And we’ll take a cup o’kindness yet...
Sara and I stayed up until midnight last night, eating brownies and watching Speed. This has been our New Year's Eve tradition for a while, and I'm not complaining! One year (back here), we timed it so that the bus jumped over the gap in the freeway right at the stroke of midnight. This year, we got pretty close, but midnight fell right around when Harry gets killed, which is probably the lowest point of the movie. Sara had her laptop out for the whole movie and kept asking me to translate French Baby-Sitters Club book titles and summaries, which got really tiring.
Like most of the country, our area got hit by an arctic blast of freezing air right around Christmas. Sara and I were both off from work the Friday before and Monday after, which is a really rare thing for me, and I think the bad weather had something to do with it. There was only a little snowfall, but the single-digit temperatures lasted way too long. Our garage door froze shut, the back faucet turned into an icicle again (even though I closed the crawlspace vents and covered the faucets), and I almost went stir-crazy from being stuck inside. Sara and I did a lot of eating (green bean casserole, cheese dip, cookies, and a frozen lasagna) and a lot of watching TV/movies (Disenchanted, Home Alone, Swiss Family Robinson, While You Were Sleeping, and old Christmas episodes of The Simpsons). But I stupidly bought cream soda, and the caffeine withdrawl almost did me in!
Christmas Day was the congregational latke dinner at the synagogue, and Sara actually came to it with me. We wound up sitting next to my coworker K and her husband, Sara's former coworker S, which was fun. K can be so blunt with her opinions, and I love her for it! I brought my dinky, crooked old menorah, but it was almost too embarrassing to light; I really need to get a proper one. On the way home, we drove around a little and looked at the Christmas lights. I got Sara Carmex and some old Baby-Sitters Club books that she didn't already have (she has been on a real BSC binge lately), and she got me cheese and a green shirt with the recycling logo that's almost identical to the one that got ruined back here. Our mom sent us money, socks, and a fancy electric griddle that I'm not sure we'll ever use. (I miss the days of her giving us toothbrushes every year. Wish she hadn't stopped.) I told Athena it might become hers after she finds a place to live.
2022 was a stressful year for me. I didn't really post about it here, but I depressed for long stretches of time for a lot of reasons. Working a job and owning a house and having pets and just life in general can all be such a chore sometimes. Athena and the kids moved away (and who knows when I'll ever see them again), and Sassafras died. It feels lonelier now that Sara and I are back down to just each other, and the rest of our family doesn't even live within driving distance anymore. I did take care of a few things around the house this year, but we still haven't tackled any of the big projects that we talked about. Sara keeps making noises about a third cat instead (as if I need one more thing to take care of). I didn't do as much work on MTurk this year as in 2021, and my total earnings averaged out to $39/month.
Like most of the country, our area got hit by an arctic blast of freezing air right around Christmas. Sara and I were both off from work the Friday before and Monday after, which is a really rare thing for me, and I think the bad weather had something to do with it. There was only a little snowfall, but the single-digit temperatures lasted way too long. Our garage door froze shut, the back faucet turned into an icicle again (even though I closed the crawlspace vents and covered the faucets), and I almost went stir-crazy from being stuck inside. Sara and I did a lot of eating (green bean casserole, cheese dip, cookies, and a frozen lasagna) and a lot of watching TV/movies (Disenchanted, Home Alone, Swiss Family Robinson, While You Were Sleeping, and old Christmas episodes of The Simpsons). But I stupidly bought cream soda, and the caffeine withdrawl almost did me in!
Christmas Day was the congregational latke dinner at the synagogue, and Sara actually came to it with me. We wound up sitting next to my coworker K and her husband, Sara's former coworker S, which was fun. K can be so blunt with her opinions, and I love her for it! I brought my dinky, crooked old menorah, but it was almost too embarrassing to light; I really need to get a proper one. On the way home, we drove around a little and looked at the Christmas lights. I got Sara Carmex and some old Baby-Sitters Club books that she didn't already have (she has been on a real BSC binge lately), and she got me cheese and a green shirt with the recycling logo that's almost identical to the one that got ruined back here. Our mom sent us money, socks, and a fancy electric griddle that I'm not sure we'll ever use. (I miss the days of her giving us toothbrushes every year. Wish she hadn't stopped.) I told Athena it might become hers after she finds a place to live.
2022 was a stressful year for me. I didn't really post about it here, but I depressed for long stretches of time for a lot of reasons. Working a job and owning a house and having pets and just life in general can all be such a chore sometimes. Athena and the kids moved away (and who knows when I'll ever see them again), and Sassafras died. It feels lonelier now that Sara and I are back down to just each other, and the rest of our family doesn't even live within driving distance anymore. I did take care of a few things around the house this year, but we still haven't tackled any of the big projects that we talked about. Sara keeps making noises about a third cat instead (as if I need one more thing to take care of). I didn't do as much work on MTurk this year as in 2021, and my total earnings averaged out to $39/month.