Spring break plans

 Next week is my spring break. I need a break; I suspect the students do, too. 

I'm not traveling; Amtrak's restricted schedule for now (apparently they had resignations over the vaccine mandate, whatever, I guess those folks can find new jobs and Amtrak is training new people) made it impossible to travel with good timing AND get a roomette, and I am too old to do coach, even if there weren't a pandemic. (Coach is loud, you get a random seatmate, lots of times small kids run up and down the aisles at night because they're restless). 

I am sad I won't get to see my mom but I do have a research project that keeps getting pushed back because while it's important, it's not urgent - and urgent things often crowd out important ones. I also volunteered to help out with Meals on Wheels four of the five days (I requested Friday free, on the grounds I need one full weekday for fun stuff - if the weather is good, I *might* go up to Chickasaw National Recreation Area, though they may be crowded as it's spring break for everyone in the state next week, I think). 

The other days I will try to go in for a couple of days and crunch data and start writing the paper from last summer's research. (I still have no plans for THIS summer, though maybe I will think of something). But also I like the chance to sleep a bit later (normally I get up between 4:30 and 5 in the morning) and have more leisurely lunches (after Meals on Wheels) and hopefully have some evenings totally open to, I don't know, rewatch one of the Ghibli movies on dvd or find something nice on TCM.

(Eventually I want to get a Roku stick and look into getting Disney+ and maybe some other streaming service; it seems Disney+ has a lot of things I'd like to see right now but I know there are also more niche things like BritBox and the Criterion Channel - which maybe one can get through Roku)

But Saturday (this coming Saturday) and then Friday of spring break I am taking for *me*. This Saturday I think I am going to go to Denison and just walk around the various stores and spend most of the morning enjoying, and I MIGHT even eat a restaurant meal*

(*I am seeing some worrying news about cases spiking up in the UK again, and we're about 2 weeks behind them, so I expect to decide to do a mild personal lockdown in early April if that happens. It sucks, but this just may be reality now? Until, at least, we get a universal coronavirus vaccine, if we do, that gives sterilizing immunity. Because I don't even want a breakthrough case, not with my asthma and hypertension and the risk of getting long covid or heart or brain damage. Because I've only got ME and if I develop a chronic illness, I have no one to help me. So this might be my last restaurant meal for a while)

There are some nice shops in Denison - an old-style candy store, and a cool "hipster" shop-collective that has handmade soap and vintage clothes and stuff, and a couple antique stores, and supposedly Quilt Asylum is REOPENING and it's going to be in Denison now - they used to be in McKinney, they were great for a few years, then they decided to go to a "curated collection" (read: kits where the people working in the shop don't have to cut fabric for shoppers, so they don't even have to hire people who are knowledgeable or even LIKE fabric) and then they closed. I'm hoping its new incarnation has realized that quilters really DO prefer to pick out their own fabrics and not just buy kits.

I also might run into Sherman for groceries, and maybe to Ulta. Since I have the whole day - no need to run home for Zoom knitting time (that's next week) and nothing I HAVE to do (there isn't even bell choir practice on Sunday; we played in church on Sunday so we're taking this week off rehearsal), I can pretty much take as long as I want. 

I might also do a bit more housecleaning, if I can be disciplined during the week and do my work over at school in the mornings, and then do stuff around the house after I do Meals on Wheels for the day. 

And then Friday I will take the day and do something - as I said, hopefully the weather's good so I can go to a park or something like that. If it isn't, I don't know - I do think I need to go out and do something, if I sit around the house too much these days, for too long, I have bad memories of 2020 and I can't do that. (And anyway - if there IS a bad new variant starting up, I'll be stuck at home soon enough. Or if geopolitical stuff goes really, really bad....)

If I had gotten the manuscript better started earlier, and hadn't committed to Meals on Wheels, I might consider taking a day or two and going further afield - driving somewhere within a day's drive, and staying over night there, and doing stuff. Either somewhere like Guthrie or Eureka Springs or somewhere in east Texas. But maybe not, given the price of gas. (I'm doing okay financially so expensive gas doesn't make me decide to scuttle the Denison trip - which is a half tank total at most - or the trip to CNRA. And anyway - most of the time I drive less than 20 miles in a whole week, and I have been too busy to go very many places anyway). 

There are other things I would like to do if possible, but I don't know of places that do them. Like, on one of the vet shows they were talking about a "horse therapy" place where people can just go and hang out with horses (or even better: mini horses, which are less imposing because they're small). Or go to a big, big yarn store. Or some kind of interesting museum - we have a few but I've been to all of them. Or to get the chance to throw pottery again (I did a little in high school, and while I was never *good,* I enjoyed it). Or something.