Our Spring Colors

The Girl went to student council state conference and is now back again, safe and sound. She had a wonderful time. That little white sweater that we had to have lasted about 10 minutes into the dance before she got too hot and had to take it off. As for the shoes, she ended up taking a pair a mine; A nice benefit to having the same size feet right now. The shoes lasted only a little longer than the sweater before getting kicked to the side. I'm glad now we didn't go out anymore than we did to look for shoes! The purse we finally found was perfect. Now that she's home, I might take it for myself!

Spring has more than sprung around here. All the trees are in full leaf already. The baby trees are sprouting baby leaves which pleases us all to no end. A sure sign of spring is when I put my hammock up, which I did over the weekend. The Man cleaned out the gutters and The Boy had a big fire going in the fireplace. It was a very productive yard-sy weekend and probably the most we'll do outside for the rest of the season!

Spring is when our front yard is the prettiest. Here are some shots for you.

Here's the white dogwood. The rest of the year it's pretty plain, but right now it is awfully lovely. If you think my grass looks purple, it is. We actually don't have grass anymore. It's all violets. I'm not sure what our neighbors think about it, but we love how it looks this time of year. You can see it all the way down the street, the house with the purple lawn.

The Chem Lawn guy should be coming soon. Every year he looks at our lawn like it's a carpet of gold. I'm all ready for him this year...

Evil Chemical Grass Man: Good afternoon!

Me: (scowl)

Satan with Spray Gun: It looks like you've got a bit of violet problem here.

Me: I'd say that's a matter of opinion.

Earth Hating Grass Painter: How's that?

Me: I think everyone else has a grass problem.

It's not that I like weeds. Dandelions are enemy number one around here. The Man says that since I am so tyrannical on the dandelions, I've just opened the door to the violets. Maybe so, but violets are pretty!

Here's the pink dogwood. It's grown a lot since we've lived here. That "bush" in front of it used to twice as tall and was crowding it out. I have no love for that bush, which I refer to as the Pampered Weed. But our neighbors have a picture of their house when it was first built. Our house isn't there, but the Pampered Weed is. That makes The Weed over 100 years old. So I guess it can stay.

Around the Weed are tulips that planted the first fall we lived here. Last year they didn't bloom and I kept meaning to dig up the bulbs, but I didn't get to it. I guess I didn't need to anyway because this year they bloomed just fine. Some of them actually came up orange, which was new but a definite improvement over the ketchup and mustard ones.

There's also a little shrub by the front porch that turns bright, bright red right around the time the dogwoods lose their blossoms. A little better timing on everyones part would really be nice!

Girl Shopping

The Girl is going to the Student Council State Conference next week. She is leaving Thursday afternoon and will be home Saturday night. Thankfully, they have chartered a bus because the town where the conference is being held is about three hours away. I heard that in past years parents had to haul the kids all the way there and then pick them up again. Yuck!

Friday night at the conference is a fancy dinner followed by a dance. So we had to go shopping. Dress shopping. She's at this great in-between size right now: Too big for little girl clothes, too little for grown-up lady clothes. But we found a dress that was just right, a little blue sundress that is neither not too young nor too hoochy mama. But, she really didn't feel comfortable having her shoulders exposed. What she wanted was a little white, short sleeved, half sweater to wear over it.

This mythical sweater will be crazy easy to find and it will jump out at us or it will be the most impossible piece of clothing to find ever, the Grail of sweaters. This was my thought as we headed out. But the fates must have had pity on me because the first saleswoman in the first store knew exactly what we wanted and took us to the only one in her size. And it was on clearance.

"I don't like these buttons much." The Girl frowned down at the perfectly lovely buttons on the perfectly perfect sweater.

"We have lots of buttons. I'll sew new ones on that you do like!" This might have come out a bit crazed. She was now scowling at me.

"Do you think it's too baggy?" She plucked at the sides, pulling them away from her. Right now the Girl wears exclusively skin tight t-shirts. Anything with any kind of movement is deemed baggy by her.

"Nope, nope, nope. That's how it's supposed to look. It's dressy. Very pretty." I felt myself smiling like loon.

A big sigh. "You can change the buttons?"

"Oh yeah! No problem! Let's go check out now, okay?"

She agreed and the sweater looks perfect with the dress. She was right. She even thinks, as of this moment anyway, that the buttons aren't that bad after all.

