Spring.

At some point I'm hoping to recover enough to take some photos. My neighborhood has been besieged by crows, but the usual blossoms are back and looking nice. There is a sadness, a pathetic quality to the flowers this year, though. The crows have nudged out all the other lovely birds that used to come through here in the spring - nuthatches, chickadees, rufus-sided towhees, and I am sad for the beautiful morning songs of those birds of the past. Now it is "caw caw" for the most part. I can't help but think there are some eerie parallels between the expansion of the crow population and the changes to my personal life, the human population expansion, the economy on a larger scale, and of course climate change. Nothing is separate, the fabric of life seems to be very complex indeed.

I've been trying to look for work. It's been an ordeal, sending my son back to school after homeschooling, then staring at my real position in the face of the job market today. My perspective about our futures has changed drastically and I am constantly concerned about the well-being of my children and about the security of my husband's job. Yesterday Oregon's unemployment rate skyrocketed to 12.1%, the highest in the nation thus far. Trouble is, all my relatives live here. My old Bachelor's degree isn't worth much, honors schmonors, and I'm kicking myself for not having chosen something more practical to study and to have been building a secure career all these years. But kicking myself is something I'm trying not to do so much because it is so devastating I end up losing entire days just filled with dread and self loathing unable to get off the couch. I have started to volunteer at the local food bank operative center, so there's that. It does help to get out and learn some new things, be around different people. I read though that people in my demographic group (middle-aged SAHMs trying to return to work) are not likely to find work, having been out of the major part of the work force for so long. Can you say sitting duck? Yet with all this, my attitude is improving a little. A little. I'm getting more energy to look daily for work online and at times make myself get out. It may be the spring sunshine and longer days that are helping things along that way - I'll accept that.

We've lost both of our Saint Bernards this year. Our younger Saint, Mika, ate something that poisoned her last week when she was out running in the cemetery. She's run out there for 3 years now, but this time somebody put something out there that she ate (she ate everything) and it killed her. She was not an easy dog to have, but I appreciated having her around for safety, and she was company during the day. I will always miss the charm of our Boris though. He will forever have a place in my heart.

All this change has made me feel like I have a totally different life than the one I was leading even a year ago. It's because I do. Even in September. My kids feel the strain, and they don't like the crows, but I don't want to take hope away from them. I guess the thing to do is to be thankful for what we have today and remember that there have been times of peace and prosperity as well as angst and tragedy throughout history, but it just so happens that I was naive enough to believe so much in the security of our country that we were immune to it.