A Funny Story to Share

A post on a forum I'm a part of reminded me of a story that at the time was like a horribly gone wrong sit-com. Now it's family lore and laughed at from time to time.

A few months before Hubby and I married we made a quick trip to northern Minnesota from Arkansas as Hubby was a groomsman in his cousin's wedding. We were living together and had a black lab mix dog that was roughly 9 months old (the original Winnie). Being quite broke we didn't have the cash to put the dog in a kennel and didn't really have someone to leave her with for the long weekend, so we loaded her up in the car. Now Winnie was a good dog but had one nasty habit of getting car sick. We knew this and had called the vet and gotten some tranquilizers to settle her down and hopefully prevent having a hyper lab-like pup bouncing around in the backseat of a Chrysler LeBaron for 19 hours. The trip up was pretty un-eventful. The dog behaved well and hid her milk-bones at every pottie break. She wasn't too interested in food but we took that as a good sign she wouldn't puke in the car. We get up north for the wedding festivities and Winnie hung out in Grandma's garage with occasional forays of freedom into the yard to do her business and get a little attention. The night before we left for home Hubby in all of his wisdom brought home some bones from his father's house putting the chewy pup in ecstasy all night in the garage. The next morning we arose early, drugged the dog, and loaded up. Somewhere around the 12 hour mark we decide to stop and eat at a Country Kitchen. When we stopped the dog was whining and pacing around but the area around the restaurant was just a big muddy pit so we figured we'd eat and then go find her a place to run for bit before hitting the road again. We go in and eat and we come out we see this rather large dog in the back window well where the convertible top of the car would normally fold down into and we knew something was up. It was very clear when we opened the doors. OMG (that really wasn't what we said) there was runny dog poo on every seat, under the seats, on the floorboards. EVERYWHERE. The dog had some serious bowel issues happening. We let her out into the mud, cause, hey mud is nice compared to this and watched the poor animal retch and squirt while we tried to figure out what to do. Mind you we are still a good 9 hours or more from home and both of us had to be at work first thing in the morning.

Luckily there was a Wal-Mart 1/2 mile down the road or so. Hubby walked and purchased rags, paper towels, carpet cleaner, garbage bags and some ugly old rugs that were on clearance we could sit on because our seats would be wet. We proceeded to scrub out the car in the back of the Country Kitchen with the occasional gag on our part. It was awful. I've cleaned up horrible poop messes by the kids and to this day nothing tops the doggie diarrhea in that car. We get the car somewhat to a minimal health hazard and climb in to sit our rears on ugly clearance rack rugs to get home. We managed to get home sometime in the middle of the night and fall into bed.

Needless to say morning came too early and I had to drive the poop-mobile to work the next morning for my 45 min commute. Pleasant. The windows stayed down all day at work as I watched the miasma escape from my office window. When I arrived home Hubby removed the bucket seats and we scrubbed and cleaned some more. Luckily it was spring so the windows were down often during the day and the odor finally dissipated somewhere three to four weeks later though it still had a tinge on the hottest days.

The moral of the story. When you dog is dancing to get out of a car let them out to do their business regardless to the mud situation. Mud is only dirt. Shit is shit.

We are SO gonna win parents of the year award...

We are SO gonna win parents of the year award. Ha Ha, not likely. No we haven't done anything to scar our children for life like kill a rabbit and tell them it was the Easter Bunny or completely just forget about Easter Bunny hoopla. We did sleep through it however. Yeah I know, not one picture of smiling chocolate covered faces or running through the yard hunting eggs. Nothing. Saturday night I was assembling the baskets and determined they were rather anemic so I ran to Walgreens and just barely made it in five minutes before closing. Grabbing a few items of basket junk I streaked home and finished filling the baskets with enough sugar to put the kids into a diabetic coma. We were awakened by excited kids at some ungodly hour annoucing that the Easter Bunny had come, we proclaimed that was great and rolled over. Fifteen minutes later hopped up on sugar Sonny Boy comes in and declares that the Easter Bunny had left eggs on the roofing material in the yard. Hubby groggily tells them they could go get them, I rolled over. We hear the kids scrambling into clothes (hey at least the didn't go out in pajamas) and run to the yard to grab the loot. A little while later they were back in the upstairs hallway opening eggs and counting jelly beans. Somewhere about this time I managed to haul my carcase out of bed and see the damage. Sonny Boy had managed to consume somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 pounds of sugar, Igor about 5 pounds. I declare a moratorium on sugar consumption and stagger to the kitchen to come up with the least sweet thing I could think of for breakfast. Hubby soon staggers down after me and we begin the nightmare of getting ready for church.

