Wait, it's the middle of February already? Yikes... <sigh> Okay, let's get to catching up, shall we...?
LOOKING BACK
Ten years ago, we were still dealing with Snowmageddon. Friends of ours managed to squeeze in a "welcome" party for their baby boy in between the episodes of too much flaky white stuff falling from the sky, but most of January and the beginning of February were spent shoveling snow, moving snow, dealing with snow, talking about snow, developing an intense hatred for and fear of snow... You know, "winter stuff" (and way the heck too much of it).
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| January 20th... Here we go again... |
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| February 3rd... More coming (at night this time) |
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| February 8th - The bush by my front door (it's in there somewhere...) |
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| February 8th - I had to dig out my heat pump again... |
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| February 9th - One learned to avoid standing under overhangs. |
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| February 9th - We put out bread and it disappeared in under an hour! |
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| February 10th - It's still coming down but I gotta go out & rescue the heat pump AGAIN.... |
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| February 10th - Heat pump is OK again, but that's not snow... it's solid ice! |
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| February 10th - I looked up and decided I'd dug out the heat pump for long enough. |
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| February 10th - Yep, I shoveled all that... and that's just the backyard! |
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| February 11th - The view out my left-hand bedroom window (this beast kept growing). |
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| February 12th - The view out my right-hand bedroom window. |
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| February 14th - My giant Valentine's Day icicle just kept growing... |
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| February 18th - It's STILL growing...! |
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| February 18th - Even with melting under way, people ran out of where to pile the snow. |
Needless to say, China seemed to be very, very far away... The only good thing about all the snow-related problems was that they took our minds off the fact that AJ's LID (Log-In Date for her adoption papers with the authorities in China) was about four and a half years in the past, with nearly zero apparent progress.
LOOKING AROUND
Back to the present day. I won't go into details, but I will say that in many ways, January positively sucked and February has kept everyone's stress meters pegged in the red. In between some of the goings-on at Miri's school, the crazy scheduling that revolves around the dance team and her Chinese dance group, AJ's job and crazy schedule, all the lovely medical adventures related to parents in their mid-to-late 80s, looming deadlines with ever-busier days, unplanned thises and thatses and otherses, a suddenly ill family cat who may not be recovering, and a bunch of other stuff... Let's just say that I think I need a refund on 2020 because so far it sure ain't what I ordered from the menu!
That said, there have been some very nice moments in which we could all take a deep breath. AJ & the Pipsqueak spent the evening of the Lunar New Year with some dear friends, overnighting at their house and then checking out the free Lunar New Year 2020 Winter Lanterns festival at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in DC.
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| Our family Ox... definitely stubborn, but definitely cute! |
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| My sister is, technically speaking, a member of Slytherin House.... |
It wasn't long before they were zooming home for costumes, cosmetics, etc. and then zooming to Lakeforest Mall where Miri and the other girls in the CLAPS Chinese dance class performed at the mall's big annual Chinese New Year celebration and then a couple of weeks later a much smaller group (as in, Miri and just two other girls) performed again at the Montgomery Mall CNY celebration. (
Pictures and info coming soon, I first have to clear space on my laptop's SSD so I have room to download the pictures & videos from my camera!)
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| A typical "Uncle Brian" pose at a Pipsqueak dance performance! |
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| In costume for the Han "water sleeve dance" |
For the first time since before the Pipsqueak came home, we elected to not attend the FCC's annual Chinese New Year celebration because Miri had a dance competition that same weekend. (The team did OK, but I missed slinging fried rice & lo mein at lunchtime!) The team did OK, and Miri was given a Special Recognition Award at the follow-up two-day DEVIATE Dance Intensive.
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| All that on an iinjured foot...! |
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| Hard Work + Talent = Recognition |
Miri again finished the semester with straight A's on her report card (and is now obsessing over making sure she does it again despite our insisting that whatever grades she gets are OK as long as she really tried to do her best). She also freshened her look a little bit, biting the bullet and having a full 5-½ inches taken off the ends of her hair a week ago. (Don't worry, it's still plenty long!)
Oh, and we finally resolved the question of why a smart young lady who loves reading had difficulty reading...
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| They're just for reading... and we all think she looks cute in them! |
Cue the "I look like a NERD!" comment, followed by about ten minutes looking carefully at herself in every nearby reflective surface, followed by, "I think I look good in these!" :-)
LOOKING FORWARD
The next couple of weeks are gonna be interestin'... as in, "I pray for boredom but it never comes!" We have another scheduled vet visit with poor Tigger, who would be fine if he would just start pooping normally again on his own (but who otherwise might not be with us much longer). There are some human doctor visits scheduled, I have to get to the MVA to get my license updated to the federal RealID standard, there's a flat tire to take care of and a "check engine" light to investigate... and Miri & AJ will be spending another long weekend in Virginia for yet another dance competition -- one that we had originally all planned to attend because it was supposed to be close by, but inexplicably was moved quite a distance away very suddenly last week so that now we can't easily get there plus there's the cost of a hotel involved... which pretty much sums up the year to date in a nutshell. <sigh> The one thing we are all thankful for is that every time it's gotten really cold around here, it's stopped raining... and when it's been raining, the temperatures have been high enough for us to avoid all that scary white flaky stuff falling from the sky.
On the other hand, we're not quite halfway through February... Stay tuned!
