November 1, 2017
It’s Wednesday morning and we are in Staunton. We hope to leave for Laurel Fork this
afternoon when Analia is finished with her dance lessons. We are taking Analia
with us for the rest of the week since Alissa has a presentation in Washington
DC to attend this weekend. I have looked
forward to having her with us there and doing some fun things one on one with
her. However, she and I both (as well as
Mike and the rest of the family) are all struggling with viral infections. The whole family has come down with
congestion, sore throats, runny noses and low-grade fevers. In addition, some of the family is struggling
with a stomach virus that is hanging on.
I didn’t have the kids last night like I normally do on Tuesday evenings
because they did not have classes at James Madison University and Alissa was
home. However, instead of doing anything
on my list of things to accomplish while in Staunton, I was in bed with a
fever. I did make it out to the barn
yesterday morning to assist the farrier with pedicures for the two miniature
horses and after she left, I cleaned up a bit in the barn yard in anticipation
of winter that will be here before we know it.
I spent several hours out there and then came inside and swept and
mopped the downstairs. Other than getting
supper for everyone, I just slept the rest of the day waking long enough to
realize I still had a fever and then going back to sleep.
Monday I kept Analia and Rory.
The twins were scheduled to come as well but I let Kristin know that we
were sick so that she had the option of keeping them away if she didn’t want
them exposed to the germs. She chose to
keep them home and now I am glad she did.
Hopefully they will not be exposed anywhere else and be able to avoid
this particular virus. Watching the
kids, picking up the house, doing laundry and fixing supper were about all I
managed to accomplish on Monday. I was
disappointed that we were not feeling well and that the twins were unable to
come because it was to be their “last day”.
I have been watching them since they were infants starting out with
three days one week and four days the next.
Over time, we have cut back and they started going to preschool three
days a week and their other grandma’s house one day a week which left us only
with Mondays. We knew that when they
started to school next fall, our babysitting days would be finished for the
twins but things have changed for their family with Kristin’s recent
resignation at her job and she will be staying home with the kids now until
they begin school in the fall. Their
family is going through a lot of transition as their daddy finishes up his
college degree in December. They are
looking to move when he finds a new job.
I am not going to pretend that keeping three infants, babies, toddlers and
then preschoolers exactly the same age (making it as if I were keeping
triplets) has been easy. It has been
challenging and many days I have finished by wondering if I could even continue
without assistance. I knew though that I
would always be glad that I did it and that I had the time with the children
while they were so small. I am very
thankful and this time of transition for all of us is bittersweet. Mondays will be a little bit easier on me
having only two instead of four to keep, but as the twins and their family move
on in a different direction, we will miss so much of their lives, and for that,
I am sad.
November 4, 2017
It has been a long week. Mike
and I are rarely truly sick. I think in
the 13 years that we have been together, we may have been to the doctor two or
three times a piece to get antibiotics.
We usually average a “bad” cold once every two or three years, and while
we both have bouts with digestive issues due to “eating the wrong things”, a
stomach virus is even more rare for us.
But, this is our winter to get it all I guess. The whole family has been hit pretty hard
with first the stomach virus that lingers and/or returns and then a nasty
cold/sinus infection with lingering congestion and fevers. I limped through the first of the week with
the kids and then we took Analia and headed south on Wednesday. Our time this week at our South West Virginia
home has been spent mostly just trying to have the energy to hold our heads up
and go through the basic routine of the day, especially Wednesday and
Thursday. Yesterday we felt a little
better, Mike and I both getting past the fevers. Analia is really congested but seems to feel
pretty well now, her only real difficulty being the residual cough that wakes
her up throughout the night. As a
result, we have not made any great accomplishments with the tasks at hand at
our property. I have spent a good bit of
time trying to read books aloud to Analia with a voice that fades away after
the first two pages thus resorting to squeaks or whispers to finish the task. Analia doesn’t mind. She loves books. I have a pile of Little Golden Books here
that she has never read and she would sit for hours reading them if I could
manage to keep going. I also have some
vintage playschool wooden blocks (the kind that are in various shapes with no
paint, just the basic color of the wood).
She has had more fun building with those blocks. She has played with them so much, that I have
not made her even pick them up at night.
