Simple Pleasures: Foggy Mornings and Sick Days
After the fog burned away
Annandale, Virginia | December 2012
Woke up this morning to a very foggy morning. It had been mostly rainy yesterday and a front is getting ready to move in...it is supposed to be unseasonably warm today, in the low 60s. I'm hoping the Christmas tree we picked out on Friday will be dry enough to move inside later today.
Kyle came in to snuggle with me around 8:30am. He has been fighting off a cold since last Thursday and it seems to be catching up with him. Colds can often be a trigger for his asthma, but this morning he was just coughy and sniffly. I think we were both relieved. We watched the squirrels in the trees and watched the cats watching the birds out the windows. We snuggled with the puppies and we talked about various things.
About how kids have more bones when they are younger and how it easier to heal when you have younger more flexible bones. About how the cats pay more attention to the birds than the squirrels. About how squirrels are really ninjas (after seeing one do a sideways flip while jumping to a branch). About Mendel and his pea experiments. About how mirrors work and that they are actually green. About how knowing how things actually work is good thing and how not knowing has led to many superstitions. About how some societies thought (think?) that a camera steals a piece of your soul. About how nice it is to be home and what fun things we want to do before Christmas.
Today is going to be a nice day. We have no place we have to be. Kyle is sick, but not feeling too horrible. Just enough to slow us down. We'll probably catch up on some programs I have taped...maybe the History of Mankind or How the States Got Their Shapes or The Dust Bowl documentary or we have been trying to finish watching the Hatfields and McCoys from last spring. Made all the better with a good blanket and a comfortable couch. Maybe we will also do a bit more Christmas decorating. And Jason wants to make a birthday cake.
I'm also grateful once again that we are homeschooling. A sick day does not come with the major dilemma of whether he is feeling well enough to go to school. I don't have to worry about make-up work or him getting behind. He is where he is and it can wait until he feels better. We'll actually get a decent amount of learning in as it is (see above viewing plans).
Things have been so busy around here lately, it feels good to slow down for a day. To know that there is nothing that we have to get done. That there is time and all is well.
So I breathe in and breathe out. And sip my pumpkin spice coffee (from a terrific farmer who has his own local source...so thrilled since the Starbucks version makes my throat itch). And take pleasure in the simple things while trying not to beat myself up for normally getting so caught up in life.
