Week in Review

After a stretch of downright cold weather, the past week or so was been much better.  It even hit the mid-60s the other day, not that I really got to go outside and enjoy it.  But it's still nice to wear a mid-weight jacket and not freeze the second you step outside.  The sun helps considerably this time of year, keeping cold days from feeling freezing and helping the slightly warmer days feel even better.  The bad news is that the time changed last weekend so there's an hour less of daylight to enjoy at the end of the day.  It's pretty dark by 5pm now, especially on cloudy days.  Good thing I leave work a little earlier these days!

While our weekends tend to slow down a lot this time of year, last weekend ended up being busier than usual.  Jacob and I went to North Tonawanda on Saturday morning to get him in a community service event.  We did the same PB&J event we did last spring, which is pretty fun and a very productive hour.  The workers put together more than 600 lunches for a local shelter!  We probably packed at least 60 at our table alone, and my mom and I probably did 80 PB&J sandwiches!  Jacob wasn't thrilled to do it but I told him it was worth getting in one good one to show he's making an effort.  After that, we went to lunch with my parents and then my mom and I went for a little bit to the visitation for the friend that I mentioned passing a couple weeks ago.  My mom had just seen her parents a couple weeks earlier at the funeral for our former pastor, so I think she felt like she should go.  We didn't stay long--we watched the slide show of photos, looked at the hard copy photos they had, talked to her parents briefly, along with a couple other people, and I tracked down her best friend (my classmate's sister) who was sitting in the church and talked to her for a few minutes.  I was sorry to hear her brother is having a hard time with PTSD after years in the military.  He was a good guy and it's a shame that doing his duty for his country is having such horrible consequences.  We didn't stay for the service because Jacob was waiting for me back at the house and was eager to get home.  It probably felt a little weird since I hadn't seem Kim in 20-some years, but as a fellow mom and friendly enough to be a Facebook friend after all these years, it was worth going.  Maybe one of those events alone would have been questionable for such a long drive, but both together felt like enough.  

On Sunday we went back to Buffalo to visit Craig's parents.  Craig had to get a COVID test for work that morning, so we did remote church and headed out shortly after.  We wanted to get there when the Bills' game was starting, though we had a quick stop to drop off fundraiser cookie dough at his cousin's house along our route.  The game was a disaster.  The Bills have looked pretty strong most of the time this year, but they looked awful against a terrible team.  Since it was a nice day and any good sports fan will do their part to change the luck, Carter and I took off to go to a playground I've been wanting to take him to for months.  It was about 15 minutes away, but it was well worth the drive!  

It was pretty busy, likely full of other Bills' fans who gave up and wanted to take advantage of a bit of decent weather!  But there was plenty of stuff for everyone to do.  The first different equipment we saw was this roller thing.  It was flat and it didn't seem like diving across it would work, so working your way across with the bars seemed to do the trick.

Carter on the lookout!

Going across a plank bridge...

This was nothing compared to the zip lines (you'll see in a minute), but still fun!

Monkey bars under the bridge!

The playground had these cute little playhouses--from a train, to a Tim Hortons (with a menu board), a theater, farmer's market, and more.

The big zip lines were heavily trafficked, but we finally managed to snag the accessible one.  Carter went for a few rounds, and then he tried to push me, but my weight and the slope at the end were a bit too much.

Carter trying to beat me out in hide-and-seek!  He ended up finding some other kids to play with shortly after.

We finished off our time finally getting a ride on the other zip line, where you just sit on a disc and fly across on a track parallel to the accessible one.  It was actually really fun--definitely the best one I've ever done on a playground!  By then it was starting to get dark (and cold), so we headed out because we had one more stop.  We went to the playground at the school that's right at the end of Craig's parents' street.  Carter had noticed it as we drove in earlier in the day, but I knew the other one would be a better time so we saved this one for a quick look at the end.

He checked out a couple things, including another spinner...

I wandered off and found these things that looked like zip lines, but there were two per track and they were curvy.  They didn't move too well, but I decided to try them anyway.  Big mistake.  Huge.  As I tried to use my weight to make them move--and they didn't--I swung more than anticipated and the momentum caused me to lose my grip and fall flat on my back.  Ouch.  It was reminiscent of when I knocked the wind out of myself on the school monkey bars when I was around 6.  Luckily I didn't have that problem this time, but I definitely activated a few body parts that didn't need activating!  I was a little sore the next day, for sure.  The bigger problem was that I got all muddy--my jeans, my new sweater-jacket from work, and even my phone.  Ugh.  There was mulch but perhaps not enough of it, or maybe the mulch was just muddy itself.  It was pretty dark by that point, and pretty cold without my muddy jacket, so I rushed Carter back into the van and got back to the house quickly.  I cleaned up as much as I could and we wrapped things up and said goodbye to Craig's parents.  The good news is that the time change probably got us out of there sooner than usual, and we were home by around 7:30, which gave us some much needed time to decompress before the start of a (thankfully short) week.

Monday was a rough one, as my big boss called a meeting at 10am to tell us she's leaving.  She's been around for 3-1/2 years, I guess, which blows my mind a little--although nearly half of that has been spent remote.  Sigh.  We were so adrift when she arrived (my boss cried at the sight of her on her first day!) after having lost multiple team members over the previous year and having to deal with a high-up boss who means well but tends to micromanage and have ideas that only make things harder when you're shorthanded.  Getting a new head stabilized everything, and we were a pretty steady team for years, only really adding people and not losing anyone.  And we almost made it through the entire pandemic intact, before two team members left for new opportunities a month before we went back to the office.  Then we just had another person retire.  And now we're losing our leader.  So here we are, back adrift and about to be down four team members.  It'll be another long search process, too.  So Monday was NOT a good day, with lots of commiserating among those of us in the office.  On Tuesday my boss and I hatched a little bit of a plan to maybe make this work in our favor.  It may not work but we might as well try to improve our situation if the next 6-9 months are going to be hellishly demanding anyway, right?

The boys had off Thursday and I took a half day in case we wanted to do anything.  In the end Carter and I just took a quick trip to yet another playground before heading off to what appears to be our last family therapy appointment.  We still have one more scheduled but wrapped things up anyway and will be discharged if we don't contact him in a panic with something else we need to work through in the next week.  As I mentioned, Carter's on his way to discharge as well, though we have 10 more weeks of his new social skills group he's doing, which I think might be fun for him.  

Anyway, just a few shots from the playground:

Dramatic shot as a bug caught in the web!

Happy shot by mom's request

Fun slide shot!

The spinners were once again a focus, and Carter finally seems to have mastered the mushroom one!

As were wrapping up and trying to get to therapy on time, I noticed this tree across the field.  It was so brightly gold, with a golden carpet underneath, and was majestically losing leaves like a snowfall.  I really wanted to get under it and take a couple pics, but as I walked, the grass got wetter and muddier.  I thought it might get better further in, but it only got worse.  I tried to get back out of it, but was a mess.  By the time I got back to solid ground, I had mud splatters on my jeans and my good sneakers were muddy halfway up.  And we didn't have time for me to go home and change.  Carter also stepped into some water in another spot, so we were both a mess!  

The cursed tree

I wiped off as much as I could, but it wasn't good.  I explained it to the therapist because I looked like a hot mess, but he was just happy to hear we'd been out playing, of course!  I did manage to salvage my sneakers back at home, thankfully.  After therapy and Carter's social group, Thursday night was spent getting myself packed and ready because I had a big day Friday and a fun weekend ahead!  Posts coming soon!