Tonight we went shoe shopping. I'll make this short. We had no success. Big flop. On the way home she hits me that she thinks she need to take a bag of some type to keep all her things in during the conference.

"Do you mean a purse?" I asked finally, stopping her explanation.

"No, it doesn't exactly have to be a purse. More like a small tote."

Sure. So Sunday we are going purse shopping as well as shoe shopping part two.

She's also involved in the musical at school. They are doing "Once on this Island". I've never heard of this show, but from what I can gather from the kids it has really good music but a depressing story. Strange review, but they are enjoying it and the rehearsals are right after school so they don't get in the way with anything else.

Being a small junior high show, the kids have to provide there own costumes. More shopping, this time for peasant clothes: Muted colors with a tropical look, but not Hawaiian looking. Okay. We hit the Goodwill and after an exhaustive search we finally found a long skirt with a patched look in shades of brown and a little white peasant blouse. Perfect!

We had to find a shirt for the Boy too, who is also in the show. It went like this:

"Hey, here's a shirt. What do you think?"

"Okay."

"Do you want to try it on, make sure it fits?"

He holds it up to himself. "Nah. It's okay."

And that was it.

Stormy Weather

Friday night was the spring dance at school. The Girl was going, the Boy was headed out to camp with his troop. The weather looked bad, really bad. I wasn't keen on him going at all. Just before the boys headed out, the sun started to shine and the temperature rose. I took this as a good omen and they all set off.

The girlies went off to the dance a little while after that. About a half hour later, it started to rain. No, I mean RAIN, like an effing typhoon. The wind was shrieking, lightening flashed, the rain was coming down sideways for awhile! And my son is out there tent camping out at treeless, mud hole Amvets!

As much as I'm worried about him, that's has to wait because now I have to go pick up the girls from the dance. I was the pick-up person for the last dance and I played it all wrong then. Last time I got there right when the dance ended and got stuck in a snarl of traffic in a very dark parking lot. This time, I went a little earlier and got a parking space facing the door right where they were going to come out. Perfect. They would walk out, I'd give a little honk and we'd all be off.

So I'm waiting, waiting, waiting and they aren't coming out. Through the dark I spy the problem. There's this long line of cars and it looks like they are only letting the kids out of the building when their car is at the front of the line. The principal has a cell phone and is shouting into car windows getting kid's names. My plan is foiled! Now I have to get into this line and snake my way around the parking lot to the door. They've never done this before. It's not even raining anymore. What is going on?

I finally get to the door and they release the girls. And why did it go down like this? They had the kids in tornado position in the hall while they waited to get picked up. Like I said, it's not raining, not blowing, the stars are actually out. Ugh! Whatever. Better safe than sorry and all that. At least we can head out now. I hope the Boy is alright.

Back at home, I find the Boy sitting on the couch! When the storm blew up, they evacuated out of there double quick. I was SO relieved to see him! They boogied out of the there so fast they had to leave everything behind; tents, sleeping bags, everything! Fine by me, at least he was home because now it's starting to rain again. Enough! I'm going to bed!

9 AM the phone rings. It's the troop and they are headed back out. Could the Boy be there in the next couple of hours? He didn't seem to excited about going, but since all his stuff was out there, he really didn't have much of a choice. Saturday wasn't such a stellar weather day either with constant drizzle and sticking around forty degrees. They pitched all the tents under a pavilion, on top of gravel. I asked him what it was like sleeping on gravel. All I got was a grunt. He's not in the best of moods today for some reason!

The pictures, yes, I know (with updates!)

I promised pictures, so here they are. (Thanks Sandi for these great shots!)

Here's the girl getting some instructions on how to surf at Kalahari last week. She asked lots of questions and even got a demonstration.

It all paid off. She did great. The only thing she wasn't sure how to do was get off. Eventually she ended up on the side and just walked off, no wipe out.

Now the boy is getting his instructions.

He must be a good listener as well, because he also did great. His ride did end up as a wipe out, but most do. At least he didn't get hurt.

Here's the van all put back together and running fine.

For the family who came to the birthday brunch, here's the puzzle finally finished. There's a piece missing. Do any of you have any information about that maybe? This was a much more difficult puzzle then I like to do. It's one of those made up of all little pictures that form a big image.

The new baby trees are not very photogenic just yet. Actually they are almost impossible to see. But here's the maple, which looks like a stick stuck in the ground...

And here's the oak, which looks like a stick decorated with dead leaves stuck in the ground. Everything I've read says if we get them through the first summer, then we won't have to worry about them anymore. We'll have to wait and see.