It has just been an ongoing building project. We did finally venture out to get a few
groceries on Thursday afternoon, although we must have been a sight. I grabbed a box of Kleenex and opened it before
getting to the check out and we loaded up on decongestants. Friday we took a drive about 30 minutes away
to pay our bill for some of the lumber and supplies we had gotten on credit for
the barn. We stopped along the way at a
little place that had antiques, uniques and collectibles for sale. The lady was really nice. It was just a little shed type building next
to her house that she had turned into an overflow for her collections and she
didn’t seem to care whether she sold anything or not. She was so kind to Analia and told her how
she really liked her glasses and then she gave her a small “toy” that was
actually some kind of “Redneck” Christmas gag gift type item with a reindeer
that had a roll of toilet paper on its antlers and sings a song about not
forgetting to flush the toilet. No
matter, Analia thought it was great and played the thing nonstop in the car on
the way home. We also went to the post
office to check on the situation with our mail.
Like most everything else here in rural Virginia, it has taken great
effort just to try to get on the mail route.
I have made multiple trips to the post office. There’s a really nice young lady that runs
the post office and it is only open a few hours each day in the mornings. She knows me when I walk in the door and she
looked at me yesterday and said “I know what’s going on” but after pushing the
issue and not letting her off the hook (which I did very kindly but firmly) she
finally realized that they had been holding our mail and that our mail was
coming to their post office and not another as she had been insisting. (Our home is close enough to the dividing
line that we had to fill out paperwork to request that the mail route be
extended to take us in. Evidently, no
one has received mail at this address for so many years, that the home was no
longer on the route and now requires the post master to sign off on the
paperwork in order for us to be put back on the rural route. Both the mail carrier and the lady in the
post office are insisting that they have never delivered mail to our house, but
we have in face received mail in our box previously though nothing
recently. After they found the mail that
was being held at the post office, it was evident that the mail WAS coming to
their post office and the only explanation she could come up with for the few
pieces that had made their way to our rural box was that the weekend carrier
must have delivered them not knowing that they were not allowed to deliver mail
to us until the post master signs off on the extension papers.) I just have to laugh even though it’s
frustrating and go pick up the mail at the post office (now that we know where
it is) until we can finally get through the paperwork to add us to the rural
mail route. I’m sure that paper is
sitting on someone’s desk somewhere because it should have been approved months
ago. Given a choice, I will take
slipping through the cracks in rural Virginia over the somewhat more efficient
but congested areas of our state.
There was a lot done to the barn this week while we were away and Mike
is pleased with the quality of the work.
What has been done looks really good.
The men ran out of materials and the allotted time that Mike had agreed
for them to work had lapsed. We have one
side with a track for sliding doors that will allow the cattle to enter the
shed portion that has to be upgraded. We
are not sure exactly what is to be done there.
Mike doesn’t want the expense of having to take down the tracking,
remove all the metal, replace it with board and batting, reinstall the tracking
and install new sliding doors. I have not
said much, but, I would like it to be done right so the whole barn is finished
and looks good. At this point, we have
so many other areas to concentrate on that we will just wait it out and see
what we decide for that back section on the shed that attaches to the
barn. On the other side of the barn is an
area that was not previously enclosed that was used as a loading area and is
also where the four, large stall entrances are located. The men did the
structural improvements to that area but ran out of boards to enclose it. That is something that Mike can finish with
time and material. We are still trying
to get someone to patch and paint the existing roof or replace it. It really doesn’t look like that is going to
happen before winter sets in. We just
can’t get anyone to follow through. We
have a lot of clean up and restoration to do inside the barn as well, but we
can work on that during the winter. We
didn’t get much done in the barn area this week with our all being so
sick. Analia and I went out one day when
the weather was really nice and picked up some of the ends and pieces that the
workers had cut and thrown down. We put
the “trash” pieces on the brush pile and stacked the pieces that could be
salvaged for other uses. Analia was so
cute to watch. She was very eager to
work and you could tell she felt very accomplished at being able to be a part
of the process.
One evening, one of our neighbors stopped by and even though Mike told
her we were sick and probably very contagious, she opted to come inside and
visit anyway. She had gotten produce
from the roadside honor system we had set up earlier in the year and said she
was so happy that we were here. She was
very nice, a transplant from Maryland, but has lived here over 30 years. She said she had family in the area and was
at a point where she needed a change and ended up making this her home. There are few people that I feel immediately
comfortable with, but I felt relaxed with this woman. I’m guessing she is probably seven to ten
years older than me, but not one to try to conceal her age and obviously being
accustomed to work and honest living, she may not be as old as I think she
is. After we talked just a few minutes,
I found out that she worked with the breeding program for a large dairy that is
now out of business. I figured I would
be here for a long time and not be able to find anyone who could artificially
inseminate my cows for me (as I don’t intend to keep a bull once we move the
cows to our SW Virginia property). This
lady lives five minutes from me and enjoys breeding cattle and seems like she
would be happy to work with us. I also
found out that she had spent some time on horseback in portions of Montana
where I lived and spent time hiking.
