Crusty

That's the best word to use to describe the current situation around here.

In the last week or so, the humans have all come down with some variation of the common cold and Jessie has done an amazing rebound and returned to life.  It's been amazing to see, first she perked up a bit, then quite a bit, now she's trotting and hopping and seemingly just fine.  After her collapse, I never imagined she'd bounce back.

It snowed yesterday for nearly 15 straight minutes.  Matt picked up milk, bread and eggs because we were legit out of all 3, but it was still pretty funny.  He mixed it up with some veggie eggrolls though.
Wednesday or Thursday, I woke up feeling like there was an entire pencil inside my ear canal.  My chest was achy and my nose was doing that WTF thing where just one nostril works at a time.  The other leaks at the rate of one tissue per 5 minutes.  Throat was a little sore, but the drainage knocked my range of speech to creepy level 3.  I sounded like a rusted man.  When Chan had this last week, when she talked it sounded like 2 people talking it once.  It was SO scary. It does not seem scary, but your child in stereo, with one voice a little lower than the other, is VERY creepy.  Suck in air and talk.  It was very much like that.

While it only snowed a dusting here, the schools were closed. We get made fun of ALL the time for shutting down when it snows at all, but the basis of that decision is made with the thought of little kids waiting for the bus in the early hours.  Many, many people here don't have a good coat.  So, make fun if you want, but next time it's sleeting, go stand by your mailbox before the sun comes up in a sweater and jeans for 20 minutes.  Not everybody's mama can drive them to school.

A couple snaps from the snow.

Kuma was having a blast until I pointed the camera at him.
I go back and forth with wondering if he dies via photograph if he would be vindicated for his lifetime of wariness or if his last thoughts would be of horror because-clicky thing, aaaaaaaa

I have slept a good 4 to 6 hours total in the last 2 nights thanks to, and I will say it, MATT.  And my cold, but mostly my adored hubby who walks in his sleep and makes the bed wiggle.  Move to the couch, you suggest?  I can't fall asleep easily in other places, even the next room.  So all that netted was nearly 4 hour of laying there without the bed wiggling.  I am the most exhausted light sleeper in the world.  I'll just stay awake if there's the slightest chance I could be woken up.  Plus, the living room is COLD with it's single (who planned that?) heat vent directly over the front door.

When I finally did fall asleep last night, I woke up today with my nose crusted TO THE PILLOW.  It cracked loose when I tried to roll over.  Matt took one look and ran for the medicine cabinet, though 2 Sudafed and a Tylenol cold and congestion dose later, I feel NO BETTER.

To that end, I have decided to withdraw some from life and to celebrate, I unfriended the worst of the Trumpers still on my FB feed.  There's supporting your party, there's hoping for the best, then at some point, it becomes a combination of willful ignorance and 'someone said'.  And hate.

I typed way, way, way more and then deleted it because it was unkind.  See?  I am getting better. ish.  I still can't stand a hate spewing idiot particularly and I do mean this-when they are a hypocrite.  People can see when you say one thing and do another.  I'm just done with observing and ready to call people out.  Or, in this case, cut them loose.  Some people are too far gone to fix.

Okay, I think I am wound down.

This weekend is a bust, though Matt is off at the studio and Jake and Chan are going to town.  Ben is still puny.

Next week, there are plans for backpacking Friday because while it's 19 right now, it will be 70 a week from now.  Aaaaaand, no wonder we all have colds.  Various other things scattered in the week, just have to see how this cold is going.

17 words from being level 4 in Swedish.  I really wish I could find someone who can speak it, so I can ask some questions particularly about pronunciation.  Only 2 more levels and I will be proficient.  I have started reading a few things.  Children's books, short articles online, a few blogs.  I need a LOT more words to fill in the gaps, but I can piece together pretty well by guessing the unknown words based on context.  I doubt I will ever be able to write or speak my own thoughts without more training in stitching the words.   Some sentences are word for word.  Han ar trott, sa han vill stanna hemma.  He is tired, so he will stay home.  But then "I will be home at 4" is 'Jag ar hemma clockan fyra" 'I am home clock four.'.

I have a feeling it's similar to English rules, like using I or me, or a or an and once I figure it out, it will all be more simple.  

Snowmageddon 2015

Matt went to work Tuesday and was so pathetic that Wednesday his boss called and told him to run some reports from home and charge it as a work day.  Basically, "Don't come in you cesspool".  So there's that, I guess.

