Snow, and the Threat of More Snow

Those of us who enjoy snow are getting our money's worth this year. We had another system move in Thursday afternoon. School was released early so all the buses ran before there were any problems, but it was slick when I came home from work. I wound up missing the driveway and going on to the barn down the road and driving back across the field. School was cancelled on Friday, but things cleared off by Saturday morning for most of the weekend activities to go on.

We are expecting more snow tonight. As much as I enjoy it, we only have two snow days left before we have to start making up days.

HOLIDAY SOUP. It doesn't seem like Christmas was one month ago today. I think the holidays were still on Jenna's mind the other day when we were going to a Chinese restaurant and she was excited about getting egg nog soup.

WARDROBE HISTORY. We have a free standing wardrobe in our bedroom has been in the family for a long time. It's a tall piece at over seven feet. It has a large area for hanging clothes and a wide drawer at the bottom.

When Aunt Mar was a girl she would hide her school books above the crown molding. She could reach this by standing in the drawer. One day she saw a large crack in the left door and told me it got there because the wardrobe toppled over on her when she was putting her books away. The doors happened to be open which saved her from serious injury, but the left door was cracked from top to bottom in the spill.

THE BIG SWITCHEROO. Speaking of closets, Vicki has been complaining that she running out of room in her closet for quite a while now. The closet space in our house is typical of houses built a century ago -- there isn't much to be had.

When we moved here in 1995 we came to the agreement that I would get the closet in our room and Vicki would get the wardrobe. Best I remember it worked out this way because the closet was on my side of the bed and the wardrobe was placed on her side of the bed.

So, after 15+ years of living here, Vicki and I have swapped closets. You have no idea how many times we've opened our old closets only to be surprised by the strange clothes hanging there. Vicki has more room and I'm quite happy with the space I have. Now if I could just talk her into switching sides of the bed...

PRETTY IN ANYTHING BUT PINK. While we were swapping closets Vicki ran across some exercise pants that no longer fit so she offered them to Jenna. Jenna was not interested because the pants had a thin, hot pink stripe down the outside seam of the legs. Vicki tried a few times to "sell" Jenna on the pants but each attempt was meet with an eye roll.

Finally, Vicki asked Jenna what was wrong with the pink stripe and reminded her that she carried a hot pink book bag to school every day. Jenna's rebuttal to this argument was that she doesn't wear the book bag. A little while later, true to form, Jenna brought Vicki her now empty, hot pink book bag. She had found a new, not pink book bag and switched to it.

GROWING. Ben is "growing like a weed," and at 5'2" he's only 4" behind Jenna. (Nate is 4'9" in case you are wondering.) He sometimes complains of pains in his legs which we figure are growth pains, and to back that guess up we're seeing his pants become high waters in very short order. And the other night he and Jenna decided to compare foot sizes. His feet are definitely bigger than hers. Another sign of growing up is that Ben wants to take a shower every night now.

THE NAME OF THE GAME. One of the games the kids got for Christmas is Farkle. If you've not heard of it, it's a dice game like Yahtzee though the scoring is completely different. We've had a blast playing this many evenings before going to bed. What has cracked me up most was that Ben had a hard time remembering the name of the game so he's come out with many mispronunciations much like Barney Fife would. Among his Barny-isms are Frankle, Frickle, and my favorite, Fartle.

MY TOUGH BOY. Nate's game was cancelled Saturday due to slick roads, but Ben's and Jenna's games were played as scheduled. About 10-15 minutes before leaving for Ben's game he got a splinter in his right foot from our living room floor. We pulled out a large, but short, chunk of wood, and since I couldn't see anything else we treated it and headed to the game.

Ben had a great game, putting 14 points on the scoreboard. Afterwards we killed time in White House before going to Jenna's game. By time we got home Ben had been complaining about his foot quite a bit so we decided to have another look. This time we spotted what we thought was a deeply embedded splinter so Vicki and I went to work trying to get it out. Sure enough there was another piece in there and when Ben wanted a turn with the tweezers he wound up pulling out a piece that measured ⅞ of an inch long. His foot is feeling much better now.

Joe