33 thoughts on “Happiness is Spring Weather in March”

  1. I’m not happy we cancelled our trip to Italy (we weren’t going to the North and it may have been fine by the time we went in April , but did not want to get swept up in a quarantine situation), but making a difficult decision does always tend to bring peace of mind and a kind of happiness. We will probably rebook for early October, which is also a beautiful time to visit. And gives me more opportunities to work on my Italian.

    I’m very happy to see Emma today even though I suspect the theater may be empty. We’re not even close to one of the high infection areas, but my husband noticed yesterday the local public library was a lot more empty than usual.

    Anyways, on a sunny less morbid note, the daffodils are definitely out here and the birds are getting very chirpy and raucous in the morning.

  2. It is gorgeous here, book 4 of the FIBW series is done and ready for revisions, and now we’re dealing with Husband’s 94-year-old, fiercely independent mother’s congestive heart failure. She still lives alone, drives, cooks, cleans, watches MSNBC all day long, and manages her own finances, but she also can hardly walk due to arthritic knees and is learning to use a walker since yesterday. We’re doing everything we can to respect her independence, but man… this is hard. Please hold a good thought for her and us, mes amies. I will say this, she’s chipper as a spring robin and the sunshine sure is helping everyone’s spirit.

    2. All the best with your mom-in-law. Seeing the elders lose their independence is tough. My 85 year old MIL suffered a stroke in January and will need round the clock care for the rest of her days. Her 88 year old husband is healthy enough, but has mild dementia and cannot care for her. So the next step is a long-term care facility. Thank goodness my husband and I just retired so we have the time and energy to help them. 🙂

    1. Our red-winged blackbirds aren’t back yet. I live near Camp David. I look for them every day.

  4. I spent time on Friday night and Saturday with four of my best friends, two are mentors. It was wonderful.

    Family spring cleaning the shop. I’m cleaning the garage today. And the sun is shining. All good on the west coast. Although, eldest son and wife are still going on a trip to Morocco in a week. They are taking all precautions and ramping up the vitamins etc. Still.

    Neighbours cancelled a big trip to the Mediterranean and Paris. Loosing a lot of money as the insurance company is not covering the trip. My dear friend has a compromised immune system. They are the best neighbours ever. Strange times.

  5. Bah! Humbug!

    Me, the dotter, and a coworker have been sharing a cold/cough back and forth among us for weeks. If we manage to stop hacking, a child will take it up and eventually return it.

    And it’s my turn. No respiratory problem is a good combination with CHF. I’m at the stage where I must be semi-upright to sleep. I have a wedge…

    Worst of all, I don’t feel ‘orrible. I could easily escort the dotter to dinner, but picture public dining with someone who seemingly coughs up a lung every few minutes…

    Bah. Humbug.

    1. That’s where I was. At the doc’s for a routine check-up, some woman starting talking about how you had to wear a mask if you were coughing, and I started to cough. Couldn’t stop. Hadn’t been coughing before and didn’t cough after, but the power of suggestion hit me right in the lungs.

      Now I’m debating about my granddaughter’s last basketball game. I want to go but there are crowds and I’m in the danger group. Argh. Of course, how much of a crowd can there be at an elementary girls’ basketball game?

  6. I’m good — had the last cortisone shot before knee replacement surgery in June. Pain free for a couple of weeks at least!

    On a medicine for Sjogren’s Syndrome that has my sense of taste working better than it has in decades. No more pain when I have ketchup or toothpaste.

    Doing exercises for the bad knee is actually brightening my mood.

    Waiting as long as possible to decide whether we go on planned trip to Italy in April — won’t cancel until we have to. For us it’s only loss of extra money — I worry about everyone who is being neglected during the epidemic, or who can’t not work/babysit/whatever.

