I don't know about where you live, but here in central North Dakota, we've been in a fog.

It started intermittently sometime around Thanksgiving, but it felt pretty constant from Christmas to New Year's, and even a few days into 2026.

Some days, the fog was so thick that I couldn't see the silos at our feedyard from the house, a distance of probably 200 yards or so. Other days, the fog was higher in the air so as not to interfere with visibility - but still giving us the dreary feeling of being closed in. The cattle were coated in frost sometimes, and so was our dog.

It is incredibly hard to keep going when you feel like you're inside a bubble from which you can't escape. I work from home, which means that most days, I sit in my basement office or somewhere else in my house. The outside conditions don't interfere with my work, unless I go out on a story or the weather leads to my power or wifi getting cut off. But even still, every time I looked outside, it felt like the fog sapped my energy and motivation.

It's not unusual for that period between Christmas and New Year's to feel a little ... off ... in journalism, too. Many people aren't working, both in our newsrooms and among our sources. Our deadlines get jumbled. No matter how much work I do before the holidays, I always feel like that metaphorical fog creeps in, making simple stories and simple tasks take ages longer to write than they would at any other time.

For my husband and all the other ranchers around, who still need to get out and work no matter what the weather, the fog seemed to bring down spirits considerably. Not being able to see beyond the task you're working on - and not being able to see the end of the clouds - seems like both a physical problem and a metaphorical one. It's a tough cycle to get out of when there's no light on the horizon.

We've felt like we've been in a bit of a fog since June, when our farm was hit by a tornado.  So many decisions to make and things to think through have clouded our brains. So the added real fog has felt extra oppressive. The skeleton of a new barn where the old one used to stand  added to the bit of despair in our souls. Calving season is fast approaching, and we keep wondering if we'll have a barn to use. The fog in our brains leads us to assume the worst.

When the fog starts to lift, it can feel like the world is a different place. On a recent day, it did just that. The sun came out. We could see beyond our yard, and the glints of sun against the hoarfrost that has formed from the fog seemed almost picturesque. But then we drove to our daughter's basketball game that afternoon and we didn't get very far to the east before we hit the wall of gray yet again. It was a good reminder that the fogs of life don't usually end in one grand event.

A few days beyond that afternoon and the fog seems to be lifting, at least for now. We've seen the sun from time to time. We're settling into a new post-holiday routine. Some progress is being made on the barn, albeit far slower than we're comfortable with as we look at our approaching calving dates.

But - just as we do as we drive through the fog - we'll keep going, maybe slower than we would at another time, but surely moving forward, watching for hazards and praying for the best.