It’s Cold And Boring And That’s Fine

It’s been a quiet month, which is why I’ve been writing about homeschooling and not all the nonexistent exciting things happening here. But, I’m probably due for a bit of an update so a couple highlights/ low lights of the last few weeks.

Weather

Like a lot of the U.S. we had cold weather and snow, and although not as dramatic as snow in Texas or Florida, it’s definitely been colder and snowier here in N.J. than the last few years. Honestly, I’ve been so grateful I don’t need to get the boys up early for school and that we can just stay put in our warm house learning, watching movies, and reading. I love being social, but I hate cold weather more, so my extroverted tendencies has been dampened by the thought of scraping the ice off the car to go anywhere not absolutely essential. Meanwhile, Addie had a two hour delay for her job last week (which is not at a school) because the windchill in Cleveland was -22 degrees, so I can’t complain too much.

Emmaus 90

I started a bible study that’s been organized by the archdiocese of Milwaukee called Emmaus 90. My SIL lives in Milwaukee and invited me to participate with her. Since I wrapped up Bible in a Year in December (after three years!) I’d been wondering how to keep up the habit of reading scripture, and this seemed to fit the bill. And since it’s the 90 days leading up to Easter, I don’t need to add on any additional spiritual practices for Lent. Admittedly, I’ve already missed a couple days. I try to read first thing in the morning, but if something throws off my schedule (see next paragraph), it’s easy to miss a day. But I’m not beating myself up over it, and overall I’m enjoying the program.

Illness

We had a bunch of respiratory colds over the holidays but thankfully they passed through without anyone needing to be hospitalized or take rounds of antibiotics. But bugs continued to run through the parish cancelling co-op one week and dropping attendance there and at Mass. Both boys finally picked up a stomach bug this week but thankfully, we were able to ride it out at home- always a miracle. Unfortunately, it coincided with an infusion of medicine Teddy received. When he started throwing up (in the middle of the night of course), I thought it was some side effect they failed to warn me about, but when Fulton started throwing up as well, I knew it was something else with terrible timing. Teddy actually overcame the bug quicker than Fulton but has dealt with muscle aches related to the infusion. We’re all still catching up on sleep, but thankfully we dealt with only 24 hours of puke.

Substack

I have an account over on Substack now, not for writing posts- I’ll keep doing that here, but to connect with more long form writers and readers. It’s easier than trying to find blogs to add to my feedreader, and most of the content there has active comment sections to engage in. I may try sharing my newsletter content on Substack for free to try to meet new readers interested in what I write here. Nowadays it’s hard to attract new blog readers from social media. Honestly, despite all the hype, I think Substack is another closed system that is not much different than FB or IG; it just supports long form content better. Ultimately, its still a business making money off other people’s content, just through subscriptions instead of ads. Substack is a great place to find good writers, but I don’t know why everyone thinks it is superior to a stand alone blog or website and is making the switch. I think it’s a trend and I’ll be curious to see what the Substack landscape looks like in five years. (Just a reminder, you can get my posts sent to your inbox, just like a Substack post, by entering your name and email and selecting the ‘Notify me of new posts by email.’ box at the bottom of this post. No need to leave a comment. )

Kids

Byron is still job hunting, though he had a promising interview today. His girlfriend is having me come and speak at where she works next week so that should be fun. Addie has resumed spring classes towards her Masters and is competing with the fencing team a lot right now. Edie finally got word that the paperwork she needs to work in the maritime industry is accepted and moving on to the next step (such a process that’s been held up by so many stupid things!!!) The next big thing around here for Teddy, the Chiefs fan, is the Super Bowl. Living in Eagles country puts him at odds with most of our friends and neighbors though. Fulton meanwhile is concerned about our Super Bowl party menu and has been asking me about it since the AFC NFC championship weekend.

Reading

I finished listening to the audio book of William Faulkner’s The Sound and Fury (aff link) and I guess it was a good book in one sense because it stirred up such strong emotions in me, but otherwise, I really didn’t like it and had to listen to it sped up quite a bit because the narrator did so many long dramatic pauses and read the book in the most annoying way possible. I tried reading reviews of the book to figure out what I was missing but I think I just dislike what everyone else loves about it for some reason. Listening to pages and pages of terrible decisions just wears me out. It’s kind of like how I felt about Mad Men, but I still loved Mad Men because I felt like there was resolution whereas this book just felt unfinished. I assumed because I like other Southern writers I’d love Faulkner, but I really struggled with this. Would I enjoy another title of his more? What am I missing?

I have no shareable pictures from the month, so please envision me bundled up in bed writing with dark circles under my eyes, or audibly complaining about Faulkner while wearing large headphones and making dinner. I hope the 3,490 days of January were kind to you and yours.