My Magneto

You remember our flood(s) of January? We got rid of mountains of trash from that adventure, emptying our basement and filling the curbside more than once. But also in the basement there were lots of things made of metal that didn't end up on the curb. Our thought was to take all the metal scrap to recycling and get a bit of money for ourselves, instead of giving it to the scavengers of the night. It ended up being a fairly large pile. There was a candy rack, pipes, poles, a weird box that was here when we moved in, grates, odd pieces and a kitchen sink (really!). All of that got piled into the side yard where it's been sitting ever since, most of the time under a ton of ice and snow.


With the snow melted now, the metal junk pile was really starting to get to me, especially since it was sitting right outside the window where I stand to wash the dishes. I was reminded daily of its existence.

"You've got to get that stuff out of the yard. It's making me crazy." I pleaded with the Man.

"No problem. You just find out where to take it and it's gone."

Where to take it, I found out, is literally a one minute drive from our house. Honestly, I had no idea that this place was there and I drive by it all the time. Shows what a focused driver I am, I guess.

On Monday, when I came home from zombie sitting, the Man was all smiles.

"Did you see the yard?" I looked and the giant pile of junk was gone.

"Not only that, but guess how much I got for it." His smile got even bigger.

After a long description of the dropping off process, the price of aluminum, a van that he watched get crushed and in general how very cool the metal recycling place was, I found out that all our scrap was worth $63. Wow! I had only worked a half a day, so he had actually made more money than I had.

"So that's it!" The Man declared, "I'm going into the scrap metal collection business."

"You're going to be a garbage picker?"

"No! Scrap metal collection and recycling."

"Garbage picking."

"No! Metal collector. It's an important job. Those resources shouldn't end up in landfills. Now, could you find out the trash collection schedule for the whole city for me?"

So much can happen in a week

Five days since the last post! How ever have the three of you survived without know the cliffhanger ending to my car problems...the remote problems....the tree lawn? Fear not, the answers are here!



We forced the van back to the guy who put it back together and let him get a gander of the steering problems. His evaluation? Nothing that he could have done would have caused this impossible to steer situation and we should take it to Kia and have them check it out.



"So this is just a weird coincidence?", I said looking incredulous.



"Yeah, that's what I think", said the car guy, looking confidant.



Another fight to get the van back across town to Kia. A few hours later, the news was in. Amazingly enough, it was just a weird coincidence! What happened to the steering was not caused by the accident or by the repair. How about that?



The Man, in a burst of "getting things done", transplanted not one, but two trees from the side yard to the tree lawn. One is the little oak, which had massive roots and wasn't in the mood to get moved. The other is a little maple, which was much more obliging to get new digs. Now we'll have to wait and see how they do.



We picked up a new remote as well. The buttons are laid out weird and all the weight is in the wrong end. We're not happy with it, but it works.



Yesterday, Fearless Co-leader and I took all the girls to Kalahari for a giant day of water fun. It was a day filled with chlorine, very greasy pizza, screams and laughs. We couldn't have had a better time. My hat is off to other co-leader Tami. She fought through her fears and went down water slides when she really, really didn't want to, and then she went surfing! She put us all to shame with her bravery!

Pictures of all of this coming soon!

Treize!

Thirteen is our number. I don't want to sound all "23" crazy about it, but there have been several examples of 13 being an important number to us. I know that you could take any number and drive yourself batty finding examples of it in your life: Patterns emerge, coincidences occur, planets collide. Eventually you find yourself locked up mumbling that special number to yourself and eating without utensils. But I assure you, it's not that way it is for us and the number 13.


It starts with me. I was raised on 13th Street. As an homage to his sweetie in the stands, the Man wore the number 13 on his softball jersey.


And now today these two are thirteen! Wow!



And here they are when they were thirteen days old.



I know they are thirteen days old in this picture because this is the day them came home from the hospital, April 13th.


Did I mention that they were born 13 minutes apart? Hmmm....I bet if I thought about this I COULD find more 13s....



Happy Birthday to the Girl and Boy! I've loved everyday of our 13 years together!

Now, cute kittens!

(Not that I have a good twin and a bad twin! They take turns playing both roles. Okay, not really! They are actually both wonderful people. Am I'm not just saying that because I'm their mommy!)

