Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Author Archives: dawnkinster


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Should be celebrating

Me, my first spring with mama and daddy.

Katie here.

Do you know what today is? I bet most of my fans have it marked on their calendars. Even mama said she had a big party planned for me. Frankly I’m surprised there isn’t an outcry for a national holiday just to celebrate.

Today is my Gotcha Day!

Yes, 13 years ago today I came home with mama and daddy and changed their lives forever. I like to think they’re grateful for that.

And because they are grateful mama said she planned a big party with all my friends from all over the world and there was going to be cake and ice cream (my favorite is ice cream) and presents and lots of music and fun games and brand new squeaky toys for everyone!

But then this virus thing happened and now mama says we’re not going to do anything.

Watcha mean no party mama?

Nothing?

Not even a walk in my park? Or just a little ice cream? I mean, really mama? Nothing?

I think I should go on strike. I should withhold all my attention and love and stuff. Cause not celebrating me every opportunity you have is just wrong.

I’m taking my blankie and finding someone that appreciates me!

Don’t you agree?

I thought so.

Hmmmph.

Awwww, who can resist this face? My first nap at my new house.


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Spring is out there just waiting for us

I’ve been feeling a little mind-numbing cabin feverish after staying inside for days on end. Grey skies, and yesterday’s almost two inches of rain haven’t help.

This morning started out shrouded in fog, but the sun burned it off and suddenly it was a glorious day. Fifty-nine degrees warm, blue skies and big puffy clouds.

On our search for a park to explore.


Katie insisted we go to a park. I thought that was a pretty good idea too. Some time outside would be just the ticket to clear our heads.

So we headed out to find a park without a lot of people. The first one we drove by had four cars in the lot so we kept on driving. We ended up at her regular small park, only one car there so we unloaded anticipating a lovely walk.

At Katie’s park.

Katie was wriggling with excitement.

As we began our exploration the wind began to whip, but we didn’t let that stop us. We were outside and it was wonderful! There was so much interesting stuff to see.

A huge fungus on the side of a tree.

Katie was more patient than usual with me taking pictures of things not her. I guess she knew it had been awhile since I’d been out too.

I’ll wait for you, mama, take your time.

As we turned the second corner I noticed to the west skies looked a little dicey. I left Katie out on the path and walked through some brush to get a clear shot of a pretty stunning sky.

Uh oh. Maybe we better get a move on.

She waited patiently. She’s such a good girl.

I’m keeping my eye on you mama!

I told her maybe we needed to pick up the pace. She told me not to worry and continued her slow nose work. I figured she was probably right.

Because we got so much rain yesterday a lot of the path was either covered in water or a muddy mess. Surprisingly my girl pranced right through both, never once asking to be carried.

Not to worry, mama, I can handle it!

Either she’s matured or she was so excited to be out there she didn’t care.

We saw all sorts of evidence of spring, but the wind was picking up and the dark clouds were overtaking us, so we decided to skedaddle to the car.

Trees are in bud now, just waiting for some warm weather to burst into leaf.

It’s a good thing we did, the wind is really whipping now, and Katie is asleep on the hearth here at home.

Clouds overtake us.

The rain should arrive any minute — I’m glad I followed her advice this morning or we’d have missed our opportunity to enjoy the brief minutes of sun.

You should follow my advice more often mama!

We hope you get out there too, we’re sure it will do you a world of good.

Just let me know when you want to explore, I’m ready to show you around!


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What now?

I used to knit – when I was a kid I belonged to a knitting 4-H club. Once a week mom drove me to this lady’s house. I remember where it was and that her name was Marie Coddington, but I don’t really remember any of the other girls. I think we knit for an hour, and she helped us with any problems we had. Every year I entered a sweater in the 4-H fair. I still have them, in a container in the basement.

And then, when I lived in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan as a young, just out of college worker bee, a woman I worked with taught me how to crochet. It was faster than knitting and I made a lot of afghans.

I liked to work on the ones that were made all in one piece – as they got larger they kept me warm in my upstairs drafty flat during the long winters. I also liked that they kept my hands busy making it more difficult to snack. You could call it the crochet diet.

It worked.

This past winter I got sort of antsy, and wished I had something to knit. A FB friend knits a lot and I asked her for ideas. She sent me a couple of links to patterns, and I chose a shawl with sections of light airy loops between sections of the garter stitch, the easiest stitch there is and the first one you’re taught as a beginner.

Then I found a local yarn store and fell in love with something they called ‘crazy yarn,’ skeins of yarn that the manufacturer spun together using somewhat relatable remnants. No telling what colors in what amounts would be inside that skein!

