December Daily 19 & 20 ~ Breaking Away for a Tiny Bit

Yesterday was a pretty rough day. It was the last day of the semester and I had to have my game face on at work while my heart was feeling very sad and anxious. The news that Don had been reclassified as a hospice patient began to sink in. Plus, I had not been able to get more than just an hour or two of sleep the night before. The kids were great, but I could not fake the excitement that most everyone else was feeling due to the winter break starting. I spent the evening trying to get my hands on a prescription medication that Don needed urgently. It took many phone calls about about 4 hours of waiting to finally procure what was needed.

Today was a much better day. Don was feeling a bit better and I had quick trip to Boulder with Natalie. We began our day by having brunch at the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse. We enjoy going to nice restaurants together. We started out with an order of Palatschinken (Austrian crepes, sweetened cheese, apple sauce, mint, candied walnuts) and house made Chai.

Natalie had a French Omelette and I had Honduran Beleada (tortilla, refried black beans, eggs (I had potatoes instead), cheese, plantains (I had them left out due to an allergy), avocado, crema, Aji red sauceO) which was fabulous. I saved a bit to bring home to the kids, both of whom enjoyed it.

Next stop was the Fjällräven store and the reason I needed to go to Boulder. Grandpa Don wants to give each of the grandchildren a special gift. Ethan has long wanted a Granfors Bruk Small Forest Axe, which are hand made in Sweden. It turns out that they are very hard to come by and they are also very desired. Larr and I contacted every single online dealer I could find. None of them had any and they were all back ordered until at least March. I had great conversations about the quality of the axe from abortionists, log home builder, tool collectors, etc. Then I recalled that Ethan had admired them at the Fjallraven store that is just down the street from Two Hands Paperie. I called them. They had been expecting their shipment to arrive for several days. I put a reserve hold and called them many days in a row. None had arrived. I explained the importance of the gift and they promised to help as best they could. One of them even called the stores in other states. In the end two axes were expedited to Boulder and I picked up mind today. Yeah and a great big shout out to those helpful folks!

And so since we were in Boulder, we had to stop by the Two Hands Paperie store, of course. I wanted to admire the Himmeli display that had been created at a community event that I missed due to conferences. They did a lovely job displaying them:

The display was really lovely. We spent some time in the shop and came out with some holiday gifts.

After that we headed back home. It was a short, sweet tonic to the stress of my life as it is right now. I am so thankful to have a wonderful friend to spend time with.

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On an entirely different note, here is a little (expensive) silliness: