L'aventure américaine

 This morning started off a little rough.  Someone at Milo's school has COVID and so his school is closed.  We are keeping Marian home until we learn more.  I have a lot of work to finish up and so does Randal.  It's not a great time for this!  But then, this happened: [And a side bar...  Marian is extremely verbal and has an impressive vocabulary, but hasn't said, "I love you," to anyone.  (Even prompted...  she just avoids it.)] So, this morning, while I'm trying to feverishly send some emails before the kids start bugging me, I hear Marian walk up to Milo and say, "I want to give you a hug?"  So, he lets her hug him - a long hug - and she says, "I love you." And my heart exploded. And then Marian walked away.  And then came back to give him another one and he said, "You just did.  Do it later."  So, there's that.

I listened to a podcast about the outrage that pings back and forth between political parties right now and it made me tired.  It also made me think of how little outrage accomplishes. It’s so hard to know the best way to make the world a better place! So, we continue in our little corner trying to spread love. I wrote postcards for a month and have moved to Christmas cards now. And today, we pulled down the Biden signposts down from our little corner of property in Greene county (randal and I bought 8 acres this year). (The Biden sign itself came down after the election.) In its place, we planted a Christmas tree - white pine transplanted from mom and dad’s crop. The kids and I picked up litter along the road and then we decorated our new tree.  I don’t think that the neighbors have forgotten that we’re Biden supporters; there weren’t a lot of friendly looks (zero to be precise). But, the tree looks beautiful and festive and after we put up lights, hopefully they’ll be happy it’s ther