Wrote this at the bus stop yesterday....
Waiting....
I've done an awful lot of it lately. Let's see, 15 min. with each child at the bus stop in the morning - 45 min. Between 45 min. and 1 hour waiting for all the bus runs in the afternoon (if they're not late.) Approximately 2 hours of my life M-F spent waiting. That doesn't include waiting in line at the grocery store, the post office, the doctor, the dentist, on hold on the phone, and let's not forget the biggie (in any major US city) - waiting in *traffic*.
Really, there's only 2 choices about waiting. You can wait patiently, or impatiently. A lot of people know exactly how to wait impatiently - eye rolling, sighing, pacing, watch checking. Many these days will wait by falling into their electronic devices - fiddling obsessively with their cell phone or blackberry. Which is fine by me. But then I love the ones who stand in line having A VERY LOUD CONVERSATION or worse yet a FIGHT on the phone with their significant other/best friend/fill-in-the-blank. While standing there. In. Line. Where you can't escape them. And you stand there wondering where to put your eyes, wishing you had ear plugs, and pondering how technology has really made things interesting for those of us who prefer to not air our dirty laundry in public. (Don't even get me started on people who have entire conversations with someone while using a *public restroom*. Sorry, but that is just wrong, on so many levels. Really? That call was that urgent you couldn't wait 2 minutes and have it *outside* the bathroom. Ahem, I digress.)
So in the interest of saving my sanity, I'm trying to practice ways of patiently waiting. I'll be at the bus stop - look for the person reading (or writing in) a book.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
*Not* such a great idea
Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Hmm. I wonder how many tales of housekeeping woe begin that way. Just to save everyone else the trouble, a hint: keeping a bottle of laundry detergent in the trunk of your car is not such a hot idea. Especially when it is hot, outside.
On the way out to West Virginia for our camping trip our youngest had a little, um, carsickness trouble. It seemed prudent, once we got our campsite set up, to visit the local grocery store for a few necessary foodstuffs and some.... cleaning products, preferably "green" ones I could use at the campground instead of tracking down a laundromat in the tiny town of Davis.
I was happy to find a reasonably small bottle of scent-free, biologically friendly liquid detergent - which worked great to clean up Connor's clothes, and didn't have to worry about hurting the environment or attracting bears.
The stuff worked so well we decided to keep it in our camping stuff for any such emergencies. And then after the last time we unloaded the car, it got left/forgotten in the trunk - oh sure, I saw it there, but it only registered as a brief "oh yeah, I better put that away somewhere at some point soon."
Mmm. This afternoon I went to put Connor's portable stroller back in the trunk after walking home from the bus stop - and, there was a puddle in my trunk. It was a small puddle, but I bet if I added water the residue left from it rolling around in there for a few weeks would probably wash the rug of the whole car.
Think maybe I could send my husband out with a scrub brush and do just that? After all our road trips this summer it could really use a scrubbing.
Hmm. I wonder how many tales of housekeeping woe begin that way. Just to save everyone else the trouble, a hint: keeping a bottle of laundry detergent in the trunk of your car is not such a hot idea. Especially when it is hot, outside.
On the way out to West Virginia for our camping trip our youngest had a little, um, carsickness trouble. It seemed prudent, once we got our campsite set up, to visit the local grocery store for a few necessary foodstuffs and some.... cleaning products, preferably "green" ones I could use at the campground instead of tracking down a laundromat in the tiny town of Davis.
I was happy to find a reasonably small bottle of scent-free, biologically friendly liquid detergent - which worked great to clean up Connor's clothes, and didn't have to worry about hurting the environment or attracting bears.
The stuff worked so well we decided to keep it in our camping stuff for any such emergencies. And then after the last time we unloaded the car, it got left/forgotten in the trunk - oh sure, I saw it there, but it only registered as a brief "oh yeah, I better put that away somewhere at some point soon."
Mmm. This afternoon I went to put Connor's portable stroller back in the trunk after walking home from the bus stop - and, there was a puddle in my trunk. It was a small puddle, but I bet if I added water the residue left from it rolling around in there for a few weeks would probably wash the rug of the whole car.
