snow day 12 step

A new version of The Twelve Days of Christmas.

On the 11th of December the ice storm brought to me...

12 Bunco ladies

11 Flaming firelogs

10 Gaming fistfights

9 Doggie pee trips

8 Bottled waters

7 Offspring meltdowns

6 Loads of laundry

5 Lost remotes

4 Burnt biscottis

3 Lazy kids

2 Pots of coffee

and a brand new person with lice.

the icestorm cometh?

As I'm writing this Monday afternoon we're being told to prepare for a major ice storm starting tonight and going on until...hell freezes over. Or at least until the Midwest does. Seems like Oklahoma took a direct hit today, which makes me wonder how Kaycie is faring. I like snow pretty well, but I have nothing positive to say about ice, unless it's in a big Diet Coke or a glass of unsweetened ice tea. I especially have nothing nice to say when it's coating the very old, very tall trees right outside my house. (The picture above has nothing to do with me, but it is pretty, isn't it?)

I've made some serious Christmas shopping inroads this morning, stocked the house with necessary storm food (pretzels to dip in chocolate, biscotti fixings and marshmallow popcorn) and picked up several gallons of water when I got the kids from school. Our firewood was delivered over the weekend, we're stocked on candles and wrapping paper and I have a pretty decent hunch that the kids will have a (highly anticipated) snow day tomorrow. The one flaw in this plan is the possibility of the power going out, but we'll manage. We'll eat cookies, wrap gifts and just generally hang out.

We're ready. Bring it on.

We've even, in a burst of overzealous preparedness, already had a dry run this week with the power going out. Thursday night a major transformer blew (with a very impressive orange pop through our neighborhood) and we were in the dark for hours. We threw another log on the fire, wrapped up in blankets (because of course our furnace is on the electric) and just waited it out. Being the Geek Family we are (capital letters, please), the conversation naturally turned to the evolution of the three camera video format for shooting television shows - with full family participation. If this worries you, you aren't alone.

I feel very Little House on the Prairie at the moment, imagining a roaring storm, a blazing fire...and picking out nits by candlelight. Just call me Laura.

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I'm posting early tonight. As of 7:30 pm school for tomorrow has already been canceled and it's really starting to come down. Better to post early for no reason than to not be able to later. No sooner had they canceled school than Sasquatch was up my hind end about a sleepover. Ah...teenagers.

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Morning Update: It wasn't as bad as they thought it would be, although it's still spitting and the technical "winter storm warning" is on until 6 pm. We got about half an inch of ice, still have our power, and (with no school for kids) I just slept until 9:30. Bliss.

Now I'm off to answer comments...

And I have no idea why my picture keeps disappearing.

California Dreaming

This is what my lilacs looked like two weeks ago.

This is what my lilacs look like today.

These are my hostas.

Kind of looks like overcooked spinach, doesn't it? You should have seen them two weeks ago - they were gorgeous. But since we have spent the better part of a week in a "hard frost", my budding garden has taken a hard hit. I would post a picture of my tulips, but then I'd have to cry.

As I write this we are being told to prepare for three to five inches of snow tomorrow night. This will follow the thunderstorms and high winds they're predicting tomorrow afternoon. The Film Geek was supposed to be away this weekend on a shoot. The plan was for him to be something like fifty feet up in a crane shooting a planned prairie fire. On Friday the 13th. This sounded suspiciously like a human lightning magnet to him and he insisted on postponing until the weather got better. Luckily they agreed. We have two soccer games and a six mile charity MS walk planned this weekend. The soccer they'll have to cancel, but we're committed to the walk, and I can't imagine they'll cancel it. And as much as I'd like to bail out, I'd feel pretty bad, since my friend who actually HAS MS will walk it no matter what.

Last fall at a garage sale this amazing woman was selling some of her plants and she had a drop dead gorgeous jasmine. You could smell it ten feet away. Now jasmine is my all time favorite scent, next to bald baby heads. It was actually kind of funny. I was with my friend who grew up in Missouri and doesn't know jasmine from orange groves. She just walked by it. Then I hear this southern voice saying "oh my god, is that JASMINE??" and of course that got my attention. To make a long story short, I duked it out with this chick from Florida over the jasmine plant, and it has sat in a sunny window by my computer all winter. I actually cried when I brought it home and my sweet husband has babied it ever since. I'm smelling it now, looking at an ominous sky outside and feeling very homesick.

Is it Spring yet?