Isolated

I'm writing this from a room at the timeshare. I'm not staying for recreation; I'm doing a late shift and the roads are not really safe, so I'm staying at the resort tonight, working a morning shift, then going home. Tiring, to be sure, but better than trying to get home in the aftermath of a blizzard.

It's bad enough that, even with the expected end of the storm coming soon after midnight, the schools have already announced a two-hour delay to give the towns time to make the roads safe for busses.

Naturally, the boys got the day off from school. Karen and Tom decided to stay home, and Erin worked from home until the Internet connection went out across the area. The annoying part of that is that I can't call home until it comes back. I'm writing this on my phone, care of my data plan.

Luckily, Erin's phone sometimes gets just enough signal to get text messages from home, so I was able to learn that the power stayed on at home, and get the message about two-hour delays to Karen before she needed to get boys up and moving.

The Internet outage hit the resort, too, so I've had to put off a fair amount of my work until (with luck) early tomorrow morning. It has made for an interesting and somewhat stressful day.

But everyone is safe and comfortable, and so I can sleep tonight instead of worrying, buoyed by the thought that Spring is nearly here.

Ringed

Some time ago, the stone on Karen's ring broke off. She was very lucky, in that it broke off in her pocket, and she was able to hand onto the stone. She has been trying to find a good goldsmith who can remake her ring, combining it with her mother's ring. Meanwhile, she started wearing the band I got her while she was pregnant, when her wedding ring wouldn't fit her fingers. Until that one broke, too.

Hardware is a tough business to be in if you want to take care of the rings on your fingers. So Karen was without a ring for a long time. She tired of that recently, though, and we started to shop for a ring. Since we will, ultimately, be spending a fair amount of money on having a new ring crafted for her, we decided to look at used rings on eBay.

We found a lovely Black Hills Gold ring in the right size at an affordable price. When it arrived, it was even prettier than it looked in the pictures. I presented it to my lovely wife on a dinner date. She's enjoying showing it off to her friends.

Our schedule has been more than a little crazy during the last month. With me going back to work, and having a schedule that is even more unpredictable than Karen's, we have to work harder to spend time together, and still find time for minor details like sleep.

Meals are interesting, because there are days when we're not sure without consulting a calendar who is likely to be home for them. And even then there are interesting surprises. Tonight, for example, I was out shopping, expecting to pick up dinner fixing for five, only to get a call from Tom telling me that he and the boys were planning to go to a Pokemon card event, and that they'd all eat out (including Erin, who met them on her way home).

Karen was working a late shift, so I ended up eating dinner alone. That hasn't happened in a long time.

We'll settle in, though. Tom is moving soon to an evening schedule, which means he won't be joining us for dinners during the week, and the boys are going back to school. I think my schedule may also settle down once my boss has figured out when she needs me most.

At least I hope so. But if not, at least my boys can now take care of themselves, so I can be flexible.