I woke up this AM with a good mix. My brother's family was staying at a group campsite at Minneopa state park. I ended up camping one night there as well but I reserved my own site because
A. I didn't want to be in a group/not knowing I'd be vaccinated now.
B. I like having time to myself.
However I also got to spend a little time with them and take the kids down to a stream this AM where they played quite a while as their parents packed.
I made that reservation before I knew I'd be spending much of the week with my niece and nephew. I offered to let them stay with me a couple nights as a birthday present for my sister-in-law once I knew I'd be vaccinated right around her birthday (and after school got out). We haven't had an overnight together/been indoors since before Nov last year. I offered to take them and give their parents a break and the offer expanded a bit so their parents can take a little trip.
I am in the midst of repacking so the kids and I can camp together one night this week. It is nice to go mid-week as then I don't need a reservation and we can just pick a day based on the weather. (We will go nearby). Plus it looks like 2 of my 20 something cousins will just us for part of the week so I'll have some adult companionship. It's such a gift to have guests again.
I'm well aware that as much as Americans want this to be 'over,' most of the world is not in this privileged space, and our privilege is dependent upon the rest of the world catching up with us vaccine wise.
* I went to Michael's eldest's la crosse car wash and then did a few paint touch ups on the car with assistance of my niece and nephew. * They did a good job searching for cracks and my artistic niece is a skilled painter. *This pen thing my dad had in his trunk seemed to work quite well and somehow magically matches with any color paint.
*Michael mentioned possibly going for a walk with my sister-in-law. I'm so grateful they have a relationship where this is a possibility. They did that once before when we were in a rough spot and the two of them could commiserate on challenges with my brother and I :). Things feel calmer around the house, we had a tense few weeks.
*Michael's daughters got their room cleaned up a bit in preparation for my niece and nephew to stay with me a few nights next week and give their parents a break. I haven't done that in over 6 months so I look forward to it. I had a friend in the house for the first time this weekend after vaccinations and it was so refreshing!
#1 - I need to work on expressing my feelings and I'm getting practice right now with the fan driving me nuts.
#2 - My friend and I had a great buckthorn (invasive species) pull volunteering at Elm Creek Park Reserve. He mentioned best friend from college who he visited recently as he is dying. The friend told him he needed to learn an instrument and find someone to love that loved him. I suggested this outdoor group as a way to meet people they tend to be his age and there are a lot of women. He said to send him the info and reminder.
#3 - I forgot that I'd invited him to an event with this outdoor group a couple years ago already. He said he was hard-headed and might need to be asked 15 times.
#4 - We had lunch by the nature center at Elm Creek and took a short walk - still spotting buckthorn.
#5 - Michael wants me to replace the bedroom fan if it is bothering me, sounds like it might be dangerous if I did it wrong and that heavy thing fell and broke on us, but I could look at it. (I ended up just dusting it - the annoying noise is intermittent, so I don't know that I solved it, but it is quiet sometimes.)
I did my first camping of the year, so I'm typing these up after the fact from Friday. I went to this park once before, almost the same weekend in May of 2014 (I have photos on here from that trip too), and at the time I thought it would be a great park to bring kids here to play in the little stream.
It was late once we got set up and in the tent so my gratitudes were brief....
#1 - We found Beaver Creek Valley state park finally, got here a bit late but all is well - no rain.
#2 - My friend was here first and found it ok and got all set up.
#3 - My niece has a positive attitude - helping with directions and getting all set up.
#4 - Beaver Creek Valley is such a sweet little park - I'm reminded of this even though we arrived after dark and I look forward to seeing it in the light tomorrow.
#5 - Everyone is positive even though temps are cold (it got down to 32 F, 0 C in the early morning), no rain so we're fine, amazing stars. We listened to a book on CD on the drive, Maniac Magee and my niece told me a detailed description of the book she's reading - Things Not Seen.
P.S. These were some cold temps at night, but it's so good to get outside early in the year. During the day it felt perfect, there are no bugs and having a campfire really serves a purpose. My favorite story of the weekend was about the campfire. We bring newspaper to start the one fire we have and the kids divide it up and try to keep the fire going as long as possible.
