February Blues

This blog gets pretty skinny this time of year. Not a lot of things to report, you know, besides winter. I have been focusing on small things around the house, the mudroom walls are painted, the bench cushions are being made, and in another couple of weeks it will be considered ★ finished! ★ Also, the photo wall is up so I can do a post on that pretty soon, and I finally found some window treatments for our family room. Of course, they were in TJ Maxx, and I needed five pairs, so the great "call around to every store in the greater Boston area trying to track them down" project commenced. Finding these were an obsession. I actually ventured out in the storm during the snow day this past Monday to buy some that were *only* going to be on hold for me until the end of that day. So I had to go there. In the end, I found 5 pairs in 3 stores = success. But because I can't do anything that is easy, they all have to be hemmed and cut to various widths, which will definitely cost more than the panels themselves. Ahhh the irony. But they are worth it. I had previously picked out a fabric from a fabric store and the quote to have them made and installed was $6,000. That's, six.thousand.dollars. They would have been gorgeous but, not in my budget right now, so the $34.99 ones from TJ's looked pretty good, even if it's another $50 to alter them (which, uh, it is). I'll post a picture when they are up, probably in about a year because now I need to pick rods and finials and who knows how long that will take.

So overall, as you can see, things are quite boring. And predictable: we have been getting some snow and people have been getting sick. Last Friday, for some terrible reason, both Bentley and Belmont did not close like the rest of the state, which means I had work and Ashton had school. After I dropped Ashton off, I only stayed at work for a few hours before deciding we really needed to get home. So I picked him up and we basically slid back to Natick, the roads were so dangerous, the snow was super heavy too so there were tons of big branches down. But after the snowstorm passed around 4:30 and right as Jason finished snowblowing, the sun came out and it was simply gorgeous. The light touched the tops of all the trees in our neighborhood and everything was glistening white, it was honestly breathtaking - something I totally could not capture but I tried.

(See the sunroom on the left side of the house? That's the new mudroom - the windows have blue painters tape on them because Jason sprayed all the mullions, sills, etc. white. Also see how low the power lines were?? The snow was that heavy!)

We took a walk around the block with the boys and that's when the sky started to turn pink, which reflected off the snow, so the whole world seemed to have a blush hue.

And then the sunset.

No filters on any of those! Beautiful.

What was not beautiful was Alex. The next day, Saturday, marked the 4th day Alex had been sick. He just walked around the house crying and spent long periods of time sleeping on me :(

Which NEVER happens. So Saturday morning I finally took him to the pediatrician. His cold was so bad he had mucous oozing out of the corners of his eyes. He would wake up with his whole face crusted over practically - yuck, TMI, sorry. But turns out he had a double ear infection and he's been on antibiotics since.

We survived until Monday which was another snowstorm and official snow day. That one was kind of blustery and not so pretty at the end. I didn't take any pictures.

Wednesday, yesterday, Ashton was finally back to school. We geared up for a regular day, I drove him to school, walked him into his class, hung up his coat and...he puked right there on the floor. So, I unhooked his coat, walked him back to the car, and drove him home. Sigh. But he was actually totally fine after that, he ate normally and played all day and even constructed this masterpiece.

While Alex snacked on snowballs.

So who knows.

Whaaaaat else. Brae Burn's three week shut down officially ends tomorrow, so Jason will be leaving me to go back to work and I won't see him again until this time next year (haha). It's been so nice to have him home at night and on the weekends and I know the boys have loved it too. Ashton was supposed to have his first ski lesson this coming Sunday but it is supposed to be A degree. Like, one. Uno. Single. Not sure what I'll do there.

That wraps it up for mid-February. I have to finish Ashton's class valentines tonight, I get to go see new Baby Hugh on Saturday, and next week is school vacation week and Jen is away (yikes). But I'll worry about that when I have to.

Choo-choo! This train just keeps on chugging ;)