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! 

 

BrrrrrrChillyCold, part 2385233

I was tickling Carrie with my freezing cold hands and she remarks, "you're cold." 

I said, "IIIIIII know. It's less than 70 in the house and it's less than 70 outside. And I'm coldblooded." I flicked my tongue out like a snake and stared at her. 

She says to me, "really?"

I cracked up. Couldn't help it.

She replies, "not cool."

TGIANFA (Thank God it's almost not February anymore!)

 

What have we been up to? A little of this. Looks like even Lego people have cabin fever... not sure what's happening here. If you want to ask Carrie, I'm sure you'll get a dissertation.

 

A little of that. Grandmama came to visit for a few days. She ended up coming a day early because the weather was supposed to be rotten on her travel day, and it sure was, so we got a freebie out of her! It feels like a long time ago already, but she was here for Valentine's weekend. It was cold and miserable, just like almost every other day in February, so don't get me started. She was our sunshine.

 

Yes, Damon spends a lot of time in his pajamas. I've been able to tell just by the laundry if we've had a lot of school during a certain week or not because the boys will just stay in pjs all day if they don't... my loads have been fewer jeans and lots and lots of Spiderman, dinosaurs, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, aliens, and other assorted sleepwear.

 

There's been LOTS of Minecrafting going on, which keeps them quiet-ish and busy, or loud-ish and squabbling, depending on who is sneaking into whom's world or whatever. That's another discourse right there. Ask them. I don't want to know.

 

There's been lots of this going on inside because this is what it looks like outside:

 

Yes, that blob on the porch is Triskal looking pitiful, forgetting she has a double and waterproof coat and wanting to be let back inside. She DID lay down in the snow and enjoyed it last Saturday and Sunday when Dada and I were out pruning our apple trees, which some sadist somewhere said needs to be done in the winter. Whatever. It was above freezing and the sun felt warm, so it was okay. I think we're supposed to see above freezing temps tomorrow, also, along with the one to three to six to ten inches various places are predicting. Yes, again.

 

We have been hearing tons more birds, which is wonderful. For whatever reason, crows have been lustily calling to each other and I spotted this big guy/gal supervising the field behind our house. Not sure what it is since he/she was feeling uncooperative and wouldn't turn around, but I'm guessing hawk?

 

I can't begin to tell you how ecstatic I am that today is the last day of February. I'm hoping for a merciful March. I'm tired of wearing two pairs of socks, two pairs of pants, and more than one shirt every day. And that's when I'm INSIDE.

 

Carrie's had three days of the PARCC testing in the last week. I think they're done with the English/Language Arts segments at this point. Still to come are Math and Social Studies. She hasn't been fussed about them, and secretly I think she's glad to have them as it means they're less likely to cancel or delay school since the tests are such a big deal. This kid LOVES school. She has been known to cry on snow days. Truly a Hermione.

 

Time to start dinner, so ta ta for now!

Unhappy Camper

I didn't fall off Earth, I promise.

There's been a lot of chatter in the Google Help forums about how Picasa (the program I use to organize photos) and Blogger (the host of my blog) are not working together. I have plenty of snowy pictures that I can't show all y'all because the link from Picasa to Blogger isn't working. I get an Error 503 message which essentially translates into, "you're out of luck."

So we'll have to do word pictures instead, never mind that it's been most of the month of January that this technological problem has been going on. Get it together, Google!

Okay, setting my soapbox aside. Now I am going to get it right back out again and do some more blasting.

Mother Nature, enough is enough. While some of us mind snow more than others, not a single person I have talked to or read about or otherwise encountered has had one positive thing to say about these ridiculously cold temperatures. The school children have had longer weekends than school weeks. It is only January, and we're already used up our allotted 5 snow days. At this stage, we have permafrost and tundra going on. Snow dunes. And the wind is enough to probably power the entire Midwest. If I wanted to live in below zero temperatures, I'd move my behind to the north side of Canada. However, I do NOT want to see one more snowflake or experience one more second of temperatures below the freezing point. That Groundhog in Punxy is going to be KEBABS if he says spring is right around the corner and then we get Arctic Blasted again. I think 99.99% of the population is revolted. And we still have February and March to go. Hooray.

For those of you who are blessed to live in warmer climates, let me fill you in on what you're missing. Outside my window right now are sidewalks blown clear of snow in places and heaped in others. The bushes and naked trees appear to be shivering because of the wind that is snaking through them. There are bunny hops and bird prints in the crusty top of the snow. There are icebergs along the driveways and curbs where the plows and shovels have shoved acres of white shroud. It's dazzlingly bright against the clear blue sky. Yesterday and today we've actually had sunshine. The thermometer in my car read -2 when I pulled back into the garage after lunch.

Triskal, with her double-layered coat, dashes outside, sniffs the air, does only what is absolutely necessary, and is back on the step wanting inside before I can even doctor up my cup of coffee. I haven't seen a dog being walked for days.

The kids haven't had school since last Thursday, and I'm not sure if they'll have it tomorrow. There's a planned 2 hour delay already, so at least I know we can all sleep in.

Some of the trees still have their brown, crispy leaves, because it got so cold so fast they didn't have the leisure time to drop them. Talk about shivering out there. They look so brittle that I'm surprised they don't shatter. We've even done the toss-boiling-water-outside-and-watch-it-make-snow experiment. It works.

You know it's bad when your nurse, doctor, receptionist, and other office personnel ALL tell you to be safe driving as you leave their office. You'd have thought I was in a snowmobile. I can only imagine what my best friend's mother and grandmother think as they prepare to leave the house for any reason. It's probably not fit for print, though they are much to well-bred for any of it to leave their mouths. I know that I certainly was glad I didn't have my kids in my car as I cursed out the idiot who passed me as I was passing a car that had its flashers on. Clearly they hadn't watched the same video clip of the massive pile up in Wisconsin on Sunday.

The forlorn Christmas trees are piled at the curb, losing needles on top of the icy crust of sludge. Our cut branches and storm-downed tree litter have been sitting at the curb since October, so only the tops are poking out of a pile that is mid-thigh high. They're probably solidly frozen together.

My pink plastic flamingo had been buried up to its neck earlier, but now it's shuddering and swaying back and forth like it's freezing to death. My garden gnome has given up and is staying down for the count. Maybe he's frozen to the ground as well. I haven't wanted to stay outside long enough to check. I clump out to fill up the bird feeders so that I don't get admonishing looks from the mourning doves and the sparrows and then I clump back in as fast as possible.

Since Rick Warren has declared, "it's not all about you," I guess I can't claim full responsibility for the sheer ridiculousness of the weather. I think I might have had something to do with it, though. I confess. While decorating for Christmas, I used every snowman decoration we own. I hung up the snowman windsock. I displayed the snowmen candles. I propped up the snowman sled from Grandmama.

I never put snowmen out, as a rule. This time I did, and look what happened.

So unbelievably sorry. My bad.