Strike is over!

It was announced on Tuesday that the strike had been resolved and students would be returning to school the next day. Hallelujah! It sounds like the teachers mostly got what they wanted - smaller class sizes, more support staff, raises. So, six days wasn’t so bad. I wonder if social media and the current political mood helped move this process along? The strike in 1970 lasted five weeks. One wonders.

It’s been challenging getting back into the swing of school craziness. Homework, rushed mornings. I’m not a fan. However, I am a fan of having an entire day to myself. 

Bobby’s had two poop-free days at school. Coincidence? Perhaps. I’ve given him Miralax in apple sauce every morning; I make him poop every morning and every night. You would think this should guarantee that he wouldn’t have to go in the middle of the day, too. My hope would be that he’s getting feeling back in his colon and is able to hold it. That would be the best case scenario. But it could also be that we’ve just been lucky. I won’t believe it until we have at least a couple of weeks with no accidents. Then I can start celebrating. 

In other news, registration for my event opens next Friday. I am very nervous, as always. This year has a couple of added stressors - not knowing how attendance will be based on the country’s financial insecurity, also the “sister” event moving to the fall; and a brand new website and registration system. It’s good that I have a year’s experience with any kind of online system (beyond the clunky one I’d been using for years); but this one is especially scary because I’m really on my own - they do have a support team, but they’re only available during work hours. And guess what? My registration is set to open Friday night, so if there are any issues I’m going to have to wait until Monday morning to have it fixed. Which, quite honestly, is such a huge problem that had I known this was the case, I would have moved my opener. I’ve been testing it all week and have found lots of issues with it, and the people I’ve been dealing with have not been very responsive. So far I am not impressed. 

I am also not impressed with my kitchen progress. The guys came to install some cabinetry a couple of weeks ago, and since then...nothing. The countertop guy is going to do the counters Tuesday, but nothing else is planned for next week. The fucking windows, which we discovered in mid-December had been ordered wrong, wont even be done until Feb 8th, and who knows when they’ll be installed, and not much can happen until that happens. So basically the screw up with the windows set this whole project back a whopping two months. Still no real idea as to when it’ll be done - I’m hoping end of Feb? Ugh. 

At least today I’m having the burglar alarm put back as a reaction to what happened here Saturday night. This one will have a doorbell with a camera. That’ll make me feel a little better.

To counter my various anxieties, I’ve taken up knitting. It’s so hard to start a new discipline that’s so complex and full of tools and jargon - but I know I can do it (especially in the age of YouTube) and I know especially as you age it’s good for your brain to experience learning new things. I am currently working on a scarf for Theo after turning my first stumbling effort into a snake scarf for Bobby:

Our grandmothers knew busily working on a project each night was a terrific stress reliever; I’m going to see if that works for me, too!