Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 91461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
The newsletters are all about embracing the people you love, their quirks, the times you want to hug them, as well as throttle them, and, of course, relating moments of levity and light. Also, I believe that wine helps, as does driving fast, with the windows rolled down, and singing 80s and 90s hits at the top of your lungs. And dancing. Dancing with those people in your life who you can’t do without is simply the best
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
JANUARY 2025
Hello, all, and welcome to the first He Said, he said of 2025.
January came in cold and a bit snowy, but mostly just freezing. Before I catch us up, though, I have to rewind to Christmas and tell you about the excitement.
I should rephrase.
Not excitement. Horror. At least for my offspring and their friends.
The house the kids were supposed to move into, it turned out that the very nice man who leased it to them had issues with the renters who were supposed to move out at the first of the year. As in, they didn’t want to leave. When he insisted, they trashed the place. And by trashed, I mean—he’s taking them to court. From what Kola told me, there were issues with a sledgehammer being taken to the walls. It was horrible. I believe the owner documented everything, but what that meant was that the house was no longer available.
The boys—and I need to stop calling them that because all of them are in their early twenties now—basically broke down. Both Wick and Finn had given up their apartments already, and things looked a bit dire. The only one who didn’t anticipate the worst was Jake. The reason, of course, being simple. Jake always assumes everything will work out. I suspect that this is because he’s in love with my daughter. Hannah makes sure, if it’s within her power to do so, that the road in front of him is always clear.
After making phone calls herself, not asking either her father or I, nor her uncle Aaron or uncle Dane to intercede, Hannah found a place that worked for everyone. She got them all down there on Christmas Eve to look at the three-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bathroom condo in the Central Hyde Park area. The floors were all hardwood, there was central heat and air, which was amazing, and the parking was not completely horrible. Still a bit of a schlep, and everyone needed a sticker for where they were allowed to put their cars, but that was all right. Hannah had a tarp for her baby that apparently locked and was heated. I didn’t ask. The best news was that it was only a fifteen-minute walk to campus, and as Hannah said, she had supercute white boots and a new puffer coat to make the trip in.
So disaster was averted, and even better, each of the rooms was soundproofed, so nobody had to hear what anyone else was doing once the door was closed. I thought that was a bonus. The only bad part about the apartment was, there was no outside to decorate. They had a very small balcony that they wrapped lights on, around the wood railing, but that was about it. This meant that my children were available to do the yearly decorating of the backyard. No one did the roof, we had guys that came over yearly, the wonderful team from Delano Landscaping headed still by Ray Delano, now junior, the owner. It used to be his father back in 2017, but the elder Delano has since retired. They put Santa and Rudolph and the rest of the gang on the roof, as well as the lights that are all on a switch so all of the illumination happens every night on a timer. The lights not on the house are a whole other story.
“I’m sorry, what’s happening?” Finn asked me while poor Wick bent over, trying really hard not to hyperventilate.
“They’re checking the lights in the oak trees,” I explained.
“It’s fine,” Hannah assured him, munching on a bag of Flamin’ Hot Funyons. I was not a fan, probably because I could only eat maybe ten before I needed a glass of milk. I used to be much better with spice but find, lately, that those days have passed. “They’re using the harnesses from when they were wilderness leaders or something like that. It’s what the logging guys use.”
Finn looked at her, not at all, if his horrified expression was any indication, comforted and then back at Kola, thirty feet up in the air. Harper was in the next one over, and Jake was up the highest, in our ancient oak that had been big when we moved in, a good fifty feet off the ground.