As February began to lean heavily into March, bringing slightly more sunlight along with it, life began to get rolling again. It was moving more after the long dark winter and also the long dark of Covid. That's not to say that there weren't plenty of zoom meetings still happening. Troy may have attended more than one of the church meetings like this:
There's something to be said for social distancing. Definitely more pajama time, even when required to wear a necktie. But by the end of February, almost all meetings seemed to be getting back to being in person. It seemed like life might look somewhat more normal, even if we all have a few more mental and emotional bumps and bruises from the past two years.
One fun afternoon we had was Superbowl Sunday. The Super Bowl landed smack-dab in the middle of the Winter Olympics, which were held in China and were super weird since it hadn't even been a year since the summer Olympics. There was a lot of weird stuff, like the 15 year old Russian Ice Skater who tested positive for drugs but was still allowed to skate, and some bizarre judging in the speed skating, stuff like that. It just felt odd sometimes. I mean, I still gorged myself silly on them, watching every moment I could, because...hey...it's me. And then to have the Super Bowl on the same network right in the middle of it all was definitely different. I always have an idealistic hope that on Super Bowl Sunday we will gather with friends and family, enjoy a picturesque spread of great food, and enjoy watching the entire game, commercials and all. Somehow it never turns out just the way I picture it - there are interruptions or lack of interest or I fail on the food or something. But this year was actually just exactly as I pictured! Sam and Kathleen came over, and they brought several amazing appetizers. We really did have a great time watching the entire game, which ended up being quite exciting, with the team I was rooting for winning at the last moment. (I picked the San Diego Rams because a former and favorite Ute player was called out of retirement to help the team and ended up with a Super Bowl ring.) It was completely delightful.
The event that took up the most of my time in February was Emma's middle school production of Frozen Jr. Her school has a drama teacher who has been putting on big massive amazing productions for the past 22 years. Romney was in a production of The Lion King when she was a 7th grader and decided to not take part as an 8th grader. I had helped a little with Lion King but not a ton. But since that time I've gotten to be very close friends with a woman who is the costume mistress for the shows and I found myself helping out much more intensely than I had expected. It was a lot of work. I mean, this show had 250 kids in it, and the director had decided that this year the "wow factor" would be the costumes. Emma was in one of two 7th grade choruses and she had FIVE costume changes. And I was on a team that was making sure that each kid in those choruses had all the costumes with all their parts and were organized. Luckily I was not alone - we had a team of moms doing this. Getting it all fitted and organized and then being at every show to make sure all the changes were happening and the things were not getting lost. Plus I'm the PTA treasurer (because my costume mistress friend is the president) and so I did a lot with money and concessions and sweatshirts and DVD sales and stuff. Man, it ate up our lives! But as always - the end result is one amazing show. I was so delighted when friends and families came to see it. Sam and Kathleen, Carol, Misty and two of her daughters, and Peter and Cara all came. So fun! And so glad it's over. None of us are ready to listen to any tunes from Frozen for the foreseeable future.