Think maybe I could send my husband out with a scrub brush and do just that? After all our road trips this summer it could really use a scrubbing.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
The restless end of summer
Technically, it's still summer vacation for me and the kids - my husband (who teaches in the county north of us) went back yesterday. This leaves the kids and me in a weird sort of summer-yet-not limbo. For although they have no school, we have a very busy week. A last minute IEP meeting for Chris to hammer out the details of his new middle school schedule, the band instrument presentation tomorrow night, open house for Charlotte to drop off her school supplies, and then all of Friday morning waiting while Chris has his orientation. Oh - did I mention that we're driving *back* up to PA for a special "Big O" birthday party Labor Day weekend for Brian's dad, brothers, and aunt? So add laundry and packing to the to-do list.
All of which makes for a bizarre week of "vacation." All of the warm-blooded life forms in the house are restless, including the cat - who is tired of being chased off his favorite napping chairs by careening kids. Trying to still give the kids some summer, I've attempted to squeeze in a last few visits on our waterpark season pass. Only I seem to have forgotten just how much *work* it is to go have fun. We went on Sunday as a family - a last hurrah to summer. Then I took them Monday - oh...my...goodness.... I now have muscles I forgot I had. One is tempted to think that walking through 1 foot deep water for a few hours following a preschooler is not Real Exercise. One would find out the next morning that that is a Wrong Assumption.
Ouch.
Mommy, at least, is *more* than ready for school to start.
All of which makes for a bizarre week of "vacation." All of the warm-blooded life forms in the house are restless, including the cat - who is tired of being chased off his favorite napping chairs by careening kids. Trying to still give the kids some summer, I've attempted to squeeze in a last few visits on our waterpark season pass. Only I seem to have forgotten just how much *work* it is to go have fun. We went on Sunday as a family - a last hurrah to summer. Then I took them Monday - oh...my...goodness.... I now have muscles I forgot I had. One is tempted to think that walking through 1 foot deep water for a few hours following a preschooler is not Real Exercise. One would find out the next morning that that is a Wrong Assumption.
Ouch.
Mommy, at least, is *more* than ready for school to start.
Friday, July 23, 2010
A year and a day
I've debated the writing of this post for several months. Because I know that the writing and the reading of it could cause me to lose some friends and possibly make me some enemies. I won't say I'm completely ready to handle that, but I'm tired of prattling on about silly things because I'm worried about people's reactions.
There is a song by a group called Ceredwen that I absolutely love. In Welsh, it is called Blwyddyn I Heno (pronounced Bloy-thin (th like "the") E Hay-no) or "A Year from this Night". It's based on the ancient Celtic concept that for a magical spell to work, time must pass through all the seasons - a year and a day. Turns out, there may be something tangible to that idea - something the ancient Celts understood about human nature.
A year and three months ago, we left the last church we'd been part of for 2 years. It was my intention at the time to merely give myself some space to step back and pray and think and deal with some practical family issues. It was not my intention to embark on a deep spiritual journey. Nevertheless, that was exactly what I found myself facing a month or two after I'd wrapped up the pressing family issues.
We had made the decision to finally find ourselves an actual *local* church (one not 15 -25 miles away) to become a part of. So, summer of 2009 that's what we started doing. In an effort to not get my oldest all goofed up (Aspberger's kids crave routine) I did much of the searching, only bringing the family along when I thought I'd found a viable possibility. I let go of my idea of getting this done within a certain time frame, allowing as long as needed for the search (figuring that since God was the one who started me on this journey, He was willing for us to do it right this time.) Some Sundays we all just stayed home, and I did a lot of solo Bible reading and prayer.
During this time I began having some very cool and vivid dreams, of a sort that I'd never experienced in such a compressed time frame. These lasted through about half the summer. I wrote them all down for pondering later. I thought things were going rather well on my spiritual journey. But as summer progressed and we were no closer to finding a truly suitable church home, suddenly I found the bottom dropping out from under me, emotionally and spiritually. I tripped and fell into a very deep dark night of the soul. A black hole of despair; a crushing loneliness. Other than the (probably) post partum depression I'd suffered after the birth of our first son, this was the darkest, bleakest point of my life.