It was fun watching the colors escape and meld together into a shawl. I finished it last night.

And now I don’t have a project to keep my hands busy on these cool spring evenings. No way to avoid the siren call of snacks in the cupboard as I sit inside respecting the call for social distancing.

And no yarn store open as far as the eye can see either.

My hands miss their busywork. I need to find something else to start and an online source for materials. I’ve found out that shawls are a “thing,” and some are easy to do. Maybe I’ll do another.

Anyone have suggestions?


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How to make a note a day

When all this virus stuff started making headlines I talked about using the time to connect with people in ways we haven’t in awhile. I remembered a challenge I once accepted to send a letter a day (or it might have been a letter a week) to someone, and how fun that had been.

And I vowed to do something similar during this crisis.

So I started the end of last week…scrounging through drawers looking for a card…finally finding one and sending it to a friend I haven’t seen in awhile who had surgery recently.

The next day I picked up a couple cards at the grocery store during my toilet paper run, and I’ve mailed those too. But I recognize that not only are buying enough cards to send one a day for the foreseeable future expensive, but I don’t really want to go out and buy anything during this stay at home order we’re living with here in Michigan.

So I took an idea from another friend’s blog, Far Side of Fifty. She makes cards all through the year. I’m sure people love to get them too!

I dug around in my basement bins for my old water color pallet and a pad of paper. I decided I didn’t want to mess around with trying to make a folded card, so I cut the paper into rectangles that will fit inside generic envelopes. Then I looked online to find “easy watercolor pictures’ and saved a bunch that I thought I could do.

And this morning I sat down and made three of them. I’ll write a note on the back, slip each into an envelope and mail them off, day by day.

It was fun to do them, and I hope they’ll be fun to receive. I don’t know how long I can keep this up…but I know I’m set for the next three days!

I hope you have found something fun to do with any spare time you’ve got. I recognize that not everyone has any time to spare during this crazy period. If you have kids at home, or are trying to work full time from home, or are taking care of friends and neighbors on top of your own worries, then you probably don’t have time to make cards and mail letters.

But maybe during an evening or two you can face-time a friend, or give a neighbor a call. I think you’ll be smiling as much as I am when you do.


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Snowy interruption

Katie here.

I’ve decided you all need a diversion from the anxiety and stress that seems to be overwhelming us. I’ve thought about this quite a bit and what I think you need is……ME!

I’d like to go outside please.

So I’m going to postpone my afternoon nap and tell you all about what’s going on here in my kingdom. I know you’ve been wondering.

First of all let me tell you that mama and daddy and I are all fine, though I’ve had a bit of a worrisome time this week. You see, several weeks ago mama scheduled me to have my teeth cleaned. She and daddy had noticed I didn’t always smell so good, and once in awhile I pawed at my nose. But the vet was busy and I couldn’t get a senior appointment until this past Wednesday.

Throw the snowball already, mama!

With all this virus stuff mama considered canceling, but she decided she didn’t want to wait because she was going to head down to Alabama soon and I needed white teeth for that! And the vet said even though I’m 13 now I was a very healthy 13, so we went ahead with it.

Well! Let me tell you, I don’t like going to the vet and I especially don’t like it if mama or daddy don’t stay me! Mama isn’t too keen on it either; she says she cried after she dropped me off.

This is WAY more fun than going to the dentist!

And when she came back to pick me up I wasn’t even happy to see her. I was all doped up and stuff and feeling really sad. She took me home and worried about me all that night.

Turns out they had to take out six teeth! This was unprecedented! Mama had no idea there was such a problem in my mouth! Even the vet who looked at me in January didn’t see that much! They took out 4 back molars and two incisors. I had my teeth cleaned every year, and last year was the first time any tooth came out and that was just a little one up front that fell out on it’s own.

Stand back! I’ve got it!

Mama hasn’t looked in my mouth yet, she’s giving me lots of personal space because she feels so bad for me. They’re soaking my food until it’s very soft, and I’m on antibiotics and pain pills for the rest of this week.

I’m milking it for all it’s worth too, mama didn’t even put me in my crate this week when I woke her up real early every morning and wouldn’t let her go back to bed. She feels sorry for me, don’t you know. And she sort of feels like a bad mama that she didn’t realize how bad my teeth were.

Running in circles in the snow is pretty fun!

Actually, today I feel pretty good, my face isn’t swollen any more and I played out in our fresh snow. Mama threw some snowballs and I chased them. Well, I chased four of them, and then I told mama that was enough and walked back to the deck.

