Another side of randomness

 Last week was just nuts. In addition to the gas line at the high school being struck which caused school to be cancelled for Thing Three, I also had a two hour fog delay. We repeated the process on Tuesday, and though the gas line had been repaired, school was still cancelled for him as well as for me this time because the fog was still hanging around come bus time after the two hour delay. I think Wednesday everyone was on time, but I was subbing in first grade instead of hanging with my preK friends. Thursday I was back with my 3 year olds and then Friday was a work day and aides weren't required to report, and Thing Three also didn't have school because his teachers had a work day as well. 

My Mommeee arrived Monday afternoon and left Saturday morning, so we had a great, long visit this time. Thanks for making the trip! I miss you! Dada had been in Mexico for work since Sunday, and he made it back safely to us on Saturday after my Mom arrived home.  

This week will hopefully be a little less bananas, though I'm back in first grade on Wednesday again, and Thing Three has no school for conferences on Friday. Our school has them next week. I can't believe it's the end of the first quarter already...

My hindsight-is-always-20/20 observation is to not schedule surgery wherein your recovery requires no lifting within the same year as having lymph nodes removed in your arm. Hopefully none of you will ever go through the experience, but if you do, be forewarned that the second surgery and no lifting will set back your PT and stretching exercises rather alarmingly. I've been experiencing a ton of tightness throughout the right side of my chest, right armpit, shoulder, and neck. Over two weeks ago it was so bad that I whimpered when bending over to tie my shoes; the combination of extending my arm while having it tightly in front of me pulled all kinds of muscles in what felt like all the wrong places. At times, while stretching, I sounded snappy like a KitKat bar. As anyone with cording can tell you, the snap kind of takes your breath away a second and you're wincing the whole time you're working, either because it actually does hurt sometimes but also in anticipation of it zinging another stab of pain. For instance, I do 10 reps of various exercises, and sometimes the snap won't come until the 9th rep! Then you hesitate in dread a moment before starting the 10th, and breathe deeply when that set is done. I'm not particularly a fan of sounding crispy. Dada, however, is enjoying working on me with the massage gun we got; meanwhile, my vision when he's doing it makes me feel like the Blair Witch Project choppiness and it reminds me of how we'd vocalize as kids riding our bikes on our brick street, "heeeeyyyaaaaheeeeeyaheeeeya"... oh well. This, too, shall pass. I certainly won't win any Heisman trophies anytime soon!

School has been entertaining. For the most part, the kids are a hoot and I love the staff. I am tired of the squabbling over who is the line leader, but generally I am having a ball. I'm thrilled to be able to help. I missed so much time last year. 

Our weather has finally cooled off, I'm super behind on #Inktober, I have plenty of small projects to keep me busy when I'm home, and I'm glad for the time we had with my Mommeeeee. Too bad she didn't take Bos with her when she left. (I can hear you laughing, Mom. Pipe down.)

Did I blog that we had to put Honey down? I don't think I did. Our Honey girl was elderly and way past decrepit, so we made that worst best decision and our wonderful vet helped us send her off pain-free. Bos never even noticed. He still scurried to her dish for days afterwards to see if she'd left him any morsels and then he'd look at us like, "how rude." I think the only reason he'd miss any of us is because he doesn't have opposable thumbs.

One more football game and then the marching band season winds down. They've already had their concert and we learned the hard way to sit in the center of the auditorium versus towards the back. Having a line of trumpets three rows behind you is not recommended. Had it been drums, I'd have been great! I love to feel the beat in my sternum!

Have a wonderful week, everybody, and stay healthy!

Hot and crispy... yet foggy

The above photos were on my walk yesterday. While fall isn't my favorite season, I'm learning to appreciate the russets and golds. 

Below, some of our mornings. I dunno how we get any fog when things have been as dry as they've been. Doesn't seem like there's enough moisture to MAKE fog, but I guess that's why I'm not in charge of such things.

 

Made you look

 Gonna be great for the resale value of our home. One of our children, who shall remain nameless, decided it'd be a good idea to write the word Gullible on the ceiling. Truly. 

I can't even. 

***

Me, hoping to clear stuff in a staging area out into the attic where it belongs: If I turn the space heater on now in the attic, how long do you think it'll take to get comfortable?

Dada: About four months.

