I want SNOW!!

I'm married to a man who loves cold weather.

My Manlings would rather play in the snow than swim in the summer.

And I confess....I love snow days.  

I really do.

There's just something so peaceful about a cold winter day with snow quietly blanketing the ground.  Something refreshing and cleansing.

When I lived in Wyoming, winter storms consisted of howling winds and blowing snow that would drift up to your windowsills and sometimes pile so thick it would stop life cold.  I LOVED it.  Especially since it meant afternoons huddled by the woodstove in our basement living room, sewing or reading or playing board games with my brother and sister.  Very Laura Ingalls Wilder-ish.  

Now I live in a little suburban house with no woodstove, no fireplace, and the only winds that blow across the farmer's cornfield down the street usually bring Rain.  Lots of Rain.  This year it's rained so much that I think we might have beat out Washington for precipitation.  

But every once in a while...

...grey clouds will pile up on the horizon, and a cold wind will sweep in.  And we'll get a snow that makes the homesickness that never quite goes away almost bearable.  

Today is not that day.

There's barely a dusting on the ground.  Those clouds look much more fearsome than they are.  All bluff and bluster!  Still, even as the golden yellow sun breaks through from the other end of the development, I can close my eyes and pretend.  

On the upside, the roads are clear, barely wet anymore; and today is Town Day.  So I'm off to the bank and the store and Lowe's for paint to get that laundry room done.  

And who knows?  Maybe those clouds will decide to be ferocious.  Maybe God will send MY 18 feet of snow to cover our house and neighborhood.  

Or maybe we'll just have to move to Alaska.

Positively Filthy Rich

It's been a rough day...and God knows I needed a bit of a kick in the pants to remember that my current "mess" is my own fault.  But in the midst of the mess, He also wanted to point out the fairly obvious:  no matter how "poor" we might be by America's standards?  We have SO MUCH when compared to the rest of the world.  It's absolutely appalling, the waste and excess in this house.  I can state without blinking an eye that I had NO idea just how much Stuff was sitting in my laundry room.  Granted, a lot of what was on the shelves in there was storage.  I keep extra paper towels and laundry soap ingredients up above the washer and dryer.  One wall has wire shelving for cans and jars.  But it was the Stuff I didn't know about--things I had just haphazardly stuffed in an open space because I would get to it "later"...and later just happened to be today.  

I'll spare you the gory details of what necessitated the emptying of my laundry room.  But the cleaning led to a huddled discussion with The Hubby about when/how we were tiling the floor in there.  Why not now, we decided.  We had got the tile a couple of months ago, and there were a couple of items to pick up at the hardware store to complete the project (tile grout, etc).  So we picked up the Older Manlings from VoTech, went to lunch, and then to Lowe's.  When we got home, the Manlings and I all finished emptying the laundry room and stripping the walls.

Which brings me to the point of this post:

Regardless of how AWFUL my days may seem, the sheer insanity of life that astounds, the complete idiocy of some decisions made around here, we have life GOOD.  

No, not good.  We have it GREAT.

I can walk into my pantry...or the laundry room...or the cellarway...or go downstairs to the storage room....and I can fix any one of a dozen...maybe two or three dozen..different meals because I have everything I need.  When compared with places like Africa and India, we are positively Filthy Rich.  

Well, despite the fact that we called a couple of Sick Days for the end of the week thanks to this nasty little upper respiratory bugger, I think I got more done than I'd hoped for.  All things considered, I should give myself a bit of a pat on the back.

Weekly Accomplishments:

1.  School work--I sat in my favorite chair, huddled in a blanket, sipping hot tea like I had no tomorrows for three days, and still we managed to get everything done (except the State Study, and that is NOT priority).  Go me!

2.  Obviously starting my Cleaning Rampage was not on for the week, BUT!  I felt better on Friday and decided to mow through some of the mess in my bedroom.  UGH.  It was a mistake, 'cause the dust I kicked up just made me feel worse again the next two days...but there was a serious amount of mess taken care of.  So...Bonus Points for Mommy!

3.  Paperwork--Oh Lord....it follows me around wherever I go!  Please, slay this dragon for me!  *deep sigh*  Yeah, He helps those who help themselves, right?  Well, then maybe I'll get a reprieve for a bit.  I went through most of the bookshelves in my Home Office area and filed and sorted and prioritized and even conquered some of the "to do list".  

4.  Menu Plans--Why am I struggling so hard with these?  I updated the Recipe Binder, organized a whole bunch of meals behind the plans, and I still just can't sit down and MAKE UP THE MENU.  I even printed off some other people's weekly suggestions for lunches, etc.  Stuff that we'll eat and are acceptable budget-wise.  So why can't I just go for it and make the menus??  *stops to consider*  

I think part of this problem is that I am not very adventuresome in the kitchen.  I worry too much that something will flop or the Manlings won't eat it or DH won't like it.  I know I shouldn't let that limit me, but it's frustrating when you want to try new things and are worried all the men in your house won't eat it.  (Not that I can honestly say this has ever happened...completely.  There are one or two protestors regularly whenever I make something; but it scares me!)  

Well...I guess I'm going to have to deal with it.  'Cause the menu I did manage to cobble together for this week is a LOT of new stuff.  More Bean recipes and a couple of Red Meat recipes (which is something we don't do often with DH's gout). 

5.  Family Genealogy--I stumbled across a scholarship that Manling #1 is eligible for since becoming an Eagle Scout.  One of the requirements is to fill out a 4 Generation Ancestor Chart.  Lo and behold, you can now find the Family History binders on my newly-cleaned shelves...and I went through and filled most of it out for him last evening.  And then I started poking around on ancestry.com AGAIN.  And I decided to put up My Basic Family Tree and another for the Hubby.  Around 11 o'clock last night, I finally decided to stop for the night....  Heh.  I showed the Manlings this morning (and they all pretended to be suitably impressed, good children that they are), and they asked if I'm going to continue.  I think, yes.  I've got A LOT of information I've gathered over the years.  It deserves some organization and updating.  Once I get that all sorted and uploaded, then I'll get my membership renewed and start some more research.  *sigh of contentment*  I like not working....

On the To Do List for this week?

1. Start my Cleaning Rampage.

2. Can some chicken stock.

3.  Finish cleaning the bedroom.

4.  Plan our family vacation for Memorial Day.

5.  Start working on the boys' official high school transcripts.

Oh ambition...where art thou??