January with a Vengeance

The winter storm hit and we finally got enough snow to play in. :) The dog is in raptures, kicking up her heels in the back yard like a calf in a spring pasture. My HC thinks it has something to do with her German (Shepherd) heritage and the fact that she has thick black fur. But when she comes in with rapidly melting cakes of dandruffy snow and shakes all over the play room, the excitement is lost on me.

The play aspect of the snow also quickly lost its novelty when my HC bundled up the kids and took them out. I stayed inside, cleaning frantically, lest the power go out as it is wont to do when the weather does anything out of the ordinary (like rain, snow or get really windy). And there is nothing more aggravating than having no power or warm water, a smoking pile of Mt. St. Laundry and an earthquake of dishes in the sink. But I digress.

So I was washing the dishes and putting clean laundry away, smug in my industry, when lo and behold, I hear wailing and crying children and an aggravated Daddy stomping at the front door. I grabbed the closest towel, a small kitchen towel, tossed it on the floor and prepared for the onslaught of frosted unhappiness. The door opened and 3 red-faced, ice-encrusted snow people squeezed in, two of which were howling. My HC had been playing with the kids outside and chased Ian. Ian did a tumbleweed into the ditch and got completely immersed in snow. He quickly learned the inconvenient effect of cold snow inside warm clothes. On his way out of the ditch, cold and wet, he slipped a couple more times and my HC had the effrontery to laugh. Thus the first round of howling. After a second or two of heated discussion and throwing of blame as to who caused the tumbling into the ditch, two stubborn males stomped (and cry/hollered) their way towards the door, towing an innocent, frosty Erin, now adding her own noisy chorus of crying because she wasn't done playing outside yet.
Well, my 5 minutes of quiet was over and I hadn't even gotten to sit down yet. Then the abominable snow creature yelling like a yeti needed assistance stripping at the door. It was not fun peeling all those frozen, stiff clothes and boots and layers off of him. Then it was Erin's turn. My HC had already washed his hands of the whole affair and retreated back to the bliss of the iphone. The kids finished expressing their emotions and ran off to play and I was left with cold, soggy piles of clothes, coats, boots, mittens, etc and a wet floor. :/

After a snack, more laundry, and a Netflix movie, (having coaxed my handsome HC from the clutches of the evil app), the neighborhood kids came a-knocking. My husband fled, again, and launched himself on the bed, claiming he was resting. The neighbor boys pleaded for some disctraction to ease their 12 year old boredom. My kids pleaded with me for more time to play in the snow. My husband projected loud fake snoring from the bedroom. So I got the coats and accoutrements from the dryer, dressed everyone and went outside to freeze. My Florida born, thin-skinned self would much rather stay Inside and enjoy the snow.



But I stood around, amused the neighbor boys for about 5 minutes before they got on their bikes to be bored somewhere else and then proceeded to yell the same thing about 78.4 times to keep the kids out of the neighbor's yard, whose snow was prettier, deeper, not as cold and so much funner than our own larger yard, which had dirt, dog poo, foot prints and other undesirable elements.


And evidently the neighbor's snow made much better snow angels.

Then it was my turn to drag noisily protesting merengue-children inside to peel snowy clothes off Again, and set them next to the heater to thaw (no handy Campbell's soup to melt my snowman). Followed by begging for hot chocolate and more snacks.

But I am happy to report that I got to work some more on my mini-quilt, made from the leftover squares of Ian's twin quilt. I also got a big box this week from my Grandma and Mom of mat-er-i-alllllll (said in an Oprah yell)! My next project is an amateur's attempt to turn pretty fabric into (hopefully) a casserole dish holder/carrier. Or a cotton origami figure.

In the meantime, we are still dealing with unwanted aspects of the snow, mostly sliding-glass doors that are frozen shut, and frozen car trunks. :)


An update: We ran out of Magic Treehouse books after we finished the BFG. So, since we are learning about the pioneer days and the gradual settling of the west in our History lessons, we are now reading Tucket's Travels by Gary Paulsen, a favorite author of mine. Francis Tucket is a 14 year old boy who gets taken from his wagon train by Pawnee Indians (on his birthday!) and rescued by a mountain man. The mountain man teaches him how to shoot a rifle, ride an Indian pony and survive in the wilderness. Eventually, Francis will try to make his way, alone, to Oregon to find his family again. How is Ian enjoying it, you ask? Ian wishes it had pictures.

