Happy Solstice everyone. The snow continues to fall here. The beauty of winter by fall outweighs the inconveniences.

We gave the new tenants the keys to the old place yesterday. That stress is gone. We no longer are responsible for the rent there.

Nog goes well in tea.

In my opinion, this is the best online game for the season.

I think it may be time to put the coats in the basement for the season.

It's spring and my life is waking up. Just a few years ago, my life was extremely turbulent and my mind was an unpleasant place to be in. Everything was always in flux, but far from always in a good way.

This past year has been calmer, quieter, so stable it has bordered on a bit boring. But, it's been something I needed.

Now, things are beginning to pick up again. However, this time it's different. I can feel the motion of before, but things are clearer. This past year gives me a platform from which to launch from. It has been a place of stable mind and thought that has let me ground and center. The loops are still there in the background, but I know how to work them now. I am not afraid. My eyes are opening. I am awake.

Spring has arrived. Soon, the plants my sister and brother are sending me for my birthday will start arriving and I'll be able to put the compost to good use. They are sending me 3 butterfly bushes, 3 red latham raspberry bushes, and 6 oriental poppies. I'm very excited about gardening this year.

I haven't done any gardening since I rented the house in Columbia, Missouri and grew carrots out back. It was a very small house with a small yard, but it was a house with a yard and it was $185/month. Wow, that price seems great now, I couldn't rent a room for that around here these days. It's a different season here, in more ways than just not being winter anymore.

I was out back trying to heat up the compost pile so that like a fire it's heat can sustain itself, and... well... oops.

I had a gallon tub of hot tap water and I poured it in the old brick barbecue pit that I'm using as a composter, and out the hole in front runs a opossum. I was worried at first that I injured it. Well, at first I laughed very loudly and then I worried. Either way, I'm pretty sure that the water wasn't hot enough to burn the opossum, and even though the opossum only fled and never squealed (like they did when I hit them with a tomatoe), to ease my mind I held my hand under the faucet for half a minute with the hot water and while the heat was uncomfortable I was uninjured.

I walked around Arlington and Cambridge yesterday without a cane. i'm experimenting to see if I can (at least temporarily) leave them at home. I don't like having to carry one. I almost fell down at a couple points, but I didn't. While not completely inactive, my vertigo issues seem to be at a relatively inactive point. I know that I'll probably need to take a cane with me again in the future — but if I'm not going to be falling every day, I don't need to bring my cane with me every day, eh? I can take the occasional tumble, especially since I'm wearing thick fake fur coats with padding to dampen any falls that do happen.

Woke up about an hour ago, had a bowl of creamy mushroom soup and went outside to start shoveling. The snow had turned to sleet by the time I got out there. A good 5 inches of the mix, mostly loose snow, was on the ground.

I got some pictures of one of the dark-eyed juncos that have been hanging around yesterday, but the sun had went down too far to get good exposures. I'm going to try again Monday. Without my birding camera, I have to be sneaky to get close enough for a good shot. Sneaky in this case means feeding them on fenceless fenceposts near the window.

i'm just not fit for snow shoveling anymore
but it still needs to be done
so i did it
it's cold out there
i'm pretty dizzy in here, but it is done
for now
there is more snow falling
it won't be done for long
winter in massachusetts

traffic is incredibly backed up
purpleglitter can't leave
she can't even get out of the garage
berv is sad.

purleglitter coming home from work early makes berv happy

Braced for the first significant snowstorm of the year. It's already started coming down, not to heavy yet. A quick, but powerful storm — they're predicting 5 to 8 inches (13 to 20cm) of snow in just 6 hours.

Shovel ready, salt laid down. Here we go.

From the The Universal Household Assistant or What Every One Should Know (1884):

Things to try. — Try popcorn for nausea.    Try cranberries for malaria.    Try a sun-bath for rheumatism.    Try ginger ale for stomach cramps.    Try clam broth for a weak stomach.    Try cranberry poultice for erysipelas.    Try a wet towel to the back of the neck when sleepless.    Try swallowing saliva when troubled with sour stomach.    Try eating fresh radishes and yellow turnips for gravel.    Try eating onions and horseradish to relieve dropsical swellings.    Try buttermilk for removal of freckles, tan, and butternut stains.    Try taking your cod liver oil in tomato catsup, if you want to make it palatable.    Try hard cider -- a wine-glass three times a day -- for ague and rheumatism.    Try taking a nap in the afternoon if you are going to be out late in the evening.    Try breathing the fumes of turpentine or carbolic acid to remove whooping cough.    Try a cloth wrung out from cold water put about the neck at night for sore throat.    Try snuffing powdered borax up the nostrils for catarrhal "cold in the head."    Try walking with your hands behind you if you find yourself becoming bent forward.    Try a silk handkerchief over the face when obliged to go against a cold piercing wind.    Try planting sunflowers in your garden if compelled to live in a malarial district.

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