The Fluffy White Stuff Continues

I got up this morning to more snow. This is so very rare in this part of the world. We don't even own a snow shovel, or even a flat shovel. We are well over a foot of snow. It is hard to measure with the layer of ice in the middle. The boys have been out playing in it and came in as little snowmen, covered head to toe.

I sent Ducky to the grocery store last night on foot to pick up a few necessities for Christmas dinner, just in case. We have everything except dessert taken care of.


The pots are completely covered in snow. The van is nearly lost in the snow as well. From the front you can't see it at all. The snow has picked up again. There are dozens of birds gathering in my willow by my bird feeder. I believe I better settle in for the long haul.

All this snow is reminding me of pictures of my early childhood where multiple feet of snow was common. The first four years of my life were spent where people had snowblowers and for good reason. A kid could get lost in all that snow. I think I will go wrap some presents.

Welcome Winter

Today is the first official day of winter. We all know it started a while ago. In our little corner of the world it started last Sunday. I enjoyed my week off. Normally when we get snow it lasts for a day or two tops and only happens once, maybe twice each winter. Mother Nature is really outdoing herself this year.

Last week, we got a couple of inches and it would melt and freeze. Saturday, it started to snow early in the morning. And continued all day. It was quiet and peaceful watching the flakes drift down in varying densities over the course of the day. Ducky took the boys to the park to go sledding and I started a fire in the fireplace and settled in with a book. My idea of the perfect winter day. Periodically, I would head out with a ruler and measure the snow fall.


At dinner I took a picture of the pots on the deck. I hope they make it through without breaking and the plants survive too. The snow was soft and fluffy and slightly crunchy.


Three hours later, it was still snowing enough to completely hide one of the pots. I kept the curtains open to enjoy the winter beauty outside. The neighbors all had their Christmas lights on. It was magical to see. I sat and looked out the upstairs window and the glittering world around me. Before I went to bed, I went out for a last measurement, 8.5 inches. There was a light crust on the top and a slight sheen to the landscape.


This morning, I went out for a final measurement. There was 8 inches, the top .25 inch was solid ice. The trees were all glowy white with ice. Velcro was walking on top of it all, until he jumped off the deck and broke the ice layer. Poor guy, with his short legs he was high-centered. So I threw on my snow boots and coat over my pajamas and went out to break him a trail. I nearly took a nose-dive in the process. The rest of the day has been spent by another fire, working Sudoku, stitching projects, reading and enjoying the warm glow of the fire.

Snow Week

So it turned out to be a snow week. And what a glorious unexpected gift it was. Monday had the start of a headache, but upping my liquid consumption took care of it. Otherwise it was headache free and fun. I got projects done. I played games with boys. I lounged. I slept in every day. Some days I was productive, others not as much.

Last night I was running around town picking up supplies for school projects, just in case. I have two tubs of frosting for gingerbread houses. I have a book about fairies for a book exchange. It is time to put work away for more than a week. I am giving myself permission to not think about plans or papers or anything else school related. I am going to enjoy the holidays and time with my family. There are cookies, movies and other fun planned. I'll be spilling the beans here.

An Unexpected Gift

The last two weeks have been stressful. It is a vicious cycle, get a migraine, get behind, get more stressed, get more migraines. In 14 days, I had six migraines. I was falling further and further behind at home, at work, everywhere.

But Mother Nature intervened with a most welcome and unexpected gift. Snow. We get snow so rarely that everything shuts down when we do get it. I am on my third snow day. Woo-hoo!

Last week I was shopping at a seasonal Christmas store and found this really cute ornament. It is an apple and on the back it says "I love snow days!" It was so perfect that I bought two, one for me and one for my teaching partner. It must have worked because we got our tree on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning it was snowing.

Monday, I played out in the snow with the boys for two hours. All I can say is thank you Columbia Sportswear, you kept me warm. We made cookies, frosted and decorated them. We hung out and enjoyed the day. No stress, no worries, just me and my boys. The boys attempted to make snow men in the afternoon. The snow was too dry and it was too cold, so they improvised.

After such a relaxing day on Monday, Tuesday was another snow day. So I got productive. Yesterday, I worked on laundry and put clean sheets on our bed. I thoroughly cleaned the living and dining rooms rather than my quick spruce up. The dog hair tumbleweeds were preparing to take over and were being fed by little boy crumbs under the table. Our house felt so clean and fresh when you walked in the door. Then I got to work on some projects.

