A Few Winter Updates

Winter Weather

For all of December and January, we had very little snow--about half of what we'd normally get during those months. Finally, on January 23, we had enough snow that we needed to shovel for the first time. Thankfully, we had planed ahead and bought a snow shovel a couple months ago. If I remember right, this snow was the result of two smaller storms that came through back-to-back. 

Mark shoveling our sidewalk

me in my snow boots in our yard

an action shot of Mark shoveling the driveway
(from across the street)

the next day, from my office window, watching some
dogs and their people play in the old schoolyard

Then, the first week of February, we got the big storm that impacted so much of the country. The predictions around here were for it to start as rain, change to snow, and leave us with something like 12-20 inches. As it turned out, we were stuck with rain for most of the first day, so our snow totals were much smaller in the end, around 8-10 inches. It was still an impressive storm--rain from late Tuesday night to about 5pm on Wednesday, then snow all the way through the overnight on Thursday. BGSU even closed campus and cancelled classes both Thursday and Friday (campus closures have been quite rare during our years here, so it's notable when it does happen). Because the second half of the storm had a lot of wind, that meant blowing and drifting snow. Mark did three rounds of shoveling for this one! And the city crews were hard at work, too, doing a good job to clear the roads during and after the storm. As usual, the snow was dry and fluffy, so no good at all for packing or making snowmen (one of my great disappointments about the snow here!). Overall, we had been really looking forward to a nice, big snowstorm, so we were bummed that it wasn't as massive as predicted. But it was still a lot, and I really enjoyed taking a couple of walks around the neighborhood to see it all on Thursday and Friday!

dreary rainy day view from upstairs

finally switching to snow around 5pm

by mid-day on Thursday, we had several inches,
and Mark's doing the first round of shoveling

it's hard to take a good selfie when the wind is
blowing snowflakes into your eyes! ;-)

our house and the neighbor's tree
from down the alley

on Main Street downtown--hardly anyone is out

nearly deserted intersection of Main & Wooster

back home at the end of the walk--a better selfie
(with the wind at my back this time!)

I love having a kitchen window!

the snow blew around a lot--
covering our sidewalk and porch

front of the house after Mark shoveled
and I swept the front porch

about 8 inches at this spot in our yard

City snow removal in action! In big storms,
they plow to the middle, then come back and scoop
up the snow into dump trucks to take it away!

another shot of the snow removal

a belated snowman! 

(Once the snow had started to melt on a warmer day in the sun, Mark said, "I bet that snow would pack now." So I tested it out, and made an ugly, heavy snowman on the side of the house. I was pretty tickled. Unfortunately, the next day, someone knocked off his head! Not cool, neighbor.)

Ongoing House Projects

Since the new year, we've been wanting to make progress on a few more things around the house. There were a variety of small things that we wanted to upgrade, buy, and/or reorganize, so we've been chipping away at that list. 

new gray towels from LL Bean

new front door mat (also LL Bean!)

new mat for drying dishes

new anti-fatigue mat in the kitchen
(it's SO nice to have something cushy to stand on)

reorganized hall closet, with new
bins for masks and winter gear

And Mark was really ready to get the guest room part of my office/guest room done. This, unfortunately, was a bigger challenge than we'd expected! Initially, when we'd first moved in and talked about our options for this room, we considered murphy beds, futons, and sleeper sofas. We had hoped to have a queen size, but it just didn't seem like the room could accommodate that. After lots of deliberation, we decided to get a twin-sized sleeper chair, and we were leaning toward the ones from La-Z-Boy, since we've been so happy with our other furniture from there. On the other hand,  I was super frustrated that prices on those had gone way up since we looked back in the summer. We also looked at some online options, but I was starting to get worried about whether we'd be able to fit any of them--expensive or otherwise--down our narrow hallway. We finally took a bunch of measurements and realized it was going to be nearly impossible--even with the smallest options we looked at, we were not confident that it would work. (In fact, we were almost certain they wouldn't fit, and so was the La-Z-Boy salesman!)

So, it was back to the drawing board. And we were both pretty grumpy about the whole thing--we'd spent about 6 months thinking we'd get a twin sleeper, so we were attached to the idea! I was back to researching options, leaning toward futons. Then Mark surprised me with the suggestion to get a trundle daybed (an option I'd been interested in, but he'd vetoed right away, back in the beginning). Well, in the end, that's what we did! And even though it was a bumpy road getting to this decision, I'm so pleased. We did, after all, get our space to sleep two. We also spent about what I'd originally been thinking 6 months ago--not the price increase we'd discovered in January. And once I get some more pillows, I think it'll be a lovely place to sit and lounge, with beautiful afternoon sun. Visitors welcome! (And, if this arrangement doesn't suit you, the deluxe queen size air mattress is also at your service :-). 

daybed frame assembled! (in about 2 hours, I think)
we originally thought it would go here, but stay tuned

mattress delivery day!

