At one point, it was +16 F!!

But as I was driving home at 8:45 pm, it was +9 Fahrenheit at the YMCA marquee.

Today was a day to try a soul. Nothing in particular that happened except that this afternoon I dissolved. I try to keep a positive outlook, but this life seems so wearing... (wearing pink shoes??)

So, a few good things from today:

• I lost in Sorry! to a tyrannical six year old who would have played all my plays had I not exerted myself a little bit. (I babysat for a few hours after work.)
  
• I got something in the mail, well, two things. My Vitamin B-12, and a button from Paula. It is beautiful and I am wearing it now (it's a necklace).
  
• Minerva Louise has a new book out, and it's about Easter. Eggs, mostly, and chocolate bunnies--it is the cutest book ever. I adore Minerva Louise.
• I had 32 for the first session of what our maintenance guy calls "Duck Duck Goose" and 15 for the second. (I don't count adults and children separately--I count the adults and multiply by two, more or less. The more or less is b/c some moms bring more than one child and some children bring more than one adult.) We sang, and marched around the room, and did "The Grand Old Duke of York" and "I'm a Little Tea Pot."
• Marian and I had lunch at the drug store counter as is our custom and I was reminded that next Wednesday (Valentine's Day) is her birthday. The next day is Sally's boy Zack's sixth birthday--I saw him and held him when he was two days old and in an incubator at Allegheny General Hospital. He was so small then and now, so big. I love driving past AGH, to remember that day.
  
• While I did have a minor meltdown a few minutes ago and a major one at about 4:30 p.m., I have been encouraged and I know I am loved both by my friends and through the words in my much marked up Bible. This too shall pass. February is just a bad month for depression. It just is.
  

But I'm sad that it is too late to call my mama. She and my dad are off to Austin tomorrow to drive a car to my brother.

Tomorrow we have our community meeting at the OD. I love my church, but those meetings make me feel so lonely and afterwards I generally come home and cry in my pillow. (We're a great church with great dreams and ideals and yet the reality is that I still feel so alone there.) I've invited a few folks (I'm not ready to call them all friends as I feel we're still in that nascent stage) to join me for a beer afterwards. So far I have one "maybe."

My downstairs neighbor left a message on my machine that I had been waking her up with my stomping around and slamming doors--I had no idea I'd been doing this--living with people is not easy, let me tell you. I think I'll take my boots off downstairs from now on--there's no way to tiptoe in them, there just isn't.

This is one of my favorite passages, and though it's sort of depressing, I love it, to think of doing things before things break, knowing that they always in the end, do.

1 Remember your Creator
in the days of your youth,
before the days of trouble come
and the years approach when you will say,
"I find no pleasure in them"-

6 Remember him—before the silver cord is severed,
or the golden bowl is broken;
before the pitcher is shattered at the spring,
or the wheel broken at the well,

7 and the dust returns to the ground it came from,
and the spirit returns to God who gave it. (Ecclesiastes 12:1, 6-7. NIV)

I hope it is warm, wherever this finds you. Hug that person or cat or dog or teddy bear that you're with.