I craved relief from it the way a drowning man craves air. And yet, somewhere in the deepest part of myself, I knew that this time I had to confront the cause - and not slap a spiritual band aid on it like I've done all my life.
So, against all the wisdom of society and pop culture - I sat with it - I put the church search on the back burner and I sat there, with the darkness and the pain. This may sound very profound and mystical, but I promise you it was not at the time. It was very messy and disrupting. At the time it felt like my soul had been ripped out of my body and flung in a hundred directions. In between caring for my family I was having a quiet nervous breakdown. (Or, not so quiet, if you ask my husband.)
I thought about therapy. I thought about Prozac. There were times I honestly thought I was losing my mind. It felt like I was walking a tightrope over a gaping chasm at night without a net.
Not wanting the expense of therapy or the side effects of medicine, I did what I do best. I researched. The library became my new best friend. Only (and here's where it may get uncomfortable for some) I quickly realized I would not get anywhere with my self-made therapy if I limited myself to "christian" sources. Feeling half-atheistic by this point anyway, I came to the conclusion that if God flung me on this journey then God would understand that I must face this deep dark night all the way through to the bottom or it would only come back. So that's what I did.
I removed the "Christian culture filter" from my mind. I gave myself permission (possibly for the first time ever) to read any book about any subject that might perhaps shed light on my questions. Within a few weeks I found to my utter surprise that I could no longer listen to my favorite Christian radio station - it felt, cloying and suffocating somehow. Since I live my life to the soundtrack in my head this was disturbing at a very deep level - I found myself dealing with an awful lot of silence - in my head, in my world.
I thought often about contacting my church buddies - I so wanted relief, comfort, acceptance. Many, many times I almost shut the door of my mind on the questions - telling them to shut up and go away and leave me in peace. But a curious thing began to happen. In the silence of my mind and heart - in the place where I'd stopped hearing God's voice - I felt..... a Presence. With me, within me, buoying me up, nestled quietly in the depths of my being. I hardly dared give it a name. It felt older than any Name I could attach to it. By now lacking all outward trappings of Christianity - (I'd withdrawn from church, Bible study, and Christian culture in general) I hung my fragile hopes on this Presence as an indication that God had not entirely forsaken me.
Meanwhile I kept expecting lightning bolts to zot me out the blue - holy retribution for daring to read Dawkins and Hitchens, Pagels and Fox, books on wicca and goddess religion, Buddhism and Hinduism, tarot and psychics and the non-believer's history of religion and the Bible. I shared my growing body of knowledge and experience with no one but my husband. I kept up my (somewhat) self-imposed isolation from church culture.
And... to my complete and utter surprise - almost exactly a year and a day later - it was as though I woke up from a very long sleep. In the midst of all this pain and confusion and uncertainly, I rediscovered myself. That is to say my Self. Dusty and unused, to be sure, but still there.
I felt like one of my favorite Rose is Rose cartoons - one where Rose is looking through photo albums of her life and hugs all her earlier selves to her heart - and her husband Jimbo comes in and says "You're looking really together." That's how I felt.
I guess you could say, like the Velveteen Rabbit, I've finally become Real.
One problem, though. I still haven't figured out the church situation. I don't speak Christian-ese anymore. I no longer worship at the altar of Christian culture. I don't even know what to call myself anymore - I don't wear labels well these days.
And here is where I've lost some of you. Please, don't bother to preach at me - goodness knows I've said it all to myself during the past year or so. But having received a soul-scrubbing from the One Who Upholds the Universe, I can assure you that it is an experience that transcends labels.
A friend used to tease me that I needed to stop putting God in a box. Over the past year, the One Who is Eternal succinctly blasted all those boxes to smithereens.
Maybe I simply am what I've always been - a Seeker....