Almost done.

The year is almost done. It's altogether surreal and relieving at the same time. It does seem, in retrospect, that time has flown. But thinking of all the hard times where the minutes dragged, it is nice that those are behind us and there are better times (and possibly worse) ahead. Either way, we know not what the future brings and the prospect of a brand spanking new year awakens an air of expectancy. Some things will definitely be different this year. For instance, it is not always a wonderful thing to be the one who eats the most black eyed peas on New Year's Day. Especially if you forgot the Beano. We got a new vehicle, after the December debacle. So there are no impending repairs looming over our heads (or under the hood) with their money hungry claws and disconcerting clunks and grindings. Just a long line of payments. But we are thankful that they are within our reach.

Erin and I had the stomach flu before and after Christmas, and my HC had half of the stomach flu earlier this week. Ian missed it and I am thankful for that as well, since I'm not as confident that he would have made it to the bathroom to retch as successfully as Erin did. Erin is more of a take-action person, where Ian just kind of freezes and stares. For example, if my HC jumps out and scares them, Erin will either turn and run away and hide under the nearest surface or run at him screeching back and jump on his head. Ian will stand there and scream like he's the lead in a b-movie. One long, shrill scream, feet planted. There is no obvious remedy for this.


Now I am waiting until the end of the week, when I can start taking down the Christmas stuff. We really enjoyed our gorgeous hand-me-down fiber optic Christmas tree this year (thanks Mimi and Grampa!). It is enormous and shimmers. It doesn't need any garland and all our ornaments fit on it without looking like a flea market stall. It was well worth driving from FL in July with the giant box strapped to our roof. Our yard was also one of the drive-bys with our new lawn ornaments and lights (complete with Santa, sleigh and reindeer). It was exciting for the kids to drive home from Wednesday church to see all the pretty lights coming from OUR yard. ;) (We have gotten lots of compliments on our yard, thanks to the creativity and industry of Mimi and Grampa!) It makes it even better that they remind us of one of our favorite places in Florida. I'll bet it's the first time any of those ornaments have seen the snow we got last week. haha.
We are trying to make it through our last week of Christmas vacation before the Spring semester of school. Ian and I are doing great. He is staying in his pajamas all day as late as possible and I am getting some extra cleaning, organizing, reading, websurfing done. Erin is overset. Her routine is completely messed up and we need to get back to work as soon as possible. She's not used to having Ian in her way every time she wants to watch something or play with a toy. Siblings!
We are also still waiting to see what will happen with the new boss that was elected in November. He officially starts on Jan 3 (read December 31, or earlier, since almost everyone has either gotten a pink slip or a phone call confirming their continued presence; everyone except for my HC!). Then the fun really starts as everything is restructured to his liking. It is always the hope of politics that the things that work well will be retained and the things that are broken will be fixed. It has been our experience that most campaign promises go out the window with the first enormous paycheck. We are more interested in who the new supervisors will be (and if my HC still has a job, of course!). Either way, it's always interesting to see how things work out.
I hope everyone else is having a nice settled, sick-free week and I wish you could see our Christmas lights. :) (or you could wait until next year)

December December

December already? It seems like 2010 flew by but dragged at the same time. I guess that's how all things go. But things especially seem to drag when you are deprived of something that you enjoy, love, are addicted to, etc. Like, diet dr pepper, your car, your sanity because it's too cold to play outside and the kids are bouncing off the walls.... :)
Thanksgiving was good, HC's birthday was good, his trip was good. And now we have Christmas to look forward to. And after Christmas is the long slow wait for spring. But in the blur of days are small moments that make up the things that we remember the most. Tiny cold toes squirming their way to your lap under the couch blanket. Popcorn and hot chocolate in special mugs while watching the weekly Disney movie. Watching the dog have the fastest pee in history due to the temperature change of snuggled-next-to-the-heater to frigid winds and frozen ground. Remembering how miserable it was in the summer every time I was forced to use the oven and now, having it on almost constantly with roasts, cookies, chex mix and muffins in there. Cute winter hats. Looking outside and seeing snow (our yearly quota of 3 snows a year...).
So no matter how things seem to drag, there are other things to focus on.

