Weather Excuse
I don’t know what kind of weather you are having, but here in the Deep South, it has been very normal. I don’t know what normal means to you, but a popular saying around here is, if you don’t like the weather, wait fifteen minutes and it will change. We have winter days when the temperatures never get out of the single digits, or if they do, the wind-chills don’t. We also have winter days that are 50 degrees, and the bees come out all confused and irritated (kinda how we feel if something wakes us up at 2:00 in the morning). These drastic changes can happen in a matter of one day, and it can change back just as fast. On Monday, I may have my seat heater on in the MiniVanWithAPlan, and the heat cranked up to 78 while I drive. On Tuesday, I may be riding around with my window down and the sunroof open. It may sound a little too all over the place for some, but I’m used to it, and I think the crappy days make us appreciate the nice days even more.
We had our share of crappy this week. I know, that sounds so negative, but this area just freaks out and slams shut when we get a little bit of snow. The problem is, we never just get a little bit of snow…we always get a nice little sheet of ice underneath that truly does make driving pretty treacherous. We have to endure constant ridicule from our Northern friends about how everything shuts down over an inch of snow, but the transfers have learned how tricky driving on ice can be. It simply is NOT a good idea.
So, last Wednesday when I should have been working and blogging, I was watching this.
And this.
And this.
I even cooked this,
which we enjoyed so much after spending our late afternoon and evening in this!
And then, when I woke up on Thursday, my family and I played in this.
The only downside to all of this is, I didn’t work very much. I went into the salon both days, but Wednesday was cut short and Thursday was just D-E-A-D. By 3:00 on Thursday, all of the snow and most of the ice had melted away, and there were few signs it had ever been here, but the phone remained silent and the crickets continued to chirp. Of course, I was swamped on Friday (after reminding everyone on social media that the snow was gone, the salon was too quiet, and could you please come see us? It worked, thank goodness)!
On Friday night, I finally got my birthday cake! Don’t get me wrong, I had plenty of birthday desserts, but Madre always has and always will be the maker of my birthday cake. This year, I got lethal chocolate peppermint cake,
which is one of my all-time favorites (the recipe came from one of my favorite cookbooks, The Cake Mix Doctor, by Anne Byrn).
We love to make birthdays streeeeetch in this family, but that’s not why my cake was almost two weeks late.
Madre had about 42 busted water pipes in her old farm house (due to some of those days when it got down to 5 degrees) and went without water for TEN DAYS…she is one strong mamma jamma….and is still awaiting her repair guys to return and pull out all the old galvanized metal pipes and replace them all with PVC. She is going to make dang sure she doesn’t go through anything like this again! If she’s lucky, she won’t have to sell a kidney to pay for it all.
Here we are back at Monday, and I have nothing prepared to share with you other than our recent weather. Believe it or not, yesterday Coach and I weeded some flower beds, cleaned up our beautiful Koi pond, blew off the back patio, and watched the kiddos play soccer in the back yard. I soaked up the 50 degree air and a little sunshine, and ran from several of those irritated, confused bees (I never have mastered the ‘be still and calm’ tactic). Today we are scheduled to have thunderstorms and highs close to 60 degrees. The rain will not interest me or draw me outside with a camera, so today shall be the day that I get something accomplished….I just have to get my crazy mind to settle on what that might be. Sewing? Painting? Drawing? Playing Bejeweled? Reading magazines? Who knows? Whatever I do, I’m sure you will read about it here eventually!
Happy Monday!