She smiled, but was kind of sad.

I think I’ve had enough, mama.

Mama says to tell you that she and daddy are being careful and so far they are both just fine. And we’re not going to Alabama, it’s just not safe for mama and me to drive that far. Mama is sad about that too. Me, well I’ll be just fine once I get paid in treats for putting this post together.

And once I can get back to my afternoon nap.

Keeping one eye on the mama.


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The toilet paper odyssey

Last night my husband came home from checking on family and told me that the family of 5 needed toilet paper. Dad is working more than full time and mom is a nurse and busy at the hospital. Three children are home from school all day.

So this morning I decided to be at the grocery store when it opened at 7, after all I had a couple things I could use as well. And I figured my only hope on a weekend morning of finding any toilet paper would be to look early in the day.

As I drove down the dark road at 6:45 I saw cars pulling out of driveways ahead of me. We all ended up in the grocery store parking lot at 7:01. I knew there was a problem when, while walking up to the store, three people walked out. Each of them had one item and one item only.

You guessed it. They each had one package of toilet paper.

I followed a crowd of people inside, grabbed a small cart, wiped it clean, and worked my way through produce where a store worker handed me a bag of potatoes over the huge boxes of produce she was unpacking. Luckily I didn’t need meat, as there was virtually nothing available. I picked up a loaf of bread and headed to the paper products.

And there a young man was trying to defend a pallet of toilet paper that he was pulling down the aisle. When I got there he had stopped trying to move it to the other end of the aisle where the empty toilet paper shelves waited. He stood in the center of the aisle passing out one package to each person, apologizing that he couldn’t give us more.

I waited in line to get my package, smiled sympathetically at him and headed to the checkout. I’m sure when he took the job at Kroger stocking shelves, he had no idea he’d be in a position where he’d have to ration toilet paper to crazed customers.

I thought I’d try to find one additional package, figuring that 12 rolls wouldn’t last a family of five very long. I pulled into Walgreens, noting the empty parking lot but not thinking about it. It was about 7:30. Walking up to the door I noted a handwritten sign that said their new hours were 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Sigh.

Back in the car I headed across the street to a local grocery store. I was the second car in the parking lot. Smarter now, I looked their hours up on my phone before I ventured out into the cold. They opened at 8. Should I go somewhere else? Or stay there and wait the almost 30 minutes.

I waited. By 7:55 there were close to 30 cars in the lot, engines running, anxious people peering at the employees inside who were running around trying to get ready. At 7:58 we all exited our vehicles and lined up at the two doors.

Darn, they opened the other door first. When our door was opened we trotted in. I skipped the cart and went straight for paper products. There I found a crowd of people sorting through the few packages of toilet paper on the shelf. The guy ahead of me said he figured he’d take two, grabbed those and turned around to see me glaring at him. “I just need one” I said. He smiled and handed one of his over. I smiled back at him.

I think I was the first person back to the checkout lane, where an already weary cashier was waiting. “And so it starts,” I said. She smiled and rang me up. Triumphant, I walked back to the car, nodding to the people headed in. I know what they were thinking when they saw me leaving the store with one package.

At 8:03 I’m pretty sure there was no more toilet paper left on the shelf.

Score!

I hope all of you have enough of what you need. Stay home. Stay safe. It’s crazy out there.

Mama, I’m worried. Do you have enough dog food?


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Something to smile about

These days, in order to make people feel better and less isolated, everyone is sharing things that make them smile. It’s sort of a trend.

But Trent has been collecting smiles for months, maybe years, and this week, crazy as it’s been, is no exception.

A bit of yellow points toward spring.

So as the week has run it’s excruciating course I’ve been on the lookout for something to smile about. And this morning, as I was staring out the window at my bleak, brown yard I smiled.

Because my goldfinches are turning yellow.

He knows he’s looking quite dapper.

It’s proof that no matter what the humans in this world do, what destruction we bring down on our own heads, mother nature just keeps moving along.

Spring will come regardless of whether we’re ready or not.

Some of us were wearing our bed-head look this week. Understandably.

Might as well just sit back, watch and smile.


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The written word

A runner friend of mine has an elderly friend who lives in an assisted living facility. She used to meet him regularly, not so long ago, for breakfast and conversation.

I went to a park one morning this week to see the sunrise.

Now she can’t do that and she’s worried about him being lonely during this scary time when he can’t get out and visit. So she posted a request on Facebook that some of her friends send him a note. And of course she has received many offers.

His mailbox should be overflowing any day now.

A lot of clouds and not much color, but still stunning.

