polar vortex

As much as yesterday morning was so much tra la la all the way, this morning was brutal.

I blame this danged polar vortex. Holy crap, was it cold.

As a result: a delayed opening for Terzo's school, after I had to leave. Forgotten gloves, BIG MISTAKE. Traffic jam in town caused by high school delayed opening. Coffee dumped down my front by too cold fingers while driving 65 mph. A car alarm: low tire pressure. Even colder hands trying to figure out which tire was leaking.

(None, of course. It was just so blasted cold that the air had contracted. The tire place up the road told me I was the umpteenth person to stop in that day with the same problem.)

And then the culmination: destruction of a favorite gift, taken in for paper clip management and to add a bit of sheepy comfort to my new desk. I set down the bag containing it a bit too hard, and ice-cold pottery plus hard tile floor proved a disastrous combination.

Heart = broken.

I can't bring myself to throw it away, though it is unrepairable.

It sits on my desk containing paperclips and its own broken pieces.

Then I came home to this sad photo: my husband couldn't find Dusty when he came in the kitchen for lunch. Odd, as Dusty is usually right there to greet him. He found him concentrating all his attention out the front window.

Another heartbreaker!

Apparently the boys aren't the only ones who miss me. Poor pup, he is spending a lot of time by himself. He has been spoiled rotten by more or less constant human presence since his puppy days.

Now I can settle down somewhere in the middle of the working groove, knowing that some days will be just fine and some days not so much, but at the end, someone will always be waiting for me to come home again.

“It's hard being left behind. (...) It's hard to be the one who stays.” 

― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife