January

I managed to roll out of bed on January 1st and make cinnamon rolls from scratch. They take a lot of time, and I didn’t want to wake up early. Given that, these were lunch-time cinnamon rolls, and they were glorious.

On the 6th, after letting their schedules slide later and later, Maya and Ian had to face the harsh 6:30a reality of a return to school. Truth told, I think they were both ready to see their friends again, so it could have been worse.

We spent a lot of time relaxing, being unscheduled, and generally putting the house back in order. We slowed our roll so much, I think it was something like the 20th before we managed to get the house undecorated from Christmas and the very crispy live tree hauled out to the curb for pick up. You know what? The world didn’t end. We had an extra week or two with the half-decorated tree in the house.

Ian is starting middle school next year, so he had to work on his choice sheet for class selection. There weren’t a ton of variables that he got to pick, but he thinks that he too would like to try out band next year. We’ll see how it pans out during the instrument test drive later in March, but right now, he thinks he’d like play the flute.

I was supposed to take a work trip to Tampa during part of the last week of January. The weather had other ideas. A winter storm big enough to have a name (Fern) blew through. While it dumped a foot of snow on my midwestern friends and family, here we were pelted with somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 inch of sleet and freezing rain. Of course we couldn’t drive on it, but we had bought our weekly groceries a little earlier than normal in a bid to get ahead of the panic buying. Sean reported that we were only marginally successful. We more or less got what we needed, but apparently the store was bonkers.

On Saturday, it sleeted, starting in the evening. Sunday, we woke up to a world of white. After lunch, the kids tried to play in it for a bit. I think Maya got some mileage out of breaking apart ice crust in the back yard with a rubber mallet, but generally it was too hard to really mess around in much.

Some of our neighbors (inexplicably) have sleds, and after longingly watching them zip down the icy hill in front of our house, when Maya was invited to go tubing down icy streets near a friend’s house, she begged to go. I’m a big pushover sometimes, so we bundled up, and I walked her over. This is a twenty minute walk on a clear day. I don’t know how long it took us to navigate the ice-coated hills.

We eventually made it, and Maya gamely tried to slide down an icy street with her friends. While we were gone, Ian evidently executed the same maneuver using a large hunk of corrugated cardboard.

School was called off for Monday. The road wasn’t clear and it wasn’t set to get much above freezing, so I had no choice but to cancel my work trip. Toward the end of the day, we saw a neighbor try to drive up the hill. Ultimately, they had to slide back down till they found a clear spot to get traction. Not that I needed it, but I felt that justified my decision to cancel the trip, if nothing else.

Throughout the day on Monday, the ice had melted some, but not enough. We wouldn’t be able to get the kids to school on Tuesday. Luckily, they called a second snow day. Even by the end of Tuesday, it became obvious our driveway wouldn’t melt away on its own. Between Sean and I, with a snow shovel and a mattock, we got enough of a path cleared behind our car that even when it refroze overnight, we’d still be able to get the kids to school the next day.

On the last Friday of the month, Maya took a little band trip to Gattitown. This was a purely fun trip, no performance required. The rest of us took the opportunity to go out for barbecue. Since Maya is so smoke-averse, it’s not something she’d like, and so we never go.

We went to Stiles Switch and enjoyed a wide variety of excellent meats and sides (though I was a bit sad to find their brisket was dry). They had a divine piranha and chimichurri on special. The sausage of the month, a firecracker sausage, was also delightfully piquant.

February

I had received a gnocchi board for Christmas, and I broke it in on the very first day of the month. This Youtube chef I like, Brian Lagerstrom, provided excellent technique and guidance. I’m calling bullshit though on his characterization of this as a twenty minute process. Even not counting the hour-long roast time for the potatoes, it still took me much longer. That said, they were some of the best gnocchi I’ve ever eaten, much less made. Sean and I had them with a homemade gorgonzola cream sauce. The kids enjoyed theirs with jarred marinara. BOTH KIDS suggested that I might make them more often. In turn, I suggested that I might just do that provided I have some help.