Talk came around to bears and she told us that just this year she had a
momma bear rip the screen door off their house to get inside the porch. She assumes it was because she had left some
peppermint candy there and perhaps the bear smelled it. She said they have not had any trouble with
the bear since. We talked about my bear
encounters in Alaska and I told her about the time that we were out camping and
I had the sensation of large animal sniffing around the outside of the tent as
we slept. ( I have always described it
as the feeling of waking to a dog sniffing the top of your head but realizing
it was something much bigger and the only thing separating me from that animal
was a vinyl tent.) Later during the day,
while we were out in the boat fishing, a large bear came into camp and tore it
up. We immediately set to move camp only
to have the bear return before we were finished tearing everything down. There was a standoff between the two men in
our party who both had weapons but the bear finally moved on down the path long
enough for us to get the rest of our things and get out of there. If I only hadn’t felt so bad I would have
enjoyed visiting a lot more as my first impression of the neighbor is that we
will get along just fine and share a lot of the same interests.
November 5, 2017
Rain moved in yesterday and there wasn’t anything we could do outside
on the barn or grounds. Analia had been
asking us to go to an auction. She
remembers going to the Shenandoah Valley Produce Auctions with us previous
summers and we did not take her this past summer. (Mike went a couple of times, but I never
attended this year since we were not buying or selling our own produce this
past season on a grand scale.) Analia
was just a very small baby when we began taking her to the produce auction. We told her that this would be different but
she didn’t really know what to expect. I
took along some snacks for her and she entertained herself pretty well for a
while but did grow bored before it was over.
She didn’t understand the concept of bidding and no matter how I tried
to explain it, couldn’t get it through her head that you couldn’t just pick
something up and pay a set price for it and walk out the door. There was a large pony swing that she really
liked made out of rubber (looked like a version of a tire swing) and Mike bid
on that and got it for her. When we
returned to the house, someone had put a large, pictorial book about horses
inside the screen door. There was no
note or explanation but I assumed it was the lady who had stopped by and
visited the other day. When she found
out that Analia liked horses, she had told us about owning horses and about
some of her experiences with horses. I
sat down for a bit with Analia to look at the book and then I told her she
needed to play by herself while I picked up the house. We had not slept well the previous night but
had fallen back to sleep, making us late to leave for the auction. I had left the house in a mess and wanted to
pick it up. There was a lot more book
reading and block building before the night was over. Alissa texted me and said that Rory was very
discontent and crying a lot. She is
cutting more teeth and still has the nasty congestion. She is also working hard with developmental
advancements which I am convinced makes a child cranky. She will be eight months old on the 22nd. She has said “Momma and DaDa” for a while now
but has added “bye bye” to her vocabulary in the last two days. She has been pulling up and standing for a
while now, and most recently balancing alone. Alissa said she took several steps
yesterday. Alissa was also seven months
old when she took her first steps and at nine months of age was walking
anywhere she wanted to walk. I think
Rory wants to “get up and go” so badly that it makes her frustrated and cranky
sometimes. When she does accomplish a
goal, she is so funny as she will smile and laugh at herself. Alissa said she is exhausted because Rory has
cried so much and been so discontented.
I told her that’s the way it is for me every Monday and Tuesday when I
watch the girls. I just wear myself out
trying to keep Rory content but she is not a content baby at all. My theory is that she is always pushing for
the next developmental step, goal oriented, and mentally active. Alissa was the same way, a very discontented
baby who stopped crying so much when she learned to walk, taking her first
steps also at seven months. I am hoping
once the teeth are through and she has her legs under her, Rory will be content
for longer periods of time.
November 6, 2017
We got back to Staunton early enough that Analia could spend time with
her parents knowing they would both be working and away from home on
Monday. The reunion between Rory and
Analia after four days apart was just precious.
Rory immediately reached out for Analia and couldn’t contain her excitement
at being with her big sissy again. I
helped Mike price some items for a new booth at a new venue for our antiques
and vintage items. He is not very happy
that he will have to set up the booth by himself. The place is closed on Tuesday and Wednesday
and those are the only two days I am available to help since I have the kids
for 9 hours on Monday. I told him we
could take the kids or he could watch them and I would do it, but I don’t think
he thought too much of that idea and will probably try it himself. Alissa had stripped the sheets from our bed,
knowing we had been so sick and wanting to make sure everything was clean. I put the sheets back on the bed and put the
few things we had brought back from SW Virginia with us away in our room. After calling grandma and washing my face, I
settled in with a mountain of paperwork from the Antique Mall to sort, record
and send to our partner.
We have a lot to get done this week before we head back to SW Virginia.