Sunday would have marked my maternal grandmother’s 100th birthday, so I’m planning a celebratory weekend.

I have already put in a bunch of extra hours doing work, because she definitely valued hard work and meeting your obligations.

My fun activity for Friday night was watching Magnum while I was eating supper. The reboot is too recent for Gramma to have watched, but she enjoyed the original and I like to think she would have appreciated this version, as well. Rudi’s coaching this weekend, so since I can’t watch new things on tv tomorrow night, maybe I’ll pull up some old Britcoms. She did enjoy Hyacinth Bucket, Father Brown, and Jean and Lionel.

As I mentioned yesterday, my tea reinforcements have arrived. I’ll be refilling all the tins that have been depleted and drinking plenty of cuppas.

It’s the quarterly member sale at one of the local bookshops, so I’ll be heading up that way to indulge (and do some gift-shopping for other upcoming birthdays). I also have plenty of books to read, including some mysteries, which were Gramma’s favorite genre.

The first round of Sock Madness opened a couple hours ago, so I’ll be spending a good chunk of time knitting. Gramma was the one who taught me to knit, but I don’t think she understood why I wanted to bother with socks.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a crossword puzzle, so maybe I’ll fill out the ones from this weekend’s newspaper in her memory.

The butter is out, so maybe I’ll bake up a batch of something from Gramma’s cookbook she made me. Lemon squares would be fast, mint sticks chocolatey, or I could try something new.

In addition to baking sweets, Gramma enjoyed eating them. I have most of a container of ice cream in the freezer, whipped cream to top my cocoa, and Mum suggested I pick up a cannoli or something with Italian pastry cream in it to mark the occasion.

Okay, off to bed, because Gramma would not approve of still being up this late!

I write a lot of posts that I get a paragraph or two into and then delete. Mostly, they’re self-indulgent journal entries that belong in the pages of a private diary, rather than published for the world to see. Worse, they’re boring and repetitive and whiny, which demands that I purge them, suffocate before they gain enough oxygen to exist in the world on their own.

But I’m starting to wonder if, in an effort not to gripe in a place that guarantees my complaints will live on, I’m also denying myself the opportunity to problem-solve in the way I do best — in writing.

So, I’m going to dig out one of the bazillion notebooks I have floating around the Burrow and start writing in it. Start allowing my frustrations and my dreads (and occasionally my deepest hopes) into the air — where they will get oxygen, but also light. And if I can see a problem, and write about a problem, maybe I can solve it. Or come to terms with it and make it just an inconvenience, rather than a problem.

As I wrote Friday, I’m also going to get moving. Daylight Savings Time returns in a fortnight, and I don’t really care if you don’t like it (kids, pets, whatever). It helps me tremendously to have light after work. Daylight proffers the ability to work in the garden, to walk along the creek, to bike with less stress. I spend too much of my workday sitting (no need to walk to the conference room any more or run out to pick up lunch or bike to work), and I feel it, particularly when my day doesn’t end at 5 when it should, but at 7 or 8 or whenever I just give up on getting more done and switch from sitting on the couch with my work computer to sitting on the couch watching tv or reading. And it’s sure as hell going to show when I get out on the volleyball court with people 15+ years younger than me. If I’m not going to be inspiring, at least I should strive not to be a warning sign. As of today, the sun is finally setting after 6 again, and by the end of the month it’ll be after 7:30. I can work (and work out) with that.

And I’m going to put five things away every day. Not just down, but away. Rudi and I are notoriously bad about not wanting to deal with things in the moment, and they have a way of piling up — and not in a good way. We’ve agreed that we both need things to be less cluttered, but now we need to put action to word.

That’s three goals for the month. More than that and it’ll become impossible to begin. I’ll let you know how successful my inner Yoda is. (There’s a distinct possibility I’ll just smother him in a pile of laundry.)

I started to tell you about my work week, but, honestly, it’s exhausting to think about and you have your own work week you’re escaping. You don’t need to run into my monsters as you’re trying to beat your own.