My birthday – my 50th birthday, no less – was a pretty quiet affair. I ordered myself a subscription box of small-batch baked goods and chose things I wanted, including buying myself a birthday apricot tart. I ordered myself a few things for our summer trip to Iceland and Scotland. And I told Sean where I wanted to eat. To his credit, he did make the reservation.

It was honestly an excellent day. I worked during the day like normal, fielding birthday text messages throughout. I chatted with my parents while I waited for Maya to finish her clarinet lesson.

Then we all went to dinner at Foreign and Domestic, a place we used to love in our pre-kid life. I think I read that the restaurant has changed ownership, but it was every bit as good as I remember it being (though I cannot eat the way I used to). Plus, they offered half-price bottles of wine. It was meant to be. Ian tried sweetbreads and a raw oyster. Both kids tested out some fried beef tongue. The vibe was relaxed, and I had a lot of fun.

And then I got around to the business of being a half century old. My AARP card came right on time. I got my first shingles vaccine. I have a bad spine (disc degeneration), my knees and shoulders ache sometimes, and my mind is clearly not what it used to be, but for now at least, I’m still relatively capable. I can travel, cook, and spend time outside. For the time being, with a lot of optical assistance, I can see well enough to read. Things could be worse.

I’ve been using, “growing old is a privilege,” as a mantra on the more frustrating days. Admittedly, I’m shit at using mantras, but sometimes it kind of works. [Around the time of the COVID mess, I also adopted, “it’s later than you think,” though that’s less like a mantra and more like a warning call.]

Right around Valentine’s Day, spring sprung in central Texas. The daffodils were in full flower, buds were starting to pop out on some of the trees, and the weeds were greening up nicely.

We let the kids have Friday the 13th all to themselves to decompress, but on Saturday the 14th, we were all in on the room cleaning. I sweetened the pot by making everyone individual chocolate “puddle” cakes to start their day.

The joke was on Sean and I, however. I was personally prepared to fight all weekend with Maya, first about cleaning at all, then about actually getting rid of old stuff. “Be ruthless,” I told her, fully expecting her not to listen. But she WAS ruthless. Completely. She decimated her stuffed animal herd. Piles of “special” rocks made their way outside. So, so, so many old papers were collected and put in our recycling pile. She pointed out that she really needed a bigger desk. She’s right, but she’s so damned resistant to change that we didn’t think she’d go for it.

It wasn’t really in our plans, but sometimes you need to strike while the iron is hot. We agreed to take the kids shopping at Ikea to see if there was anything there they might like. While at the store, Maya pointed out she needed a new chair too. And a rug. Oh, and also a lamp that worked properly. Ian also, he pointed out, needed these things.

After a good two hours at Ikea and a return trip later on to collect what wouldn’t fit on the first run, we had two desks, two chairs, and a small set of drawers to assemble. Ian also picked out a cool lamp. They continued to clean while we spent the rest of Saturday and most of Sunday assembling furniture and arranging rooms.

We had a short reprieve Sunday morning to watch Ian perform at the artisans market in his guitar teacher’s neighborhood, followed up by our now-traditional lunch of freshly fried empanadas.

The kids and Sean were off for President’s Day on Monday, so I took the day off with them. Part of what I did was bought rugs for their rooms (on sale, because it was President’s Day). We continued to clean things up around the house. In fact, off and on for the next few weeks, we worked on restoring order to the kids’ rooms and thinking through how we’d like things to change on the rest of the house.

Maya went to her 7th grade dance on the following Friday. She again didn’t want to attend because she doesn’t dance and thinks the music is bad. Just like last year, she ultimately decided to go so she could hang out with her friends. When we picked her up, she seemed to have had a nice enough time.

At the very end of the month, we went to see the Austin Symphony Orchestra provide the soundtrack to a presentation to Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. We learned our lesson from Home Alone back in December. This time, we got there early enough to get fun photos with folks in Pirates-relevant costumes, and to get the kids some drinks and snacks. It was a fun way to cap off the month, though Ian loudly professed how bored he was by the experience.