My van is back...almost

My van is home, physically out there in the driveway looking just wonderful. It ended up getting a new bumper and grill, of course. It also ended up getting a new hood and one of the headlights had to be replaced. They said "Wednesday or Thursday" and I ended up picking it up Friday. That okay.

What's not okay is how it is handling. On the way home the steering felt tight and a little jerky, but not terrible. Later on we all ended up going to the movies and the Man drove it. When we first headed out it was "Yeah, it does feel weird". By the time we got home it was, "No one is driving this again until it is headed back to the shop".

There was nothing wrong with the performance of my car after the accident. It only looked ugly, but it ran perfectly. Actually, it was a bit of fun to ride around all mangled up. I would shout things like "Hey! You think I won't hit you! Look at my car, man! I've got nothing to lose!" Things like that. Getting my van back now, only to have it actually worse than before the accident is really upsetting. Knowing that it's going to be going away again for who knows how long is even more upsetting. Now I'm going to miss some days of work for this as well. The cherry on top is that this Friday, I need those wheels to get a whole bunch of Girl Scouts to Kalahari for a day water park mania. So whatever those fellows did to it while they were making it pretty, it better be a quick and easy thing fix!

Oh, and the car place won't be open until Monday, 8 AM. As far as I know, they probably haven't even heard my very upset voice mail about this yet. *sigh*

The tiny annoyance of today was the stupid remote for the cable went belly up. This morning it was working; this afternoon, nothing. I hoped it just was dead batteries, but no, it's a dead remote for no reason at all. A quick pop up to the cable company will get us a new one without a bat of an eye from the worker behind the bulletproof glass. But, the cable office isn't open until Monday, 9 AM.

Luckily, the cable office and the car place are only a block away from each other!

The Grind

While I was busy composing the last article about abundant family bonding over food and hot wax, we had a noisy visitor.

The Boy came running into my sanctuary. "There's two big trucks out front and a little thing that's remote controlled!"

I blinked.

"I think they're here for the stump!"

Ah! Now that is worth going to see. Indeed it was two big trucks and one little thing that was remote controlled. Now the rest of this post is all the details of our stump being removed. Leave now if: A) You think that stump removal machines are boring or B) You already witnessed a stump being removed once in your life.

Here's the little remote control thing. It's got this spinning blade that you would not want to to mess around with. Some horror film will undoubtably use one of these for a character's grim end.

Here's the dude with the remote control. Neither of these guys seem very impressed with me taking pictures of them. I'm certain that controling this machine by remote is more fun and decidedly safer than say riding on top of it. That blade spins super fast and the arm swings back and forth slicing out more of the stump with every pass.

It's almost through the whole thing now. After they got through shredding the stump itself, they went after some of the more giant and prominent roots, like that big bastard that made mowing the curb lawn such a pain! But look at that mess! What are they going to do about that? I hope not just rake it into the hole and call it a day.

Nope, there was a plan. The remote control guy put the little thing away and pulled out a leaf blower and put all the mess into a big pile. Meanwhile, the guy who up to this point did nothing, brought up the really big truck. And that truck had an arm with a scoop.

It took four scoopfuls to get all of it up.

It all got dumped in the truck, but not from this height, I'm sorry to say. That would have been cool. No, he opened the scoop way down in the truck where we couldn't see.

So here's what left. Nothing. All ready for a new tree to start the process from the top!

Perogie Day

For the past few years we have taken one day to make and eat large numbers of perogies. It's a potato and noodle frenzy. Recall back that the very first picture I ever posted on this blog was of the Sister on perogie day. Looking at that picture now, I see that we had dough that was too sticky and WAY too many potatoes.

I make the dough and the Sister brings the potatoes. Every year we mess up the dough to potato ratio, but this year (after I made a second batch of dough), we came out exactly right. So for next year people, it's 10 cups of flour in the dough to one pound of mashed potatoes. That's what it takes.

Here's the assembly line crew, (except the Boy who must have ducked under the counter), putting it all together. The Brother and the Girl deal with dough and run it through my most specific piece of kitchen equipment, my pasta machine. The Boy and the Mother would then pile in the potatoes, bacon and cheese in just the right amounts.
The Sister has the most important job. She pinches the whole thing together. I can report that this year not one perogie opened up in the boiling water! They were all perfect. These guys here don't seem to have any bacon. Must have been when we ran out. Oh, the tragedy of it all

My job is to scoop the floating perogies out of the water and put them into the frying pan with the butter and the onions. By the time I was done, the whole house was filled with smoke from scorched butter, but we all had happy, happy bellies. We also had plenty of perogies left over to freeze so everyone had some to take home. Perogies are a lot of work, so don't recommend making them unless you have lots of people on hand and several bottles of wine.

