Mostly Wordless Wednesday: "Spring" (<-- those are great, big, honking air quotes there)

These were my crocuses as of Monday morning, the first morning of Spring, when I stepped out onto the porch to see Kiddo off to the school bus:

These were my crocuses as of *this* morning, the third morning of Spring, when I stepped out onto the porch to see Kiddo off to the school bus:

And these were my crocuses as of 4pm today, and I am really wishing that my computer had a function to adequately depict great, big, honking air quotes to put around the word Spring:

It is of small comfort when our local meteorologists cheerfully remind us that the official "snow season" (<-- more GBHAQ there) doesn't end for our area until June 1st.  Or that there was snow last year on Mother's Day.  Small, cold, white comfort indeed.

When life hands you lemons, you make lemonade

...and when life hands you wet, heavy snow that utterly stinks for sledding, you make snowmen. Or is that snowpeople? Snowpersons? Persons of snow?

Anyhow, that's exactly what happened this afternoon when Kiddo and I, after watching big, fat, fluffy, lake-effect snowflakes steadily falling from the sky all morning, decided we were going to head over to the closest hill and do some sledding. We bundled up, which involved finding things like sports bras, thermal leggings and snowpants (for Mommy) and then wrestling and/or stuffing various body parts into them (again, Mommy - Kiddo only needed help adjusting her scarf). We went on a search for the sleds (basement? Nope. Lanai? Nope again.) and then carefully extracted them from inside the wading pool which was stacked on top of lots of pointy, sharp, poky and/or rusty things up in the loft section of our garage. This involved balancing while bundled up like Ralphie's little brother Randy upon the second-to-top step of the stepladder, leaning way out to the left of the ladder over the chest freezer and reaching above my head, then trying to lift the sleds up and out of the pool, over the ledge and pass them gently down to Kiddo who was dancing about and generally not paying much attention to the daredevil feats of bravery occurring several feet above her head. Once we got ourselves and our gear strapped into the minivan, I opened the garage door (I left it closed for the sled extraction as I didn't particularly want any of the neighbors witnessing that scene) and we began merrily backing out into the driveway. The driveway upon which it was no longer snowing flakes of big, puffy, picturesque perfection, but rather spitting down some sort of freezing rain/graupel (and if you need to click on the link to learn what graupel is, then I am most envious because obviously you live in a part of the world with a much more pleasant climate and therefore much more pleasant forms of precipitation) and generally not looking too promising. Kiddo and I gamely headed up the road anyway to the high school, where there are several hills upon which one can sled, and pulled in to the parking lot to discover there wasn't going to be any sledding going on today.

We turned the car around and headed home, the kid quite disappointed and the both of us rather warm in our bundling. I didn't want all that effort to be for naught and decided to invoke the Life Handing One Lemons philosophy and when we arrived home, I suggested to Kiddo that perhaps this heavy, wet snow would be good for snowman building. So, we did.





Kiddo has always been a fan of the "jam and pack" method of snowperson creation, instead of the more traditional "roll a snowball and stack" method. Sometimes, her jamming and packing gets a bit......... exuberant, and she then has to do snowperson body repair and patching.





We will call our snowman Ned, but first he has to have a head.......................... and a face!





His head will have to have a hat. His hat is on, just look at that!





Lemonade! Also known as Kiddo and Ned!




(By the by, the above lines and name of the snowman come from the Eastman/McKie children's book Snow, which was one of my favorite stories as a small child and now is one of Kiddo's favorite stories. This is the reason why more snowpeople created by members of my family get named Ned than any other name.............)

How's the weather?

According to my kid, it is DELICIOUS.

I won't tell you what the weather is according to me, but suffice it to say that we have come, once again, to the time of year that makes me wonder why the heck I ever thought settling down to live permanently and raise a family in western, upstate New York was a good idea. Sing it with me now, Dino.......... Oh, the weather outside is frightful!

Why I will be sore and grumpy tomorrow morning...

Let me just say that if it weren't for my new anthropological/sociological project that is taking place at the gym (and which I promise to blog about soon - I know you're all on tenterhooks waiting for it), and if it weren't for my still-quite-shiny-and-recent New Year's Resolution made just 11 short days ago, the odds of me dragging myself to the gym tomorrow would be about as good as the odds of George Clooney turning up on my doorstep with a bunch of roses.