The next day they asked if they could have a match to start another fire. Fires are a beautiful experience, but they also add a lot of carbon so we typically stick to one. They had a big box of cardboard to burn from my friend's new tent so I told them it was fine. They were doing this over at my friend's campsite and when I went over there later I saw a couple small logs in the fire. "Where did you get these?" I asked.
"From the woods," they responded. I then told them (I thought we'd talked about this) that you are not supposed to take logs from the woods (it's against the rules at state parks) because if everyone that camped there did that the woods would be stripped bare. They are also an important part of the ecosystem.
After that they wanted to go play at the big spring area which is in the first 3 photos. My friend and her husband were on a walk so I told the kids they could go and I'd wait to tell my friend where they/we were.
A little bit later my friend and her husband were back and we all headed down to catch up with the kids. They hadn't gotten very far though. My friend's kids were sitting at an empty campsite. "We were walking along and someone left this campfire," one said. I looked in the fire pit and there was a gigantic log still smouldering. So they were waiting next to it, while my niece ran to fill up her water bottle to finish putting this fire out.
After that my disappointment with them taking a couple small logs from the woods was gone, I was so proud that they had learned a fire must be put out completely and were taking it upon themselves to do so when someone else hadn't.
#1 - Maybe it's because I've already done some other educational stuff recently for myself, but the Home Buying in the New Economy class that I took over community education tonight was really helpful/informative. Previously I've found the whole topic overwhelming, tonight I was familiar enough with the basic terms I guess that the well organized class was engagable.
#2 - The instructor seemed like he'd be a good pick for a realtor. Plus he was interested in and does canoe racing - not the racing part but the canoe connection is cool.
#3 - Michael and I had a good walk/talk about home ownership after, until he was trying to explain something to me with simple numbers. I was ok with using $100,000 for simplicity as a home price, but when he used the example of selling at $200,000 he lost me because that wasn't at all realistic. He got impatient, he was just trying to explain a concept with easy math and said you could apply that concept to anything. I said, "But I want to understand this in a realistic fashion."
"Well the $100,000 isn't realistic either," This part of the conversation led to him saying, "I don't know if I want to do this with you," meaning buy a house. And then I felt hurt and our enjoyable conversation petered out.
Later I realized how impatient my dad used to get, similarly, when he was trying to explain something mechanical/etc. that was obvious to him. The gratitude here is before that I enjoyed the walk/talk, and I can understand his perspective of wanting to just explain to me using numbers that didn't require a calculator so I could transfer that knowledge later. And I suppose this is where my teaching affinity comes to play in that I would likely tailor what I was teaching to help a student understand, and I wouldn't feel impatient because I enjoy helping people learn.
However it is not for everybody, and I certainly get impatient with other things.
#4 - My instinct to offer a birthday present for my sister-in-law of having my niece and nephew stay with me (as I'll be fully vaccinated in a month) seems to correspond to support a gift idea my brother has in mind.
#5 - My brother emailed me today asking about a red cargo net thing that my dad owned. His car is on the smaller side and is cramped when they go camping, but he realized something my dad had would fit on his roof. It had a red stretch netting to secure things and my brother asked if I knew what we did with it?
I did recall the item and thought we may have it, but I asked Michael and I guess we took a similar item but it was black and rectangular instead of square. It didn't seem like something I would have gotten rid of, but there was so much to get rid of who knows. Either I did get rid of it, or Scott thought had may have it in a box somewhere at his place.
I inherited my dad's car and the trunk has a little lower level storage area that still had some of my dad's things. I looked thru it at least once last year, but for the most part I left the tools etc in there as is to deal with later. Anyway, I've been meaning to go thru that stuff and today was a beautiful day so I went outside and lifted up the trunk flooring to show that compartment and there was the red net thing my brother needed!
#1 - I've been taking an online writing class with Natalie Golberg the past couple months. We meet for 3 hours on Saturday and then mid-week there is an additional 1 hour meeting. The mid-week meeting is a basic format that we do each week.