But that, and other pieces I’ve seen on the news and online, has me thinking.

Some years ago one of you, I can’t remember who — maybe Robin or Katybeth or Kathy or Beth Ann — proposed we write letters to friends every day for a number of days, maybe 30, one letter to one friend each day.

Looking west, the hills waited to glow.

It was a way to reconnect or stay connected to people in our lives who maybe had drifted away. Maybe we were the one that drifted, maybe they were. Maybe it was a mutual drift.

Back in the east the sun was creeping up.

I remember that I wrote, some long letters, some just quick notes, for several days. I don’t know that I made it for thirty days, but it was a good long time.

Interesting things hugged my feet while my eyes were fixated on the sky.

I remember that I worried I might not have 30 friends to write. I was wrong. And I remember getting a few letters in return.

It was so good to be wandering in the hills at sunrise.

Do you remember the days of letters? The excitement of going to the mailbox hoping to see a handwritten envelope hiding among the bills and junk mail?

I do.

As the sun rose the grasses turned red.

When I was in college my mom wrote to me every week, and I loved seeing her handwriting on a postcard or envelop. When I worked at a job far from home she continued the practice, right up until emails took over, and then we stayed in touch more frequently but somehow less connected. As if emails were easier and commanded less respect.

Not to say I wouldn’t love to get an email from her now you understand. But there’s something special about old fashioned snail mail, as she called the kind of connection that comes with a stamp.

A place to sit and breath.

So I’d like to propose that during these times of social distancing we stay connected and perhaps accept the challenge of dropping a note in the mail every day for a month. Imagine the surprise. The smiles.

Time to reflect on the new day.

Maybe start with a friend you might have who is isolated now, maybe elderly, maybe with a compromised immune system, maybe just overwhelmed with kids home from school.

My favorite row of trees.

And if you’re not into paper and pen and stamps….well…an email a day to someone you can’t hang out with in person right now will work just fine too.

Deep breath. We can do this.

Stay home if you can. Stay home even if it’s inconvenient. Stay home even if you’ve run out of your favorite coffee or bananas. Stay home and stay safe.

We are strong.


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Guilty pleasure

The big picture.


Denise commented that she enjoyed my last post, the one about smiling with the birds. She thought it was better than fixating on the latest virus news, and she suggested that I sort through my pictures from the Southwest and see what else I could find that might elicit more smiles.

Well.

When we got home from Arizona at the end of February I was so sick that all I wanted to do was crawl into bed, and sorting more pictures wasn’t even on my radar. And then days went by and I felt better but the trip west seemed to be a distant memory.

Standing strong against the winds of time.

And I figured you’d all moved on anyway.

But she has a point. I hadn’t even looked through pictures from our last days of the trip when we stood in awe at the Grand Canyon.

Who knows what’s way off in the distance.

So I thought I’d share a few of those images while I talk just a tiny bit about how I’m processing the latest news and self isolation.

Because I’m feeling a bit guilty about enjoying the time to myself.

Trying to see what’s in the future.

Sure I’m sad that band has been cancelled, our next concert in jeopardy, but we got to perform just a couple weeks ago,and I’m grateful for that.

There’s still beautiful color in the world.

And I’m sorry that the Ann Arbor Symphony won’t be doing their concert next weekend, I’d been looking forward to the program and seeing my aunt again after several weeks where bad weather and illness kept us apart.

Lots of angles to life these days.

But…having an empty calendar in front of me feels peaceful. Nothing more to do than find ways to stretch the food I have in the house as far as possible. Time to read. To watch the birds at my feeders.

To take Katie on walks around the yard.

Peaceful.

I know that I’m lucky – I’m not dealing with children home from school or trying to do my job from an unfamiliar computer system set up in the bedroom. I can use this time to learn how to entertain myself the old fashioned way, at home, with my husband and my dog.

Everyone will have to decide for themselves what is right.

So, if you can, my advice is to use this time to internalize, to settle, to work the stiffness out of your shoulders and necks.

To slow down.

We are all on this trail together but separate. There’s no way to go but forward, doing the best we can to not make things worse.

Hopefully the path isn’t all downhill.

We can use this time to watch the news incessantly, or we can use this time to grow as people and perhaps figure out just what is important.

Looking for light amid the shadows.

Me? I’m going to watch the news for a few minutes each morning, just to make sure something hasn’t blown up. Then I’m turning the TV to the music stations. Right now I’m listening to show tunes.

The sun will shine again.

It works for me. I hope you find whatever works for you as well.

Look for the colors. And stay safe.