Season After Epiphany

In the church calendar, we are currently in the season after Epiphany, a season of light before Lent, with its intensity and its brooding. The figurative reason for this blog title, however, will have to be revealed in a future entry. It is an enlightening time!

Jon was out of town recently on yet another job interview. I was enormously proud of my management during that time, especially since he ended up having to be out of town an extra day due to a flight cancellation.

On Sunday afternoon, while Jon was probably still in the air, we did some painting.

It was clear the kids missed Papa already:

Adele works only in handprints.

I take a single-mom selfie:

Adele was thrilled to go to work with me after preschool Monday-Wednesday. On Tuesday, I actually convinced her to take her nap in my office, on the floor. Hoorah for multi-tasking!

Wednesday evening we were able to retrieve Jon, and I collapsed onto the couch while he made dinner. I'm so grateful this isn't my full-time gig!

Last weekend, for the holiday, we hit up the Blacksburg library and were happy to find that the therapy reading cat had an opening in her schedule. Miles picked the perfect book to read to Carrie!

She got pretty seriously loved while we were in there.

On Wednesday, we finally got to see some snow.

For Dr. King day, Monday, we took a family day at the Roanoke Science Museum. My favorite was the butterfly room! I do love a greenhouse in winter. One misses the humidity and the smell of growing things.

The Grunerts also (predictably) spent a long while in the vintage arcade section.

I loved the informative panels in this exhibit. 

#VideoGameWisdom

The view from the windows is one of my favorite things about the museum. I think Roanoke is so pretty.

This "Augmented Reality Sandbox" allowed the kids to change the form of the sand and watch how it would affect the flow and position of water. The machine reads the form of the land and makes the "water" move accordingly. So cool!

There had to be one more trip to the butterfly garden. We just soaked it up. I was soothed after a very trying week.

Miles continues to sneak selfies onto my phone. He really favors the black&white filter. 

Tuesday found me again on my commute, a bit colder than usual.

It was another hard week, as it was the first week of classes and I have an exceptionally full schedule this semester. My own class is "Mega Texts," all looooong novels, so it's delicious but a lot of reading (obviously). It's a time of many new projects. But just when my strength was at a low, we learned Virginia Tech was, against all precedent, cancelling school in advance of the snow! Seeing as we probably have about 8 inches and it's still snowing hard (totals anticipated to be between 18-24 inches), it was the right decision. 

Soon to come: pictures of snow! And, who knows, an Epiphany more or two. 

Epiphany and my One Word

This post contains a lot of stuff personal to me. If you're looking for lots of kid pictures, this is not your post. Hang in there. 

2016 is a beautiful year. I can tell. The number is just pretty to look at, for one thing. For another, I started it in a place of hope for positive changes for our family.

Some of these changes I can't control. But I'm starting with that which I can change. The journey toward care of my adult self, which my anxiety diagnosis began in 2012, keeps unfolding and exposing new tasks. The annoying digestive inconsistencies I've experienced for years worsened considerably in 2015, and I spent the last week of the year really struggling with food. I don't want to have to keep feeling bad, but I don't want to fear all food, either.

My NP has recommended, rather timidly, that I attempt a low-FODMAP diet, but as diets of any sort are generally my horror, and the patient work and discomfort of slowly re-introducing one food at a time to find determine my sensitivities sounded like more trouble than it was worth.

Funny how things can change. I'm no longer willing, I decided, to remain passively dreading a tummy ache or bout of nausea, etc. As of January 1, I am FODMOP free. So far? I'm feeling great.

I start each day with a couple of dances on Wii (today I started with Outkast, Boney M. and James Brown) to break a sweat (such positive mood benefits so far!) and then proceed to eat no gluten or other high FODMAP foods, instead eating simple stuff we made ourselves. 2012 me would not believe this. But my 2016 One Word is Health. I intend to focus on every kind of health I can, from psychological to physical to relationship health. I finally have the energy to switch to an offensive tactic, and I love it.

I ended 2015 a bit depressed about things I could not control. I'm beginning 2016 motivated to show up to the things I can control. I hope this inspiration lasts!

We said no to the 7pm Epiphany service last night. I love Epiphany, but that was the kids' first day back at school and we were all wiped. Instead, we did a good old Epiphany tree burning and carol sing in the backyard.

We threw in the last of the rainbow crystals for good measure!

That little tree really burned!

I hope we get plenty of use of this fire pit in 2016. It's been a joy.

We said goodbye to Christmas last night in a flourish of rainbow flame. Onward into 2016 and all the possibilities it contains!

I still love my commute. Even in winter. 

Empty campus at almost 8am

Bring it on, 2016. 

And all flesh shall see it together

Christmas Day sent us over to a very lively family party in Lynchburg. When you have a baby close to the holidays, you are granted non-travelling privileges!

For the first time, Jon got to hold his niece:

She's still so tiny! But she's valiantly holding up her head, making expressive faces and making a variety of noises. I have a huge enthusiasm for newborns. 

Adele formed a close relationship with Toby the Black Lab, one of the Nishimuras' 3 dogs. Tolerance is among his stronger personal qualities: 

Adele hugely enjoyed the chance to play with her baby cousin. She continues to surprise me with her affection for Addison (and Miles continues to surprise me with his lack of interest!).

We so rarely get good pictures of the kids with their grandparents, that we made a point of it this time.



