Happy 4th!

April lasted forever, but June just came and went without pause, so I'm pretty sure I now know where all the extra April days were pulled from. It does work that way, does it not?

Despite COVID, I had a wonderful 4th of July holiday this year. The original plan was for my niece to come into town from Minneapolis, and then the two of us would head to the Kansas hinterlands to visit her brother near his army base (his travel was limited to a fifty mile radius of base), but at the last minute, he was able to snag permission to expand that radius to 150 miles, which allowed him to come on in to my place. (which made us all happy - his sister got out of extra hours of driving, he got a break from his work at the base, and we all got to see more of him than we would have been able to in the nearby town where we'd originally planned to meet. As they say, win, win, win!)

It wasn't an action-packed weekend; we stuck close to home, but I think we were all good with that. We talked and laughed a lot. We ate too much good food, as is proper for the holiday. We enjoyed the baby, and even managed to get in a little bit of work at the castle, cleaning out the basement.

The visit left my heart a lot fuller, the aches of my soul eased just a bit.

I am introverted by nature, and sometimes don't realize the toll the isolation imposed by COVID is taking on my spirits until I skirt the quarantine rules to make room for the physical presence of people I love and miss seeing. Hugs are important, and thank goodness baby Joe and his parents are staying here, because otherwise I'd be starved for contact.

Speaking of the baby (which I can do at length at the drop of a dime these days), Joe is a study in motion these days. He started to crawl a couple of weeks ago, and gains in speed, agility, and dexterity by the day. We are trying to teach him to avoid light sockets and to be careful around stairs. So far, we've had far better luck with the former - if we say 'no' when he reaches for the flat plates, he quickly loses interest. However, when the single stair between the living room and porch catches his interest, and he zooms over there to try to figure out how to negotiate it, he is much harder to divert. So, when this happens, I usually just go sit on the floor and play catch the baby as he works on mastering the challenge.

Life is Good.

P.S. Bedbug update: Against all odds, it seems that I did manage to bring just the one bedbug home. (??!!!!??) On the recommendation of a local pest control company, I invested in pheromone and bed leg traps - they won't get rid of an infestation but will give you an idea how many resident pests you are sharing space with. The guy said, if we had bugs, we'd see evidence of them within 3-4 days after installing the traps. It's been almost two weeks, and the traps are all still clear. I don't want to jinx anything, but am starting to be cautiously optimistic. Maybe we've managed to dodge a bullet.  Maybe???  I hope???