Archives for November 2021

Young children have developmental stages of art. It is very common for 3 and 4-year-olds to draw people that are just a head with legs coming out of the bottom. As they enter my room, I usually get to see them make the transition to drawing bodies on their own. It’s fascinating. If they are still doing it when they are 5-ish, it’s time for me to have a conversation with them about how, “Y’know, when I look at you, your legs don’t come out of your head. They are way down there at the bottom of your body.” Usually there’s a laugh and they start to see it.

However. This year I have a boy who is a bit of a puzzle. He is delightful in so many ways, but there are other goals that I have for him. Yesterday we drew what we we did for Thanksgiving – the people and the food. Here are his people.

Errrmmm……. I think that one is …. happy.

I’ve kind of kept going with the ‘busy in the morning, lazy in the afternoon’ model of this holiday. On Friday, we had to go to Lincoln to buy two things: Christmas lights for a tree at school and a cat tree. We went late in the morning to avoid as much of the Black Friday crowds as possible (for me), and it went pretty well.

The tree decorating was time-sensitive because a photographer from the architecture firm that designed the Child Development Center was coming to take photos, and the giant tree in the commons didn’t have any lights on it. (He was supposed to come earlier in the year, but stuff kept coming up.) Lloyd helped with that, and then it was home to assemble the cat tree!

The cats (really just Emme) are using the new furniture as scratching posts. We got a deal on a cat tree at PetSmart, but after I assembled the SEVENTY-INCH TALL tree, I realized it was a bit of a monstrosity.

I took the top levels off and it’s much better. Nobody’s really using it yet, but I’m encouraging participation with lots of catnip.

On Saturday, we finally took the old living room chairs to the dump. I was so excited to go there! It was a bit anti-climactic since I didn’t get to drive to the edge of a garbage cliff and send them careening down into the abyss. We just drove up to a big roll-off and chucked them in.

After that, we were close enough to the little town of Beaver Crossing (population 418), I suggested we go to Beaver Hardware, a store owned by a high school friend of Lloyd’s. It is a crazy, awesome store. It’s really all the stores along one block of this tiny town, connected through the walls to become a giant store. I love it. Lloyd wanted to buy two new snow shovels since ours are rather battered. I felt good supporting Shop Small Saturday (or whatever that’s called).

Back home, we relaxed for a little while and then (don’t panic) – dug a grave. Ralph is still with us, and in many ways he seems to be just fine, but he now weighs as much as Emme (11 pounds), and has been barfing a lot. (I’ve been saying that if he ever weighs less than she does, maybe it’s time for him to go. He used to be 20 pounds, for cryin’ out loud, and we throw away six pounds of cat litter each day – it’s those giant bricks of pee.) If he goes in the middle of winter, it would be tough to dig in frozen ground. So, there’s a hole out back with an empty five-gallon bucket in it to save the space. Not the happiest thought, but it seemed good to be prepared.

Sorry for ending on such a downer. Who knows? Maybe he’ll perk right up.

It was a pretty good day – or ‘Thursday’, as it was. Lloyd and I didn’t get out of our pajamas, and I got a bunch of stuff done in the morning. I find that I am pretty productive in the morning, and my energy wanes as the day goes on.

One of the jobs was to edit the stuff on top of the piano. It is a catch all for things and when I notice it, it drives me a little crazy. (I don’t notice it often.) Here’s the before:

Baskets, piles and the horns from Lloyd’s grandma’s cow, Lady Bird. It’s not terrible, but it is certainly a lot of stuff. I took everything down and then even pulled the piano away from the wall. It was sooooooooooooooooo dirty. There’s an air intake vent back there and it was totally clogged with dust and fuzz.

Bleh. Thank goodness I have that amazing vacuum. I put it through its paces. Afterward, Lloyd helped me decide what should go and what should stay.

We’ll see how long this lasts. After that, we cleaned the Tower of Snacks, I defrosted the basement freezer, made a sub-par turkey, and then we ate. I took a sizable nap and checked on Kate’s cat, and that was it.

I never made the pie. There’s always today!

I am off these next two days. Travel is not possible around this holiday unless we want to start driving somewhere at 6:30 Wednesday night, so we are tucked in for the next few days. I thawed a $5 turkey that we were keeping for Sam in our freezer (sorry, Sam) and will cook that up today. Along with Stovetop stuffing and mashed potatoes, we’re calling it good. With any luck, I might even make a pie.

I have a List. As we speak, I am jotting things down on it. I would really, really, really like to get as much done on the list as possible, but we all know how this will probably turn out. We’ll see. I have it divided into things that Must Happen, Should Happen and Want To Happen.

For the ‘Must’, I am not watching Sam and Rachel’s dog, but I am looking out for a friend’s cat. Can’t forget the cat. There are also some errands that need to happen. Under ‘Should’, there are various house cleaning/organizational things that would be good to get done, but are not urgent. Under ‘Want’ – well, it’s the pie.

I think I’ll start with the pie. Happy Thanksgiving!

Today, Wednesday, is the last day of the week. It has been very tiring. Lots of our college staff leave for the week of Thanksgiving and the rest of us work to cover. My poor director spends most of her day working to make sure we have enough staff, and she is exhausted.

Anyway, at least I’ll have a smaller group today, and it should be a pretty fun, nice day. I hope that everyone has a lovely Wednesday!

We all know it’s a bad idea to google symptoms, right? I often joke about how my primary physician is Dr. Google. Well, after my big stomach troubles that took forever to get better, then the little cold a couple of weeks ago, I had a glob of yuck in the back of my throat that wouldn’t leave, and on Friday, my ears hurt when I swallowed. Great.

Friday night was very restless. I went to bed super-early but woke up every hour the rest of the night. (Lloyd was up with pre-sale adrenaline.) The pain was bad enough that I looked up ‘urgent care’ at 4 a.m. I was going to be busy at the sale until early afternoon, but I found an option to have a virtual visit mid-afternoon, so I booked it. I entered all my information – insurance, drivers license, address, phone number, symptoms, blah blah blah. It was all done and I realized….. they were going to try to have a video call on my flip phone. Oops.

As it turned out, I could have the visit on my iPad. The lady (she was in Grand Island, I was in Lincoln) was very nice. I told her I was pretty sure it was a sinus infection and she hooked me up with medicine and some other information.

I had already been gargling with salt water, and she asked if I knew about nasal rinsing. I did, but not about the cool device she recommended. My friend Stephannie is a big fan of the neti pot, and I’ve used a regular teapot (sorry) to pour salt water through my nose before. But this squirty bottle? It’s a game changer. You don’t have to tip your head to the side – just load and squirt. Gross, but effective.

So, I am incredibly happy that I can swallow without wanting to carve my ears out of my head.

In other medically-related news, my sister Keren just had hernia surgery yesterday and my brother Phil is waiting on some tests, so prayers for them would be very welcome!