There is a song by a group called Ceredwen that I absolutely love. In Welsh, it is called Blwyddyn I Heno (pronounced Bloy-thin (th like "the") E Hay-no) or "A Year from this Night". It's based on the ancient Celtic concept that for a magical spell to work, time must pass through all the seasons - a year and a day. Turns out, there may be something tangible to that idea - something the ancient Celts understood about human nature.
A year and three months ago, we left the last church we'd been part of for 2 years. It was my intention at the time to merely give myself some space to step back and pray and think and deal with some practical family issues. It was not my intention to embark on a deep spiritual journey. Nevertheless, that was exactly what I found myself facing a month or two after I'd wrapped up the pressing family issues.
We had made the decision to finally find ourselves an actual *local* church (one not 15 -25 miles away) to become a part of. So, summer of 2009 that's what we started doing. In an effort to not get my oldest all goofed up (Aspberger's kids crave routine) I did much of the searching, only bringing the family along when I thought I'd found a viable possibility. I let go of my idea of getting this done within a certain time frame, allowing as long as needed for the search (figuring that since God was the one who started me on this journey, He was willing for us to do it right this time.) Some Sundays we all just stayed home, and I did a lot of solo Bible reading and prayer.
During this time I began having some very cool and vivid dreams, of a sort that I'd never experienced in such a compressed time frame. These lasted through about half the summer. I wrote them all down for pondering later. I thought things were going rather well on my spiritual journey. But as summer progressed and we were no closer to finding a truly suitable church home, suddenly I found the bottom dropping out from under me, emotionally and spiritually. I tripped and fell into a very deep dark night of the soul. A black hole of despair; a crushing loneliness. Other than the (probably) post partum depression I'd suffered after the birth of our first son, this was the darkest, bleakest point of my life.
I craved relief from it the way a drowning man craves air. And yet, somewhere in the deepest part of myself, I knew that this time I had to confront the cause - and not slap a spiritual band aid on it like I've done all my life.
So, against all the wisdom of society and pop culture - I sat with it - I put the church search on the back burner and I sat there, with the darkness and the pain. This may sound very profound and mystical, but I promise you it was not at the time. It was very messy and disrupting. At the time it felt like my soul had been ripped out of my body and flung in a hundred directions. In between caring for my family I was having a quiet nervous breakdown. (Or, not so quiet, if you ask my husband.)
I thought about therapy. I thought about Prozac. There were times I honestly thought I was losing my mind. It felt like I was walking a tightrope over a gaping chasm at night without a net.
Not wanting the expense of therapy or the side effects of medicine, I did what I do best. I researched. The library became my new best friend. Only (and here's where it may get uncomfortable for some) I quickly realized I would not get anywhere with my self-made therapy if I limited myself to "christian" sources. Feeling half-atheistic by this point anyway, I came to the conclusion that if God flung me on this journey then God would understand that I must face this deep dark night all the way through to the bottom or it would only come back. So that's what I did.
I removed the "Christian culture filter" from my mind. I gave myself permission (possibly for the first time ever) to read any book about any subject that might perhaps shed light on my questions. Within a few weeks I found to my utter surprise that I could no longer listen to my favorite Christian radio station - it felt, cloying and suffocating somehow. Since I live my life to the soundtrack in my head this was disturbing at a very deep level - I found myself dealing with an awful lot of silence - in my head, in my world.
I thought often about contacting my church buddies - I so wanted relief, comfort, acceptance. Many, many times I almost shut the door of my mind on the questions - telling them to shut up and go away and leave me in peace. But a curious thing began to happen. In the silence of my mind and heart - in the place where I'd stopped hearing God's voice - I felt..... a Presence. With me, within me, buoying me up, nestled quietly in the depths of my being. I hardly dared give it a name. It felt older than any Name I could attach to it. By now lacking all outward trappings of Christianity - (I'd withdrawn from church, Bible study, and Christian culture in general) I hung my fragile hopes on this Presence as an indication that God had not entirely forsaken me.
