End of winter break

After a few days of brain fog and sloth I chalk up to fear of the country falling apart (real) and anxiety over our sky rocketing coronavirus numbers (also real), I finally rallied today and took the kids to my favorite Malibu hike. They were in good spirits and the weather was fine, and listening to positive, uplifting music just set my heart soaring. It was a beautiful day.

School starts tomorrow. I’ve forgotten what it’s like, now, hustling these kids through their lessons all day. It’s way easier around here when we all just get to do what we want. It’s going to be a tough winter. I am determined to take things a week at a time. Two four day weeks, then a full week, then it’s February. And by then two significant things will have happened - Biden will be our president, and my oldest friend from NY will finally move to LA. 

I am scared for next week. With all the right wing chatter about attacking capital buildings in the days leading up to the inauguration, I’m very afraid for what’s going to start happening over the weekend. Life just seems like one trauma after another at the moment. When can we just exhale, finally? I guess the answer to that is the 21st. 

We head to Lake Arrowhead on Friday for a weekend in a cabin. I have to say I’m not really looking forward to it at the moment. There is no snow so I don’t really know what we’re going to do up there. I need to look things up. I believe there’s ski areas with sledding areas with fake snow we can visit...but I’m afraid of catching the virus, and none of us have winter boots. Well, I’m sure I’ll be glad later that I booked the trip. It’s a stressful time and a getaway will feel good. 

This week I apply for both a grant and the second round of PPP loans. If I get both (I expect to get the PPP loan but not sure about the grant) it will be *almost* enough money to stretch me to Feb of 2022 when I can open for registration again if this year is a no-go, which it increasingly looks like it will be. I also may open for registration in September, but then I have to make that money stretch a whole year. I don’t know. I’ll figure something out; I always do. My goal in all this is to hand back that SBA loan untouched, but I’m not sure how possible that’s going to be. Sigh. 

We did a zoom call with a donor sibling that contacted us via the DSR last night. She was a nice girl of eight (seven months younger than Bobby, who was delighted to still be the eldest). She showed us her rock collection while the boys wrestled and ran around. Ah, to have a girl! One life experience I’ll never know. I got the feeling she was lonely and her moms wanted her to feel connected to other kids. I hear that. Every minute of every day during this quarantine I’m grateful I was able to have two kids. This is where it pays off.