    1. A friend’s mother has Sjogren’s, and it inspired him to create the autoimmune registry because he’s a data guy and frustrated by how little information there is on immune disorders, down to exactly how many there are. His theory is that combining data across immune disorders might get to the core problem they share lead to a breakthrough for ALL disorders instead of dealing with symptoms for one. Anyway, if you’re interested, I know they have a section for Sjogren’s. It’s autoimmuneregistry.org (Always make sure any supposedly philanthropic site has a dot-org ending; there are some bad actors out there pretending to be philanthropic but actually are marketing companies who want to sell your data.)

      Sharing our data in registries is what EVERYONE in the medical community is recommending as the best way to find cures. It was pretty much all anyone talked about at a recent NIH conference on rare disorders.

  7. I got back on that learning to drive horse. I made my first u turn, which was exciting.

  8. We keep getting more snow but even though spring is weeks away, the air feels lighter and the birds are slowly coming back. Work continues to be crazy-making and I decided this week that my last day in the office will be in mid-June. Knowing I have a finite number of weeks left has boosted my mood considerably. Had coffee with a friend yesterday and despite my horrible sense of direction, we found an adorable consignment store that was hiding in plain view in my neighbourhood.

  9. I’m happy to be earning again. Had a friend for the night on Friday, and had a good time. Better weather has let me do more planting; I love the feel of the soil when it’s workable.

    Also made a new collage for my fiction project. Started with the intention of adding to the one I made two or three years ago, but realized I only wanted to keep one element of it. I’m no nearer to being clear about the story, but the collage makes me happy. As do my seedlings coming up.

  10. Stuck at Ground Zero for this virus (Kirkland, Washington, USA) but the sun is out, I have my Sunday newspaper and a fire in the fireplace, so I’m happy! I’m also happy about the aggressive measures being taken by government and businesses here to curtail this virus – centers are closed, colleges have virtual classes, public events are cancelled, my 30-year-old just advised me his weekly D&D group is playing virtually this evening, extensive washing of public transit, etc. We will get thru this!

  11. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? If you don’t test for the virus and keep people on cruise ships, will the number of cases increase? I sang happy birthday with another women in the restroom while we washed our hands, laughling. I probably will not start staying home for a few more weeks; hard to say because of the lack of usable info. And I’ll stock up on my favorite pantry items, but not excessively.

    One cousin has been in the hospital (91 years old, heart failure, etc.). I finally got over to see her and a few of the out-of-town cousins were there. Nice to see them in a non-funeral setting. Anyway, the cousin seems a bit better than she has been.

    Next week is my busy week of the month. Very happy that PA has gone to a ‘no excuse’ paper mail-in ballot. Hope it increases turnout.

    Happy the wind has died down and it’s getting warmer. Happy the days are longer.

  12. I Got my bike out for the first time this year. It’s like Spring here, at least for a few days.

    2. It was like that at home for me too but I’m in Vancouver for the rugby tournament so I wasn’t that cold. Nearly froze my hands with the ice water coming out of the taps at BC Place though. Boilers couldn’t keep up with nearly 40,000 people actually washing their hands.

  14. I’ve been dealing with mud season roads all weekend. Got sideways in a muddy spot yesterday, but there is rarely any traffic around here so I just straightened the car out and kept going. The sun was lovely and warm coming through the window, but we still need a fire in the woodstove as it’s cold at night.

    I wish I could believe this is really Spring, but I’ve lived through too many bitterly cold Aprils in Vermont to get my hopes up.

    I’m a tad grouchy anyway, I discovered that diet soda – no sugar, no carbs – sends my blood sugar skyrocketing. Now I have to rethink my beverage choices. I am not a happy camper. I like cold water and drink that a lot, but diet soda was my destresser. Now, what will I do? I wish sparkling water did it for me, but it’s bitter when I’m craving sweet. Definitely very cranky.

    2. I gave up diet soda voluntarily a couple of years ago, but I still miss the pshht of a cold can opening up. I’ve found that the San Pellegrino fruit waters are pretty tasty and satisfy that craving – even the low calorie ones.

    3. In addition to fruit-flavored water, slices of cucumber in water make it surprisingly tasty and refreshing to me.

      Though like Nancy H, nothing replaces the sharp crack sound when opening the tab on an aluminum can. I get that gratification and more when I cheat with Starbucks’ double-shot expressos from the supermarket.