***

It's one of those craptastic weather days here. Even our neighboring district that we laugh about never cancelling is CLOSED. The boys are spread eagled, "WHAT!? Whaaaaaaat?! They CLOSED!? No WAY!" We used to live in that district and would sigh as we got ready and wonder why in the world the district we are in now always seemed to delay or close. "Those kids are NEVER in school. Those poor (or "lucky" depending on who was lamenting) kids! They never go! We are always in school!" Once we moved here, to a much more rural district, we understood. With all the farm fields, you have a totally different relationship with weather in all its forms. All that laying water lends us tons of humidity, so we have fog. Lots of fog. Sometimes freezy fog, which is oddly beautiful. The district north of us is much more condensed into city/buildings/etc and there is a line where we pretend Gandalf stands, staff out, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" It's crazy to drive up there and the fog just... stops. In a line. Like it knows there's a boundary it can't cross. And that's why we don't have school on time and they do. 

But we are all in pajamas today, haha, wheee! The children have already been warned that there will be housework today. Heh heh heh heh...

***

Be careful out there. Or, as the Muppets say, "watch out for the ICY PATCH!"

Morning mist and morning glories

Thing Two still calls mist on the soybeans "beancreep" and loves the spookiness of the fog sneaking through the beans. It has been cold enough to see our breath at the bus stop in the morning, so the added layer of moisture makes for fun photos.

Bus time in our latitude is also roughly sunrise, so yes, I have a new phone that is filling up with sunrise photos!

And, of course, the splendor of morning glories.

 

Nature wins again!

 Hi! i felt like something different today, so i'm using the permanent marker font. maybe it balances out the not-so-wispy mist that has befallen us, causing the second fog delay-turned-cancellation day of the year.

i love the drips on the ends of the fronds. remember, you can enlarge photos by clicking on them.

Spider web in the gooseberries

if you look really closely you might be able to see the spider webs dangling from the branches. 

we lived twenty minutes north of here for about 8 years, and during sketchy weather we'd always hear about this southern district on a delay or cancelling. i used to laugh, "those kids are never in school!" 

now i laugh that the northern kids are always in school. i'm amazed we made it an entire academic quarter without even a delay this year, but we're making up for it now. having driven in it yesterday, i can assure you that there is an almost physical line where the fog stops. it's amazing. once you hit it, you go, "oh, so that's why we're always delaying and they're always on time!" i dunno if it's the actual school district boundary or what, but it's as if a wizard has planted his staff to declare to the fog, "you shall not pass!" 

i love it, though. even though this fog had a decidedly icy-seeping-into-your-bones feel, it is beautiful to me. i think it was a good call on behalf of the kiddos and poor bus drivers. i have already heard sirens this morning and i'm glad we get to stay in out of the damp. be safe out there and have a positive energy thursday!

When life gives you fog

Today started off with a two hour fog delay which turned into a "the fog is still too bad so now it's a stay at home" day. I took advantage of the morning mist since I had to take the trash out anyway and got some dewy spring pictures.

I just love morning light. And strings of drops on spiderwebs. And dew on flowers. The birds were out, but the closest lovely blue jay was being camera shy and the cardinals were too far out of range to capture. We have two white squirrels, believe it or not, as well as many brown and gray ones. I didn't see any bunnies this morning, but they probably saw me and went the other way. Honey stared at me like I'd lost my mind as I tramped around in the damp with my phone. I'm looking forward to the Virginia spring beauty, the violets, the buttercups, and the irises. I did take a picture of what I discovered was hairy bittercress but I wasn't sure anyone but me really wanted to see it, haha. We also have common yarrow growing out back, which reminds me of tiny ferns. I've got to get our seeds started! Eek!

 

Freezing Fog Advisory

Our area had a Freezing Fog Advisory today. Yes, that's a thing around here. We used to be known as the Great Black Swamp. Swamps are, shall we say, damp. Add in cold air and you get freezy trees, wheeee!

Some schools around us cancelled. Some were on a two hour fog delay. Not us. They actually posted, "Virtual Learning Thursday; No Transportation" for our district.

Well, duh. We've been remote learning this entire school year so far, and just like the rest of the country, we'd finished out the spring semester in the same way. Which means these children, These People, have been home for nine months. I could have had an entire pregnancy in the amount of time everyone's been home together. Yeeeeeesh.