Is it Spring yet?

Spring officially starts this Friday and I am hoping that it will put a spring in all our steps as well. Aside from Spring Break, we have all been battling colds and winter sickness. Winter sickness roughly translates to "Sick of Winter!" One day it's warm and in the 70s, then the next day it's sleeting. No thanks! We want spring. Erin has been sick with one thing, then with another. We've been to the doc's every week for something or other. We are currently on a new antibiotic (a ten day one; not a convenient z-pack) that causes constant diarrhea. So we are eating constant yogurt. I don't think Erin will touch yogurt again after we finish these meds. She will probably ever correlate yogurt with sickness, the way others think of ginger ale, or Gatorade or chicken soup. Have I mentioned this year that my family is strange and no one cares for soup?
Or meatloaf?
Or sloppy joes?
Or potatoes?? No, I'm serious. Baked potatoes are okay sometimes. Mashed potatoes every once in a while. Potatoes in an au gratin or in a stew? Ewwww! All that's left in the pot is gravy and potatoes. There is no rhyme or reason to this behavior, but it has spread to the children. Anyone with an antidote must contact us immediately and save us from this abnormal half-life.
I need to think about something else before this starts to resemble the plot of a L'Engle book.
(Please don't force me to explain that L'Engle wrote A Wrinkle in Time and other strangely provocative books.)
Back to my reality. Last Friday started our Spring Break. By Saturday afternoon, I was pulling my hair out.
Due to Erin's recovery, we stayed home from church, but God rescued me somewhat by sending Girric over to play for a bit in the afternoon. Then Girric had to go home. And the chaos resumed. The week is looming before me like the beginning of of a new rollercoaster. You know that sooner or later it will end, but how many times will you be turned upside down, or toss your cookies, or lose your shoes, car keys, sanity, before it's finally over? It may even be fun, or have a great view, but sheeeesh, the screaming.
Oh, speaking of screaming, my sister Vicky is going to be hearing a lot of it. She just had her baby on Thursday. Happy Birthday to Aislynn Bronx. :)

100 Days of Crazy

Last week, Ian hit his 100th day of Pre-K. They celebrated by doing a project that involved 100 items, either brought in or stuck onto a posterboard. You would be astonished at how many parents had problems with the number 100. I saw several posterboards that only had, say, 16 dots or pasted shapes, or 65 M&Ms. Interesting. Ian and I did a paper chain (yes, 100 loops). He cut out all of the strips and did color selection. I drew lines and stapled. He has it hanging in his room. But for this special occasion, the teachers made special "100" hats for all the kids. They are just too cute.



Erin, in the meantime, has been occupied with shoes. And socks. But mainly shoes.
She tries on everyone's shoes. She likes the slip-ons. Sometimes she likes just walking in one shoe. Even Ian thinks it's funny when she stomps around wearing his cowboy boots, since they come above her knees.


The weather has been wonky. Warm one day, freezing at night, warm with a really chilly wind, cool at night. But tomorrow, it is forecasted to rain/snow. Hm. We'll see. Though no one is as skeptical as they were before the Ice Storm.




I have been painting. We went to Lowe's and bought some red paint so I could redo the kitchen cabinets. My kitchen seems to have adopted an apple theme and I really like it. I've never seen myself as a theme type of girl, but I really like my Appley kitchen. So much that I painted my cabinets (4 on the bottom, 4 on top and one drawer) apple red. After a couple of days of double-taking, I'm starting to get used to it. But then I had all this red paint left over. Even after 2 coats on the cabinets. So I decided to do the kitchen door (to the carport) to match. My HC suggested that I do the little carport porch and storage door too. So I did. And then we thought it would be nice if we did the front house trim (the strip of wood under the roof line all down the front). So I clung, white-knuckled, to a ladder and did that too. And the carport beams. And the front porch railing. But I'm not quite finished with that yet. So that's pretty crazy for me. Normally, it could be accredited to a mid-life crisis or some other relevant life passage. It's strangely exhilarating though. Maybe like wearing a bikini at the beach for the first time (but without the inevitable sunburn or strange tan lines). There's a certain freedom in escaping from the beige doldrums and making your own vibrant mark on your street. Now it's not the little brown house, it's the one with the bright red trim. I would take pictures of the front of the house, but it's dark outside. No matter what, though, it sure does perk things up a bit. Now Ian is waiting for us to do the floors in yellow.