The Boy really was there. He created this tiny masterpiece complete with bacon feet, chives for hair and cheese arms! I'm so proud.

Perogie Day this year also celebrated the Mother's birthday for which we made brownie sundaes. Also, since it was the day before Easter, after we cleared away the substantial perogie mess, we colored eggs. The Sister has hardcore egg decorating talent. The one she is holding here is speckled. She also painted the shamrock one.

Finally, it wouldn't be a party unless the Mother brought her paraffin wax heater along. Everyone dipped hands or feet into the warm lavender scented goodness! This is the Girl's sweet little foot going in. She also ended up doing her elbows, which seemed strange but they were very soft afterwards.

Yesterday we took the van in to get it's face put back together the from the accident. The woman at the desk said it would be done on Wednesday or Thursday. On the way out the Man commented that she didn't necessarily say THIS Wednesday or Thursday. Oh, dear. Being without a car is such a drag. The Man's truck is only built for two people, so were a bit stuck. Today we all walked downtown to the super yummy Chinese restaurant for lunch and stopped by the library as well. It was a little windy (Okay, a lot windy), but an enjoyable walk just the same.

Coming home yesterday morning, driving down Broad Street, we saw two men come running out of a storefront door. When I looked back the second man had tackled the first and had him pinned on the sidewalk! The Man raced us back around the block and parked us right where we could see all the action. The second man, a really big guy, was sitting on the first guy's chest, yelling at him. This is like 11 in the morning, not midnight like when you expect things like this to happen. Seems that the second guy caught the first guy going through an office, intent of theft by the sounds of it. There was lots of yelling and bad words, I can tell you that! It was like watching an episode of "Cops" without the bleeping. A girl came out of the bus station to say that the police were on there way. She was even angrier than the big guy; I thought for sure she was going to kick the pinned guy in the head, but she didn't. She stomped down the sidewalk, back to the door where everything started. This incident wasn't in the papers this morning, but I'll keep my eyes on the police blotters for the story. I was a crazy thing to see.

A Traditional Easter

For a second year we bundled off to the IX Indoor Amusement Park for a day of Easter thrills, spills and overpriced snacks. But I think that cat is out of the bag on this one because today was much more crowded than last year. Still nothing like your average Friday or Saturday out there, which I swore I would never do again. I even spit on it.

We rode the famed Crazy Mouse a couple of times. We drank too much pop, ate french fries and funnel cakes. There was a petting zoo, a dog show and many, many spinning and noisy rides to keep us happy and busy for an entire afternoon.

There is this one game there that the Man probably would sit at all day if we let him. It doesn't have a name and I've never seen it anywhere else, so you'll have to bear with this description. It's pretty simple actually: You get a bag of tokens and there's this little arm that you roll the tokens down one at a time. They land in a bin that has a wall that moves back and forth pushing the tokens to the front. Once the pile of token builds up enough, then the ones nearest the front fall off the edge, slide out the chute and that's what you win. Seems like a lot of trouble for little payoff, but there is also riding on top of the tokens little prizes that occasionally fall off the edge as well. That's the fun part. The extra tokens just keep you playing longer; it's the prizes you are after. The best prize that the man won today was a little bowling pin key chain that actually ended up being a pen that that the end lit up when you wrote with it. Doesn't seem possible that some much fun could be shoved in such a small thing!

A new thing at the Park today was an oxygen bar. Just like it sounds, you sit at bar stools with a medical-like tube going up your nose letting you breathe in 95% pure oxygen that you can "flavor" with fruit scents that you can almost taste. I didn't do it, but the Boy and the Man did. Neither of them had a high opinion of the situation, so if you ever see this, just keep going. It's not going to put you in a better mood or make colors seem brighter. Getting to keep the tubing seems like the best part for them.

We went by one vendor who was selling Italian charms. This little jewelry fad is SO over. It made me sad this whole booth with table after table of little pieces of metal that absolutely no one would want to buy.... or would they? Right there, no lie, was a charm that had the Girl's name on it. Well, not exactly her name, but her nickname AND spelled the right way. So we bought it. We'll put it on her bracelet and it will go right back in her jewelry box never to be worn again. But being that this was the first time we've ever seen anything with even close to her name on it, well, we just couldn't pass it up. And it's not like I was buying her five minutes of flavored air to breathe!

