Winter Trees

It is starting to feel more and more like winter.  I do expect the occasional respite from the cold, but it is time to make sure we have enough mittens to last at least two month, enough hats to make it through December, and enough wood to keep the family room warm

 We have, we hope, successfully sealed the mice out or in.  We will know if we have sealed them in the house in less than a week (the smell will be over-powering).  Overall this experience has been extremely unpleasant, but not shattering, although at times that was a fine line.  We are about $600 into it and we have another 2 to 300 left to fix a window so they can’t come in.  I am thankful that we can absorb this cost, but I am a little anxious about what will get left undone by this unexpected expense.  Do we ignore that the dishwasher is dying?  Do we postpone even further our beautiful wood steps?  Do we let all the little repairs that look slightly unsightly go until I just can’t stand it any longer?  Do I use the money I made in my investment club to cover the cost of a mice infestation?  Should I start randomly hocking wares from our home on eBay?  What?  Certainly not the stairs.  I can’t give up my stairs.

Right now I could entertain the idea of getting rid of or outright selling our kids.  Oscar and Alban are sitting at the table and arguing over who may have which helmet from the small Lego collection they have brought up the stairs.  Now, let us please ignore the fact that they have about 2,000,000 small Lego pieces in the basement.  And we must not consider that they have about 1,000 ‘helmets’ for the ‘guys’ that they are making at the kitchen table.  In their world that have a small number of helmets that ‘belong’ to Oscar and so there is much posturing and heated discussion about who will get what.  Alban keeps asking over and over for just one helmet for his space guy.  Oscar is telling him to be quiet so he can just think!  Oscar is mean, Alban is a baby.  Oscar’s guy is lose, Alban’s guy is going to get killed.  Alban is not going to be Oscar’s friend anymore, Oscar hates Alban and will never play with him again.

In the time it took me to type this while trying to mediate the dispute, they are now playing very nicely and battling out some interstellar war that only they can understand.  Oscar might win the most, but Alban is convinced that he will.  Oscar’s guys are going to be hard because he wants to win and Alban’s guys are soft so they are going to lose.  Alban’s guys are the hardest and they will smash into Oscar’s guys until they break apart and make Oscar very angry.  Neither one will lose and neither one will win.  It will just miraculously be bedtime and we will all trudge upstairs and call it a day.

I will put the boys to bed and come downstairs and have have a glass of wine and decide what will be our next move.  Whatever it will be, it will be right for us.  We will stay warm, we will have enough to eat, we will be together and we will be able to sit and think about life and watch the winter trees.