See, we had some snow overnight. Not a ton, like some other parts of the northeast got, but enough to count - maybe 6 or 8 inches on top of what we already had down, which had dwindled in the freezing rain and sleet of last week. Now, Kiddo has been DYING to going out and play in the snow. She's a kid, you see, and therefore, suiting up a la Ralphie and his little brother in A Christmas Story and then clomping about in the icy cold air and precipitation counts as big fun. For Mommy? Not so much. Speaking of cold, we're supposed to be getting some serious, Arctic chill type temperatures in the coming week. The weatherpeople are downright giddy about informing us how we're all gonna be so dang cold. One of those "the snot in your nose forms icicles before it reaches your upper lip" and "your eyeballs freeze into cubes between blinks" kind of cold spells. And let's not forget the ever popular wind chill, which will make things feel even more vilely cold than they actually are... and those dang weatherpeople won't let us forget that now, will they? So, the next several days are going to involve trying to stay OUT of the OUTSIDE as much as possible, so things don't get frostbitten and then fall off. Which they could, you know, if you're not careful...

Anyhow, I'd been feeling a bit guilty about the amount of time I'd allowed Kiddo to romp about in the winter weather thus far this season. (Total amount of time prior to today: Zero Minutes.) When Hubby was out snowblowing the driveway earlier this afternoon, Kiddo was glued to the window, pea green with envy that he was Out in the Snow. Adding insult to injury was the fact that just beyond Hubby manfully pushing the snowblower to and fro, the neighbors' kids were out playing in their front yard. Kiddo was so very, very much wanting to go out and play in the snow, and I was feeling so very, very guilty about keeping her in, that when Hubby came inside and reported it wasn't too cold except for when the wind kicked up, I told Kiddo to bundle up. Of course, I'm not about to let Kiddo go out and play in the front yard by herself, ever, and even in the safety of our fenced-in back yard, how much fun is playing in the snow by oneself? Not much, take this former kid's word for it. So, I bundled myself up too, squeezing into my snowpants (which I pretend are slimming as they're black and all, never mind that they're padded) and boots and designated "play in the snow" coat which has conveniently large, patch-style pockets for holding kleenexes and spare gloves and the like.

So off we went, out into the white, cold afternoon. Kiddo had a blast.


She made her first snow angels of the season...


She wanted to make a snowman, but the snow we got overnight really wasn't of good, packing quality, so I dissuaded her from attempting such a project. Of course, as I pointed out to her, we will have many more weeks (*sigh* months, actually) of snowy weather, so there will be ample opportunities for snowman creation in our future. Our yard is much too flat for sledding (and I wasn't about to drive over to the sledding hill, as it was getting late and cold quickly), so that left pretty much just one activity left. One of Kiddo's favorites, so she didn't mind one bit.


Snowball fight!

Now, we have rules here in the Smith family regarding snowball fights. No hitting above the neck, that's the big one. Unfortunately, Kiddo got so caught up in the glee of the moment that she utterly forgot the rules. I wound up with an ear packed tightly with snow, as well as snow coating my hair with melting snow shrapnel running down my neck and back. Now, I would've been a bit more upset, but I accidentally nailed Kiddo in the face myself once (okay, twice) so you know, fair is fair. Though my above-the-neck hits were totally unintentional - I have lousy aim and she was a moving target - and Kiddo fully meant to pelt me wherever she could.

By the time Kiddo went to bed, I found myself aching in places that said "Hey, Heather, you're not 5 and a half anymore, *and* you went to the gym FIVE days in a row last week, *and* you were playing Wii Tennis and Bowling yesterday like a freaking madwoman! Did I mention you're not 5 and a half anymore?" I downed a handful of Advil and curled up on the couch to watch the Golden Globes. By the time the show ended (and yes, that is why I'm still up at this ungodly hour), I could barely stand up, I was so stiff and sore. (Seriously - was that the cat meowing or just my joints creaking?)

All this is to say that tomorrow morning, I predict a Very Grumpy and Sore Heather. A Heather Who Also is PMSing. A Heather Who Will Much Rather Crawl Back Into Bed with One of Her Latest Batch of Books from the Library, Perhaps With the Rest of That Sleeve of Thin Mints Discovered Languishing in the Freezer Midway Through the Golden Globes.

But fear not, dear readers, for even though I need to be up and at 'em in a horrific 6ish hours, and even though I'm going to be as sore as I am tired (did I mention that my right knee does a phenomenal flamenco-dancer-with-castanets impression whenever I walk up stairs? CLICK-clickclick-CLICK! CLICK-clickclick-CLICK!), I will go to the gym. I will. Then I might come home and collapse in bed, but I will go and work out.

But if I do the recumbent bike on level one instead of the elliptical machine on level three, don't judge me too harshly, mmmkay?