After the craziness that ensues when trying to get all four of us out the door decently dressed and on time we pile in the van and make the corner of the lot. Littered in the front yard we see some opened eggs and a note that very clearly said "Igor" on it that had identified which basket belonged to whom. Now I KNOW that the Easter Bunny had only hidden eggs in the side yard which is fenced in so I can imagine the mayhem that was ensuing while we snoozed and the kids egg hunted in the lawn. I'm sure the neighbors were wondering where the hell we were.

Even with our unnoticed absence Easter went well. We managed to get to church and I cooked a ham for supper. We have a lot of ham now. The ham was a part of a 1/2 pig we purchased after Christmas and we figured we should make use of it instead of letting it sit in the freezer until doomsday. So if your in the mood for a ham sandwich come on over, we are stocked well in that department for several weeks.

Sonny Boy is on Spring Break this week, I'm on jury duty. Luckily I didn't have to go in today, I'll know about tomorrow this evening. I wrangled both kids to the optical shop today and got Igor some new glasses on order. His current ones have taken quite a beating lately and they were el cheapo's from Zenni. Igor's Rx is so strong which equals thick, that he has rather sharp edges and he has at least three fresh cuts (they are small) from his glasses. The new ones will be much thinner and I think will stay up on his nose better as they have a different bridge AND cable temples that wrap around his ear as well. Thank Goodness for vision insurance, the glasses without insurance would have been $500 +, with insurance the total came to $209. Still not cheap but a whole lot better. While at the optical shop I made an appointment for myself for next week to be evaluated for Lasik. Honestly I'm scared snotless by the whole idea but I think they'll give me a valium or something for the procedure. I know I have to be at least somewhat awake but I don't really want to be thinking clearly. I'd love to lose my glasses. We'll see how that goes. Our insurance pays a good chunk of the surgery and since we've spent so much money on medical this year might as well push it and see if we'll meet the percentage for an income tax write off.

Hope your easter was good. This is the part I'd post a sweet picture of the boys with their baskets dressed in their precious Easter clothes. But now you know it's not simple laziness of not posting the pictures.

Long Time, No Post

Things are going pretty well here at the Litter's nest. When things run smoothly I don't really have much to post about because frankly craziness is funny and laundry is not. So today I post just because I'm feeling guilty.

Since moving back to the original nest in Wisconsin Hubby and I have decided we must do some much needed work to the old house since property values have crashed so much we will be living here for quite a while now. In the fall we had a flexible roofing material put on the porch roof (it's a flat roof and was leaking) and installed a new high efficiency boiler and hot water heater so we could remove the chimneys when we re-roof. Currently I have a pallet of OSB in the yard and I'm waiting on the contractor to finish a job before he comes and opens up our roof down to the rafters to remove the chimneys, insulate the walls, re-sheath (there is no solid sheathing up there, just 2 layers of asphalt over the original cedar shakes), new shingles, install a bathroom vent and a tubular skylight. When that mess is over we plan on giving the old girl a new coat of paint. We plan on changing the color and exactly what color to paint has been a big topic of conversation. The most helpful thing I've found on line is Sherwin Williams Color Visualizer Tool which is pretty cool. This thing lets you upload a picture and "paint" the house or room different colors to see how they look. I haven't done any of the interior stuff but it works pretty well with the exterior. Of course your not getting the perfect nuances of the color on your computer screen but it gives the general idea. I'll most likely buy a few quarts of paint and patchwork on the house before I go whole hog but at least I'll have the field narrowed down a bit. We also have the power company lined up to top out a couple of trees and get them out of the power lines so Hubby can play with his chainsaw and drop them the rest of the way. Removing one will open up the front of the house a bit and allow us some room to re-do some landscaping. The other two will be to hopefully allow some grass to grow and be down when we ever get the money to build a new garage in a few years. Ah, big plans.

