Confessions of a Neighbor

We got a knock at the door this afternoon and there stood our other neighbor holding today's newspaper.  He confessed to shredding ours this morning with his snowblower.   I didn't know he had a snowblower. 

 

I thought it was odd another snow plow had come around and uncovered our buried newspaper.  I also could not figure out how the snow plow shredded ours so well. 

He really is a nice neighbor because not only did he replace our paper, he snowblowed the entrance to our driveway that the snow plow had closed. 

I'm not complaining

This morning I looked out and saw the bright orange plastic bag that keeps the newspaper dry lying near our neighbor's driveway.  I wasn't sure if they get the paper so didn't know if it was theirs or ours. 

Later, a snow plow came through and buried the orange bag.  I took Sierra to the doctor this morning.  She has not recovered from her cold so he put her on antibiotics for the congestion and cough.  When we got home, I could tell that we had been plowed again.  The snow plow had uncovered the buried newspaper. 

Still not sure if it was ours, I called the circulation dept. to see if our neighbor gets a paper.  When I learned that they do not, I explained that ours looked like this.

They gave us credit for two papers since this should have contained yesterday's paper also.  It did not.  We also have a paper box but it was kind of out of reach this morning.  I was able to read most of the one that was in here but there was a big hole in the middle of every page. 

But, I am not complaining.  We are very glad to have our street plowed very well.  Things in town are slick.  There's only so many places to put that much snow. 

We did find a good use for it here at home though.  Insulation.  It should help keep the family room warmer. 

Interesting snow storm

It's not often we get snow and ice and more snow and drifts all in one storm. 

Jeff started the day out early by thawing and chopping the car from the ice that had coated it for hours and then left for work at 5:00am so he could see his 3rd shift.  Since the company is at reduced hours, he does not see the 3rd shift at all and barely sees 2nd shift but he supervises all three shifts.  At this time it had barely started snowing again but had been sleeting for probably 18 hours on top of the 5 inches of snow that covered the ground.

By daylight, we had heavy snow coming down and it piled up fast.  It finally stopped sometime before noon.  The sun was pretty on the blanket of snow.  The kids were begging to go out but I put them off until I was ready to try to do some digging out.  I didn't think they'd be able to walk on the snow/ice/snow combination but the ice was thick enough to keep Sean and Sierra up on the top layer for the most part.  I'm not sure why we bothered to get them bundled up so they could eat snow.  I could have fetched a bowl of it for them to eat inside. 

 

Callie dressed somewhat eccentrically for her excursion outdoors.  Yes, that is a skirt with two pairs of pants underneath. 

I quickly found out that my boots are not high enough for approximately 10-11 inches of snow plus 1+ inches of ice. 

I went around front to begin trying to dig out the van just in case there would be public school tomorrow.   Sierra's preschool follows the p.s. schedule but, thankfully, we now know there will not be school.  I can't imagine why.

Dig is the appropriate word.  The picture below is after I took the top layer of snow off, revealing the layer of ice.  When I opened the van, the door scraped snow away. 

The top layer of snow was light and fluffy and easy to remove.  But the ice layer was very thick and heavy as was the snow on the bottom.  Can you say back spasms?  See the layers.

 

Sometime during these efforts, in the backyard, Sean threw some ice and accidentally hit Sierra between the nose and lip and she was bleeding.  I didn't enjoy having to walk around the house again through the snow and wasn't going to keep doing that to referee, so recess was over.  For some reason, I did not walk across on top of the ice but broke through on every step.  Hmm.   

Back out front for more digging.  Soon, Jeff came plowing our road with the car and made it halfway into the driveway before getting stuck.  The Honda with its front-wheel drive has always done great on snow, but it doesn't make a very good snow plow.  Thanks to the neighbor in the background, we were able to get it far enough in the driveway to avoid the snowplow that came down right after him.  Don't get too excited for us.  We never see a real snowplow on our street but the county plow had no choice but to give a once over on our street or he would have blocked us in at the end by the county road.  And of course, he missed our driveway by about 8 feet but we might be able to put in a garden in the median grass this spring since he did turn up some dirt.  Unfortunately, the stuff he plowed in front of our driveway is really really heavy... full of ice chunks.  Ugh. 

