Omicron one by one

 Omicron has paid us a visit. It started with me, the only one of us who doesn't go to school every day. I started feeling off last Wednesday (January 12th), but didn't feel bad enough to put life on hold until Friday (Jan 14th), when I spent all day huddled in a recliner in the corner of my bedroom, watching a K-drama on Netflix. It was a snow day, minus the snow, with a whole lot of slick ice, so Jeff and the kids were home from school. Jeff did everything and I have to say it was such a relief not to have to push through a sickness. I resisted succumbing to how rotten I felt until Jeff sat me down and turned on the TV on Friday morning. 

My symptoms weren't terrible, just fatigue, headache, stuffy head, and a cough. But I sure didn't feel good! My appetite was gone and my body was limp. On Thursday when I was starting to accept that I was coming down with something, I went to our local free Covid testing center. There was a line of close to 40 people standing outside in the 33 degree rain waiting to be tested, so I turned around and went home without getting tested. What was the point? I was going to stay home while I was sick, regardless of what sickness I had, and standing outside in the cold wet for hours with a bunch of sick people just to get tested seemed like it would do more harm than good. 

Remembering Grama Brown

My grandma Lamona Brown died on Friday, January 7th, 2022. She was such a kind intelligent talented lady. One of my most frequent memories of her is of what she said every time I saw her. She would open her long arms wide and say "give me some loves!" in an invitation to hug. Even though I didn't get see or talk with her very often (about once or twice a year) in my adult life, I always felt her love. She was the epitome of patient enduring to the end and lived her last few years blind in a frail body, while her mind stayed sharp.

Snoweek

Sunnyside caught the edge of the enormous snowstorm that pounded the northern and western parts of Washington last week. The first day of school in 2022 was a snow day at home, and there only ended up being one day that week where school kept regular hours--we had 2 snow days and 2 two hour delay days in the first week of January! That kind of uncertainty made it hard to get into a daily routine, but we enjoyed our first big snowfall of the year with snowmen and lots of hot chocolate, and even managed to do some much-needed household chores on the side.

December Books

Another year of reading is in the books. Pun intended! I thought I'd add my other yearly stats to my December books post. In 2021:

• I read 188 books: 27 non-fiction/166 fiction (24 audiobooks, 31 re-reads)  
• I ran 1350 miles  
• I biked 568 miles
• I wrote 150,000 words on this blog (probably closer to 145k of my own words, subtracting all of those delicious book quotes that I shared each month)

Compared to last year, that's 15 more books read, 18 more miles run, 237 more miles biked, and 5-10k more blog words written. Honestly, after the shutdowns of 2020, I did not think I'd do more of my three R's in 2021. I don't aspire to do more of my favorite activities each year (balance is key), but I do like seeing the stats of how much I have done those activities. I love to read, run and write! (My biking kind of died out during cross country season, but hopefully I'll get back in the saddle in springtime.)

Skating into the new year

The canal in front of our house froze into a thick slick smooth sturdy surface in time for some New Year's Eve ice skating. It was THE BEST ice we've ever had! Smooth and thick and wide. There was zero liquid water under the ice--it was frozen solid straight through its one foot depth. We had to shovel some snow off of it, but not too much because it was a thin covering and we could mostly skate through it. Jay chose not to skate. Rose got very frustrated while getting ready to skate (bunching sleeves and tricky skate laces). Jeff laced up his black figure skates and calmly glided up and down the canal for a while before heading inside. Once Rose was done skating, I helped Amber into our women's size 8 skates (they were huge but I laced them tight for her). Amber and I had a blast skating together! We were out there for over 2 hours.

Christmas in Denver

 After we had our family Christmas at home, we flew to Denver for Christmas part 2 with my side of the family. We left on Thursday, December 23rd and got home on Wednesday the 29th. It was a slightly confusing mid-week to mid-week trip, but traveling at those times was the most economical and gave us a cushion of at-home time on both sides of our trip, to relax and recover. Our direct flight from Pasco to Denver was so sleek and easy. There was a little turbulence, but other than that the 2 hour 20 minute flight was smooth--always a relief to my motion-sickness-prone constitution. 

Our Family Christmas

 Due to holiday travel plans, we had our family Christmas on December 20th, which was also our 15th wedding anniversary: double the celebrating! We loved the freedom of choosing our own day to celebrate Christmas, and we loved having Christmas early. We have tried different ways to celebrate Christmas in the past, but we've never simply moved the date and kept everything else the same like we did this year. It was awesome! No calendar will control us! Haha. The kids started calling it "Fake Christmas," but that sounded bad so I told them to call it "our family Christmas" instead, and thankfully the name caught on quickly. 

Sunday December 19th, was officially our family Christmas Eve. After enjoying the lovely inspiring Christmas music program at church, we began our own family Christmas Eve celebrations. It was the perfect follow-up after a festive spiritual Christmas-y church service.

White Stuff

White stuff from our week: gift wrapping, snow, braces, school, cookies, church, and a little more snow.

Monday, December 13th: I wrapped the first four gifts of the season today! Let's just say I'm out of practice, and I was never a very good wrapper to begin with. The struggle is real.

Tuesday, December 14th: Jay got braces today! They are only on his top teeth so far; he will get brackets on the bottom teeth next month. Signing the paperwork for braces was like getting a mortgage! Jay and I both had to initial next to practically every sentence on multiple pages.

The Couch

We got a new couch last week! It was time. It had been time for years. Our former couch was ten years old and so dead. The springs in the cushions were all sprung and wonky from years of performing double duty as a trampoline. It was a budget Costco couch floor model, so it had already seen plenty of wear before we even bought it back when Rose was a baby. There were only one and a half semi-comfortable seats on the entire couch, and they were always hotly contested before family movie nights. Everyone else just had to sit on the floor, sit on the old Ikea chair, or sit on the pointy springs till their gluteus muscles either rebelled or fell asleep. 

November Books

I read 14 books in November. 

Amber, Jay, and Rose

 Ah, motherhood. The refiner's fire of refiner's fires. I started this as a simple post to share a few of Amber's recent antics, but then it morphed into other introspective motherly musings. That's what I love about writing-- I start with one idea and then my fingers take it from there and tell me what's really on my mind. To quote Flannery O'Connor, "I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say." Classic introvert communication style and thought processing! Anyways, first up are five of Amber's latest antics, followed by some things I love about my kids and the journey of motherhood.

The 7-hour Christmas Tree and the 25 minute Parade

Per family tradition, we headed west to the mountains to find our Christmas tree on the day after Thanksgiving. It was an 80 minute drive to our favorite tree finding spot in the central Cascades just east of White Pass. Our friends the Kannely family joined us again this year, which is always fun. We hiked about a half mile up a forest service road before striking out into the forest to find the perfect mountain Christmas tree.  It wasn't very cold or snowy this year, so our hike was quick and quite easy compared to scrambling through deep snow like we've done in the past. We didn't even bring our sled.