Sad Days

I haven't been doing a very good job of keeping up on the pictures this week. A dear friend of ours, someone Karen has worked with and been very close to for nearly ten years, died suddenly of a heart attack, and we have been busy with hospital visits and, ultimately, communicating with his relatives, particularly his sister, about arrangements.

It was very shocking. We were going to be at Michael's house for a dinner party the day his heart attack came. He had been very excited about showing off the things he'd done with his house, including a new kitchen which Karen had designed for him. He had even set the table with his guest china the night before. Michael was only 57 years old.

Usually I try to report the pleasant things that are happening in our lives on this blog, and there are plenty of those. There's a new job for me, the weather's been pretty kind to us (although I hear we're going to get slammed with ice tomorrow night), and we certainly have been eating well with everyone in the house cooking.

Still, I thought is was important to tell the story so that you'd know that our neglect of the site (among other things) was not due to ill health or any household calamity. We've just had a lot on our plates, and our minds. The funeral will be on Wednesday, and life will continue, though poor Karen will have to face Michael's absence each day at work.

It also, as deaths at a young age often do, has given us pause and made us think a bit more about what we're spending our time on, and thinking about what we might do to make better use of time.

Speaking of time, our schedules are about to get a little crazy, as once I'm out of my training period, my shifts will be nearly as unpredictable as Karen's. That should make things, well, interesting. It also means there will have to be another car in our driveway very soon. Oh joy.

But the new job will add some flexibility to our finances, and that can only be a good thing.

It's Like a Heat Wave

Right now, the temperature outside is 45 degrees. We have come far enough in the winter to refer to this as mid-January, and it's 45 degrees. It's been raining. That's right, raining. I went off to the store in shirtsleeves. No coat. Really.

The storm I wrote about was as big as we were led to believe it would be, but not as bad, because (and this seems so strange to me now), the temperature stayed well below freezing and the foot-and-a-half of snow that fell was light, dry, and easy to shovel. It didn't weigh down the trees or the power lines, and all the preparations we made for a power outage turned out to be unnecessary. But I'm ready for the next one, which is bound to come.

I think. It's definitely been a weird winter so far, even just a few weeks in.

Not that I'm really complaining, at least for my own sake, though i do worry that some of my neighbors with shallow wells may not fare so well in the coming summer if we don't get a better snow pack.

Meanwhile, life goes on pretty much as usual. School, work, the perpetual construction on the house—I'm even learning to install a sink for the basement kitchen—and whatever extracurricular activities we can squeeze in.

And, occasionally, sleep, which is what I'm going to try to get some of right now.