For posterity's sake, I'm going to note that two different vaccines have been announced within the past week as having been 90-95% effective, and that it's entirely possible that, by this time next year, we'll be back to "normal." Then again, an asteroid that's hiding behind the sun could also hit Earth, so who really knows.
Mal's stomach stuff continues to be a thing we have to stay on top of. It's looking like about 1 generous tablespoon of Miralax is a good dose for him, and we still have to wrangle him to the restroom or he just... doesn't go. Hopefully the maturity/behavioral part of this will be on his plate soon enough. Between the hour a day James and/or I spend with him camped out in the bathroom, the twice a day we have to cajole him to let us brush his teeth (actually, he does okay at night; it's the early daytime brushing that he resists, for some reason), and keeping track of time to remind him to get a snack around 9 PM so that we're not dealing with making macaroni and cheese at 10:15 at night... it's a lot. But he's happy and pretty healthy, so that's a good thing.
We've been spending a lot of time outside lately. It's one of the two really beautiful times of the year in Austin, so we're trying to take advantage of it.
Construction on the houses in our immediate area is finally wrapping up, and I think we'll get a break in the heavy machinery and its assorted noise pollution soon. We can't actually see any of the building from the house right now, but there's one house going up behind our back lot that seemed to have a lot of trouble breaking up rock to put in the septic tank last week.
I've been really thinking about environmental waste and harm a lot lately. I'd decided somewhat recently to only buy sustainable/natural clothing, but then realized we were talking $70 for a casual shirt and $175 for a pair of shoes. So I instead committed to buying second-hand clothes whenever possible, then finding more environmentally-friendly alternatives where it's not possible. In fact, except for the Sonic underpants in that top picture, everything Mal has on in the photos above is either from Kid 2 Kid or a hand-me-down from one of his friends. And we'll pass them along when we're done.
As countries move to zero-net carbon policies, I'm hoping our own nation will soon follow suit. Along with that, I hope builders (like the ones I mentioned above) will find better options than cement slabs. It's bad for drainage (even though our town has a maximum 40% impervious cover ordinance) and making it is bad for the environment. Plus, it traps heat.
James has been looking at building a work shed and found an alternative based on French drains and gravel fill, I believe. I'm on an alternative housing committee for our town and am hoping that eventually, we can move the whole city to zoning ordinances that would favor more environmentally-friendly alternatives in house-building.
Speaking of which, the meeting has just started (still waiting for everyone to join the Zoom), so I'm out. Have a good week!
👍💕
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