Brrrr!!

I have a common cold. I pretty sure I feel worse than most people though because for them it's business as usual and I didn't even get out of bed for two days. My husband has taken to sleeping on another floor because my barking is keeping him awake. It keeps me awake too. It may even be keeping the neighbors up because I'm pretty sure I'm rattling the entire house with every coughing fit.

Somewhere while I was wrapped snugly in my own little cocoon of mini-misery, 2014 turned into 2015 and now we're in the middle of an arctic blast of frigid air. I know this because the National Weather Service keeps sending me alerts. Judging from the number of emails I've received, our local utilities company is quite concerned about frozen pipes as well.

I want to get back to my normal routine so this morning I decided to go for a walk. Neither of my walking partners cared to join me although one did text me to “Bundle up. It's cold out there."  

Never one to ignore good advice, I did just that: I put on two pair of pants, an undershirt, tee shirt, sweatshirt, polar tec fleece, hat, mittens and my real winter coat. Toasty warm, I headed off into the winter weather.

Northern girls layer

Out of nowhere, a dog lunged at me. This dog has allowed me to pass by many, many times so I can only attribute his behavior today to the fact that he mistook me for an Ewok. 

Another walker passed me. She said “We're the only ones brave enough to be out today. ” I asked her where she was from. “Virginia,” she said. “You ARE brave!” I replied and she smiled.

I was beginning to feel feverish so I removed my hat and gloves. As I was taking off my coat, I realized that I couldn't even see my breath. How cold can it be when you can't even see your breath? Maybe I'm not feverish! Maybe I'm overdressed.

When I got home, I decided to check the official temperature. “37 feels like 33.”

Sub 40. This IS serious cold.

WW.StillSwimmingUpstream.com

While Walking

Although being a "one car family" sounds good on paper, in reality it's no fun.  Jer's car is in the shop getting fixed from the Big Little Crash of 2012.  It was supposed to be finished on Wednesday so we thought if we gave it a couple of extra days, we'd be safe in picking it up this morning.  (Auto body repair men work on their own timetables and they are incomprehensible to laymen.)  Bright and early this morning we arrived.  It will be ready after noon,  they said.

Jer usually gets to work way, way before 'bright and early' and he was in a rush to get going.  I told him to drop me off past the major intersection and I'd walk home.  Truth be told, if I would have had the presence of mind to grab my cell phone on the way out the door, I might have called a friend to hitch a ride home but walking is my favorite form of exercise and it was a good day for it. I arrived at our driveway an hour and a half later.  Whew!

When I was little, our family had only one car.  When Mom wanted or needed to use it, she simply took Dad to work.  Most days the car sat in the parking lot of the company where Dad worked and we walked wherever we wanted to go.  If an emergency arose, some Mom in the neighborhood who had a car that day would drive us to the doctor's office or to the hospital, depending upon the amount of blood involved.  If Mom had the car and somebody else's kid ran the lawnmower over their foot (yes, really) Mom would return the favor.

We don't live in a village, town or city; we live in a residential community.  This means that we don't have any businesses nearby.   None. No grocery store, no post office, no library.  To get groceries, I'd have to walk almost five-and-a-half hours round trip and I wouldn't want to be carrying much.  Becoming a single-car family lost its charm roughly at the same time I realized this.

I met a lot of dogs on my walk today though.  One eleven-month-old beauty with red fur, aptly named Reba, really seemed to like me.  While she was enjoying my personal space, her owner told me that they were going to start a twelve-step program next week.

Not Reba but still a cute dog.

"Isn't that courageous," I thought, "to tell a perfect stranger about your alcohol abuse issues?"  (They do say that to admit you have a problem is the first step toward recovery.)  While I was forming a sensitive response to this admission, he clarified, "Reba will make an excellent nursing home dog."

How wonderful that the world contains people (and dogs) that are willing to share their love and their time with others.  While I'm not willing to abandon my vehicle quite yet, I enjoyed meeting Reba today and I am pretty sure the folks in the nursing home are going to feel the same way. 

Brody is ONE!!

Time does fly and our beautiful grandson Brody celebrated his first birthday last week.  I have been lucky to spend so much time with him during this year and two weeks ago he came to visit, bringing his mom and lots of baby paraphernalia with him.   What a joy to have him here!  We're all crazy in love with him.

He's got three little teeth now, pulls up on things, stands alone briefly, is clearly thinking about stepping out on his own but for now seems content to crawl like he's in the Army - rapidly and with purpose.  He also has a great personality, smiles a lot and laughs with abandon when he finds something funny which is often. 

His Grampy taught him to crawl up the stairs and as soon as he learned this trick he spent a lot of time going up and being carried down.  They both genuinely seemed to enjoy this activity and neither his mom nor I objected because it kept them busy for rather large chunks of time. 

The next day Grampy had to go to work and Brody started to crawl toward the staircase, stopped and looked to be sure that I was following him then went up one stair to the landing, turned and looked at me again and waited.  I had not started up behind him yet so he was sitting level to my face.  Just for a second, the most impish, mischievous expression crossed his face then he smiled his angelic smile and leaned over to me.

I swear in that moment while waiting for a kiss from my first grandchild, I thought he was absolutely perfect in every way.  Then, he leaned in further and.....

.....bit my cheek. 

That cheek chomping hurt but I couldn't stop myself from laughing even though my daughter scolded me that it was an inappropriate response.  Men!  You can never truly know what they are thinking and that goes for cute little one-year-old men-in-training, too.

Happy Birthday, Brody!

What's enough?

Now that I'm "retired" from active mothering, occasionally I regret not having a career.  Or even a job.  It's not that I wouldn't enjoy being gainfully employed, it's simply that no one has called and graciously invited me to walk through their door and enter the working world.


Yesterday as I was starting my morning walk, I stopped to help my neighbor put some stair treads in his truck.  We got to talking about what's wrong with government, why we don't have cable tv, how we still don't know what we want to be when we grow up and wound up discussing ways to make a positive impact on our children.


As I was walking away, the thought struck me:  Could it be possible that I'm right where I'm meant to be, doing what I'm supposed to be doing? 


Maybe helping your neighbor really is enough.