What Has Katie Been Up To Lately? 8 Facts

Welcome to February 2025. Here is what Katie has been up to since we last caught up:

1. Mr. Man and I built a fort in the living room last Friday night. He received a HearthSong Cardboard Fort building kit for Christmas several years ago. We tend to forget about it in the basement until January rears it’s ugly head and we pull it out. As of today (Tuesday), the fort is still intact in the living room. The boys are using it as their private space for hanging out. I am considering passing it on to a new owner after this season. We will see, it still is providing them fun, but we do usually forget about it again until next year.
2. I have been doing some reading. This January, I have preferred the comfort of fluffy, romances published in the last few years. Though sometimes, I get classy with my book explorations. I am listening to James by Percival Everett, winner of the 2024 National Book Award, as it is my book club’s February selection. I didn’t opt to re-read the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with my group in January, so I am scratching the back of my brain for what I can remember about Huck Finn from when I read it in the year 2000. I can see why James has been revered by the critics, it is very good so far. It is artistic and interesting.

3. In mid-January my older sister finalized the sale of my parent’s house. Though I am glad to be done with the process of cleaning it out, I have complicated feelings about saying goodbye. My parent’s purchased the house in May of 1985 and I lived there from ages 5 until I moved out on my own. Then I continued to visit them there and bring my own family to the house. Now, after 39 years, my family no longer owns any property in the town that I grew up in. When I was a teenager and older, we used to joke that even though we had lived in a town for more than 10 years, we weren’t really locals yet. We thought that to be a local, you had to live there for 40 years or more. May of 2025 would have been 40 years. So I guess we just missed becoming locals. Truthfully, though, we had probably been locals for sometime now. Someday, maybe I will revisit this topic.

Here are some pictures from the early years at the blue house on Diamond Street.

4. I cleaned some windows in my house so I could see the winter skies better. Winter is cold, at times though, that sunshine shining through the window can be brilliant. We had a friends over on MLK Day who noticed our great kitchen windows, but I noticed while my friend was enjoying the windows, was dust on the windows. So later that week, while I was home from work because Nugget was absent from school, I cleaned the windows in the kitchen and the dining room. Then I took some time to hang pictures that I had been meaning to hang for a while now. I have been enjoying my redecorating.

5. I hosted a live Quizzo Night at my library last Monday night. We all had a nice time and the evening’s winners had never won before, so that added an extra level of excitement to the evening. The fun that we had reminded of why I like planning and hosting trivia nights.

6. The last Saturday of January, the boys’ Cub Scout Troop hosted their annual Pinewood Derby^TM. ( Did you know it is trademarked term? I better be careful. That’s a fun fact I learned while looking up trivia questions about “the derby”. We had a nice afternoon with the boys’ pack competing in races and enjoying snacks. Here is a picture of my crew after the awards ceremony. Nugget won 3rd place in his den. Mr. Katie won a golden toilet bowl trophy that he gets to keep for one year.

7. On that same Saturday, the boys’ elementary school had it’s annual hockey night at the Lehigh Valley Phantoms (minor league team for the Philadelphia Flyers). Mr. Katie and I met at a Philadelphia Flyers hockey game many years ago, so this is always a fun event for our family. We invited some family to join us. Here are some pictures. Mr. Katie has a collection of jerseys that he leant out for the occasion.

8. I spotted this giant bird on our swing set last Wednesday morning (the same day as Lunar New Year 2025). I believe it is either a Red Shouldered Hawk or a Red Tailed Hawk. My neighbor told me that some people believe hawk visits to bring strength, protection or good fortune. My sighting of the formidable bird was meaningful to me. I believe it to be a sign of good things to come or a sign of protection from things to come from someone watching over me. I saw a hawk in my dreams that night and could not stop thinking about it for several days last week.

If you can identify this bird, please comment and let me know.

How has your life been going?

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