Sonny Boy is now in full force Rookie League baseball. Here that means machine pitch. He's only had a couple of practices so far and both have been so cold I hid in the van. The weather is just miserable for April.

School is out next week for spring break. What a late spring break! I suppose they are tying it into Easter and that falls late this year. We had hoped to travel a little, visit family and such but I got a summons for jury duty for that week. Yuck. I could have had it deferred once but was worried it would crop up when Hubby was scheduled for one of his long haul training trips and I would really be up a creek for child care. Currently the plan is IF I have to go in Hubby will work from home and let the kids watch entirely too much TV. I understand it's a real pain here as there isn't much parking near the courthouse. The court did send a pass for my dashboard so I could park in the meters but I don't really want to advertise I'm going to be away from my vehicle for hours in that neighborhood. I hope I don't have to sit on some long drawn out case.

Today is a holiday from school for Sonny Boy and it was supposed to be for Hubby. I don't think Hubby's customer's quite got that memo though as he's off working with one today. Hubby did have his first emergency "run to hold a customer's hand" the other day after a customer from Brazil had issues in Chicago. I hope that doesn't happen too much.

Well I suppose that's about it. I've let the kids veg in front of the TV too much today. The weather stinks so there is no throwing them outside and I'm not in the mood to listen to their craziness. I've promised them a trip to the movies to go see the 3:00 showing of Rio. Hope it's worth the $6 a head to get in, not to mention the $20 of popcorn.

rattle,rattle,rattle...

That's the sound the last few brain cells I have left are making. Hubby has been a work trip the last two weeks. He arrives home tomorrow night, I might make it. Why rattle rattle? Igor's constant chatter. The. Kid. Talks. Non. Stop. All. Day. Long. Even Sonny Boy who can talk the ears off of an elephant declares it too much. It's bad when the eldest can't wait for the little one's bedtime and your both watching the clock. Happily Hubby learned his lesson teaching kids to tell time with the first one so I sneak Igor into bed 10 or 15 minutes early. I wasn't so lucky with Sonny Boy at that age. You see Hubby taught Sonny Boy to tell time, or at least read the numbers on a digital clock. If you tried to put him to bed at 7:59 that wasn't going to fly and all hell would break loose. The weekend was miserably long. Saturday we spent at the little cake competition. I didn't get squat. The cakes that won were nice so I don't feel like was cheated or anything. I do have to wonder at their pick of judges though - the traffic girl on the local tv news probably doesn't know the difference between buttercream and fondant, so I would have like to seen judges that might have been a little more schooled on the difficulty of technique. I'll post a pic, but not in this post since blogger hates me adding pictures and putting them in the text where they actually make sense. Sunday was even longer. I just wasn't up for the fight of getting the kids dressed presentably and off to church, cripes I had done it alone for 6 days of the week already and needed a break. Igor was in pajamas until 2:00 pm. Pajamas or not didn't stop the craziness and Igor was trying some break-neck stunt urged on by his brother somehow managed to hit the living room floor face first, cutting his eyebrow on his glasses and bending the glasses to a shape no longer recognizable. Thankfully Wally world's optical shop was open and bent the glasses back into a decent shape, they are still wonky but I've got to get off of my rear soon and get some new ones for him as he has a slightly different Rx. After reading the kids the riot act the rest of the day it finally sunk in to them that Momma wasn't playing around any more and we better straighten up. This week hasn't been too bad, though I'm surely tired of bearing the brunt of the family weight and have declared that Saturday will be my day off. Igor went back to the ortho on Tuesday and they declared him offically healed. He still is a little gimpy but it's simply lack of strength, muscle atrophies quickly when not used. Igor will go again next week to be fitted for SMO's I imagine they'll be similar to the link, though I hope more customized than those, I just couldn't find a good picture. The SMO's should help with his balance which always seems iffy and honestly his ankles look like they should be painful when walking, though he never complains. The hope that the SMO's will help strengthen his ankles and help everything to grow into alignment. I suppose I should scratch up some supper. Though I am thinking of a night out - maybe Chinese?