Yesterday was perogie day. A full day of making and eating homemade perogies. I have lots of good pictures and stories that I'll post tomorrow.

What a Weekend

First of all...It's over! It's over! It's over! We sold every single box of cookies we had plus 43 boxes that we took in from another troop at the last moment. A grand total of 1243 boxes of cookies sold this year. Our last two booth sales Friday and Saturday night completely wiped us out. This has never happened before, not even close! What a relief! We could go to the mall lock-in and celebrate.

And that's what happened next. Saturday night, out at Southpark Mall, Fearless Co-Leader and I took all the girls to one very long night locked in a mall. We shopped, ate, danced, played mini-golf, saw "Horton Hears A Who", went down giant inflatable slides and slept. Yes, slept! Here's proof...

Sleeping has never been part of the lock-in before, they usually stay up talking and giggling, but this year they all passed out. So did I. I fell asleep at the movie too! Cool part of this year was the pillow making craft that everyone (except leaders!) got to do. That's what they are all sleeping on.

The Man and his dad are back from Florida safe and sound. They bought a camera while they were there, so someday I'll have pictures up and lots of details from the trip. It sounds like they had a really terrific time. I'm really excited about seeing the pictures from Kennedy Space Center.

Worth Watching

The Man and his dad are in Florida right now enjoying Cleveland Indians spring training. They had a pretty tough time between getting their luggage and finally getting to bed yesterday, but today went much better. Neither of them took a camera, but they will stop and pick one up sometime soon I've been told. I asked the Man if we would be interested in guest writing on the blog about what they see and do in Florida. Nope, not interested. So, in place of that enjoy this wonderfully amazing video. It's Chinese gymnasts doing ballet. Stick through it because it just keeps getting better and better!

Enough with lion already!

On Friday, I was zombie-sitting in a school full of frantic teachers. The news was grim about the impending winter storm and these teachers were getting themselves all wound up. Ho-humm, I thought. Act like you've never seen snow before! While pondering why all my students smelled like pee, it occurred to me that we might not have any sour cream for dinner. A call home confirmed that we had half a container "that looked suspicious". A quick stop to the grocery on the way home from school was in order.


At the grocery store, it looked like the day before Thanksgiving. Tons of people crammed the aisles with their carts piled to overflowing. Man, I thought, what's up with this? Sensing their panic, I also stocked up on some supplies to get us through the entire next day. I bought:

• a bottle of wine



• 2 packages of Reese's peanut butter eggs



• a tube of cinnamon rolls
  


• a bag of barbecue chips



• a 2 liter of Pepsi
  


• a head of lettuce
  


• sour cream (Yay! I remembered!)
  
  

Bring on the blizzard!

And the snow did come. It started snowing and it didn't stop for the next 30 hours. (I wish that were an exaggeration!) Everything was cancelled, including the Mall Lock-in, which were planning on attending. The Lock-in is only postponed until next weekend. This is excellent timing since the Girl is feeling a tad bit under the weather. Staying up in a mall for an entire night would not have been a responsible thing to do with her coughing like a maniac, so I'm okay with the postponement. But check out the optimism of the other girls in my troop: Not one, not two, but three of my girls ignored messages sent to them and called me to ask to make sure the Lock-in was still on and WHEN WAS I PICKING THEM UP! Got to love those girls!

There was an unofficial driving ban in effect yesterday, but that didn't matter to us since it would have been plum impossible to get off our street anyway. Our street is the third to last plowed in this city. Look it up, I'm sure it's typed on a memo somewhere. After they plow our street, then they go the Man's parent's street. Finally, the last street in the city to get plowed would be my parent's. That's the order it happens. But in truth, none of us will ever see a plow even once for an entire winter because they won't get to the bottom of that list until April.

Here's some die hard souls stuck in front of my house. It was a big team effort to get them free. All I could think was, what could be so damn important that you HAD to go out in this weather and why did you choose my street to drive on?

What did we do on our big one day of being snowed in? We went through books, lots and lots of books. All of the kid's books live in the Boy's closet since he has the perfect space for them. Most of the books in their library are way too young for them, but they are all favorites that we can't part with. Those bookshelves have been a complete wreck for some time now, so with monumental effort we took everything out of the closet. We sorted though all the books spending lots of time stopping to read. When I talked to Grammy on the phone and told her what we were doing, she said it was like finding old friends. That's exactly what it was. We made a fair sized pile of books to say good-bye to. (Desiree, more books coming your way!) We sorted the rest into fiction and non-fiction. We toyed with the idea of alphabetizing by author, but it was getting late and no one was actually down with that idea. Organizing the non-fiction into the Dewey Decimal System also went down in flames. Bummer.

