Continuing the theme of the week from hell, I fell down the stairs tonight. Sorta. I fell and it was on the stairs. I thought I was on the last step and continued on as if I were going to walk only I wasn't on the last step - still had one to go. My foot came down hard, twisted and made an awful crunching noise. I really had no choice but to finish falling down as gracefully as possible. It wasn't that graceful though. Everything I had in my hands came crashing down around me and the first words out of my mouth were "Oh shit I hope that was just my ankle popping and not breaking!" I don't think it's broken... guess I'll have a pretty dang good idea in the morning. A broken ankle in snow ass deep would not be a good time!
We finished ordering Christmas gifts this evening and wrapped the rest of the ones we have in the house. I feel like I haven't done enough for my family and friends. My credit card bill tells another story but I like to spend a lot of time picking out that perfect gift for each person. This year I didn't have that time so it feels like I've shortchanged everyone. I never did find the perfect gift for Todd. He has been the best thing in my life (next to Christopher) and I wanted to find some material possession that could convey that message to him. I did get him the rifle bag/shooting mat he wanted. Gave that to him tonight and he seemed pretty pleased with it. I really wanted to buy him the gun he wants but he wouldn't hear of me spending that much money. Maybe next year....
I woke up this morning expecting another blizzard. Nothing but wind so far. We were sitting at the dining room table and heard this noise from the kitchen. Sounded like someone throwing rocks at the windows. It was the wind blowing the remaining leaves off the maple tree and slamming them into the side of the house. None of the maples lost their leaves this fall for some reason.
I made blueberry muffins, sausage and eggs for breakfast. The hamster was up and around, smelling the food I suppose. I decided if Todd can give him cookies and pickles, I could surely give him just a tiny bit of muffin. He absolutely loved it and judging from the way he's hanging upside down from the top of his cage, I'd say he wants more. When I got him I bought a plastic habitrail cage to keep him in and he chewed that to pieces in no time. Pets.com had an awesome wire three-story cage at a nice price when they were liquidating so we got one of those. The new cage is a little over 2' tall and has two platforms with ladders to get to the top. When he gets wound up, he climbs to the top and then through a series of impressive acrobatic maneuvers, he hangs upside down from the roof. This almost always results in a plummet to the bottom, sometimes with a bounce off the platforms or his house. Doesn't seem to phase him at all. I'm tellin' ya, this hamster is the anti-Christ.
Speaking of losing your grip... I think Todd has had too much Cartoon Network advertising for one day. Earlier he was contemplating the future of children exposed to Anne Murray commercials, now he is shouting about wanting to take it to the max with Blo Pens.
Let's see... where do I begin? There was school today. That's the good news. The bad news is that I went to the office this afternoon, did some research, fixed some SSL issues, whipped up a notice of maintenance for the site we have to take offline tomorrow, then promptly toasted my motherboard. I've watched in horror as hard drives have failed, shrieked in utter panic when my zip drive got the "click o' death" and trashed 100mb of data, and have had to reformat and rebuild systems after something went haywire in the operating system. Let me tell ya, when any of those things happen, you can pretty much remedy it in the same day or at least week. When the motherboard goes, all you can do is call tech support. That is a helpless feeling and I don't do helpless. I have to wait (im)patiently for a tech person to get the part and then wait some more for them to get time to repair it.
In other news, we are forecasted to have another blizzard type storm on Saturday. I love snow. Snow is on my top ten list of favorite things but overindulgence in anything is bad. We have enough snow now to last til February. I took Christopher uptown tonight to show him what the real snow mountain looks like. The city guys plow the snow off the main streets into big piles on the four corners of the town square. Normally, this takes up four parking spaces on each corner and it about six feet high. This time it's taken up eight spaces on each corner and the piles are about 25 feet high. He thought that was pretty dang cool. Todd just said he heard the city street department was going to take those piles away tonight. Oh goody! We live right across from the maintenance garage so that means no sleep... not with the sounds of dump trucks, backhoes and road graders. When they back up, those annoying warning beepers sound. Monday night that's all we heard from 11:00pm until 5:00am then they all went home to sleep. I told Todd I was going to call them at home every half hour, yell "BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!" into the phone, then hang up. That would be too damn funny if not for caller ID.
Todd and I were talking the other day about the Ben Franklin store that used to be here when we were kids. Several older ladies worked there and one would always snag a person right inside the door and say "Can I help you find something?" That's a nice small town touch BUT if you said "No, just looking." they would proceed to follow one step behind you all the way through the store. Didn't matter if you stayed five minutes or two hours; they were right on your heel. It was pretty aggravating being followed around like that but not near as aggravating as this. That guy'd be singin' soprano by the time I got finished with him!