Oh and in other news, Hubby seems to have a rather serious case of food poisoning (although not so serious as to wind up in the hospital, as happened to him once before about 10 years ago). We're not sure what to blame it upon, though the leading culprits are (a) the Beer of Mysterious Origins that he unearthed from the fridge and drank with dinner Friday night, (b) the yogurt he ate at lunch on Friday or (c) the peanut butter he had with his toast at a breakfast meeting on Thursday. (C) is mostly an option because of the current salmonella outbreak that's been linked to contaminated PB that is only available in restaurants. At any rate, with him really not able to stomach (pun intended - hey, it's late and I'm up way past my bedtime) anything other than dry toast, chicken soup and saltines, we postponed our anniversary celebration dinner to next weekend, when he hopefully will be feeling more like consuming and enjoying a big, Italian meal. Next weekend is also when we're going to see Disney on Ice, which was one of my birthday presents, so it will be a whole Celebratory Weekend, never a bad thing!

Anyhow, I'm off to bed as it is now officially Monday. I'll see you all, stiff and bleary-eyed, in a few hours, with my report on my own personal Gorillas in the Mist. Intrigued now, aren't you? Stay tuned.............

Happy New Year!

Well, here it is, the last day of 2008, which for us in our corner of the world turns out to be an extremely snowy day. We're having a bit of a snowstorm - there were nine new inches of snow down by 9:00 this morning (according to the trusty Weather Channel) and many more inches expected to come down between now and midnight. This all means that we are going to be spending New Year's Eve safe and sound, tucked up and warm at home, just the three of us (plus the cat and fish, of course).

Tomorrow, we will dig our way out and face a new year, hopefully a year of changes for the better for our family, country and world. I shan't go into New Year's Resolutions any more than to say I'm renewing my eternal Top Two: to get into better (or really, *any*) shape and to stop biting my nails. Yeah, pretty pathetic that I am now 37 years old and I still bite my nails...

Anyhow, for this New Year's Eve day, to all my friends out there in the blogosphere, I say

And here's a hand, my trusty friend,
And gie's a hand o' thine;
We'll take a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne

Here's a cup o' kindness raised to you and yours from me and mine! Happy New Year, everyone!




(PS: I'm not sure what beverage is in your cup o' kindness and feel free to pour yourself whatever you want - mine is a Shirley Temple, heavy on the grenadine, which is why it's so vividly red!)

Snow day continued....

Okay, Hubby just got the driveway cleared (snowblowed? snowblown? Anyone? Bueller?) .....



I also spoke with one of the two friends I was supposed to have lunch with today and we decided to reschedule for after the school break. Now, I just have to hope that the UPS man gets here early enough today that I have the grandparental Christmas present in hand when Kiddo and I head over there for Grandparental Christmas Celebration #1 as scheduled. I was supposed to pick Kiddo up from school instead of her riding the bus and head over there around 3:30, but with the snow day, we've moved it up so now I'm doing my "Please arrive quickly, UPS man" dance instead.

Hubby is working from home, so likely will not mind Kiddo and I making ourselves scarce for a while. At any rate, he'll be more productive without his chicks around. Of course, this means Kiddo and I need to get out of our jammies (as of this typing, Hubby is the only one who has gotten showered and dressed in our home...) and get a move on. She's working on a Christmas Craft project downstairs at the kitchen table, and I'm sitting here at the computer. That's traditional snow day activity after all, isn't it? I do need to get to the grocery store as well, for more chocolate to finish up one last batch of peppermint bark for Kiddo's holiday presents for all the school staff. Between teachers, aides, therapists and bus drivers, we have FOURTEEN people to whom we need to spread holiday spirit and gratitude around, hence the homemade holiday treats in festive tins currently stacked 3 deep on my kitchen counter. Kiddo and I made peppermint bark and chocolate covered pretzels yesterday, but I want to do one more batch to fill the tins to the brim.

And people, if school is closed tomorrow? Major disaster. (Yes, our school district has school through tomorrow.) The school is doing "A Long Winter's Night" and everyone is supposed to go to school in their jammies. Needless to say, Kiddo has been looking forward to this for weeks now. She's been obsessing over her choice of jammies to wear (I believe as of this morning, she's planning on her reindeer jammies). So, no school tomorrow will equal a devastated Kiddo and a Mommy with a bad tummyache, 'cause I don't think I will be able to avoid the 14 tins of holiday treats until January 5!!

I'll leave you with one more shot of the snowdrifts in my back yard. For point of reference, our fence is six feet high:



Yep, that's a bit of snow. Too bad it's supposed to go up to 47 and rain here on Wednesday, thereby rendering our white Christmas questionable.......

