A mom's morning musings

It really is 5:54 in the morning. I'm not crazy, nor have I taken to getting up this early to exercise or be mindful or any other of legitimate beginnings.

I'm up and blogging because desperate times call for desperate measures. In other words, school has been cancelled again.

We started the week yesterday with a two hour delay which morphed into a cancellation. Otherwise known as Calamity Day 6, yesterday pushed us firmly into the days of, as one of Carrie's high school friends quipped, "bags of blizzards". 

For those of you who are out of practice because your kids are grown and gone or for those of you who live in reasonable climes, we get five free Calamity Days before we have to start making up the work we're missing. Consider them days of grace: "We know we're in Ohio, we know there's gonna be snow/freezing rain/yuck from above, here's 5 days of grace to deal with whatever cometh from the skies and lands, whereupon making things slippery on country roads and therefore unsafe, thus, by the power invested in me, I sayeth unto you, 'eh heh, good luck, everyone needs a reminder why you didn't want to just home school in the first place. Appreciate your teachers when the kids return to school.' "

We're out of days of grace. We used three in a row, was it just last week? I can't even remember now. I know they started the week and got Monday and Tuesday in although there may have been a delay on one of those days. Then our poor superintendent called to say, "we will be closed Wednesday, Thursday, and we'll have a two hour delay on Friday." If you're a kid, you've just won the lottery. Well, conditions hadn't improved enough on Friday to send anybody anywhere and the wind chill was pretty ridiculous, so they closed that day as well. Some of you have horrified looks on your faces because it already dawned on you that, "she said Friday- that means then a weekend- those kids were home for five days when it was too awful to go anywhere or to boot them outside or ...yeeeeeesh!"

Which brings us to Blizzard Bags.

Suddenly the kids don't feel like they've won the lottery anymore. Now they have to log in and check each of their classes to see what assignments are posted. As computers don't always want to talk to printers or vice versa, there are often tantrums about getting the required end results to the correct teacher: what can be submitted online? What needs printed out? 

Tangent: there is at least one Great Horned Owl hooting outside this morning. I suppose he's getting ready for bed. I have no idea where he/she/it goes to stay dry where it's freezing raining, but it's nice to know life is going on as scheduled for others.

Anyway, the thing about Blizzard Bags is that they are assigned but not due for two full weeks. I'm envisioning the conflicting emotions across your faces. Some of you lit up with delight, thinking, "yay! Two weeks to get a day's worth of work done? That's great!" Others of you are inwardly groaning because you're realizing, "oh no- what they could have done in class and had over with in one day could potentially hang over their head for two whole weeks if they procrastinate and they'll never remember what they were even doing!" Ding ding ding, we have a winner!

Once we hit Blizzard Bags, it is a never ending flurry (ha ha) of papers playing hide and seek and "whose packet is this?" and "where is your packet?" and "egads, where IS my packet?!" in varying degrees of panic, tantrums, and meltdowns. 

So that answers part of the question as to why in the world I'm blogging before six in the morning. It's two-fold. One, I was in the middle of a dream when the phone rang to reveal a superintendent who sounded unusually chipper about having to cancel school. Historically he's sounded more resigned and apologetic. Perhaps today by cutting straight to the chase and eliminating the delay aspect he decided he could go back to bed, who knows? If so, he's earned it. He and our director of transportation start driving around the county at about 4:30 in the morning to see what kind of shape the roads are actually in. God bless them both. They deserve to go back to bed! 

My body, who knew what to do, hopped back into bed as soon as it got off the phone, but my brain realized, "wait, I was dreaming! What was I dreaming about? Was it this? Was it this? Was it this?" and began hopping down the bunny trail of everything it hadn't put away last night. Some part of my brain yammered, "no, no, hush, sleep, let it go!" Sadly, it was overruled by the white rabbit who then realized the second reason I had to get up and blog right now:

I won't be able to get a word in edgewise on the computer once the kids start today's Blizzard Bags! 

The big kids did most of theirs online yesterday and Dada kindly printed Damon's out while he was still at work. Since there was no school and therefore no buses to wait for, I took all the kids up to karate at once, dumped Carrie off so she could start working, and took the boys to the library with me where Liam could read and Damon could tackle his Blizzard Bag before the boys' class began. He made it through two subjects in half an hour, not bad considering one of them required writing which he despises. So we have half of his to do from yesterday and now we will have another whole packet to do today. This is on top of a research project he is doing about which I play a card from "The Gods Must be Crazy" and mutter, "I don't want to talk about it."

It's almost 6:30 and it's still really dark. We are supposed to have ridiculous wind of 30-50 mph as well as anything that comes from the sky, so it should be a great day for naps, snuggling down into the covers and listening to the wind whooshing around. The wind really does whoosh in Ohio, and thankfully we are not face to face with prairie; our home was built by thoughtful planners who preserved lots of the trees on the property and there are additional stands of woods on the properties around us. They help break some of the wind. Right now it's coming from the East (Mordor, ha ha) and it's at only about 15 mph. Now instead of the owl I hear sirens. I hope nobody ends up being blown like a tiddlywink off the icy roads and into the icy ditches. Not good. 

But before naps, Blizzard Bags. Besides, Carrie won't get up until at least ten, so that gives Liam first shot at getting his work done...

In other news, today will be Day 54 of Tamoxifen and so far, so good. This is the med I'll be on for about 10 years. The echo test I had for my heart last week because I have been taking Herceptin for nine months now yielded good results; everything looks fine with my heart, so thank you to those of you who had prayed over that aspect of treatment. Overall, I am doing really, really well, and I know much of it is because I have a big God and a fabulous Tribe. Thank you for being part of it. 

If you'd like something to pray about, you could pray against cabin fever. Tempers tend to get short when you're denied access to friends and regular routines and are stuck with people that you love but don't necessarily want to be with every minute of every day. Pray for our #FirstWorldProblems like our wifi behaving so the kids can get their responsibilities done in a timely (as in the day they are assigned and not the two weeks later version) manner. Pray that we don't lose power. Pray that we are kind to each other and have some fun together and remember that it's not all just work. Pray they don't fight over the computer. 

Pray for them to go back to school tomorrow!

There. A whole blog post in just under an hour and without coffee, even. Wonders never cease. Have an amazing day!