While all that book love was going on, we also trudged through tons of laundry, ate junk food, watched three episodes of Farscape and wasted huge chunks of time playing with Google Earth. Have you ever played with Google Earth? Giant fun. Giant. I'll say no more. That will have to be an entire post on its own.

So today is all about digging out. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, icicles are dripping. The air rings with the music of scrapping shovels and snow blowers. Our neighbor did our front sidewalk yesterday with his snow blower, while the snow was still falling like mad. What a guy! This after he WALKED to the gas station and back to get gas to run the snow blower. I'm making him some cookies!

We're all dug out now and I've moved the van into the sun, so now it's time for fun. Here's the boy deciding to jump off the porch. He does stuff like this. So do I at times, but not when a camera is around. It was a good jump, he got out in the yard a long way.

I have a more pictures I could post, but this is long enough. I need to get the grocery store anyway. I'll probably have the place to myself!

This is an emergency!

Last night was the season finale of Project Runway and I was all kicked back ready to find out who would be the winner. I felt like the show tipped it's hand a bit with letting Christian show his designs last; seemed to me like they were showing a teeny bit of favoritism there. Anyway, Jillian's collection was very pretty. Rami's was typical and a little dull except for his use of offensive colors: Bright turquoise and electric pink! Nina said that Rami has trouble with color choices. That's putting it mildly! Christian's, of course, had everyone applauding madly with every new outfit. Way too much black for me and I'm not into mongo sized hats, but that last number with all the feathers was pretty fabulous.

But that's not what this is about. Ten minutes were left in the show, the three designers were on the runway getting an ear full about how much they rock and suck at the same time, then suddenly an emergency broadcasting alert cut in! Thankfully it wasn't a test or I would have totally lost it. It was an actual emergency letting the folks out in the boonies know that their water was contaminated and they should boil it. I should feel grateful that they didn't wait five more minutes to make the announcement. If I had missed the moment when Christian was named the winner, it would have been too much. All we missed was the part where they critiqued Rami and I would have loved to hear that, because some of those outfits were WAY off the mark. I'll have to catch then end of the show at another time. Hopefully, the local water system will have pulled its act together by then.

So another season of Project Runway is done and gone. Another long wait until next season begins!

They Should Rename Bumpers!

I've put this off long enough I guess, but I really haven't been in the mood to bring it up.

Back on March 1st, the day of the triumphant 208 boxes of cookie sale, I rear-ended another car on the way home. I was coming up to a red light with a long line of traffic in front of me. Everyone stopped short, very quickly, but I couldn't stop fast enough. I'm certain that if anyone had been behind me, I would have been rear-ended as well, but I was the last one in line.

I was coming to a stop, not moving very fast at all and look what happened to my baby!

It's all completely smooshed! I'm so annoyed. If bumpers actually were bumpers, a la pinball machines and the little cars at the amusement park, this accident would have been a big nothing. Instead his bumper got wrenched down and mine is cracked and the damn grill fell off! I might have been going 10 MPH, maybe, and decelerating. This much damage for something like that is just wrong!

Anyway, I was a complete wreck when this happened. Close to basket case status. And it's not like I've never been in an accident before. Back in 1990, the Sister and I were in a doozy of an accident when some nurse misunderstood traffic laws and pulled out right in front of me. We came very close to hitting a house! About two years after that, up at college, I was pulling into a parking space when I got blinded by the glare of the sun and grazed into the side of the next car and the driver was still sitting in it! But that's it. So it's been awhile since I was in an accident. Maybe that's part of the reason I didn't handle it so well.

Luckily the guy I hit was so insanely nice. He was really worried about me and asked after The Girl over and over again. And the cop was really sweet too. Everyone was treating the situation like it was a little fender bender and no big deal. Except me. I was shaking and crying and the Man had to come to the scene because I was falling apart in a pretty quick fashion. When it was all over and we were back home, I had another break down over it all. That night I couldn't sleep because I kept playing it over and over in my head.

In my defense, I did just have a pretty tough four hours previous to the accident being out in the freezing cold and wind for the whole time. I was tired and numb, not in the best shape to deal with any kind of problem, especially one like this.