Snow day?!?

Last Friday, we had about a foot and a half of snow fall in our neighborhood between 9am and 9pm. School for our district was not canceled, though by late morning they began dismissing the high schools and middle schools early. Notice who was missing from that? Yep, the elementary schools, which dismissed at regular time. So, I sucked it up and made my way the 2.7 miles for Kiddo's class holiday party Friday afternoon. Hey, it only took me about half an hour... I brought Kiddo home with me after the party and we then waited for Hubby to make his way home, which took about four times as long as usual what with the ridonkulous snow and finished with him getting his car stuck in our unplowed/shoveled/snowblowed driveway. That was fun, sitting out in the car trying to gun it either forward into the garage or backward into the road without killing Hubby, myself or the house/car while he yelled and pushed from in front/behind the car....).

So, I was a little bit surprised after our district's big "We never close, mwah-ha-ha-haaaaa!" position on Friday during, you know, the really bad weather, to wake up and flip on the news this morning and see our district's name among the ones that did close today, when we're only supposed to get between two and six inches (depending on which local weatherdude you listen to for such info) of lake effect snow. The districts immediately surrounding ours are all open. But no, today they close our district. Today, when I have a busy schedule made up of many intricately planned items, all of which assumed Kiddo would be at school. (Um, they also assumed that Hubby would be at work, but he has a severe backache and just finished emailing his assistant to ask her to clear his schedule...) So, now I've got to reconfigure a busy day to account for gimpy Hubby and at-home Kiddo. It isn't even seven a.m. and my day is shot to heck. Yippie.

Oh, and with his back hurting, I think that means it is up to me to clear the driveway, too. i think this definitely qualifies as a bad case of the Mondays!

By the by, what exactly is the past tense of the verb snowblow? Is it snowblowed or snowblew? Hmmm....

If I have a chance, I'll get outside and take some pictures of our recent snowfall so all of you non-snowed-in-types can experience our winter wonderland vicariously.

PS - Just realized today is the first full day of actual winter. Guess it is symbolic and fitting to have a snow day then, eh?

Phriday Photo Phun - Phavorite Holiday Photo

Playing along again with Candid Carrie! This is my favorite holiday picture. It was taken Kiddo's first Christmas morning, under the tree at my parents' house. She was one day shy of seven months old...



And a bonus shot - this was the picture we used for our first ever family Christmas card, back in 2003 (and shortly before I cut about 27 inches of my hair off because Kiddo was getting too strong with her "wrap Mommy's hair around my wrists, grab hold and YANK" maneuvers....)



We are supposed to be getting one heck of a winter storm today - they're saying our corner of the county could get upwards of 15 inches or better between noon and 6pm. Someone forgot to tell the snow it's not supposed to start until noon though, because it is already coming down with some whipping winds to boot. No, Kiddo's district did NOT close preemptively like many other districts in our area. That would've been too darn sensible. Kiddo's kindergarten class holiday party is at 1 this afternoon and I'm one of the volunteers, so at least I'll be able to bring her home with me and she won't be stuck on the bus in this weather. At least this storm pretty much guarantees us another White Christmas!

Wherever you are today, hope you are toasty warm and dry! Happy last weekend of Advent and less than one week 'til Christmas!

Hardy har har, Mother Nature

Guess I shouldn't have posted about how I can't wait for spring to hurry up and get here! This was the view out the back door of our house at 7:00 this morning:

Our house was in the 3-6 inch total snowfall color band on the morning weather report, so I guess it could've been worse, as some of the higher elevations a bit further out were in the 12 inch total snowfall color band. There even were some delayed openings and school closings listed on the bottom of the screen for some of the heavier-hit areas. We did have enough snow in this part of town that I got stuck behind a plow both on the way to and from dropping the kiddo off at school though, grrrr.

Since whinging on about the nasty, snowy weather when it is supposed to be spring and sunshiny isn't getting me anywhere, I'm going to try instead for a bit of reverse psychology and see if that helps.....

Woo-hoo, snow! Yippie! Can't wait to go make snow angels and snowmen and get in another sledding run! Yee-ha! I looooove having to brush my car off after going to the grocery store, mmmm-hmmm! Oh, and having a big, slushy pile of snow fall out of the trees overhead as I walked out of preschool this morning and land with a plop right down the back of my neck? Twice? Positively delightful! I just hope it snows even more this weekend! Oh yeah!! Global warming, my foot! I hope I can keep cramming hats and mittens onto the squirmy and protesting kiddo until at least May or June! Whee!