Probably the best of a long series of group family pictures! Here you may see Jon's parents and siblings and their families: Tim & Corey, Cindy, Miles, Marshall, Michaela, Addison, Dave, Jon, Adele and Me. It was a full house! perfect degree of noise and merriment for Christmas.

I am under oath not to share pictures, so you'll have to imagine them: we all had a long Wii Dance Party! We gave ourselves a couple of dance games for Christmas, and I'm getting more skillful at The Power, Tik Tok, and Body Movin every day. But that first day, it was pretty much farcical comedy, with some impressive scores by Tim and Marshall. We got a lot of laughs out of it. 

Sunday we attended church at St. Phillips in Annapolis, and afterward drove into DC for Zoo Lights! When it's 72 degrees on a December Sunday and you're in range of the National Zoo, you don't think twice!

You won't see a lot of pictures. I started the day feeling pretty lousy (more on that later), and Miles ended the day by spiking a fever and kind of slowly collapsing. Still, we enjoyed our stroll and encounters with gorillas, elephants, and zebras on that preternaturally warm winter day. 

Cheetah has Opinions. 

Vulture? Maybe? I was pretty tired. 

Look! A sloth!

The light shows did not disappoint!

Miles' fever worsened over the next days, I'm sorry to say. It took till this past weekend for him to be himself; Wednesday it had gotten so bad I decided it was time for Urgent Care. I don't like to take them in for mere viruses, but this time I made the right call: Miles had strep throat! Having never once complained about a sore throat! We got him on antibiotics with haste, but it still took a lot of days for him to feel much better since he seemed to have a secondary virus as well. Poor kid! He hasn't worried me so much in a while. I'm so grateful for antibiotics right now.

Adele had a great old time during her week in Maryland, as relatively uneventful as it was. She and I enjoyed a girls' afternoon at the Annapolis Mall, for one thing.

She also got a lot out of enjoyment from her Christmas gifts. She particularly loves her Goldie Blox, engineering toys marketed specifically at young girls. Her kit came with an accompanying picture book (which contained instructions for several projects). She's able to follow the multi-step instructions to build her parade float all on her own. I recommend getting a set for the little girl in your life! We often don't realize how much we often limit kids by gender until we set out to challenge these limitations.

After several days of rest and Wii dance and coziness (I haven't been that caught up on sleep in a long while! It felt marvelous), we departed Annapolis on Thursday.

Our New Year was spent at home with our still-contagious sickie. But Jon and I stayed up. We rented This is 40 and laughed ridiculously hard, because it's so funny but it's also so real. Romantic comedies that stop at marriage, or even at the birth of a firstborn kid, are becoming less interesting to me. I need the strength that comes laughter at the unglamorous, emotionally draining work of showing up to marriage, children, and adult life. I heartily recommend This is 40. And go ahead and recommend similar movies to me! I need them!

The January page of our new 2016 kitchen wall calendar

2016. It looks so pretty when written. It rings when said aloud. I have great hopes for it, and I'm not waiting a day to experience positive change. 

More details, and my 2016 One Word, to follow. 

A flame in the dark

Christmas Eve was a bright spot in a dull, dark week. Not only the weather, but some hard news- another job that'd passed us by- weighed down the end of Advent.

When Jon took the kids to AnnapaDCCity for a couple of days, so he could do research without causing me to take any leave time that I didn't have. As a result, for the first time since we had kids, I was home by myself for more than a few hours. I had 48 hours, to be exact. I thought at first it'd be depressing, or eerie, or lonely.

It was amazing.

The first day I just did housework and watched movies that I and only I like to watch. The second day, I had friends over for a Winter Solstice Party, something I've been dying to do for ages. It was just a couple of girlfriends, some beef stew, some mulled wine, and some RAINBOW COLORED FLAMES, made from some hippie crystals I'd bought online.

It was magical. 

We danced around the fire and threw in papers on which we'd written things we wanted to leave behind in 2015. I made deeper connections with these local friends and came out feeling SO encouraged and light. 

Annie and me. Sarah, another awesome celebrant, had to leave early. 

This event helped me get grounded in gratitude and joy for Christmas Eve. I needed it badly!

Christmas Eve was another kind of delight. It's rare we spend Christmas Eve in Blacksburg.

I wasn't prepared for how packed the church would be, or for how obviously grumpy some parishioners would be about this. We need to be careful lest we find we're going to a private country club instead of church.

Anyway, I'll spare you all the sermon, and give you some of what I know you want: pictures of the kids.

She and I wore black together for Christmas Eve. We felt elegant.

Me and my BOY

It's been a warm, but gorgeous December.

Sunset at church, Christmas Eve

Later that night....

The sky opened! Can you see the ring? I couldn't get a good picture with either camera but I'm telling you, there was a thick, dramatic, and rainbow-edged ring around the full moon on Christmas Eve. I thought the angels were on their way back. We stared at that moon in the 55 degree weather at 11:00 on Christmas Eve for a long time. That's my Christmas gift from God, in lieu of snow. 

Christmas Day was warm and comfortable and lovely. I missed the snow and the extended family, but we had a lovely time learning how to have Christmas morning as a little family of four.

The kids got to spend some time enjoying their Santa-gifts:

New outfit! Pajamas! And room decor...

Have I mentioned that Adele wants ALL PINK PRINCESSES ALL THE TIME right now? Sigh....

Miles' new ballet shoes!

But before long, we were on our way to Christmas Day in Lynchburg!