Family Vacation

Well we went on a Family Vacation, a semi-big one that involved planes, buses, and rental cars, thankfully no trains. Hubby had been scheduled for a while to go down to Melbourne FL for some training, I had declined to go due to school and I really didn't think the weather would be that great there. Old man winter though had been mean to me and a couple of weeks ago I decided to go. Due to my ill timing we could not get tickets on Hubby's flights so I ended up with Hubby on the flights right after mine on the way down and just after his on the way up. We took the kids. Not really a good idea, read more about that here. However it was some good memories for the kids. We did spend a day out on the beach and the only pictures taken are on my phone and I'm not technologically gifted enough to get them off. Despite the boys and I being coated liberally in SPF 50 several times during the day, I got NO sun at all, Sonny Boy turned brown as a little indian, and Igor turned pink.

Since Blogger won't let me re-arrange the pictures these are a little out of the order I would prefer. Our last day is first, the next to the last day is second.

Before we headed out we went to Merritt Island National Wildlife refuge. Hubby and the boys on the nature boardwalk.

We saw some manatees, but they don't photograph so well, I like this one that was in the airport as she's fancier.

Lots of birds. This is a blue heron (I think)

We saw quite a few alligators as well. We saw several bigger than this one, but he posed the nicest for the camera.

On Thursday we went to JFK space center....

and the kids met astronaut John Blaha

I have to admit I didn't really know who he was other than an astronut until I just googled him to give you a link. Wow, what an impressive resume. I knew astronauts were accomplished people but that man has some extreme brain power in his head.

the kids also met this astronaut -likely just some random shmuck in a costume but they liked him.

Rode a moon buggy

and waited on big brother while he was sent in the ride with a friendly Canadian family. Kids had to be 44" tall to ride. Igor measured up at 42". I had been told this was the coolest thing at Kennedy and I wanted Sonny Boy to be able to do it. I didn't quite know what to do so we went to a briefing thing that told all about the current space missions, Igor was less than impressed with that, Sonny Boy was bored but behaved. Anyway while ignoring Igor's whining the idea came to me to find a family with a bunch of kids and ask if Sonny Boy could ride with them. Yes, I sent my child into a building with complete strangers the say "eh" at the end of every sentence, but what do you do? They were very nice though and took Sonny Boy right in with them while Igor and I waited at the exit. Sonny boy came out thrilled and agreed it was the best thing at Kennedy. Too bad Mom didn't get to ride.

At Kennedy there is the visitor center where all the above stuff is and then you get on buses to move around in the secured areas. The took us to an observation platform that was as close as the public could get to the launch pads (about a mile) I'm impressed my camera took such a good picture, of course it's as zoomed in as it gets and I had steadied it on a railing. The space shuttle is on the pad, if you look close you can see the white and brown tips of the solid rocket boosters. The "orbiter" or as you and I call it the shuttle is behind a sheild to protect it until 24 hours before lift-off. This will be the next to the last space shuttle mission before the space shuttles are retired and we rely on the Russians to get us to the International Space Station for a while.

I can't tell you what I think of Kennedy. If your into space stuff like Sonny Boy it's likely the coolest place in the world. I thought it was neat and educational, probably would have slowed down a little and looked at few things more closely without the kids but it won't be on my to do list again anytime in the near future.

We landed late on Friday evening. Igor had fell asleep on the plane, and refused to wake up and walk off. Sonny Boy and I were loaded with luggage and I was trying to figure out a way to haul him down the aisle, we had a stroller waiting in the jetway. Since we were the last ones on the plane the flight attendant picked up Igor and got him to the stroller which was great. Off we went, Sonny Boy pushing Igor in the cheap little umbrella I had picked up for travel. Igor was still so out out it he was sitting straight up with his mouth open out cold being pushed through the Milwaukee airport. It was quite a sight.

Sunday afternoon we made a return trip to the airport and dropped off Hubby for a two week stint in Dallas. Yay.

This week I'm busy making a wedding cake. No, haven't been commisioned, I'm entering it in a local cake decorating contest. I about have the first tier done. I keep looking at it trying to decide if I should pull the fondant off and try again. I'm using styrofoam cake dummies. (it's allowed) However fondant ain't cheap, and my inner tightwad is screaming at me, but I know I can do better so I'm having a hard time making the call. I don't even know what the prize is for the contest, likely just my name in the paper but it's a pride thing ya know?

