Day 151, Year 11: Doesn’t Look Like Spring
Date: Monday, March 21, 2016
Weather: Snow Overnight & AM, Turning Sunny, Hi Temp 40’s F
Location: At Home in Evergreen Preserve, Lowell, MA
We awoke to a ground covering of 3-4 inches of snow this morning. So the first full day of spring sure didn’t look like spring. But the snow ended during the morning, the sun came out, and by afternoon it still looked like winter, but it felt a little more like spring. My niece Lynn came over this afternoon and we once again worked on going through the boxes of her things that must be sorted, thrown out, or packed to be kept. We filled another three huge bags of stuff to be trashed and the box of things to go to the Salvation Army has grown to two boxes and both are overflowing. At one point in the afternoon I just had to sit and laugh. We were going through a box of Lynn’s things and there were these laminated file folders that looked way too familiar. As we dug deeper, I realized I was looking at things I had thrown out years ago but had been retrieved by Lynn. One man’s trash is another one’s treasure and then it becomes trash again! Lynn and I are way too much alike in that we are both keepers. Maybe that is why we are working together so well. I feel her pain in throwing things away as much as she does, but I am very proud of both of us for the progress we are making.
Mark sleeps through the afternoon while Lynn and I are working in the spare bedroom, but somehow in the evening he seems to rally. We have tried to tie his stomach pain to food that he eats, but there is just no correlation that we can make. Tomorrow morning we will take a good walk before he ‘retires’ for the afternoon. We’re really hoping that we will find out about his eligibility for the drug trial on Wednesday, but if not, we are prepared to wait just a little longer.
We talked to Ollie on the phone this evening to wish him a happy birthday. He was so excited that he was cuddling in a crocheted blanket that his mom had finished for him just in time for his birthday. Sam’s blanket was completed before he was born. Jonah’s was completed by his first birthday. And now Ollie has his heirloom blanket that Heather has been working on for four years. Perspective changes once you start having children! But one thing that doesn’t change is the beautiful memory of the first day of life. Sam was five and Jonah was two-and-a-half when Ollie was born. They were so excited to welcome their little brother to their world. The love and excitement of that welcoming is seen in the photo from March 21, 2012. And Ollie’s excitement for life is shown in the photo of him wearing a mask he made from a birthday present kit.
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| 160321 Day 151 Cape Cod, USA–Happy Birthday, Oliie |
