Tough winter

Sorry it's been so quiet here at Chez Smiffy.

It's been a tough winter. Nothing horrible has happened -- had it, perhaps it would have been easier to break the silence.

No, this winter has been tough in a more subtle way. It's colder and more snowy than it's been for years - -which is fun at first. but it palls eventually.

And then ...

Starting just before the holidays, we have experienced a long and tragic string of deaths -- not 'ours' for the most part, but near at hand.

First, just before Yule, a young woman associated with the farm where we get our milk, meat, and eggs died in childbirth. Rod had met her at the seminar he went to, and they took a special liking to one another because she was from New Zealand.

Just after Yule, a former co-worker of Rod's, a young man in his early forties, fell at home and was killed. Coincidently, he shared my birthday.

On New Year's day came word that my oldest son's grandfather had, not unexpectedly, died. It wasn't unexpected...but it was a serious blow to the family because he was in all ways the Patriarch and a fine, decent man who will be missed literally all over the world. Coincidently, he shared Rod's birthday.

Next came word that the mother of a friend dear to me had died.

Then word that my cousin's daughter at died at age 26 in a motorcycle accident.

As you can see, most of these would be simply sad but not terrible personal to us, except that they are mounting up so fast. (I have the sense that I am forgetting some, and will come back and update if i remember who.)

Now, on top of this, there has been a lot of other bad news. The two-year old son of a friend whom I admire deeply was diagnosed with leukemia a couple of weeks ago, the mother of another dear friend has hurt herself, and our beloved Grandpa John has slipped on black ice and hurt himself again. John's is, he says, more dramatic and painful than serious...but still!! This while Mark is still recovering, and we're still worrying about him.

And then there are the more immediate problems...the kitchen sink had been leaking for a while. For a long time, it was only when we used the garbage disposer, so we kept a bucket under the sink and used the disposer as seldom as we could. That wasn't hard, because we compost almost anything that would otherwise go down there. Recently, though, it started leaking always, every time we used the sink -- we we've had to stop using the sink. Yuck. What a pain. Rod has bought the parts and will pull the plumbing apart and repair it tomorrow when I can be home to chase a boy. (More likely, we'll escape, sop Dad can work unmolested by a helper.)

Just as we sorted that out, Rod's car broke down. The entire undercarriage needed to be replaced, I think. (Not keen on these technical details.) $2,500 0r 3,000 later, it;'s happy again -- but this seriously jeopardizes our trip to see Mormor and the Ozzie brothers in Australia. We were about to plunge our savings into the pocket of the airlines...and now it;'s not clear that Jack and I will be going after all.

And just to keep things really entertaining, I also slipped on black ice and fell down a flight of porch steps, landing on my ribs. Ouch.

I have been having chest pains lately...the doctor gave my heart a clean bill of health and asked if I'd been under any unusual stress lately. I said I didn't think so...but looking back over this, maybe I have.

*sigh*

Thanks for listening to my whine.

I am on my way to a five-hour scrapbooking class -- I should end up in a much better mood to blog later today!