First we sit in silence for a few minutes.
Then we are giving a prompt and our job is to keep the pen moving, no thinking, no editing, just write. The first prompt today was a 10 minute write with the prompt, "The rules I've broken..."
The second prompt was a 15 minute write on, "What am I trying to fix..."
Then we are split up into small groups of 4 people and we take turns reading what we've written today. There is no commenting, no telling someone something is good or bad, no giving advice or comfort. We are building our writing spines to read what we've written without looking for affirmation.
At the end we will often sit in silence for a few breaths.
I'm usually the last one to read as we go alphabetically. Today, after I read I said, "Should we sit in silence for a few breaths?"
A woman came on and stated, "Ok, but could we first please say where we are writing from?"
"Sure." There were two women in California, one in Michigan and I said, "Minneapolis."
This has been my 8th week doing this, and we have always previously shared our writing and then said thank you, made a little quiet time and good-bye. Once in a while we will say where we are writing from, but that has never sparked a conversation. Today the "Minneapolis" led to that woman asking, "How are things in Minneapolis?" Then another women responded for 5 minutes or so about her personal experience and her reaction to the George Floyd murder and trial. It was a heartfelt, vulnerable and authentic sharing that all 3 of us listeners expanded on and appreciated.
#2 - "This is the floor, this is the very basic floor of what should
be done. But what led to that happening on 38th and Chicago were all
the things we need to change." - Minnesota Governor Tim Walz
#3 -
"I would not call today's verdict justice however, because justice
implies true restoration, but it is accountability, which is the first
step towards justice. And now the cause of justice is in your hands,
and when I say your hands I mean the people of the United States." MN
Attorney General Keith Ellison
https://youtu.be/R1Ely0LiKcI
#4
- "This entire system is what needs to be put on trial. This entire
system is what has to be interrupted." Brittany Cunningham
#5 - I'm scheduled for my first vaccine shot tomorrow.
P.S. I want to add this song I came across yesterday, I mistakenly thought a song about a slave named Harriet would be Harriet Tubman. This is instead about Harriet Jacbos whose book I have requested from the library
"Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) is also one of the few
existing narratives written by a woman. It offers a unique perspective
on the complex plight of the black woman as slave and as writer. In a
story that merges the conventions of the slave narrative with the
techniques of the sentimental novel,"
#1 - I started a community education online fitness class for a half hour on Tuesdays from 12 - 12:30. I wouldn't say it was fun, but it's some structured movement in my day, so for that I'm grateful.
#2 - Michael's eldest was able to go to la crosse practice tonight, and at least partially participate, despite her ankle injury from a few weeks back. After being at home for most of the last year, that injury's timing was a bummer, and we'll see how the healing continues, but at least she is able to bear some weight. #3 - She usually spends most of her time in the basement, but because of her injury, she's mostly avoided the stairs and hung out more in the living room. It's been nice to have her in the living room, and I've been working in the basement which is a change of pace.
#4 - Last night Michael and I were talking about checking accounts for his daughters and how hard it was to get one for his eldest, which made me wonder how old I was when I got one. I wasn't sure but I still have the notebook my dad
set up so I went to my file cabinet to get it.
I'm not sure if I got this notebook when I first opened the checking account, but if so it looks like I was 16. At that point if I needed money for something, instead of asking my father to write me a check for school lunch, or groceries, or clothes or whatever. He would deposit $500 in my checking account and then if there was something he would agree to pay for, we'd write it in the notebook, he'd initial approval and then I'd write the check. I still have a record of all those things and how I learned to record and track to what I was spending money on.
#5 - So it's no surprise that I woke up this morning and then stayed in bed because my dad was in my dream. I can't recall the dream now, it was neither a "bad" nor "good" one. I think it did contain some confusion, as my dreams about him often do. Had he died? And if so why he was alive now? Those dreams have become much less frequent and I tear up just writing that, I'm glad he visited me, in a way, last night.