    4. I used to put vanilla extract in soda, or milk, or tea. These days too much makes my ears ring, who would have thought. Or real licorice root, maybe? Good luck finding something

  15. This faux-spring week has been very good for me. I went out for walks as often as I had time, and found a great horned owl nest (with very asleep, and very serious-looking mama stationed atop). Also a red-tailed hawk collecting nesting materials, and a lot of very bossy geese (they pair off at the first sign of spring, and then loudly protest any threats to their monogamy…such as people trying to go for walks). The birds are convinced it is spring, while I am convinced that we probably have some very large snowstorms yet to come.

    The happiest moment was on an evening earlier this week, which started with me feeling very sad. My older dog, Gila, is very empathetic (also kind of a clumsy oaf, although she means well). We decided to watch an episode on Netflix, and I lay down on the couch to get comfy. Unprompted, Gila — who seems to be able to tell if I am feeling low — climbed up and insisted on stretching out next to me. At full stretch, she is a good five feet long, so I had acres of insistently-loving dog pressed against almost all of me. She nudged her big head under my chin, and I stroked her, and felt immensely comforted. As time passed, however, she became so comfortable that she lolled back, head tipping ludicrously upside-down, and fell floppily asleep. So the second half of the episode was just me holding my snoring, happy dog, and feeling somehow enormously comforted. But I have no idea what happened, because the snores drowned out 90% of the dialogue.

  16. My happiness was a very fun weekend of rugby and no snow. Of course, if the forecast was right, our car will have have 4” of snow on it in the airport parking lot.

    Canada won third at the tournament, loosing a heart breaker to Australia in the semi finals but beating South Africa.

    Tomorrow we head home to our dogs, also a happy thing.

  17. I’m no longer sick.

    I got yelled at at work all week, but not on Friday, at least. (Sadly, that’s…extremely good for my work.)

    I finished the crush’s birthday present–a handknit tie with Hamilton logo embroidered on it. I actually saw the crush on Saturday (still am not seeing him much) and was able to give it to him in person for a change. He really liked it/was amused, as far as I can tell. So there’s that. Also, the business he works in is moving, but not until after my birthday, so if I actually do anything for said birthday, he’s not ruled out from coming. We shall see.

    I also got to help a friend pick out her first crochet project, went to the gym and went to a “peacock party” (papercrafting). And most of my friends showed at karaoke this week, which hasn’t been happening lately. So there’s that!

  18. The preparing to move purge continues – among other things I got rid of 70 pairs of shoes this week. Many of them went to a friend who also wears a 9.5, so I can be grateful they went to a good home. I’m a tad appalled that I’d amassed so many, I must confess.

    Painters come tomorrow to start on the entire interior – while we’ve gotten rid of a lot of stuff, they’re still going to have to do room-by-room and shift things around to do the actual painting, so this should be interesting.

    I’m finding that I’m feeling…lighter, I suppose… with less stuff around me. We still have a long way to go (DH worked in the music industry, so there are thousands of cds to contend with), but I can easily access anything in my closet now, which wasn’t the case a week ago, and it’s quite wonderful.

  19. My younger kid (21)(it’s all relative) is doing a course her sibling did a couple years ago, and I did out of high school (https://www.sea.edu/) and my father, mother and brother all worked for them at various points. Her sibling was visiting her at the shore campus in Woods Hole, and the pair of them went spelunking in the library, and found my research project from my trip, circa 1978, the trip for the current program director, and a half a dozen places where their grandfather was on the ship. I am delighted they a)cared enough to look and 2) told me about it, with a lot of giggling.

  20. Went to the Milwaukee Art Museum to see European masterworks on loan from the Phillips museum in D.C. It is so cool to stand three feet from a Cezanne, a Degas, a Bonnard and imagine each brush stroke being placed. On the Degas you can even see where he shifted a dancer’s arm or moved the barre.

    I’ve been taking a watercolor class, and it helped me see these paintings in a new way. I went home inspired.

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