Meanwhile I kept expecting lightning bolts to zot me out the blue - holy retribution for daring to read Dawkins and Hitchens, Pagels and Fox, books on wicca and goddess religion, Buddhism and Hinduism, tarot and psychics and the non-believer's history of religion and the Bible. I shared my growing body of knowledge and experience with no one but my husband. I kept up my (somewhat) self-imposed isolation from church culture.
And... to my complete and utter surprise - almost exactly a year and a day later - it was as though I woke up from a very long sleep. In the midst of all this pain and confusion and uncertainly, I rediscovered myself. That is to say my Self. Dusty and unused, to be sure, but still there.
I felt like one of my favorite Rose is Rose cartoons - one where Rose is looking through photo albums of her life and hugs all her earlier selves to her heart - and her husband Jimbo comes in and says "You're looking really together." That's how I felt.
I guess you could say, like the Velveteen Rabbit, I've finally become Real.
One problem, though. I still haven't figured out the church situation. I don't speak Christian-ese anymore. I no longer worship at the altar of Christian culture. I don't even know what to call myself anymore - I don't wear labels well these days.
And here is where I've lost some of you. Please, don't bother to preach at me - goodness knows I've said it all to myself during the past year or so. But having received a soul-scrubbing from the One Who Upholds the Universe, I can assure you that it is an experience that transcends labels.
A friend used to tease me that I needed to stop putting God in a box. Over the past year, the One Who is Eternal succinctly blasted all those boxes to smithereens.
Maybe I simply am what I've always been - a Seeker....
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Sometimes ya just gotta give up and go swimming
"We're havin' a heat wave.... a tropical heat wave...."
My dad used to sing that whenever it got hot like it is today - 102 degrees F or so they predicted earlier. Felt like it too. I promised I wouldn't complain about the heat after such a frigid snowy winter, but yikes.... over 95F and I head for anything air conditioned. Hibernated inside and washed and folded laundry most of the afternoon in preparation for visiting all the grandparents later in the week. Worked pretty well until about 4:30PM when I started drooping over the clothing despite the music blaring on the boombox.
We'd planned for Brian to take the kids to the pool to get them out of my hair so I could work on packing. (Did ourselves a *big* favor and bought season passes to the local kiddie water park - *best* idea ever thank you Melanie!) Except.... even inside it felt like my brain was frying. So, I gave up and went too.
Yeah, much better than falling asleep over the laundry.....
My dad used to sing that whenever it got hot like it is today - 102 degrees F or so they predicted earlier. Felt like it too. I promised I wouldn't complain about the heat after such a frigid snowy winter, but yikes.... over 95F and I head for anything air conditioned. Hibernated inside and washed and folded laundry most of the afternoon in preparation for visiting all the grandparents later in the week. Worked pretty well until about 4:30PM when I started drooping over the clothing despite the music blaring on the boombox.
We'd planned for Brian to take the kids to the pool to get them out of my hair so I could work on packing. (Did ourselves a *big* favor and bought season passes to the local kiddie water park - *best* idea ever thank you Melanie!) Except.... even inside it felt like my brain was frying. So, I gave up and went too.
Yeah, much better than falling asleep over the laundry.....
Pondering something
What should a person do when the whole direction of her blog may need to change because over the past year or so, she's changed? When the reason the blog was started is no longer the reason she wants it to continue? What should a person do then, I wonder......
Monday, July 5, 2010
Ooooooooh.....pretty!
Please stand by - blog template experimentation in progress. Do not be surprised if something changes every day for a while. I got back on Blogger and discovered pretty new templates fresh for the taking - now I just need to pick one - ah, decisions, decisions.....
Blogging incentive
It's funny how you can put up with something for so long that you don't realize how bad it was until it changes. In the case of my unexpected blog silence - a working keyboard makes *all* the difference in the world.
In our household, there are very few thing purchased new. With the exception of appliances and audiovisual gear, even our computer stuff tends to be bought on ebay. Except that we've recently run through our stock of leftover monitors, keyboards, computer mice (is the plural of computer mouse, mice?) etc. So I've found myself attempting to type on an old, coffee spilled, crumbed up, keys-getting-stuck ancient keyboard that could have powered someone's old Commodore 64 for all I know. The kind that clacks as you type - grrr.
