Bringing Back the Blog

 For the sake of probably no one but posterity I am going to revive our blog. Funny enough though this was inspired not by the copious amount of time I had on my hands due to the furlough, but rather the twin occurrences of a dad and his daughter (who was in her 50s) out for a beer last night reminding us that the time goes by so fast and a notice that another web-based tool I used was going away. Something about having a person remind me of how fast time passes and the idea of an online tool going away made me realize how much I would miss having the stories I write here to look back on.  Unfortunately, there will always be a story gap now, and that gap was in part why I couldn't bring myself to bring the blog back. I always had a feeling like I just had to be contiguous in order to write a new post. I hereby throw off the chains of contiguousness and summarize the last year and then some in a haiku:

"Swamp" to desert flown
Jaunts, junior high, B. Jaguar
Ever happy chaos

Swamp - 4th of July on the National Mall

Desert

40th Birthday Jaunt to NYC

Spring Break Jaunt to NC

Random Jaunt to Florida - Disney World and Universal Studios

Junior High - Evie the JV Jazz Band Trombone Player

Pre-B. Jaguar Kitty Interviews at a Cat Cafe

The Actual B(lack) Jaguar.

And just a little bit of happy chaos...

Whew, with that out of the way, let's talk about January 2019!

So, in case you haven't heard (ha!) the government was shut down for 35 days..... The initial two weeks of said shutdown were actually quite pleasant for me because I got to spend the whole time with Evie and Izzy.

We spent quite a bit of our time together exploring our new Phoenix home. We went to the Phoenix Children's Museum one day. It was funny, and just a little bit poignant, to realize that not only was Evie too old for it but also that Izzy was on the verge of being too old. (Evie did, however, greatly enjoy the exhibit where she could build a series of tunnels for a ball to travel through...)

Then the next day we came downtown again and went pretty much just across the street to the Arizona Science Center (I found a groupon for a membership that I am pretty excited about).  The girls did a battle of the brains where the more relaxed they were the more the ball moved to one side or the other... the had an epic battle of the relaxed and ended up in a tie due to the prolonged relaxation and a line of other kids wanting to try.

They also tried out the Cosmic Playground, which was pretty darn awesome.... climbing through scaffolding covered with lights and what looked like saranwrap designed to be like worm holes.

 And moon landing face-in-picture things (what is the name for those things anyway?)

And (not pictured here) a big ball pit that Isadora in particular thought was the bees knees.

At the end of the break I had the privilege of being the Mom in the Mom and Me weekend at Willow Springs Girl Scout Camp. We rode up with other daughter and mom combo from the troop and made some new friends, saw snow(!) and got to spend a whole day doing crafts.

Crafts like making penguins from socks and felt...

 

And not so crafts like "winter" games inside involving fake snowballs and toilet paper that could be used to turn each other into snowmen (or just throw at each other).

 

There was, of course, s'mores... fortunately toasted on a fireplace inside because it was super cold and snowing that night.

 But best of all was sledding and fresh snow!!

Once the break was over and the girls went back to school I found myself trying to fruitfully fill my days.... so I taught myself how to crochet.

Exercised a lot.... and did all sorts of other little piddly things that did not involve deep cleaning the house (much to the disappointment of Patrick :P) Above all the unemployed month of January taught me that I am by no means ready to retire. Whew... here is to hoping come two weeks from now I am still working because goodness knows I cannot entertain myself long term via crochet needles and treadmills.