all that's past is prologue...

Beatrix is sick of us. At the same time, she doesn't really remember what a full week of school is like (the last time she had a full week in a row was before Christmas), and she is decidedly lukewarm on school, as well. And tomorrow is another day off. It's been a long weekend of waiting for the shoe to drop with the robo-call from SPPS announcing school would be closed tomorrow. Now I suppose we are waiting on Tuesday. I'm mixed as to how I feel. The Saint Paul school district does not traditionally close school without a lot of thought. They are all-too-aware that they leaves thousands of families without childcare, many of whom can't bring their kids to work or flex their schedules so that those kids are at home all day alone. They know that, in many cases, that school lunch may be the only hot meal that many children get that day. But they also know that their bussing contracts are — shall we say — less than ideal? And that many parents have to leave before...

Not necessarily a "guest post," since I am the lead writer for the Summit Avenue Residential Preservation Association blog as well. But still fun: Skating on Summit (why don't you go ahead and follow that blog too? We could use some readers).

After a long and stress-filled day, my night started like this: Then Sherlock, with this: I feel better now.

I have kind of a polar vortex hangover. It seems like forever since we have had our real lives. The weekend before Christmas, we were all felled by an awful fever virus — first Beatrix, then Patrick, then me. Then the weird, mid-week Christmas — weekend — mid-week New Year pattern, which seemed like one long fantasy break full of friends and family. Two days back at school (less or none for those in other districts, thank goodness for the SPPS' decision to start earlier!) Then the weekend and days and days of cold. I didn't do the boiling water experiment, but everyone else on my Facebook feed did. We did, ill-advisedly, take Beatrix to the MOA for free rides. Our friend Clara and her son Alex hung out with Beatrix and kept our sanity together. Today, it's back to usual, to school and before-school Spanish class and to a little girl who woke up at 5am and could not get back to sleep. To the dark, cold mornings that make me seriously wonder if we could get a morning ...

Like every other Twin Citizen, we hit the grocery stores today. Target was crazy enough, but Trader Joe's had been decimated; employees were taking advantage of the situation by cleaning out the displays with mini vacuum cleaners. Seriously, the limes were all gone, so no G&T for me! As I walked through the dairy area, there was  amok asking her teenage daughter "What do you want for breakfast for the next few days?" To which she snakily answered "Caribou." Which kind of sums it up. The reason the stores are so picked over is not because we think we can eat our way out of a cold snap (or put on weight to hibernate). It's because we are used to eating the majority of our meals out, and when we are faced with staying home, we get a little panicked. We buy All The Limes, and put a run on the frozen pizzas and the chili fixings. WE have cabin fever before the cold has even set in. I looked it up tonight, and a few studies said that 25% of Americans eat...

I love New Year's Resolutions. Last week I looked over what I had done (see earlier post), and I had a nice little list of ones for 2014, tucked away in little word files on my computer. Patrick and I had discussed joint resolutions. Most of mine were kind of task-oriented — see how easy? I could knock them off in one day, if needed. But that's the problem with being married to a writer. There we were at Original Pancake House, discussing resolutions. And sometime after that discussion — and before the teenager behind us ended up puking up all his strawberry pancakes all over the floor — suddenly I was not so enamored of my resolutions anymore. For instance, my BHAG was to knock off every item on the 27-item list of home improvements I had made for Ashland about 6 weeks ago. It's a pretty comprehensive list of things that need to be done, including: cleaning out the basement and the garage new shades for the guest room redoing the upstairs hallway repainting the gue...