This afternoon my husband came in from running errands, handed me a bag from the Apple store and said "Happy belated Birthday!" Inside? A brand spanking new keyboard..... wow. Oh, and it's so quick and quiet and unobtrusive. I can finally type at the speed of my thoughts again - without sounding like an old manual typewriter (which, incidentally still would have been easier that the old broken down keyboard).
So....now I just need to gather all the thoughts that had been skittering around in my brain for the last two months.....
In our household, there are very few thing purchased new. With the exception of appliances and audiovisual gear, even our computer stuff tends to be bought on ebay. Except that we've recently run through our stock of leftover monitors, keyboards, computer mice (is the plural of computer mouse, mice?) etc. So I've found myself attempting to type on an old, coffee spilled, crumbed up, keys-getting-stuck ancient keyboard that could have powered someone's old Commodore 64 for all I know. The kind that clacks as you type - grrr.
This afternoon my husband came in from running errands, handed me a bag from the Apple store and said "Happy belated Birthday!" Inside? A brand spanking new keyboard..... wow. Oh, and it's so quick and quiet and unobtrusive. I can finally type at the speed of my thoughts again - without sounding like an old manual typewriter (which, incidentally still would have been easier that the old broken down keyboard).
So....now I just need to gather all the thoughts that had been skittering around in my brain for the last two months.....
Monday, May 10, 2010
Make new friends but keep the old....
And anyone who was ever a Girl Scout (or has a daughter who is) knows the end of that.
....... one is silver and the other gold.
I had just about the best Mother's Day surprise I could have asked for yesterday. One of my best friends from college was in the area and stopped by for a visit. Okay, it wasn't a *complete* surprise - she'd called me Thursday night to ask how close we were to the Boy Scout camp she would be at for the weekend with her son. Turns out they were maybe a half hour drive away. So I got to spend about 2 hours on Sunday afternoon catching up with her.
Wow. Time warp. This is the woman who was my Maid of Honor in my wedding. I was Matron of Honor in hers. We lived in the same dorm for 3 years - I met her when she moved into the room next door to mine when she was a freshman and I was a sophomore. She was my clown partner in the college's clown troupe that we both joined that year. We worked together at the campus' library. Spent countless hours hanging out in each other's rooms - late night study sessions, gab sessions, planning sessions for the various groups we were both part of.
Since we both belonged to several of the Christian groups on campus we also shared a large group of friends. I don't think a day went by in those 3 years that we didn't see each other - it was like having a sister (which for me, as an only child, was very cool).
Now, even though we live in separate states, we still share a bunch of things. Our sons are only a year apart (but they're both 1st year Webelos in Cub Scouts), our daughters the same age (both Daisies - little Girl Scouts). Both of us dealing with the educational issues of our sons - my oldest being autistic and hers in the process of figuring out what IEP/diagnosis fits best (most likely ADD, they think).
It's amazing after all these years the things I remember about her - she tells me casually that she's in charge of her daughter's Daisy troop.... and I just stare at her. Herding little kids never used to be her thing (either of ours, actually) *You're* in charge - of how many little girls? Sixteen, she tells me. Then she rolls her eyes. Ah, I see - another of those things us mothers get roped into for the sake of our kids. It was supposed to a shared thing, you see - only her co-leader's been "busy" lately. Mind you - I'm sure she's sensational at it - her organizational skills were always waaay better than mine. But it was cool to see that underneath the "mom" facade she's still the same person.
There's a "Rose is Rose" cartoon that my husband cut out and gave to me years back. It shows Rose looking through her photo albums, re-meeting herself at different ages, and all of them joining her on the couch to look at the pictures together. Then she gives them all a hug - and her husband finds her hugging herself and says "you look very together". That's kind of how yesterday made me feel....
Friday, May 7, 2010
What she said....
Having been "off the air" for some time - and sitting here waiting for the coffee buzz to take effect, I stumbled upon one of my regular bloggers who took the words right out of my mouth (or brain, whatever). Thanks, Sherry...
