A Matter of Degrees

It is 8 degrees out right now (feels like -5). Tonight the wind chills will be 20 below zero. The high predicted for Monday will be -4. I don't even want to think about what that night will bring. It's winter, and I'm whining.

Years ago I made a deal with myself that I would only complain about one season. Winter is it. It can be 106 with 80% humidity and I won't say a word. But -4 is some kind of ungodly number. I feel bad for the birds I watch out the window. I'd invite them in if I could. I'm not sure how the rest of the animal kingdom is doing it.

Me, I'm hermiting. I didn't leave the house yesterday. I'm not planning to leave the house tonight. I'll go home, change into sweatpants, put on my slippers, and curl up under a blanket. And all that in a warm house. For the last three days, this has been my routine. New Year's Eve was cold, so we stayed in. Yesterday was barely 10, so we stayed in. And tonight we'll stay in.

I know I've grown up here. I should be used to this kind of weather. And in some ways I am. I can deal with the cold. I just don't want to.

Going Without

The internet at home has been....unreliable is the word I'll use. I've used others before but few of them are appropriate here. We got a couple days of good reliable service and then it will conk out for a half a day. Originally we thought it was the construction going on in front of the house but I guess it is the modem. Jeff finally fixed it yesterday and did the set-up. But we were down until about 10:30 last night.

I am surprised about how much this upsets me. I can live without TV and shockingly I can live without movies. But you take my internet away and lately I'm at a complete loss. So last night I met my parents for dinner (thanks Mom and Dad), went to the book store and bought Ish by Peter Reynolds, and then went home to take a bath and read. I scanned my shelves and grabbed a book to read but it wasn't until I was already in the bathtub that I reconsidered my choice of books. Night by Elie Wiesel is not a story to relax to. But it is an excellent book to shut me up when I start to whine.

I'd never read Elie Wiesel's memoir of his time spent at Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Even though the book has been lauded as a classic and that it is assigned in most high schools I had somehow never read it. It's not a long book. I finished it over a three hour period of time, but it is an immensely powerful story. The struggle and the horror that he (and others) went through are beyond my comprehension. I was sickened by the treatment in the camps and by the terrible deaths that awaited so many. It was very much the stuff of nightmares. I was shocked by the terrible struggle to survive that happened every day and by the brutality that humans (both captors and captives) were capable of. And I was shamed by my own lack of perspective.

I've been a little spoiled throughout my life in that I've never really had to struggle terribly for anything. My parents were generous (sometimes to a fault) and I've never had to worry about where my next meal was coming from. I've lived in comfortable houses with plenty of access to clothing and food and bathing. I've never had to fight anyone for anything. So as I lay in my hot bath last night, thinking about how terrible it was that my internet was down, I was reminded in brutal terms how good I have it. This book is a classic. And more than anything a reminder. Last night I was reminded that no matter what happens, with work, with life, with friends and family, I've still been blessed.

Stress

This will be a short post. I have about three or four hours of take-home work that I have been putting off this weekend. So tonight will have to be the night. My brother and his children where in town this weekend so I spent a lot of time playing and relaxing. The younger two and I mountain climbed my parent's hill at their house, the older and I put together an 800+ piece lego set, and we all ate more than I care to admit. We watched olympics and played video games and generally forgot about work. 

Jeff and I got a ton of things done at the house which felt really good. Our towel bar upstairs had ripped out of the wall so we replaced it with two. We put in a new bathroom faucet, replaced both toilet seats, and fixed the upstairs toilet. We also put a new headlight on my car. It felt really good and again I didn't think about work once. 

And now I am a whiny little girl complaining about having left my work for the end of the weekend and how I have hours of things to do. Bear with me. The last four weeks at work have been really tough. I have been staying late most nights and still not catching up. I have two long-term projects that are not getting done and are coming due soon. Add to that the stress of job hunting and then throw in a party I am throwing next weekend that I haven't started and you see why I'm a bit stressed. 

But the worst part of stress for me is what it does to my body. I herniated a disc last May and still have the occasional flair-up. Like when I'm stressed. Right now it feels like my arm is on fire. I wake up stiff and sore each morning with pain radiating down my arm and a hand that's asleep. Not my favorite thing. So I stretch and go to work and pretend that I'm okay. I just have to get through the next couple of weeks. Things will slow down. They have to slow down. Okay whining done. Sorry about that. I'll post something more interesting before the night is over.