He did his work stuff and Jake and I ran a couple quick errands ahead of the forecasted snow-the governor declared a state of emergency before anything ever happened and schools let out all over the northern half of the state.

While in the line at Little Caesar's (I really needed chewy breadsticks) the snow started.  By the time we got home, we were the only idiots on the road, yay!

It snowed about 5.5 inches Wednesday afternoon and another couple inches overnight.  Our yard tests this morning showed anywhere from 7 to 8.5 inches, it's already melting off in places.  It does not last long around here!

In Huntsville, they already have the roads cleared but here, they are just saying to stay home.  The sheriff sweetened the deal by offering tickets to anyone who does venture out.  Last night several semis got stuck out on the road and then so did the trucks that went to pull them out.  For some reason, that cracked me up, though I imagine no one directly involved was amused at all.

I can see trucks going by on the main road now and then, but not even the mail truck has turned down the driveway.  That is not surprising, there are whole days we get skipped even when the weather is good.  Last Saturday is a prime example.  *gripe gripe*

I made snow cream with maple syrup and Ben and Chan are rolling up half the yard into giant leafy snowmen.  Jake is staying in bed all day, his capacity for fun is zero point zero.

The above was taken really late last night, I liked that it was so blurry.

Early this morning

Up through the limbs of the big pine in back.

It's melting so fast!  The sun is SO warm, I put on sunscreen and sat out on the porch a while.
The kids are in, shoveling down snowcream and talking loudly while the cheddar broccoli soup finishes cooking.  We'll enjoy our one more day of being all at home, maybe have a nap this afternoon.  There's enough wood for another couple of days and the house is toasty.  Everyone is feeling better, if not 100% then functional anyway.

We have a busy weekend ahead and if the weather dries out, a camping trip starting a week from today.  Now that the winter has had this last hoorah, I imagine spring will bustle in and take over PDQ.  I still have not heard my peepers!

A Wednesday

Not much going on around here, thank goodness!  I love blocks of time without stress or pressure, they seem to be too far apart, but I guess I do have them more than I sit and acknowledge them.

At home, we have been setting up against the cold, getting the animals a cozy place, pulling out heaters and blankets and heavy clothes.  We had already repaired the shed over the summer to keep it nice and cool in there.  For winter, we put heavy plastic flaps over the openings for the dogs and cats to get in and put in 2 big heat lamps.  It's 20-30 degrees warmer in there than outside-plus no wind, we opted to put the pigs in the shed instead of the house for now.  They have a little heat lamp right in their cage, we checked them today and decided it might be too warm in there, they had abandoned their houses and were laying belly-down on the floor of their crate.  Oops.  I took off one of the panels of blankets and plastic wrap to give them some air.

Our haul, pre-World Market!

I loved the colors, had to snap this one going down the road.

We have not done much lately, other than the shopping trip Saturday, I have been home a while.  We have done some math, some science...mostly we have been doing our own thing, just passing the time together.  This morning, I sang about 20 songs trying to get the kids interested in trying out for a musical this coming weekend.  It did not work very well, but I did remember how much I love to belt out a good song at top volume and ran through my John Denver and James Taylor repertoire and everything I knew from various musicals.  We finally hauled out a Christmas carol book and the kids did not know any Christmas songs from it.  We are learning a couple.

The other day, I was playing with natural lighting in here in my room.  Of course the kids were dragged into the experiment!

Happy Weekend

In celebration of surviving another cold snap, Matt and I headed out to hike a bit today.  We went geocaching, but that did not really work out.  We could not find the first one and my ass literally started to freeze right off, first it was numb, then it started itching along the backs of my legs-which Matt assured me were all the parasites thinking I was dead and they were escaping, which gave me the creeping willies because-EW.  I don't eat pork because I am convinced the worms will burrow into your leg and butt muscles and that episode of House just confirmed it.  But, I LOVE bacon and will occasionally eat non-turkey if I am sure it is cooked perfectly.  I am pretty sure the itching was from my muscles going 'HUH?' and NOT pork worms making good their escape.  Pretty sure.


The point was, my rear-end, then the left side of my face then my hands all went numb, so I bailed on further exposure once we were in the van again.  Weenie!


So Matt bought me a grilled cheese and some fried pickles and we drove around to look at old houses, which I will post another time.

Ice in the treetops

Frost heave along the trail.

Close-up

Icicles, underneath

Giant Shadow Esther!

On the way home, just before sunset, we stopped at a small cemetery in Crawford Bottoms.
I hope to go back, it had some interesting stones!

It was a great day.  I can hardly wait for warmer weather!