Anyhow back to reality. Florida was nice, sunny, warm couldn't have asked for nicer weather. As I type I hear rain and wind beating at the windows, it's about 34 F. Think I might go back to FL, will you keep the kids?

Announcement of New Blog

You might be asking why do you need another blog? Well to be frank this one is just a simple glimpse into "the Litter's" daily life. Nothing overly personal and nothing controversial or really thought inducing. I hope to make the new blog a little different, a little bit of thought to chew on after you leave, a little more substance, possibly a few giggles. This doesn't mean that the litter won't make appearances now and then, heck without those three I don't have much happening in my life, they are my job, my entertainment, my stress and my life. I'll still keep up with happenings over here but the new one will have a bit of a different tone to it.

http://musingsonmotherhoodandotherramblings.blogspot.com/

The Real Houswife of (un-named county)

Well no news is good news lately. I see from the date of the last post I've been a little remiss in updating but for the most part boredom and mayhem rule the days. I can't imagine Bravo showing up anytime soon and offering to follow me around and tape. Most days I don't have on make-up, somedays it's noon before I comb my hair, and I haven't been in a screaming match with anybody but my husband or kids since high school. Yeah not much real about those Housewives.

I have a horrible case of cabin fever a.k.a. spending too much time with my children. Igor and I have been stuck at the hip (almost literally) since he broke his leg. The weather is in that season that should be called MUD and too cold to do anything but too warm for snow. Mud season also coops up Sonny Boy when he's home as well. Yuck. The boys have been watching too much T.V., too much Wii. Literally their speech is leaning toward the yelling side at all points even when sitting inches from each other or me and having a simple conversations. My ears crave quiet, so much so that the few times I get to go in the vehicle alone I don't turn on the radio. My own speech has degraded to orders yelled through the house as EVERY sentence begins " MOM..." usually yelled from another room. I need a vacation. I need a wife.

The gym thing is working out well. It's certainly a stress reliever to go move around a little on the machines and have few thoughts other than "I can do three more.." I did get a little more than aggravated the other day as I was watching Oprah and Gayle go camping while doing the elliptical machine and it made me wonder how in hell she made a cazillion dollars. Really camping isn't rocket science but to watching her and her buddy set up a pop-up made me wonder. My other sport at the gym is people watching. It's quite interesting seeing the assortment of people there. Surprisingly there is a large percentage of senior citizens moving around which is good for them. Hope I'm out working the treadmills at 70. I did finish my workout the other day just as the water aerobic class ended. I'll try to be aware of that from now on as I had to wait in line for the showers with all the little old ladies. I was hoping a side effect of exercise would be dropping a few pounds, HA I've gained a pound. Darling Hubby was diplomatic about it when I was complaining stating " it's muscle, your gaining muscle" even though I gained a giant bag of peanut M&M's on the kitchen counter as well.

Igor started back to preschool two weeks ago. He's getting around well on the walking cast now and that's been a great boon to both of our mobility. He slid right back into preschool with no problems at all. Igor's really glad to be back as he'd really had enough of Mom too. Tuesday we go back to the orthopedic doctor and most likely the cast will be removed. If not they'll have to replace it as the the little monkey has picked all the lining out as far down and his little fingers will reach.

Sonny Boy has been a little bit of a pill lately too. Grounded more than not. I don't know if my tolerance is down or if he's more wound up. Everything seems to be a case of frenetic activity for no apparent reason.

I do have hope that Mud season will soon morph into Spring though. I can see the very tips of the daffodils breaking through the soil in the flower bed by the back door. I have several projects planned for the yard this year, the least of which is to take pictures of the bulb beds when in bloom so I can add to them in the fall. I planted around 50 daffodil last fall but it was just kind of a random wandering through the yard and planting. The guy that lived here before us planted TONS of tulips, the flower beds were just gorgeous the first couple of springs we were here, but squirrels and time have done their damage and only a few meager tulips have bloomed the last few years. I expect few to none this year. I suppose it wouldn't kill me to plant a few tulip bulbs, however they are fairly expensive only to get a year or two of good blooms out of them. I like to spend money on things that will bloom year after year. I've also got to get some grass planted in some bare spots. The list is long and my enthusiasm runs low after a few weeks.