Usually, at some point, we get a private contractor in a 4wd truck with a snowplow on the front.  Occasionally, they will clean the circle really well, but usually they go once around it missing our driveway by several feet.  When they do this, we have to dig out again, especially so the mail carriers can access the mailbox.  If we don't keep a path clear, we don't get our mail. 

So, while we are breaking our backs, our smarty-pants nice neighbor (not the one who helped push the car) gets out his snow-blower and cleans his driveway in the time it took us to get about 4 feet shoveled.  Then he comes over with a shovel to chat but goes back to shovel a corner out.  He talks about how happy he is to have his new 4-WD.  The first he's ever owned and he will always have one from now on.  Thanks for the help We were thankful to be getting the exercise and we still like our Hondas. 

Our front porch is going to be ice until April because our gutter is full of ice... overflowing so anything that melts is freezing below on the porch.  I guess maybe that might take care of those solicitors we keep getting.  The icicles are pretty though. 

I am thankful for chili in the crock pot.  It tasted good tonight. 

I'll leave you with a picture that I took yesterday that I just happen to like.  This little guy has been hanging around our deck.

More snow on ice on snow

Wow!  And the worst of the snow moved north and missed us!  We had ice too but not as bad as to our south. 

 

Recess

Where else do the children get to have recess out in the sleet and snow?  Homeschool! 

And while the public school children have to make up a snow day in the spring when the weather is good, we can take a snow day!

I measured 5 inches but we had a little bit on the ground yesterday morning.  I'd say we got 4 to 4 1/2 inches.  It's the fine powder snow so no good for snowballs or snowmen.  Now we're getting sleet which is supposed to turn to snow.  They say it is moving north so I am not sure what that means for us.  Will we get more or less?  

Sierra finally got to make the snow angels she's been longing for. 

Rollover and do it again... and again and again....

Callie needs some snow gear.  She didn't last long in her first set of layers. 

Of course, eating snow didn't help much. 

It was sleeting which you can't see except maybe in these distant pictures which do not look clear because of the sleet.  I was shooting from the deck so as to not get my camera wet.

I found a pair of snow bibs in the laundry room for Sierra to wear.  Sean's snowsuit just barely fits.  I guess she will get it next year. 

Finally, Some Snow

 

I was beginning to think we were not going to get any measurable snow this year, only traces of it or just plain ice.  But, we now have 3+ inches with more on the way later today and tomorrow. 

I took some pictures... they're not too clear since I'm not about to go outside this morning.  Too cold.  Sierra is ready to go out right now.  She's probably thinking it's going to melt or blow away.  This afternoon when it's in the 20s, I will let them go out and will take more pictures.  In the meantime, we're stuck with these window shots. 

 

And to think that just last week I took these pictures. 

Via Dolorosa

 

This is a video of Miss America (Seymour, Indiana's Katie Stam) singing in the talent portion of the contest.   We appreciate her sharing her faith with this song. 

Congratulations, Miss America!

 

We are especially excited about the 2009 Miss America.    Not only is she from Indiana, but Jeff has known her family his whole life and her dad was the soloist at our wedding.  We sat on the edge of our seats as she was announced the winner.  She did a fantastic job.  

Congratulations to Katie Stam!  Check out the link below. 

Miss America contestants

A Little Hannah Montana in 3-D

 

Sierra got a Hannah Montana DVD for Christmas from Uncle Kerry and cousin Raelyn....  it has a 3-D version. 

Some Christmas memories

I didn't want coffee.... 

Oh, it's not coffee....  beads are good!

Yea... Cascada!

Alright... something that shoots!

Being silly for the camera.

Coleman

I have mentioned Coleman Larson on my blog a few times.  He has been fighting medulloblastoma (brain cancer) for half his life and finished his race Monday night as he went to be with Jesus.  He was an amazing little guy who had such faith for a child.  My heart goes out to his family including his 5-year old twin, Caden who loved his brother very much. 