Now returning to my opening statement- If bumpers aren't going to allow you to actually bump anything without being destroyed, then I really think they should be renamed "Breakers". I think I makes more sense as a title. It's the part of your car that breaks first, so the rest of your car gets a softer blow. What do you think? I have a suspicion that the automobile industry is not going to go with this one, but I'm starting the revolution now. So, my car needs a new breaker, please. And put the grill back on while you're at it, that looks terrible!

It was the best of times...

In the freezing, windy, wintry weather outside of Walmart yesterday, Fearless Co-Leader and I along with four hardy girls sold a grand total of 208 boxes of cookies in four hours. We were so cold we couldn't make change or open bags. The cookies were blowing over. Our poster wouldn't stay taped to the table. Most than once we had to chase wayward bills across the parking lot. The ink froze in our pens. That's cold! But it was the most cookies, by far, that we've ever sold at the booth. The runner-up would be last year, at the same Walmart, when we sold 167 boxes. This sale exceeded all of our expectations.


This morning, Fearless C0-Leader and I joined by three sleepy girls sold a whooping 34 boxes during four hours of sitting in a warm and cozy Drug Mart. It was the dullest and worst booth we've ever run. What a weekend!

A Wintery Mix

First off, there is no way that I agree with the judges that Rami should go to Fashion Week. The blue coat was a effing nightmare that would have got anyone eliminated any other week. And that weird patterned dress that "any woman would love to have" was butt ugly. All they could say about him was "Good job for following directions and not coming out with another Grecian draped frock." I BET you that those three little numbers were the only ones that weren't draped. Prepared yourself for nine outfits that he didn't take any suggestions on! Chris was robbed! I loved his pieces. Loved them and what's more, for most of the show I was never a fan of his work. Human hair on clothes is a bit creepy, I'll admit that, but it was beautiful. If he had used goat, like Heidi guessed, would he be going to Fashion Week? Was it the hair that put them off?



If you need to talk to me from this moment until next Wednesday, you are going to have to email or leave a message because I am just not going to be picking up the phone anymore. Sorry. Our phone has been ringing off the damn hook for a week now and it's all just automated messages-- Hilary has called three times! Even worse are the live calls, talking a mile a minute. A very funny gentleman called yesterday and ask for $200 for the Democratic party. Yeah. Well. As much as I would like to see Democrats in the seats, I'm not willing to go that far just yet.



Blanca is on the Sunshine Diet. That's where you sit in the sun and the pounds just melt away. Unfortunately it only work for snowman and snowladies! I gave her a box of Girl Scout cookies, Peanut Butter Sandwiches, the most fattening cookie there is, but it didn't seem to help much. I think that perhaps tomorrow will be a better day for her. They are calling for more snow. Just what the doctor ordered.

A Chilly Welcome

Yesterday was a snow day for all the little zombies and their keepers. Snow day! Two small words are mean so much! We found out that it was a snow day through the fancy pants new automated telephone system the school system bought. Trouble was that the voice on the announcement was Val, the same woman who calls me every morning to give me a job. So even though it was good news, being that it was her really put me off!


To celebrate an unexpected day off, I decided to do something really fun: The taxes. The kids ran around in the snow, the man shoveled and I sat right here with TurboTax putting together the return. But it was a job that needed done and I was given a day from Mother Nature to do it.

Around three o'clock I went downstairs for a cup of tea when the front doorbell rang (I should say clicked, not rang. The previous owners of our house disabled our doorbell in some weird way and we've never been inclined to fix it.) When I went to the door, this is who I found.




I've named her Blanca. Christmas of 2006 I put together snowman kits as gifts. And of course kept one set for ourselves. I can report that this is the first time we've have enough "good" snow to make a decent snowman and use the kit, a year and two months later! Blanca is sporting all the pieces of it, except in slightly the wrong order. The buttons were for the front, the coal is for the eyes. I never came up with something for the mouth for the kit. That carrot nose is made of wood. There are golf tees superglued to the coal and buttons so they stick in the snow securely. Isn't she lovely!



I think she's asking me if I want to buy some Girl Scout cookies.


After the kids rearranged her parts, I asked them to turn her around and face the street.



It's been snowing steady all day. I just checked on Blanca and she is completely covered in snow. I'll go out in a bit and shake her off. She should be looking her best when the mailman comes. I guess I should clean the steps off again as well!