Hello everyone! I am under strict orders from my husband to take it easy today. He told me to blog, catch up on my life, and recharge so I guess I am doing that. And he is right, I do need to do that.

My mom is all settled in her apartment now, and we have all of her services lined up. It was a herculean effort, it seems, and I will say it again and again that this system should not be so difficult. It should be an embarrassment to these places that it is so hard but we know that this all just trickles upwards, and the people I am dealing with are not the people making the policies. However, when all is said and done, I managed to get my mom into a situation where she is safe and comfortable and taken care of. Since it is still within her apartment at the assisted living/senior living center she is also not as scared as I think she would be in a new place.

On Sunday, I did have a break from everything and it was exactly what I needed. Our Blackbirds group had an outing at a farm to experience the process of maple sugaring, and they had such a good time! I think everyone did, including the adults. The woman who owns the farm is a retired elementary special education teacher, and already knew some of the kids and parents, which is how we learned about it. She was so welcoming and you could tell she was a retired teacher, she was amazing with our kids.

She had everything all set up when we got there. Books, handouts, a video to start, and then she poured sap fresh from the tree into a filter to show the kids, and we were all surprised to see that it was clear like water. Then we all tasted it, which was also surprising. It tasted like water with a tiny bit of sugar. I had expected it to be sweeter!

After this presentation, which the kids all listened to very well, we headed outside to tap a tree!

Wyatt was very excited to be able to dump the sap into a bucket.

After we finished up outside, it was back into the little studio for a craft, where the kids fashioned their own “sap buckets” and ate hot off the griddle pancakes served with fresh maple syrup! Another activity everyone loved.

After we were all done with the lesson and activity, she said we were welcome to explore the property and just hang out if we wanted. She was so nice and has invited us back whenever we want. We are definitely going back next month for lessons on frogs and ponds. And I could hear the spring peepers there, which did my heart good!

It was a fantastic way to start the day, honestly. We all explored and the parents bought maple syrup and fresh eggs and honey. And some of the parents got to live their dream of holding a chicken… that is my friend Kelly I talk about a lot, holding Nora. She was very excited and that made her day.

We all had a great time and it was the breath I needed to start the week.

When we left, we had time to run home for a bit before meeting my brother, who didn’t get to go to the farm because my niece had a birthday party to go to, at our mom’s apartment to change things around. We turned her bedroom into more of a sitting room, so that when she has visitors they have a place to sit while they are there. It looks very cozy and homey in there now, although she still needs more pictures for the walls, something she has needed for awhile now. However, when we left I felt pleased with what we had accomplished. It is a start! It’s hard to make those spaces seem cozy – if you know, you know.

Oh, I forgot to mention Saturday! On Saturday I wanted to get Wyatt out of the house. He has been cooped up a lot, and when he did go out, it was either to therapy or to my mom’s. So we did one of his favorite things – book shopping. One of our local used bookstores is having a buy one get one free sale on kids books this month, so we went there, and he picked out a nice stack (with a few additions from me). Then we hurried to another bookstore to get there before closing so I could use the last of my birthday gift card on a book I have been wanting for months, Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter.

That Trixie Belden is for me. When I was a kid I loved those books so much that I wanted my parents to call me Trixie. Lol. I also added Betty Before X to his stack, and Fever 1793.

So, while things have been rough around here, we did fit in some time to relax.

How are you all doing? I hope that you are taking time to do things that make you smile as well!