Did Someone Say Snow? What Snow?

We had a little snow event the other day. They were calling for 8-10 inches. They were wrong. We measured - we had 26 inches in our neck of the woods.

The plus side is that we never lost power so our heat stayed on.  If we were at our old home, they lost power.  The snow came up to the top of my thighs.

Poor husband can barely walk because of his hip pain and now his back is out because he has been trying to walk with the bad hip.  He and I tried to dig ourselves out yesterday. We didn't have any luck - just too much snow.  We were successful, and by we I mean he because he suffered greatly, and were able to get the cars dug out and a path from the front door to the garage done.  My neighbor who lives up the driveway from us, who is about 70-73 years old, shoveled herself a path from her house down the driveway to the street just to see if the mail came. I was so fearful she was going to collapse.  I kept telling her to go back inside but she is tough.

Today we have someone coming to try and plow us out. Diva and Husband dug out the end of the driveway from the mountain of ice/snow that the plows left behind and dug out the cars some more so we could move them out of the way once the plow moves some of the snow from the driveway first. Diva was exhausted.

 

Boy Child found his own way of helping.  He stayed out of the way and settled in for some movies.

He'll probably do more of the same with a little Wii thrown into it since we've already been notified that school is cancelled for tomorrow - go figure.

Do they mean useless information but are just being polite?

I've always secretly liked going to school. I've always liked the way there was order amongst chaos at school. I loved getting the books and notebooks and pencils.  I liked sitting at my desk. The year you were allowed to use a pen, wow, that was so huge. I liked the plays and the concert practices. In junior high it was different - there was more chaos and less order in my world.  Everything was getting mixed up and strange new stuff was begining to creep into my oddly organized life. I had alot of smiles but there was also some not so much smiling times as well.  In high school I still liked it. There were so many new avenues to cross and way more kids to meet, hate and date.  But still it was the learning and actual school work that I enjoyed. I could be a professional student - if college were free that is - I just love taking classes. Sometimes I sit and think about what course I would've taken in my education if I hadn't been so stupid back then and chose not to go to college.

Another grading period is over in the elementary school world.

Diva has improved so much - she came home with 4 A's and 2 B's. We are very proud of her. She always takes a grading period to get back into the swing of things.  She is usually so engrossed in the social aspect of school during the first grading period that she forgets it is school and not summer camp. Also, she is NOT a morning person and the change over from summer time to school time is a bit of a challenge for her. Changing school districts was the best thing we could've done for her, I wish we had done it sooner.

Boy Child hasn't gotten his report card yet.  His school mails them home. They did, however, have the awards ceremony at school the other day.  It is all about positive reinforcement at his school so the awards ceremony is huge to these kids.  He came home with another ribbon for High Honor Roll and one for perfect attendance.  These are again something we are very proud of him for.  However, he also came home with another award.  A gold-sealed certificate that states he is "The King of Useful Knowledge".  I'm not really sure how to perceive this one - I think I'll just accept it for what it says.

That's It I'm Making Lemonade

I'm not going to lie. Since just after Christmas, it has been one thing after another in our house. We've had vomiting, then lice, then strept throat. Add to that mix Husband's extreme hip pain, inability to perform his work as normal and the lack of money due to lack of work, you get a whole bunch of suckieness.  It is frustrating to constantly make excuses to your kids because we just can't afford something that they want or want to do. They didn't even get a birthday party this year. It has really been a bushel of lemons.

We've tried to make the best of it. We've made sure to spend more quality time with the kids by having more family game nights and things of that nature.

Husband has attempted the movies twice but sitting for longer than a few minutes in a theater seat is just agony.  He even kept his promise to Boy Child and attended the family fun night at his school. So he has been fluctuating between sleeping due to pain killers and being miserable due to pain. It is so hard to watch another family member suffer like that.

My work has decided to change the pay schedule to every two weeks.  I used to get paid once per month. You may think that once per month would be awful but actually it was better for us because we always had the house payment and insurance payment on the first of the month without fail. Now I'm actually getting paid less per month since I'm losing one week's pay each month except on the few months in the year where there will be 3  pay checks.  Not too cool. I've got to try and re-budget a budget that has been in place for years.  I don't have the house payment and insurance payment now each month. It's like two steps forward and one step backward now. Since Husband is not working as much due to pain, we are struggling bad. 

Now most people might want to run and hide but for us, heck we've been down before - way down, and survived.  It's true what they say - if it doesn't kill you, it will make you stronger. Experience really pays off.

Husband is scheduled for a total hip replacement soon and he has a lot of work all lined up for the next several  months and into summer.  So here's to a speedy recovery for him and a pain-free life.  If we can make it through the next 2 1/2 months of recovery we will be on our way to happier days.

The Diva is on the mend with the strept and the lice is now gone.  Boy Child has even been doing much better in social settings and has really been a joy to be around.

So I'm going to sip on my lemonade and take each day as it comes. Sunny days are just around the corner!

Careful What You Wish For

Boy Child wanted this gift almost more than any other gift on his list from Christmas. Santa came through, of course.

What can I say, my boy loves to cook. 

It actually was very cute and he had a blast making this.  I don't particularly recommend using the filling in the middle mold - when you cut into the cupcake, it tends to just fold into itself and not stand upright any longer.  Yummy though, very yummy - but messy. 

Man, was he ever proud of this - too cute.