We are hanging in there. Not much decking of the halls yet, as we are slogging, chugging, soldiering on through school, but we do actually have two Christmas trees up for the first time ever. And my Leon elves. There's been little time to bake or shop as I'm supervising a certain fifth grade student who makes it his personal mission in life to sneak into other screens the second he thinks his particular assignment is done. It's a lot of lassoing and reeling back in. He has made a lot of progress and gotten grades back up where they should be after quite a slump, so yay for progress!

Must get back to it, so stay warm, stay home, stay safe! 

 

Boys, bugs, mums, and other assorted musings

No matter how big he gets, this kid is irresistible when he's sleeping. The camera loves him and somehow he is even more kissable when he's snuggled into a big chair. 

I often wonder how he's going to fit at, say, 17...

We had some insect adventures at the bus stop this morning. There was a two hour delay due to fog. Some of you are rolling your eyes, but I swear we've already covered this ground; we live out in the boonies and bus drivers probably can't see the kids, not to mention any deer, in fog you could saw through with a butter knife. It lays especially thick on the fields, some of which are being harvested. At any rate, it's rather pleasant to eeeeeease into a Monday...

So the sun was fully up and shining away by the time the Damonater struts down the driveway at 10 AM. Birds are twittering away, the squirrels are in full... uh, squirrel, and the bugs are zooming every which way. We had an overly friendly bee checking us out thoroughly. I've always tried to teach the kids to not swat at them, but to stay calm and remind the bee that they're not a flower. It must be confusing to find bright, colorful things that smell like... kids. Oh, never mind. You're not a flower. Got it. Moving on.

This bee was not easily convinced. We had been swatting a pesky mosquito which we both missed when I heard a buzzy drone in my left ear. Damon exclaimed, "bee!" so I ducked a bit and she headed around to my right ear. I felt like I was living that scene from "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" where they talk about, "I'm on the east side, I'm on the west side" that you can see here in case you need a fun distraction. I had nothing to do with either the original movie nor the video clip. Anyway, this bee was not to be deterred from her examination of us. Once she'd repeatedly zoomed around both my east and west sides, she headed for Damon.

He hunched his head down into his shoulders, clasped his hands tight and screwed his eyes shut. Right now I'm curious- is that the universal sign for "potentially stinging winged insect of undetermined malicious intent"? I think it must be. She gave him a complete thrice-over before landing on his forehead right where his bangs meet skin. She only stayed a few milliseconds but it was long enough for me to spin it saying, "awwww, she gave you a bee-kiss!" Off she zoomed, probably to go play amongst our crazy, leggy mums. 

The bee crisis averted, we then did succeed in pulverizing the mosquito that finally landed on Damon's shin. As the bus approached, an Asian beetle/ladybug imposter crashed our party and landed on Damon's backpack. I told him he had a hitchhiker who looked pretty confused about being on a backpack, and off she went with him onto the bus.

I can only imagine the adventures she will have today.

I keep forgetting to get the fall bin out of the attic so the kids can finish decorating, but we did get a good start:

For those of you who live where the weather is a bit more predictable in October than Ohio's weather is, I thought I'd enlighten you on why it is important to wear layers:

I snapped a picture of that after doing a double take when I looked at the weekend weather last week. Yes, those are snowflakes, sun, and rain all on Saturday, with a high of 83. Once again, Mother Nature said, "hold my beer." And while we didn't see the snowflakes, thank goodness, it did reach the lower 80's. In October.

I blame karate. Yesterday was the start of the fall dress code, which means full gis must be worn instead of just the pants, belts, and whatever karate-related T shirts you own. Naturally the first half of this week is going to be in the 80's. In October. 

Following the layering rule, this is what I strolled to the bus stop in today:

Yes, that would be a sundress under a corduroy jacket. Good thing we didn't pack them all up already, right, Mommee? I wanted something long and loose over my ACE bandages which are compressing my top half enough that I still look pregnant on my bottom half. The nail polish is Avon's Mudslide, just perfect for fall, and the boots were on clearance at Charlotte Russe several years ago. They make me feel really tall. I'm back in my bunny slippers now, but it was nice to clump down the driveway in the boots. Just gotta remember to watch out for those slippery acorns.

Enjoy... what is this, officially? Indian summer? Anyone?