His carepage is ColemanScott on www.carepages.com but since you have to be registered to see it, I am going to link to another blog that has copied the recent comments from his mother.  Peggy is truly an inspirational person and her strength obviously comes from the Lord.  This post is beautiful so please take time to read it and be blessed. 

About Coleman.

Merry Christmas

First Lost Tooth

 

Since Sean has had a loose tooth, we recently read a book about a little rabbit who lost her tooth.  She got a dime from the tooth fairy.  Sean thinks since he personally knows the tooth fairy, $5.00 would be a good deal. 

He pulled it out today after it came really loose while eating an apple this morning.  This brought back memories of when he first got that tooth at age 7 months.  And how different babies look after their teeth come in.   Thinking how different he will look with more "windows" in his teeth and then again how he will look when the new permanent teeth come in. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

What's With The Shoes??

Every so often I'll drive by a power line that has a pair of tennis shoes hanging from it.  I don't know if this is a teenage thing or what.  I wouldn't want to be the son that goes home without his shoes though.

I looked up this phenomenon and would you believe it is a sport?  Alrighty then.  Go figure. 

Then today, I'm driving to town and there in the concrete median, about 20 feet apart is a pair of brown casual shoes.  So, I'm wondering if there's a body on one side of the road down in a ditch.  I'm thinking surely someone important, like a police officer, saw the shoes and decided to check out the sides of the road.   I would hope. 

Our Dog

 

Sam enjoyed watching Jeff and the kids working in the leaves on Saturday.  On Sunday, we looked outside and saw her enjoying herself.  Looks like she thought they were just making her a bed. 

Be Careful Little Eyes What You See

As Daddy was scanning the newspaper yesterday, our kindergartener thought he'd join him and so he picked up the front section and read a small headline aloud.  He read, "Voters say no to guy manager." 

Hmm, interesting....  let me see that.  Oops, it said, "Voters say no to gay marriage." 

Good thing he's not up to speed on his reading.  We are not ready to trying to explain that subject yet. 

How Well Do You Spell?

I'm a poet and didn't know it. 

Here's a fun quiz to test your spelling.  I found that I am a better speller when it is NOT multiple choice.  I took the test too quickly and too confidently.   Have fun and let me know how you did.

Toys Worth Buying

Need good ideas for Christmas gifts for your kids? 

One statement I heard once but refused to believe is "Less is More."   Truer words were never spoken regarding how many toys kids really need.  Also true is that the more they have, the less they will play with any of them. 

In order to keep toys interesting, it's a good idea to rotate them every so often.  Keep a large storage container (or a few) for this purpose. 

Now for my choice of favorites for gifts.  Leapsters are a great learning toy for kids approximately ages 4 to 7.  My kids never have spent much time playing with other toys that are electronic but they love their Leapsters.  They are great for riding in the van, waiting for an appt. and so on. 

Other favorites are Legos.  Crayola Wonder coloring books and markers have gotten a lot of mileage at our house.   An assortment of board games are great also but you must be committed to taking time to sit down and play the games with the kids.  They will treasure this time with you. 

Stop by Works For Me Wednesday for more ideas on the Toys Worth Buying Edition. 

Surprises

 

I came home from voting today (which meant an hour of standing in line, by the way, but hey, it's for my country!) and was surprised by the neatly picked up entry and kitchen and stairs.  I looked at my oldest and asked, in a shocked voice, "You cleaned?"  She shook her head and told me her brother did.  That would be my 6 year old with a sore throat virus.  "What kind of virus does he have?", I wondered.   I then noticed how uncluttered the stove and counter were.  Wow, how cool....oops.  That was when I saw that every dirty dish, glass, pan, etc. was now piled high in the sink filling both sides.  It wasn't even possible to turn on the water, the dishes were so high. 

Not wanting to dampen his spirit, I told him what an awesome job he did picking up.  Then I pointed at the sink and gently said, "Never do this again." 

Now I'm waiting to see if I catch this virus that puts people in a cleaning mood.  I could use a mood enhancer like that.  :)