Sunday, February 7, 2010
What a long, strange winter it's been...
I'm starting to feel like I want to go and reread Laura Ingalls Wilder's The Long Winter again. Granted, we're not on the South Dakota plains, and have received much less snow than they did that winter. But it would help, as my children (and cat) go cabin fever crazy, to remind myself of how much better I have it.
You would not believe that one simple blizzard could shut down an entire tri-state area. But this is not Chicago or New York - this is Washington DC. You have to see it to believe it. They closed school on Friday before any snow even fell. And while I'm grateful my husband didn't have to drive home on the slippy roads, the Pennsylvanian in me found it all a little Chicken Little-ish, watching people clear off store shelves like Armageddon was approaching.
To be sure, we are some of the lucky ones - we kept our power (so far) and so mostly have to deal with lots of shoveling and digging (hubby) and laundry (me, stocking up in case of loss of power) - oh and cabin fevered small creatures. Though at one point at the height of the blizzard we did marshal all our available flashlights, blankets and sleeping bags in case we had to weather the storm with no heat. And figured out that if we set up our camping tent in the living room we could make ourselves an emergency shelter.
Between 2 blizzards, a bunch of snow days, and 2 rounds of illness I've spent a lot of time this winter behind these 4 walls. I'm starting to feel like a hermit - but not by choice. And it's wreaking havoc on our schedule - doctor's appointments, scout meetings, and school have been set, canceled, rescheduled, and canceled again. My kids may be going to school in July. My littlest - who just started preschool 2 weeks ago - doesn't even know what a normal week of school looks like yet. My husband is chopping out our cars in hopes of making a cautious run for (what else?) milk, eggs, and toilet paper. I saw a story on the news of a Humvee getting stuck on the snow covered city streets - a Humvee! Trees are bent over or broken in half. There's 2 piles of snow on either side of our walk that are as tall as me (I'm 5'2"). If I wanted to get creative I could carve out some nice ice lions or gargoyles or some such.
I'm starting to look longingly at the pictures of summer posted by bloggy friends in Australia. They say it's 70 degrees in Florida where the Superbowl is taking place today - I'd take a road trip, if only I could get out of our neighborhood.... anyone got some sled dogs?
You would not believe that one simple blizzard could shut down an entire tri-state area. But this is not Chicago or New York - this is Washington DC. You have to see it to believe it. They closed school on Friday before any snow even fell. And while I'm grateful my husband didn't have to drive home on the slippy roads, the Pennsylvanian in me found it all a little Chicken Little-ish, watching people clear off store shelves like Armageddon was approaching.
To be sure, we are some of the lucky ones - we kept our power (so far) and so mostly have to deal with lots of shoveling and digging (hubby) and laundry (me, stocking up in case of loss of power) - oh and cabin fevered small creatures. Though at one point at the height of the blizzard we did marshal all our available flashlights, blankets and sleeping bags in case we had to weather the storm with no heat. And figured out that if we set up our camping tent in the living room we could make ourselves an emergency shelter.
Between 2 blizzards, a bunch of snow days, and 2 rounds of illness I've spent a lot of time this winter behind these 4 walls. I'm starting to feel like a hermit - but not by choice. And it's wreaking havoc on our schedule - doctor's appointments, scout meetings, and school have been set, canceled, rescheduled, and canceled again. My kids may be going to school in July. My littlest - who just started preschool 2 weeks ago - doesn't even know what a normal week of school looks like yet. My husband is chopping out our cars in hopes of making a cautious run for (what else?) milk, eggs, and toilet paper. I saw a story on the news of a Humvee getting stuck on the snow covered city streets - a Humvee! Trees are bent over or broken in half. There's 2 piles of snow on either side of our walk that are as tall as me (I'm 5'2"). If I wanted to get creative I could carve out some nice ice lions or gargoyles or some such.
I'm starting to look longingly at the pictures of summer posted by bloggy friends in Australia. They say it's 70 degrees in Florida where the Superbowl is taking place today - I'd take a road trip, if only I could get out of our neighborhood.... anyone got some sled dogs?
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