Doldrums of Winter

It's been a veritable puke fest (among other things) in this house for the past few weeks.... Ineke getting the worst of it.  While everyone elses' lasted only 24 hours or so, poor little Tiddle had serious vomiting/diarrhea for 8 days straight!  Just when she started to act better during the day and I would get my hopes up that she would have finally turned the corner...sure enough, I'd lay her down and then I'd hear Corynn running downstairs frantic.  Ineke's little arms turned to toothpicks and her Incredible Hulk thighs had turned downright spindly by day eight but I managed to keep her hydrated (the most important thing) and finally, she seems to have finally kicked it.  I cut dairy out of her diet altogether (which apparently was why her v/d continued so long- having developed *hopefully temporary* lactose intolerance.)  Now I have to figure out how to slowly reintroduce dairy and redisappear juice to her diet.  This should be fun.

Praise God I somehow escaped the bug so that I could be the laundry Miss, the chicken stock boiler, disinfecter and the nursemaid.  That was a great blessing because the Lord knows those jobs were much needed.

Snowstorms, too, have kept us housebound.  We've missed several weeks of church and I don't know about you- but when you miss church, things just ain't right. 

Wood supply burning up too quickly, southern winds that blow through walls and windows, Matt being gone from home more often due to work and that incident of Ineke catching her hair on fire and the fact that it is February and no sun and no woods' walks and no fresh air and still no signs of spring to seek for quite some time yet ...

All these, and more, has led to me feeling a mite like I had fallen through the ice and was scraping around looking for the hole to come back up through before I suffocated entirely.  That may be an overstatement... but not a terribly huge one.

I'm anxious for spring.  And green things.  And warm sunshine on my face.  And the feel of cool mud squishing through my toes.  And everybody well.  And boys wrestling outside instead of in.  And lots of other things.

Instead, I organize the spice cupboard or scrub clean the fridge and feel, for just a moment, that I have some sort of control over things.  I don't, of course, but I now have an organized spice cupboard.  Which counts for something, I suppose.

In January, I finished reading Popes and Feminists, The River of Doubt, Lila, and The Question of God.  I am now working on And Still She Laughs (in book form.  A gift.) and The Professor and The Madmad (in audiobook form) when working in the kitchen. 

I managed to properly procrastinate on Birthday and Valentine's Day yarn gifts until they could not possibly ever be finished in time to actually be given away for said gift.  And since I schizophrenically worked on all of them in desperation, I didn't get a single one of them done.  But hey, I can look at it as I was late for the birthdays or I can look at it as being REALLY ahead of the game for Christmas.

When I get in my little funk, it is so easy to just stay wallowing.   Why is this?  It takes no effort at all- maybe it is even a bit comforting- to think constantly about yourself and your woes.  But I think perhaps the best medicine to revive a sullen spirit is to put your mind onto something outside of yourself.  Look out at the thing right in front of your face and look at it with clear eyes, not cloudy ones.  Dilate.  Blink.  Focus.  Take note of what is surrounding you- anything to stop the constant thinking- and perhaps you will find that those glazed eyes might instead start to glimmer.

And by 'you', of course, I mean me. 


~~~
kcco
yarn along