Irish Season

We got our Irish on a little today, bringing this guy out along with some other displays.  He's an older nutcracker, and we keep him with our St. Patrick's Day stuff of course.  There's Madison's old leprechaun trap there to the left, and we have a few other items there in the kitchen to remind everyone of the upcoming holiday, including small flags and so on.  We have the garden flag out there that wishes everyone a "Happy St. Patrick's Day," and a big hit with Nana were the leprechaun salt and pepper shakers.  We got those in Gatlinburg a few years ago.

In honor of the big green day, the five of us sat down to watch "Darby O'Gill and the Little People" tonight, and afterwards everyone was singing "Pretty Irish Girl."  It's so fun to hear Ba-Ba singing that upstairs as he's getting ready for bed.  But we all were - the song gets stuck in your head!

Today was a calmer day for Madison at school, which is to say there were significantly less tests.  She did get some of the material she created in art, including this Star Wars themed piece of clay.

"This is a new day.  A new beginning."  She was born to join the Rebellion!

It was a dry day, but once again the rain is coming tomorrow, and once again we'll descend into the gloom of overcast skies and so on.  It sort of fits the national mood at present, in regards to this one simple virus that has exploded out of a little place in China and leveled our stock market.  Thanks, China.  It's the equivalent of an attack on the world, and ironically, all the medication actually comes from China.  Well played.  It's as if this is some sort of warning shot, although that sounds a bit far-fetched in the direction of conspiracy theories and so forth.  But it has been a topic of discussion.

Regardless, we're in a suddenly odd position of evasive action.  The mantra of "Wash your hands" is being repeated time and again, as if suddenly that's some new thing we should all do.  I'm not sure if that matters in many circumstances.  One report shows this virus being much more prevalent in this country in just a few short weeks, all the time it takes to spread as it did in Italy and China.  We'll see, but it is certainly shaping up to be the story of 2020 so far.  Major events have been cancelled, and I expect there will be more cancelled until we get a handle on this.

Today while Madison was at school,  we were looking for homes out in a few subdivisions around here.  Nana and Ba-Ba are looking for a place to live up here, so we were out and about looking around.  We also did some shopping at Home Depot, Best Buy and some grocery shopping as well.  We were looking for this one cable - one cable - and the employee at Best Buy led us to this one that was seventy dollars.  The big moment came when Daddy found the same exact cable down the aisle a bit, with the same function and everything, a full thirty-five dollars cheaper.  And yes, it works just fine - the grandparents were using it tonight.  It's your money:  ask questions and be sure to shop around.

The Home Depot trip was because we needed some toilet parts.  Yeah, we've got another injured toilet.  It could be the strain of the job, I think.  We'll have that fixed in no time.

Madison had piano tonight, and she was sneezing a lot.  It just suddenly came upon her - something tickled her nose. Allergies are here, which adds a complicated dilemma to this flu and corona season.  I mean, is that little girl sneezing because she has the virus?  Or is it just allergies.  Just allergies, of course!  The good news about this virus is that kids have not been affected so much.

Anyway, we said our prayers tonight, and we definitely had a lot to pray for.  Bt we have a lot to be thankful for too, as we stopped to look around the couch tonight watching that movie.  It was a nice family moment, and one we won't forget.  It was just good to be together.