Weekly update - January 27, 2023

Normally January doesn't feel as though it flies by, but this year it certainly did. I could kind of use another week of January, which is a statement I never thought I would ever utter... or write.

• G. and L. are at a middle school lock-in at our church. I was a little surprised that they both wanted to go as socializing with people they don't know extremely well isn't always their thing. I hope they have a good time.
• We will probably have a day of grouchy children tomorrow as a result.
• J. and I took some grief from P. when she discovered they were going to the whole event. I am somewhat aware of this, but it seems we never let any of the older children attend a lock-in for the whole night. The grouchy children the next day was our excuse. Once again, it seems our standards have fallen significantly, at least in the eyes of our older children.
• It turns out that one of the litter mates of A.'s cat, Juniper, had a placement fall through and he needed a home. A. now has two kittens and they are cute as can be. Meet Basil.

• The temperature is heading back down. It is going to be so cold tonight and for much of this week that I needed to put blankets back on the horses. Everyone is very easy to get on a coat on except Java. No matter how slowly I introduce the blanket to her, the first minute of it being on her back is... exciting. But not in a good way exciting. Then, once she has the kicking out of her system, she's fine for the buckling part. So, in case you needed to know, I give the experience of blanketing Java 0 out of 5 stars and do not recommend.
• We are getting quite a bit of snow. It snowed off and on all day today and we're due for more tomorrow. This is on top of the several inches we had the other day. This means I had to take horse pictures in the snow.

• And since I'm sharing pictures of horses, a child was asking about great-grandparents the other day, so I dug around and found this picture of my grandfather when he was in his 20's and working on his father's cattle ranch in Arizona. I think this photo must be about 100 years old now. (I know I've shared it before, but I think it's cool.)

• R. continues to do better. Last week she struggled a bit behavior-wise, but I remembered that the last time we titrated up on medicines that she struggled which helped contain the panic. Then, over the weekend she started acting a bit like a drunken sailor when she walked. The neurologist's office had warned me about this, so we are now weaning down on one of the meds. It is making a huge difference getting things balanced out. J. and I realized that today she has been a bit goofy which is something we didn't even realize hadn't been happening because it mush have just slowly vanished over the autumn. And sleeping has gotten better. She's not one hundred percent sleeping all the way through the night yet as she is sometimes awake around 5am, but it is better.
• I finished Louise Penny's most recent Inspector Gamache book, A World of Curiosities. Wow. It was... pretty dark. If you read it, take my advice and just plan on reading the last 175 pages in one go. Also take my advice and don't start those 150 pages at 9:30pm because otherwise you will be up past midnight. I knew if I didn't finish it I wouldn't be able to sleep.
• Did you read that Marie Kondo has kind of given up tidying since she had three children? I know I'm not the only parent feeling more than a little vindicated. 
• I'm not entirely happy with how Bristol's leg is looking and the vet may need to come back out. That makes me feel a little anxious.
• We are slowly making headway with catching up with our school schedule. 
• I still don't quite get supply chain issues. For the past month there have been no regular carrots at Aldi. There are plenty of "baby" carrots, but I don't want those. There also hasn't been lemon or lime juice. I had twelve things on my list today and couldn't find a quarter of them. Of course this was the one time the checker didn't ask me if I found everything.
• The hens are still not laying, but Emmy is starting to shed her winter coat. I think they need to swap... the hens think there's enough daylight to provide eggs, but Emmy keep her coat just a wee bit longer. Don't worry about Emmy, though. She has enough hair to keep three horses toasty warm and it will take many months for it all to finally shed out. You'll know she's really shedding because I will spend that month covered in white horse hair.

And with that piece of earth shattering news, I'll wish you all a good night and good weekend.