girl, born as grandchild to our friends from church, whose lungs were infected during birth (yes, you can have lung problems unrelated to Corona these days). For days, it was a close call whether she would make it but now she’s home with her parents. The doctors said they were surprised at how well she recovered. I like to think it was a miracle from God. A good reason to be happy.
My seeds started germinating today! Dahlias and helichrysum are up after only four days. So that’s a brilliant start to March.
Had a great time with a local artist friend who came for a meal – feel we got to know each other much better. And today met with a close friend who’s up visiting her niece in Chester – we went for a walk in the sun at Chirk Castle.
Plus I’ve concluded the reason I’ve been feeling pathetic the last couple of days is not due to coming down with some dread disease, but because I pulled my back on Thursday. This has happened before.
My big happy is reflecting on all the projects I finished as part of #dailyfeb2020 You can see them (well, their backs) here: https://www.instagram.com/p/B9Mv4VnARIG/
Also happy at the prospect of spring. Not so much because I like spring, as because it means no more heating bills! I have a really old (built in 1812) house with no insulation and terrible windows, so heating is a challenge.
Oh, Gin, me too. My house was first built in 1830. By a drunken farmer – I’m pretty sure. It’s insulated with wood planks. Wood is a lousy insulator. Unfortunately, here in Vermont, it will still be winter until May. I have two to three months of bad weather ahead!
Our home is equally as old and I remember my husband opening the walls that were stuffed with old newspapers. I don’t know what happened to what was saved as I haven’t seen any for a few years. Probably didn’t survive any further renovation projects.
I grew up in a house my grandfather built in the late 30s or early 40s and the walls were insulated by sawdust. You could feel the line on the wall where the sawdust had settled. Below the line, warm. Above the line, frosty. We didn’t have running water and kept our drinking water in a barrel in the porch and it was often frozen over in the morning.
I have been sneezing – sneezing! – for a couple of days. I have no known spring allergies, so I wonder. No fever, no watery eyes, I haven’t drunk a Corona nor any other beer. It might be (dun-dun-DUN) nothing to sneeze at.
In the meantime, ANN has opened my eyes to calendar reform I hadn’t considered. I followed her link – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanke%E2%80%93Henry_Permanent_Calendar – and was thoroughly charmed with the 28-35-28 days-in-the-month scheme. Every month would start on a Monday. Every month would have either four or five weeks with no extra days. Every year would have 364 days, except leap years, which would have an entire leap week of seven days.
“But wait!” you cry. “I was born on January 30th, and under this mad scheme, January will never have more than 28 days. What about my birthday?!?” Simple enough. You were born on the 30th day of the year. Simply adjust to February 2 and go on with your life. The same thing that actually happens to people now born on February 29. They don’t have their birthdays taken away, they just celebrate on the day after February 28 or the day before March 1. It’ll all work out.
And think of the charm of celebrating on February 35th!
“Thirty-five days hath November
“February, August, and May
“All the rest have twenty-eight
“And an occasional week of Leap-Day.”
No harder to memorize than the current poem.
I somehow ended up subscribed to a vocabulary email program, and yesterday’s word was “Bissextile.”
ADJECTIVE
1. denoting the extra day ( February 29) of a leap year
2. designating or of a leap year
NOUN
3. Rare: leap year
So in a legally-oriented group on FaceBook, Opening Arguments, one of the members announced that he and his wife had a new baby born on Leap Day and inquiring whether anyone knew of any legal issues involved. I have no legal advice to offer him, but — having the vocabulary message of the day — presented him with the word and the definition. He could, of course, give the baby a REALLY unusual middle name . . . .
Thank you for that definition. I though “Bissextile” was the B in LGBTetc.
I’m working and Lort, lesson prep kicks my a$$. Yoga Teacher Training is odd because I sort of keep forgetting that I’m training to be a teacher, it feels like I’m there to learn the philosophy of how to improve my life!
We have sun today – a good uplifter of spirits. Plus I have two more days off work until
Winter Break is over. That’s worth being happy about.
I’m trying to shake the tail (ha!) end of a long cold. I’ve even gone to far as to get an inhaler, because I go into spasms of coughing, especially when I’m trying to sleep. It’s not a pretty picture. But today I stayed home from church and directing the choir and singing, so I feel having such a quiet day has been a big help. And I took a walk on a sunny day, so I’m fabulous!
Went to see Bobby McFerrin last night (armed with 54 cough drops and 16 tissues), it was so great. Circle singing with a 16-member choir, all improv, the audience was singing back to him, it was a love fest of happiness.
My happy was taking my oldest dog to the vet to have some lumps checked out and he’s okay. He also had his anal glands cleaned so he’s feeling a lot more peppy. When the vet tech brought him out of the back room he was just dancing and grinning at me. I am happy to pay the vet to do that.
We had more snow this week but a few days of sun.
Providing everything stays okay, next weekend we will be in Vancouver for the HSBC Rugby 7s and my birthday.
This was a difficult week. I’m not sure if my almost daily migraines are the cause or effect of my work-related anxiety. Objectively, my work situation is difficult, but I feel like I’m struggling more than in the past. I can’t do much about the migraines beyond watch my diet and drink lots of water, but I can manage the anxiety with self-care and professional help. We got another six inches of snow this week, so spring is more than a few weeks away. The sun is getting stronger during the day and my dog needs lots of exercise so I’m getting outside. Small steps.
Today our granddaughters came to visit and we sat around and watched a movie called The Peanut Butter Falcon. It was about a Downs Syndrome young man who has it in his head to become a wrestler. He leaves the nursing home he lives at and meets up with a man heading south to Florida and they embark on a Huckleberry Finn journey. A really good movie I recommend it. Even the music was super. Just the thing on a cold day.
It was a tough week for me last week – dealing with 2 resignations in my team in 4 days – so the weekend was a welcome one. It’s not me, it’s the history they have with the company, but it’s really frustrating because I’m changing things, but I can’t change them fast enough for them to stay.
Friday and Sat nights were with friends which was great, then Sunday was a flopfest.
Also, I came across Mel Robbins and her 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 technique recently, which I used on Saturday to do stuff at home that’s been bugging me, but not enough for me to fight the inertia of doing anything about it, so very happy about that.
Biggest happy is that the current eating habits that I have, mean that some of the weekend was finding a couple of items of clothes that I can now fit into. Yay!
My happy was the Friday night sleep over with granddaughters, they were so happy we were home, Saturday morning women’s meeting with a yummy lunch, and a lazy Sunday afternoon watching The Great British Baking shows recorded while we were away.
My happy was reaching the 50K word mark on a cozy mystery I wasn’t sure I could write at all. And good friends, who stayed up late texting with me from across the country when I was having a massive panic attack too late at night for my local peeps.
Last night I heard frogs for the first time this year. Happy Spring, they sang.