I will say that it’s raining out tonight. It’s supposed to rain in the morning and some (possibly much) of Sunday, as well. I’m planning on spending those parts inside, possibly with my book and knitting and possibly trying to get some stuff cleaned and put away. Even small steps will help. There may also be baking.

Tomorrow afternoon and maybe some of Sunday’s will see some drier weather. That’s when I need to lace up my boots (or pull on my galoshes) and head outdoors. My volleyball teammates have indicated they’d like to play this spring, which means I need to think about being able to spend an extended period of time being active within the next six weeks, and being active with 30-somethings to boot. First part of the plan: getting in 7-10 thousand steps every day or spending 45 minutes out on the bike. Second part of the plan: unknown. Third part of the plan: fame and success (or, at least, not letting the team down when we’re back on the court). I’ll let you know how it goes.

This handsome fellow came home yesterday afternoon, which was absolutely lovely. Because he was out of state, obviously, we need to keep mostly to ourselves until after he tests negative later in the week, but the sun just made it too impossible to stay below ground. So we ventured forth to the Georgetown to the waterfront, double-masked except for when we were far away from others and drinking/eating.

We had saved the final To All the Boys movie for Rudi’s return, which was both a satisfying end to the trilogy and also a perfect February Saturday date night. And tonight we watched some lovely season finales to Miss Scarlet and the Duke and All Creatures Great and Small.

We replenished all the batteries on the fairy lights and ate lots of cookies (thanks, Mum and Dad!) and doted on the cat and generally just enjoyed being under the same roof again.

These daffodils are from before the winter storm passed through, so I’m not positive whether they’re still standing. But spring bulbs, like people, tend to be remarkably resilient when faced with adversity.

Either way, the equinox is a month from today. Daylight savings kicks back in in three weeks.

Hold on, everyone. Change is coming. It’s just hard to tell from where we’re standing.

It’s good I had managing expectations down on my list of ways to celebrate my birthday weekend. Rudi was forced to deviate from our plans in order to fly out to Utah on Monday to help his mom move into assisted living today. This will be a good decision for her health and independence, but the accelerated timeline and pandemic protocols made it particularly fraught in the short term. I’m incredibly proud of both him and his mom, because I know this wasn’t an easy step.

I did get to do some celebrating in between that and the ice storm. On Saturday, I attended a virtual author event held by one of my local bookshops with four authors who had romance novels coming out this month, including a mother-daughter duo who wrote their story from the perspective of a couple’s dog. I also gave myself a Galentine’s Day treat and made waffles for supper, knit on my sock, and watched the animated Beauty and the Beast movie.

On my birthday proper, I hit up the farmers market (where my order from the bakery included heart-shaped baguette and cookies, a loaf of cherry chocolate bread, and my favorite of their jams, red berry rose). I did some reading, and when Rudi got home from coaching, he and I went to pick up some free birthday doughnuts and ice cream. I chatted with my parents, we ate pizza from my favorite pizzeria, and we ended the evening with Miss Scarlet and the Duke and All Creatures Great and Small.

Yesterday, we slept in a little and then had some birthday treats my parents had sent before diving into virtual tours of assisted living facilities. I took Rudi to the airport and returned home for a long chat with a friend from college.

Today, I slept in very late to celebrate taking the day off from work. The rain had ended during the morning and while I didn’t want to drive all the way to the ocean on my own, I decided to head to the Chesapeake Bay instead. To be honest, while it looks not dissimilar to the Long Island Sound, which I grew up on, it’s more like a lake and is hugely disappointing as a substitute for the ocean. It doesn’t really get waves and it doesn’t smell remotely salty. But I made an effort, and it was the longest I’ve been outside in ages without a mask, since I only saw a handful of people from a great distance. Plus, the Universe seemed to accept the apology I offered the Bay before leaving for just being itself and not what I wanted it to be, since it allowed the sun to peek through the omnipresent clouds. When I got back to D.C., I spent the evening with a friend, eating pizza and King Cake and petting her cats (and wearing masks when not eating, just so you don’t think us irresponsible).

And, now, forward! On to a new year! (And a new, short workweek!)