I suppose that's all for now, stay tuned for another exciting episode.

Another Day, Another Cast

Today we went back to the ortho doctor. Igor's red cast was removed and he was x-rayed. The doc said that the pins could be removed which had been the plan so that was good news. Igor was fine through the cast removal, actually giggling because the cast would vibrate as the the cutter went through it and it tickled him. He was a little concerned to see the pins sticking out of his leg (as was I) but other than a little aprehension was fine up until the time of the actual pin removal. Prevously I had asked how painful this procedure would be, as honestly I couldn't imagine pulling metal wires out bone to be anything but pretty painful. The doctor had said it's painful but not night-marish so I had prepared by giving Igor a dose of heavy pain meds before we left for the doctor. I think it helped, he was nervous, but I think the drugs helped him relax and recover quicker from the pin removal. I stayed right in his face rattling nonsense to distract him. He did cry and let everybody know that "That HURTS" but all in all did really well and settled down quickly for the actual recasting procedure. This time Igor has a green cast and wants me to paint yellow on it so it can be a "Green Bay Packer" cast. I must start looking for some yellow duct tape as I don't think most paint will stick to that fiberglass. The good news is that Igor can now bear weight on the leg and has little velcro sandal. Yay!!! In the house his mobility wasn't too much of a problem, he really just crawled wherever he wanted to go with the exception of the last four days. Igor had taken up hopping on his good foot and was getting quite good getting around that way. The problem you ask? Well we live in a 120 year old house, a child constantly jumping around on one foot rattling everything is enough to drive even the most calm person insane. The cast walking isn't up to speed yet and I don't expect it to be for several days as he's lost so much muscle. His little leg looked pretty withered. However he seems to be a pretty resiliant kid and I imagine it won't be long before I'm telling to quit running. The plan is to be in this cast for three more weeks and then he'll be fitted for some sort of boot size ankle/foot brace to help with his pronation. I don't know if he'll be fitted for that immediately or if some time will be give to build a little muscle before fitting the braces.

We have now officially hit the out of pocket expense for the year with our insurance for the year and it's only mid-February. I guess if your gonna hit it, much better to do it now instead of November.

All the togetherness with Igor and being house bound has driven me to the brink. After much thinking I determined that I would join the big gym here in town. It's a nice place with pool, all the exercise equipent you could ever want, an variety of classes, basketball courts, racketball court (not that I'll be playing ball) and most importantly a daycare that Igor can hang out in for a couple of hours while I excercise. I have to pay a little extra for the daycare but it's pretty minimal and I conserve it and go when Hubby is home sometimes. The excercise will be good for me. I've gained ALL the weight and then some I lost when we were in Ukraine and frankly I huff and puff doing some of the simplest stuff now. It's time, I'm edging closer to the big 4-0 and after that momma always said it was 'patch, patch, patch.

Sonny Boy is doing well. Hubby snuck in the school yesterday early to deliver cupcakes I had baked for the class Valentine's party (every realize you can't carry a 35 lb kid and a tray of cupcakes all at once?) and spoke with Sonny Boy's teacher. Sonny Boy had been having to finish work at a later time, sometimes missing recess and we were concerned. Mrs. D said things are getting better in the last couple of weeks and she thinks it was just a matter of him learning to use his time better. Easier said than done for a kid with ADHD but we are getting better reports.

Tonight Sonny Boy's cub scout den toured the local radio station that is part of the high school. The teacher that gave the tour let the boys record themselves in the production studio. He pretended that they were a new band and asked the name of their band, Sonny Boy leaned over to kid at the mic and whispered, the kid replied "Sausage" tour guide then went on with usual DJ banter and asked about "Sausage's" newest single and what it was called "Awesome Sausage" then Sonny Boy without a moments hesitation started singing the song " Awesome Sausage" now in case you don't know, this is totally made up 7 year old boy silliness. I must have been beet red because I didn't know if I should be proud that my kid had NO FEAR of talking into that microphone and singing a tuneless version of "Awesome Sausage" or embarressed because it was such a tuneless version of anything. Anyway it was quite funny and I'm sure "Awesome Sausage" will be loaded term for many years to come.

