Keep Truckin'

Clearly, I haven't taken much time to blog over the past year. There's been a lot happening, and it just hasn't been a priority. There was a time I would have felt sad about that, but I guess I have a better-placed priority list, now (since there's an absence of guilt).

What's been going on? Just a few things.

• I became the web administrator for our town.
• I helped the town rebuild their website.
• My kids are still small enough to play in the water in the bathroom and make an extraordinary mess every day—and dump out all the shampoo. (I really thought we were past that, but I was mistaken.)
• Nora started Kindergarten and became an adult, basically. I'm still absorbing that.
• About 20% of my day involves answering questions about where specific toys are. Only about 1% of the time do I actually know the answer. Maybe less than that.
• Everett went through a long and (somewhat still) messy potty efficiency process, but we're out of diapers! Whee!
• Willi has been taxed (emotionally/physically) hard at work, and he's there a lot.
• The roof fell in at his work during a blizzard (interstate-closed type of stuff and in Gary, Indiana, where they barely plow the roads on a good day) and caused MAJOR damage. He's lost some staff members while he's been there (various reasons). They were already understaffed. His heart hurts a lot day to day, and I can see it in his face.
• Oh, yeah. I work. I still have my job. So, that.
• We got buried in snow, so I spent a good portion of the winter shoveling the driveway. Then, we scored a free snow blower before the latest snow, which was SWEET.
• Laundry. Dishes. Tripping on toys. Tripping on the dog. Tripping on kids. Trying to clean up the house occasionally. Fixing stuff that breaks (all the stuff breaks). Trying to get Henry to stop telling me he's starving by throwing food at him constantly.
• Actually trying to have real (instead of via social media which was a large portion of my interactions with people while my kids were infants), social, interpersonal relationships/interactions.
• I try to keep moving (which involves a membership at the Y) which serves many purposes: I get a boost of energy, I get a break, it gets my kids out of the house during the winter, and we get discounts on swim lessons (also happening).
• Strep. Strep has been happening. There has been less barf-o-rama this year, though, which has been welcomed—well, at least with the kids. The dog did have a serious barf-o-rama incident on New Year's Eve when he ate an ENTIRE plate of cookies with LOTS of chocolate. That, by far, was probably the grossest thing I've cleaned up to date, and that is actually saying something.
• Oh, and we're trying to be decent parents. So, that. Not sure if that's working yet.

So . . . there's an update.

One day, we'll spend Saturday mornings like these drinking coffee, missing our children, and thinking about going cross country skiing or snow-shoeing or just a walk down to the lake to see how different it looks today. Or, going out to eat somewhere (cool/different). Or doing whatever we want . . . like visiting the children we're missing. Or nothing.

It's not that right now is devoid of enjoyment, but it's definitely not a simple time right now—especially not for Willis. If it isn't a simple time for him, it isn't for me, either. In the meantime, we do what we can, the best we can. Just keep on . . . keep truckin'. Good stuff.