It finally happened last week. Temperatures above zero degrees Fahrenheit for the first time in many weeks. At eighteen degrees we had kids stripping off their winter coats to run around in the sunshine in sweatshirts. You can’t really blame them when it is sixty degrees warmer than the day before.

So, warmth has returned, snow is melting, I’ve left my warm house to mend some fences, and I’m feeling a bit less bleak.

As I sit down to blog, I’m still unsatisfied with my page. I don’t love it. More changes will surely be coming.

Today is St Patricks Day, my brother’s birthday. My older brother I grew up with. He lives in Arizona. I’ve had a few birthdays roll by, both of half-siblings and siblings I grew up with. I’ve found myself stressing over what to do about half-siblings when everyone I grew up with has just made phone calls if we remembered.

Do you think my adoptive parents weren’t really into that because the kids weren’t really theirs? Growing up we had cakes, sometimes grandma and grandpa came over, there were a few presents, maybe a movie or dinner out. As we grew up and moved away, there was the odd card, some years. Usually, it was a phone call so we could talk to dad about the weather. I’ve learned that other families are quite a bit more extravagant. It’s just something I’ve wondered about this year. For my half-siblings, I’ve sent cards or letters online or in the mail and just kept it to that for now. I’ll be meeting them all this summer in May and July. It makes me nervous.

Rejection is a big thing for me. I’m trying to allow for it by figuring out why I care so much. Just writing that sentence gets an emotional reaction. A tightness that settles right around my heart. I want so badly for them to love me. Why? They’re perfect strangers.

I’ve said aloud, a few times, that I’m glad all my parents have passed on and I don’t have to deal with their issues anymore. Women especially look at me weird when they hear me say it. I know it’s wrong to be relieved that I’m not taking care of ill/elderly parents. I am so relieved. I have great respect for my many friends who do it daily with much love and respect and so little complaining it’s hard to believe.

I’m still looking for that wellspring inside myself. The how of Loving Myself. I’ve been doing some editing this week, and I realize that my girls, in my books, that’s what they’re doing. They have the luxury of leaving and going to a place that speaks peace to them. The location is immediately disrupted by men, but somehow they all survive. It’s like I’m still wandering around blindfolded…”Is it here? Ouch, nope that’s not it! How about over-eeeeeeeek (thump) Damn it! I think I sprained my ankle! That’s not it! Eww, I don’t even like how it smells over there, forget that. This is stupid.” And I stomp out of my own head slamming the door hard enough to make my eyes rattle.

How do you find that center of contentment within yourself that helps you face the world day after day?

Well, hello yourself, March!

The nine inches of snow we got today tell a different story, but I can feel the wriggle of life under the blanket that January and February have buried me with. It happened twice this week. I read or heard something and wanted to write about it. Squee! It seems like a long time since that has happened.

So, what shall we talk about?

That moment you realized you aren’t as weird as you thought? When you read Fifty Shades and weren’t scared but wanted to Samba around the library because you realized you had a tribe.

Friendship, when it’s not about love, it’s about differences.

BTS is coming back stateside and I need to stop pinning about them. That’s pinning not pining. Two different things. If you follow me on Pinterest, I’m sorry, I can’t stop. I promise not to be offended if you leave me because one more picture or gif of him is going to send you over the edge of sanity.

Okay. I’m leaning toward either BDSM or Friendship.

Let’s go with mostly, get the work out-of-the-way before the fun.

I have a friend that I love, but she doesn’t feel loved. Our friendship has been unraveling a bit since her job took her to another school and busy schedules have kept us apart. It got exponentially worse when she quit her job before Christmas and didn’t sign up for another section of night school. Now she has time. She’s no longer so busy she can’t see straight. Me though, I’m still doing what I’ve been doing since we met. It’s not going to be enough anymore.

This week on Facebook she posted an article When You Realize A Friend Doesn’t Feel the Same Way About You.

I think it was directed toward me. I could be wrong, but I haven’t called her, and I know that’s what she needs. We haven’t spoken since the end of January. Truthfully, how I feel about her hasn’t changed. I still love her craziness, her forthright manner, her passion, and drive. However, January and February were tough. March has come in with almost a foot of snow and with it a host of problematic issues at home. When I think of calling her, I feel tired. Then I look at the title of the article, and I get a little mad. It isn’t that I don’t love you as much as you love me. It’s merely that I love you different than you love me. When we worked together and talked together every day, it was less apparent, but we do have vastly different personalities.

I’m a hermit on the weekends. I like to go home and stay there. I watch movies, read, write, anything I can do from under my comforter. I don’t answer my phone, that’s a big no-no with her. I try my best to answer when she calls. In fact, I’ll answer her call more often than my sisters. Shh, don’t tell them. Most people who’ve known me very long just text me. I am a writer.

She loves to go out on the weekends, have drinks and dinner with friends, meet and get coffee on Saturday mornings, sometimes shop. She loves to talk.

I love to talk, too, but just to the voices in my head, or with my characters. I find that what I enjoy talking about is either writing and boring her to death or largely inappropriate for public discussion. I’m best left in my head.

She is doing stellar right now, losing weight, looking amazing, exercising at the Y, supporting her kids in their myriad activities.

Me, I’m herminating like there is no tomorrow. I drive my kids to TaeKwonDo, Dance, Church Activities, Drama Club-but like me my kids like to hermit hardcore on the weekends. They read, dance, study Korean, watch YouTube, shovel snow. As the youngest friend notes, “You guys never do anything!”

Yes, it’s just how we like it.

I don’t love her less, I’m just being me. I don’t believe she loves me less, she’s just being her. It may be a vain hope, but I hope we come back together. When the sun shines, and everything is warm and bright, I hope we find our way back to each other.

I know it isn’t.

I’m so very tired of winter.

Last week we had two days above 0 degrees, and it was terrific. I don’t think it was the double digits, but after weeks and weeks of below zero temperatures, you’d be surprised how good six measly degrees feels.

February is not my month. Despite it being populated with family birthdays, celebrating Love, and Groundhog Day, I hate February. It is the coldest darkest month of the year in North Dakota. This past month was more bitter than I remember since moving here. Most of the school days had indoor recess. In case you’re wondering what that cut off is up here, -15. That’s the cut off for public schools in the frozen north, that’s when we say, “Nah, it’s too cold to play outside today.”

Winter in North Dakota is, err, interesting. Perhaps it’s my lack of appropriate indoor recreation in the winter? Maybe it’s my lack of interest in outdoor recreation while it’s snowing? Probably a mixture of both.

My idea of most North Dakotan winters is lots of sport, hockey, ice fishing, snowmobiling, hunting, and drinking. I don’t really do any of that. No, not even drinking. Despite my fascination with alcohol, I rarely drink. I love to try a new drink when I’m out, but I don’t go out much in the winter either. When you open your front door and your lungs shrink to the size of walnuts and your mascara clinks when you blink…you think twice about optional treks out the door.

So I’ve been making mandatory trips to work and lots of naps and reading at home. I’m also working on a separate adoption blog to hold my adoption angst. I’m even dreaming about the Rose Bowl Stadium and a couple of hours of this…