This is my first week back to writing weeknotes after taking a long time off. We’ve been locking ourselves down with the recent surges. Our area has been breaking daily numbers regularly and filling up our hospital with enough people to put it into crisis mode. But not everyone feels the crisis as our local schools removed the requirement for students to quarantine after exposure.

I took off a few weeks at the end of the year that started with a nasty tornado that ripped through our area. It was close enough to force us into the basement and to put on helmets. Thankfully we only had to deal with a power outage for a couple of days afterwards. A few nearby towns weren’t as fortunate.

I spent some of my break cleaning, trying to get rid of all the stuff we’ve accumulated over the years. Where does it all come from? It expands to fill the space until there’s none left.