I started these curtains nearly two years ago. I was making them for my girlfriends baby's room. I got the valances made before she arrived. But life has been just a little too hectic to get the actual curtains done. Now, there are blinds up in her room, so she has not been being blinded by the sun every day. I feel bad that it has taken this long, but I can only manage so much. I had taken a pre-made curtain. I had to hem it, add the decorative ribbon and then add blackout fabric. It didn't seem like much, but it took me about four hours per curtain. And eight hours for projects is hard to come by. I had finished one of the them two weeks ago and really wanted to get the other one done. So that was my Tuesday afternoon project. And now they are done! Aren't they cute. I still plan to make a crib skirt, but I don't have the measurements. So when I drop off the curtains, I'll measure. Maybe I will have that done before the new year.

I wasn't done yet. I had the urge to project some more. I have a goal to give up wrapping paper. I want to (slowly, over the years) make cloth bags to put gifts in. Granted they won't be as fun to rip into, but it will create so much less waste and save us money in the long run. And they can be beautiful too. So I decided to make one yesterday. I was watching TV with the boys and this one is hand stitched. I thought it turned out pretty cute. My thumb is a little sore today from pushing the needle through the felt.

Yesterday was very productive and and relaxing. I'm curious to see what today brings. And whether we will end up with a three week winter break. There is another storm arriving today with cold temperatures and more snow.

PS, this is my 300th post! I have never been this successful in anything that could be considered journaling in my entire life. And I have tried many times before.

Oh Christmas Tree

We had great aspirations of going to a U-cut place to cut our tree this year. Last Saturday the weather was perfect for it. But my dad was here and we don't usually get our tree until two weeks before Christmas. The plan all week was to get it today.

The day dawned wet and dreary. I had a migraine hangover. The van needed new tires and the previous owner had put wheel locks on it and we couldn't find the key. Ducky spent the better part of the day taking care of the tire problem, safety first. It wasn't until almost dusk that we headed out to get a tree.

So we ended up going to the tree lot that we use every year. Somehow we always end up there. The boys like it because they give them Hot Wheels cars. We had our own personal tree shopper. He ran around and found a Noble fir, that was about 6 feet tall, not too fat, but nice and full. He trimmed the lower branches and gave it a fresh cut. Then we were on our merry way.

Once upon a time, putting the tree in the tree stand caused excessive cursing and perspiration. Now, we have a beautiful cast iron stand that works the first time and makes everyone happy. I picked it up for $20 at a post Christmas sale before sweetP was born. Then we didn't get to use it for years because we got such little, tabletop trees to keep them out of the reach of little hands.

After dinner the boys helped decorate the tree. I had threatened to not get a tree this year when I was abandoned by the entire family last year to decorate the whole thing myself. We had fun seeing the special ornaments again and remembering years past. My job was to unpack and hand out ornaments and Ducky and the boys hung them. Ducky was attempting to get the boys to put them on all over the tree and to find strong branches for the heavy ornaments. The boys just went willy-nilly and put them wherever. There was one branch that had four ornaments on it.

In the end it is beautiful. I just have to avoid looking at Darth Vader.

Teetering

Two weeks left of school before break.
Four migraines in the last eight days.
The work is piling up, and I am helpless to get caught up. At least until I stop having migraines every other day.
Getting farther behind makes me stress, stress helps cause migraines, migraines make me get further behind.

I only have to make it nine more work days.

That's Yucky!

We have an ongoing battle in our house. It is called dinner. My boys come by their pickiness honestly. I am picky or hypersensitive to taste and texture. It all depends on how you look at it. So I can understand it. But it doesn't make it any easier to be the head chef. My dinners are generally pronounced to be yucky or gross well before they arrive at the table. Little do they know how gross it can get. I have yet to serve an internal organ for dinner.

Last night for dinner I was serving meatballs. Teriyaki & pineapple meatballs made entirely of chicken. They were quite tasty. But the moment that sweetE realized I was heating up the oven to make meatballs, not dino nuggets, he was up in arms. "I don't want meatballs, I don't like meatballs, I want chicken nuggets."

Being the creative kid that he is, he drew a picture. He asked me how to draw no. So I wrote the word no on a piece of paper. That was not what he had in mind. So I drew a circle with a slash through it. That is what he wanted. Then he required a piece of tape.

This is what I got.

The man on my oven was saying no. At first it was no to the oven. Then it was no to using the oven to make meatballs. Had I wanted to switch and make dino nuggets, that would have been okay.

Later when dinner was made and it was time to eat, there was the usual complaints. But when he actually tried the meatball, he thought it was okay, good even. Not good enough to eat more than one bite, but certainly not the horror that he had made it out to be.

Tonight we had the same, eww, gross response to dinner while in the pan. But sweetE ate it all and wanted more. I also instituted the "You have to choose one dinner and help me make it per week, and it can't be pizza every week" rule. I'll let you know how it goes.