Spring - kinda

It’s *kinda* spring around here, finally - it seems like the sun hasn’t been out since Thanksgiving. The blooms have started to tentatively appear - a process that usually starts in January but has been delayed by endless rainstorms and historical cold. While it’s easy to fall into the “I’ve never seen it this cold/hot” when in fact you have, every year, trope, my natural gas bills tell me that yes, this has been an especially sucky winter in Southern California. I have a pre-set limit of $250 on my monthly gas bill, after which I’m alerted, and it’s been more than double, sometimes triple that amount for four months. 

Now that the gauntlet that was March is nearly over, it’s time to look ahead - in two days we leave for Kauai, and I can’t wait. I hope it’s better than our Christmas Maui trip that was fraught with anxiety. That’s all I remember about that trip. Hopefully this one will be more chill, with less covid issues. When we return I have to buckle down on getting my website updated and preparing to open for registration on May 1st. It’s funny, I feel like no matter which way it goes in May, I’ll be stressed out - if I get a normal amount of people, I’ll be freaked out that I didn’t get more since covid has receded and it’s my 25th anniversary; if I get a lot, I’ll be freaked out that we’ll be oversold and there won’t be enough rooms at the hotel. There’s just no pleasing some people. 

As it’s just about April and the last I heard from our neighbor contractor is that he had planned to be out there to work on our place in mid-March and he never actually did, I think it’s safe to assume that the outhouse is all we’re going to get out of him this year, which bums me out spectacularly. It’s possible he’ll be able to pull it out for us in his last few days in town like he did last year, but I’m not going to hold my breath. I messaged a woman who was advertising her contractor husband on a community group page. I’m going to guess he’ll be too expensive, or I’ll never hear from them. If we could just get windows, walls, and insulation in there, there’d be so much we could do - it would be life changing as far as our lifestyle out there. It seems so simple and yet it’s been so impossible. I’ve now owned this place for two years. No regrets, but jeez. 

Hopefully all will go well and we’ll get to Kauai all right (I still expect covid to ruin our plans, something to go wrong), we stay safe while there, and manage to get some quality family time in for spring break before returning to the last two months of school. And my event opening, which starts a whole new chapter. Here’s hoping.