Ta-da! different wall, with sheets...
still working on pillows

I should also mention one unpleasant update, which is that one of our patio chairs was stolen in January. We were totally shocked, but one day, I came home from a walk and noticed it gone--we still had everything else (side table, second chair, rug), but not the one chair. We filed a police report, squeezed everything else into the garage, and tried not to take it personally. But we were pretty disgusted. We assume it was most likely a one time, random thing--the police officer seemed to think so, too. (It was pretty great how quickly he came out--within 15 minutes of my call!) We still need to talk about what we'll do as far as a replacement--but it won't be warm enough to use anything outside for another month or two. 

FIL 

The other big thing going on for me this semester is that I'm on Faculty Improvement Leave (FIL, BGSU's name for sabbatical). I proposed my project in Fall 2020, got approved in January 2021, and now I'm actually doing it! So instead of teaching classes and the usual committee, department, and program meetings, I get to be on my own, working on the project I proposed. It has a professional development focus, and the outcome will be updated course materials (plus a workshop and resource list for my colleagues). The topic I'm exploring is vocabulary learning, and it's been really interesting so far. It's also been really different--it took some time to get used to not teaching! But I love having the change of pace, especially since the teaching context is still so challenging right now. And the topic is super interesting to me, with lots of related areas I'm exploring alongside. I'm sure I haven't read this much all at once since grad school--I might even be outpacing that! It's one of those things where it's hard to tell if I'm doing enough, but I have to trust that I am (and also allow myself to relax a bit!). Overall, it's a huge blessing--one that wouldn't have been available to me even a few years ago (thanks to our faculty union for negotiating this benefit for us!). 

sitting at my desk working...papers
and notebooks everywhere!

and More...

I don't think I've mentioned already, but I spent the first two weeks (+) of January sick--cold-like symptoms, with a couple of truly rotten days early on (then slowly resolving symptoms after the first week or so). I tested for COVID on day two, and got a negative result, but tests were hard to get at that point, so I wasn't able to take another to confirm. Mark and I decided to treat me more or less like I did have it, so we kept to ourselves and slept separately. I also wore a mask during the day and didn't leave the house until I felt like I'd clearly turned a corner toward feeling better (I think that was about 10 days). It wasn't fun, but Mark never got whatever it was, so I feel good that I didn't spread it around--not in our household or outside it. And the best thing about being sick is how much you appreciate feeling normal again after!

Our first outing after all that was the Broadway musical Come from Away, which turned out to be our favorite of the season so far (and one of our favorites out of all the ones we've seen). It was truly fantastic--we'd highly recommend going if you have the chance! 

January also brings the end of the children's book award season, which meant the campus Mock Caldecott group I'm part of discussed our final set of books and met one last time to determine our winners. We picked Watercress as the winner and gave two honors: Wonder Walkers and Keeping the City Going. The next week, our librarian live-streamed the award broadcast, and after adding dozens of other children's and young adult books to my reading list, we learned the real winner for the Caldecott award: Watercress! It's the third year our group has picked the actual winner! I was inordinately excited about that. And Wonder Walkers got an official honor, too, along with several other books that made it into our final round of discussion. 

screenshot of our group
pic posted by Joe, the 
librarian who coordinates

I've also enjoyed resuming weekly video calls with Mom and Julie (with appearances by Daniel). We read two books together last year, meeting each week to discuss. This year, we decided to keep meeting, but we're not all reading the same book--we've each got our own that we share notes from. It's a highlight of my week (along with my longstanding Sunday phone calls with Mom and Wednesday phone calls with Grandma). I'm so thankful we've all made the effort to keep in touch regularly, and it's even sweeter right now, when my work is so solitary. 

And for the last week, I've been watching hours and hours of the winter Olympics! It feels a bit strange after just having the summer games, but I sure do enjoy seeing all the various sports and top-notch athletes. I don't watch much sports during the year (sometimes I catch ice skating on weekends...and some March Madness with Mark). But there's just something about the Olympics that sucks me right in. I'm so glad Mark and his Dad figured out how to connect our exterior antenna to the living room tv--the reception is excellent (except every once in a while if it rains), and I can just turn on whatever NBC is showing and veg out. It's been lovely (though I am definitely staying up too late watching post-primetime live coverage...I figure if not now, when I don't have classes to teach, when?!). 

One last update is that Mark got hired to play with the Lima symphony this week--he's very happy to have a gig again (this kind of work totally dried up because of the pandemic). They've asked him to play again next month on another concert! This city is about an hour's drive south, so it's a big commitment, but he likes the other players (and they do reimburse him for mileage, which is great!). 

So, that's what's happening around here so far in 2022! 

a pretty view of University Hall on campus at night