I may be speaking a little soon but we are having warm-up and it's giving everyone spring fever. The snow drifts are shrinking and I am no longer taking my life into my hands backing out of the driveway because I can't see for the snow berms. I know it will be cold again, and we'll likely be shoveling again, but springs in on the way, I can even see the beginning of little buds on some of the trees!

Well it's late and of course the kids have no mercy on me in the morning.

Fess Up!

Ok, I write all this drivel and never have any comments. I know "the Litter's" events are pretty standard family fare. We really are quite the average boring family but I'd really like some comments so I can see who's reading!

I'll allow anonymous comments but leave me a clue to who you are if you don't link me back to your blog or if you don't have a blog.

The little map in the corner shows me who most of my visitors are and from that I can deduce who most of you are. Mrs M.M. and Miss M.G. I believe are a couple of my log-ins, my mother-in-law, maybe Ms. KLB in Nebraska? If that's not you tell me who you are!

However the most curious person following the blog along lives in Ecuador. I don't have a clue who that is. Would you leave me a message? Mostly curious if we have a connection somehow or if you just like to read my rambling. If you don't write English (like you use a translate for the blog) write it in Spanish, I can use translate too.

SNOW! and other adventures

On Tuesday afternoon we received an e-mail stating that school would be cancelled on Wed due to the weather. Sure it was snowing on Tuesday, but no big deal for Wisconsin, we had gotten 2-3 inches during the day. Blizzard warnings were to go into effect at 3 pm and I think mother nature was watching her clock as that is when the winds started picking up. At 11:00 pm I could not see my neighbor's house across the street. We woke up to around 2 FEET of snow. The official tally in our town was 17 inches, however that only started from midnight Wed and it was impossible to measure accurately due to drifting. Some drifts were well over 5 feet.

This was our driveway on Wed morning. Yes that is a full size mini-van buried over the hood.

You can see here the snow did some strange vortex effects around the van & house and the pavement was bare.

Sonny Boy had a hard time getting down the back door stairs before we shoveled. He got stuck in a drift 2-3 times and gave up and went inside. The rest of the day was spent cleaning up by Hubby and I.

That's me pushing the snow blower (yes there really is one in the picture) through the driveway snow berm.

A different angle of the same motion. You see there is still several inches of snow on the ground where I had been already, it took two passes to get it cleared to the pavement.

It probably took Hubby and I a good 2-3 hours to clear our driveway and sidewalks - a thirty minute job with snow blower in a moderate 4-6 inch snow. We then went over and helped out a couple of neighbors who don't have blowers and I drove/pushed the snow blower a couple of blocks down to a friend's whose husband was out of town and her car was completely snowed over. In total the snow blower ran about 6 hours on Wed. School was still dismissed Thursday as rumour had tell it that there was still 8 ft drifts in the high school parking lot. Today I drove to town and still saw some clean up going here and there. Things are a real mess. Even though it IS Wisconsin and we are well equipped for snow, 2 feet in an 8 hour period is quite the rare event.

Last week Sonny Boy had Friday off for Teacher Work Day or something similar. Igor stayed home with Hubby and we went to Discovery World in Milwaukee. It's pretty cool, but a little pricey. I'm glad I didn't take Igor along for the extra admission price. This is Sonny Boy running the "nuclear reactor" I couldn't help but think of Homer Simpson.

At Discovery World Sonny Boy also lay on a bed of nails. Pretty cool. My apologies to the girl running the exhibit, I'm lazy and don't feel like cropping the picture. I'm sure she wouldn't be thrilled with that picture of herself.

Back View of the dress cake I made to play around. I'm thinking of entering a local cake decorating contest in March and thought I'd give this one a whirl.

It has some rough edges but I don't think it's too bad for a first try at this form, and I was doing it on the fly and cheap so I didn't use some of the same materials I would have for the contest cake.

Igor officially got a big boy bed. This was his first night sleeping in it. He is one proud kid! He had previously been sleeping in a crib with one side removed. He pretty much filled it end to end. We are still in the process of moving clothes from dresser to the drawers under the bed and figuring out what to do with the old furniture. Still some decorating and arranging to do in his room but it has decidedly lost the nursery feel it had.