So far, so good here.? Arielle’s school is still hybrid, but we’ve had an uptick in reported cases in the district in the last week and a half (it’s a pretty small district and they’ve got really robust contact tracing) so I don’t know what’s going to happen there. Boys are still at school; Baird drives home right before Thanksgiving and the school has decided to offer free COVID tests to anyone who wants one before they travel, so I’m going to ask him to get one and have his driving companion do so too.? He is taking winter term off because he’s not going to graduate on time since he took last spring off and hasn’t been happy with how his school is managing the pandemic (though the cases there seem to be coming from off campus, at least until now).? Ezra is hoping to just stay at school over winter break (school is about 25-30% of students on campus), which would keep him out of airports, but no word on that yet.

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Mostly, we’re doing the minimum of shopping that can be done, keeping close contacts to Arielle’s pod of friends, and spending a lot of time hiking and walking, preferably places where there aren’t other people.? My synagogue went back to in-person extremely limited Saturday morning services about a month ago and I took Arielle last week and it was wonderful for both of us, but I don’t know how long that will last.

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Started a sort of new job last week; I’ve worked with these folks for years but when Jemma announced she was engaged in September, I decided that as much as I’d hoped to put off being an employee until Arielle left for college so that I could keep the flexibility I’ve had, the prospect of being without health insurance should Jemma actually get married was too much for me.? It’s slightly odd and kinks are still being worked out (little things like sending me a computer without a license for Microsoft Office) but I think it’ll be fine and my manager has assured me that she doesn’t care when my work gets done because she knows from experience that it will get done, so while I’m giving up some of my flexibility, I’ll be able to keep some amount of it.?

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Doing quite a bit of knitting, but almost no spinning or weaving, both things I’d like to spend more time with.? By the time I get to anything at night, I’m usually too exhausted to think about anything but simple knitting, so I’m trying to remember to be kind to myself about it.

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Having my entire heating system minus the actual boiler (furnace equivalent) replaced this week so I’ve been most of today pulling books out of bookcases where they’ll be working first and trying to purge things as I go.? I’ve run out of room in my trash can, so I’m going to take a break and walk the dogs in the park.

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Melisande

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p.s. Here’s hoping the vaccine beats Amy!

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