Today has earned it's place in the Worst Day Ever Hall of Fame. Third consecutive day of no school. Third consecutive day of being stuck at home with the small blonde boy. (I've said his name so much today that I've worn it out.) The small blonde boy and his friends in the neighborhood decided our yard was the place to be today. We have a cool snow mountain at the bottom of our driveway. Sounds like a setting for a Norman Rockwell painting.. the neighborhood kids playing in the snow. It was fun to watch until they all wanted to come in. Three boys melting on the kitchen floor isn't a pretty site. In the door. Out the door. All day long. Oh, and there was blood coming from the small blonde boy's face at one point. Each boy had a different rendition of what happened. My guess is that it was a snowball fight gone horribly wrong. Got that all taken care of then they decided to play army in my living room. One thing after another when I am supposed to be working from home. I couldn't get a dialup connection to last more than five minutes and when I did, all hell would break loose. Finally the sun goes down, the neighbor kids return to their mothers and I can relax, right? WRONG! The blonde one went upstairs and returned shreiking, "Mom!! You are going to be sooo mad at me!!!" He let a gerbil out. He let a little tiny defenseless gerbil out in that minefield he calls a room. Two hours later, the gerbil is safely back with his mate and his life is good again. My life will be good again at 8pm when my favorite deputy is finally off the icy roads and back with his mate.
Christopher and I were outside clearing snow with our puny little $15 shovels while the rest of the neighborhood was groaning with the sound of Bobcats. Christopher wanted to get one of the guys with a Bobcat to finish his scooping. I'm sure they would've loved the chance as they all appeared to be having a really good time on their high dollar toys. If he wants to buy a Bobcat when he grows up, that's fine with me but as long as he is under my guidance, he will shovel the back-breaking, old fashioned way. One of the Bobcats did clear our driveway and I am very thankful for that. Our drive is quite steep and long. The few times I have cleared it by hand has taken me about five hours so no way would I have had it done by the time Todd got off work. He had to park the patrol car in the street last night. I'm surprised a snow plow didn't get it since it's white and blends in quite well.
More snow is forecasted for tomorrow. I hope it's the big, fluffy kind.
Damn. They've already cancelled school tomorrow. Christopher is bouncing around like he just got Christmas early or something. My car is stuck at the bottom of our very steep driveway. God as my witness, I shall not spend a second day cooped up with a 2nd grader even if it means I have to tunnel out.
What is it inside a little kid's head that renders them incapable of understanding just how cold it is outside? He is already making plans for sledding tomorrow. I think not!! Not when it's 40 below. There were some kids playing on our hill this afternoon in the middle of the blizzard. Unbelievable what some parents will allow. Not this parent! I am hard-ass extraordinaire. I waited until I was 26 years old to even have a child - explicitly waited just to be sure I had enough life experience under my belt to make me mean. I snuff the fun right out of everything let me tell ya'. No BB guns, no bow and arrows, no go-karts and NO GOING OUTSIDE WHEN IT'S FREAKIN' 40 BELOW!
It snowed!!!! and snowed. and snowed. and snowed. Now it's blowing the snow. It is absolutely beautiful to watch from the warmth of my living room but I wouldn't want to be out in it. Todd called a little while ago and said there were some "pretty impressive drifts" on the roadways. If he's calling them impressive then they must be huge! It is not possible to tell exactly how much precipitation we received because there are patches of bare grass surrounded by drifts a couple of feet deep. The wind chill is 40 below so hopefully he won't have to get out of the car much tonight.
My friend Lori left me an obscene message on my answering machine early this morning. She blames me every time it storms like this. Yes, I pray for snow but I am not responsible for blizzards. I also refuse to accept responsibility for her stupid butt coming into town when it's like this. She lives about 8 miles in the country and could easily get away with staying home. BTW, she has no internet access so I can refer to her butt as stupid.. hehe.. although I'd still do it even if she could read this. Matter of fact, I may just call her right now and tell her I've put in a request for even more snow. See how she likes that!
I am going to drive myself absolutely insane over the forecasted weather. First they said less than an inch of snow. Then 1 to 3. Then 4 to 5. Then 5 to 8. Now we are backsliding again. The weather release from the national weather service now says "updated for snow moving in faster". Most times that means it'll rush right over the top of us, leaving behind a "dusting" while Chicago will get buried. Why don't they just admit that they have no idea and we can measure for ourselves tomorrow?
Last Monday was Christopher's music program at the school. The school secretary said more than half of the kids were out for the day with the stomach flu and she was surprised to see that many drag themselves to the program. I figured Christopher would surely be sick the next day but he wasn't. Turns out he's just last in line to catch it. The wind chill is 20 below and Todd and I are outside looking for the blue bucket. Does everyone's kid have a favorite puke bucket or just mine?? Anyway, we couldn't find the bucket so we're running around looking for a suitable substitute when it suddenly dawns on me... the blue bucket is in my car!! I had taken it to clean out my friends deepfreeze. Todd goes back out into the cold to fetch the bucket from the car. He just got warmed back up when Christopher hollered for some 7-UP. Back out into the cold he goes... doesn't even complain. I tell ya', I'm soooooo lucky to have him.