Ice Storm

On January 27, a storm swept through our little town and completely turned it topsy turvy. All our appointments were cancelled due to nasty icy roads and school was cancelled too. We lost power a little after noon. We were scheduled to go on our bi-monthly grocery trip, but had to postpone it too. It's really tough to be out of bread when you're stuck home with the kids!
My HC was called in to work and I resigned myself to a very interesting afternoon/night with the kids and no power. A lot of the town runs their heat on natural gas. We do too, so we weren't worried about heating the house. We still had water. Yay for flushing toilets! But we didn't have any hot water. And none of the usual activities that engaged the kids worked. No computer, no tv, no lights!
Another big yay for camping gear! We got out our Coleman lantern (battery op) and our kerosene lamps and about a dozen tea candles. We were in business. It was so cold outside, I couldn't get the grill lit. I don't know why, if it was the cold, or the ice that was starting to accumulate on Everything, or what, but I couldn't get it lit. I was very thankful that there was still some warm water left in the water heater. We ate sandwiches and had warm stand-up baths. I let the very grateful Buddy and the "This is GREAT weather!" Berry in for the night. I lit candles in the kids' rooms and we went to bed. The next day, we woke up to this:
















I don't remember what happened every day, but I do know that it wasn't much fun. The damage was very severe to our town. At one point, Ian and I stood on the carport and listened to the almost constant crack-the-whip sounds of icy branches twisting, breaking and falling off of huge trees. They fell onto houses, cars, sheds, the street and demolished several fences. Branches and entire trees, coated in over an inch of ice, continued to fall for several days. My HC got the grill working and we cooked on it and heated pots of water for more stand up baths. We went to the EMS building for a hot meal and a couple loads of laundry. HC got a hot shower because he had to go back to work. Fire and Rescue went door to door to make sure everyone was okay and had heat. Some went to a shelter at the Assembly of God. Red Cross came after a few days, held up by the person in our town who was in charge of Crisis Management and didn't think the damage was extensive enough to call FEMA. He is not well liked at this time. FEMA and Red Cross had been in Arkansas, 15 miles away since the first day.
The Street Department worked around the clock to keep the roads cleared, though I don't know who was fool enough to drive with all the ice and snow all over the roads.


















In the meantime, we went outside to play in the snow that fell over all the ice. It was very cold and we had to keep going inside to warm up. Ray from the EMS building let us borrow his camping propane burner, so we had some hot chocolate. The kids had a blast sliding on the ice, riding in Ian's Power Wheels, and inspecting the ice. We also saw a Channel 6 helicopter, surveying the damage. We provided them with some excellent footage of booty shaking and slipping in the snow just in case they were filming us.





















In the middle of this, my dad decided to make a surprise visit. He and Nana called from Alabama. "We have a bushel of oysters and about 100 lb of deer meat!" Uh....we don't have power. "We'll get some ice," they said. Boy oh boy, did we have ice. We put all our fridge and freezer stuff outside in coolers and plastic storage boxes. I beat ice off of the fence to put in the coolers. They did just fine until Saturday, when the weather got too warm.












We had a great visit with Nana and PopPop, who got a hotel room so we could all take hot showers and baths.
Our powerline had a large branch on it and it ripped the line out of the side of our house. We were very glad that PopPop (who is also an electrician) was there to help us fix it. He also replaced our sadly outdated 1950s fuse box with a safe breaker box.













PopPop and Nana also got us a generator, because boy howdy did we have some laundry piled up! The power came back on Sunday afternoon. And we've been cleaning up ever since. The town looks much better, but there's still a lot to be done.



















On the upside, when there's no electricity, the kids learned how to do other things.