Dana Daily

Sal asked me where we're going to go with it. The answer? We're not going anywhere. It's staying in the bank.

For the first time ever, I filed local, state, and federal taxes on the same day, and on the day all of our tax documents were ready. Our mortgage 1098 arrived last week, Sal received his W2s yesterday, and my Ws were posted today. Hello refund!

Life is humming along. All of us were off for Martin Luther King Day on Monday, and the kids were still off yesterday for the end of the 9 week grading period. The school year is officially half over. In the winter I prefer to hibernate and not leave the house if I don't have to, so we just hung out for four days. It was kind of nice; lots of down time, which the girls seem to appreciate since they run constantly when they're with their dad. Seth is a homebody and would be happy to never leave the house. We did some vacation planning and narrowed down this summer's trips. It's not exactly summer, but to kick off the summer season, Sal and I will be meeting his cousin Kurt and his wife Kim in New York City for a Mets game. My mom will stay with the kids overnight while we fly up and back in one weekend. Quick trip, but I am so looking forward to it. Sarah and Emily begged to go to Hershey. They haven't been there in a few years and are truly dying to go back. I'm...

The official end of the Christmas season. We spent the morning de-Christmasing. The house seems to bare and sad. Now the reality of winter sets in. However, I have noticed that the days are slightly longer which is promising. My plan is to hibernate as much as possible.

New year, new class.  Seth wasa the first one in the water, and the first one with wet hair. He had a great time last session, and has a couple skills to master before moving on to Level 3. I'm confident he'll get it this time. He picked up right where he left off in November. It's so nice to watch an indoor sport :-)

For the last few years, January has meant vacation planning. However, we plan to scale back this year on the amount of time we spend away, and the distance we'll travel. Sal's health is a consideration, but there are also some home projects we'd like to tackle in the next year or so and they won't come cheap. My parents are treating our entire family to a week in Boyne Falls, Michigan. We visited Michigan a couple summers ago and fell in love with this under-rated state. We are looking forward to exploring the northwest corner of the mitten - the nail of the ring finger area, if you will, and also returning to Mackinac Island. I would also like to see Lake Superior for the first time. The girls have asked, maybe even begged, to go to Hershey this year. I'm thinking we could take a couple days mid-week, to avoid the crowds, and let them get their amusement park fix. They went to Hershey Park with their dad every summer when they were younger, and for some reason unbe...

Sal's health dominates our lives and it can be quite draining. Fortunately, after being sick in November and December, he seems back on track this week. Dialysis is working again, his numbers have improved, and he feels better in general. We have no way of knowing how long we'll be at this peak, but I'm trying to live in the moment and focus on the now. My first day back to work after a week off was rather anticlimatic. It was quiet, and I wasn't hit with any surprises. I worked from home today to be here for the Maytag repairman, I mean the repairman that Vinski Brothers in Etna sent. The great news is, I have a working dryer (to the tune of $160). The culprit this time was a mass of lint jamming the motor.  Seth had a fun first day back at school. I asked him questions about what he did, or if anything exciting happened and as per usual, got the shoulder shrug with a "it was good."

To get the kids out of vacation mode and back into thinking about the usual routine - we had a plan for the day. We started to de-Christmas the house. I had them pack up all of their Christmas ornaments, no small feat since we put up three trees this year.  I was also on a mission to get all the laundry done so the girls could get theirs put away before going to their dad's for the week. One load in, and the dryer quit. It hadn't been sounding right for weeks, and I had plans to call Vinski Brothers this week anyway. Now we have wet laundry hanging all over the house, but in the end, all I see is the money I'm saving. That's my positive thought for the day. Now, let's hope the repairs aren't too costly :-D It's back to work tomorrow, and I'm kind of excited to see what this year brings as I head into my 20th year at MSA.

We kept it quiet this year - no guests, no plans. In fact, I told the kids we were taking the day off from life and they could do whatever they wanted (within reason) at home. I read all day and finished my first book of 2022. Here are my thoughts on Sequence by Lori Andrews.  It was a wonderful, do-nothing day.