The Last Blizzard of 2010 - I Hope

We have been so lucky up to this point of the year, in that we haven't had more than a little dusting of snow this year. With my birthday being in early December, any year we don't have snow by the time my birthday rolls around, is a good year in my book.

Well, we got our first snow in the form of a blizzard this past weekend. It made for an interesting weekend to say the least.

First, our electricity flickered off and on, before it went completely off for about 12hrs. When I get cold, my muscles get tight and of course, my pain level increases dramatically, so I bundled up as if I were going out in the storm. I had yoga pants and sweat pants on as well as a turtle neck, heavy sweatshirt, my superthick (old and ugly) pink fuzzy robe, thick socks under my Ugg knock-offs, ear muffs and thick mittens. And I sat under a super thick quilt. I am so thankful no one took a picture as I'm sure I looked uber lovely. LOL

Twelve hours later our electricity came back on. Jay didn't think our furnace was working well enough, so he headed to the basement to work on it. He came back up to go get his saw and some duct tape (still not sure why). It was at that point that I asked people on Facebook to pray for us. Seriously. 

Jay came back announcing he had found his power saw and he gave the "Tim The Tool Man" grunting noise. After letting out a couple of "Oops!" he shouted up the stairs asking Austin to come help him. As Austin slowly made his way to the stairs he looked back at me and whispered "Help me." I shrugged and said "If he yells 'Oops!' again, RUN!"

Now this morning we found we had no water, as poor Austin tried to take a shower before school, which meant he had to take a shower at the school. After spending the past two days trying to keep us (and the pigs) warm, Jay had had very little sleep or downtime. This latest situation just about sent him over the edge. I am convinced that if I had suggested moving somewhere warmer, he would have agreed.

Darn - I probably missed that opportunity.

Part of our line to our well has frozen, and they are working to get it thawed as soon as possible. Austin has his school's Christmas concert tonight and I'm really hoping they get the water fixed, or I will say a prayer for the poor unfortunate people who have to sit next to a showerless me. :-/

Today the sun is shining, the wind has gone down, and I have to admit that in spots, it does look kind-of-sort-of pretty, in a IWishIDidn'tHaveToDriveInIt kind of way. There is only one thing left to say:

Is it Spring yet?

Winters Coming

Ok, I give up. Winter is going to arrive whether I like it or not (and trust me...I do not like it!). Flurries this morning have proven to me that not all prayers are answered. Or at least, not in the way I'd like them to be. lol

Anyhow, to wave the white flag and attempt to embrace winter, I've changed the background and header for this blog.

*sigh*


Have you noticed the countdown to Spring widget? LOL

More snow pictures from this wonderful winter:

It's going to be a while before we can use our front door. Our poor dogs are sad that they can't see out "their" window to watch for "bad guys"....or kitties.

Out our back door. I'm sure the dogs wish they could just have an indoor bathroom. The highest part of that fence is about 10' high.

The tree line you see way back in the distance on the left is our farm. This is the road to our house, and as you can see, in most parts it's down to just one lane due to these huge drifts across the road.

This is the view as we have to leave out of our drive. The drift is so high, that we have no clue if someone is coming towards us as we pull out or not. The one or two people who normally drive on this road are retired farmers who drive slow enough, that it's not a problem. The problem is the people with suspended (or no) license who use our road to avoid police and they drive like it's the interstate...not gravel.

Once the road crews come by, we have to "clean up" the mess they leave and push snow back out of our drive and further off the roads. On this day I rode along with Jay while he moved snow at several locations with the blade on the front of his truck. We even grabbed some lunch and went back out. Guess that was a date? LOL

At this point....I know how this poor kitty feels. lol

Storm Photos

Wednesday 1/6 - noon-ish

The snow started to fall. "Isn't it pretty?" is what everyone kept saying. If it were the first snowfall of the season, then yes, I could say that it's pretty. However, this is the 3rd major snowstorm we've had so far and we're only a couple of weeks into winter.






The snow started to fall harder.












Our poor farm cats were about as amused as I was.










Thursday - 1/7

The winds really picked up and were blizzard strength all day long. Huge drifts started to form.









By the time we went to bed, there was a WALL of snow out our back door. Our back yard that is fenced in for the dogs has a 4' fence that runs around the entire 100'x100' yard. This wall was 4-6 feet tall in places and enveloped the entire yard!







Friday - 1/8

This morning Jay took Austin to get his stitches out (he had gum reconstructive surgery). He was glad he had the blade on the front of his truck in case he ran into drifts.

Looking out front, the snow doesn't look too bad...





...but looks can be deceiving! Check out these drifts! This one covers my side of the garage and out our back door. We would have been totally stuck, but Jay had parked his truck in the other side of the garage with it facing out, so this morning he just stepped on the gas and plowed his way through the drifts. :)

I did find it interesting how the drifts looked like whipped meringue peaks.



The steps you can see just a part of, lead up to our front door. However, you can also see the drift in front of the door inhibits us from using it. Plus, it's also frozen shut. :-/

To give you an idea of how big these drifts are....we have a basement under our house, and the basement is only partially in the ground. The top 4' are above ground, which you can't see at all in these pictures. The drifts are easily 8' tall in spots.


The building you see that is almost covered up is where I had the pet boarding kennel. There are 6-8' drifts around the entire building. I do miss the kennel, but during weather like this, I don't miss having to try to walk up to 25 dogs.








This is the 6' fence that surrounds the kennel building and divides that yard with the yard for our dogs. You can see that the drifts on the other side of the fence are taller than the fence.

Remember the 4-6' wall I showed from last night? The drift you see on this side of the fence is part of that wall. As you can see, it grew overnight and most of it is well over 4', and is 8' high in several spots.




I know, it's pretty, right?

Well, all I can think is:

HURRY UP SPRING!

#1 Reason For No Posting

I just tallied up all the basketball games I will be attending in the next few weeks (through the first week of Feb). This includes all the Freshman boys games that Jay coaches, the JV boys games that Austin plays in, the Varsity girls & boys games (Jay is an asst coach for the boys), and the few home games that Ashley dances at at her college that we like to go watch....


Can I have a drum roll please?


54!


Yes, you read that right....54 games in 34 days! Sounds like a Rockstars schedule. ha!

That is in part due to the make-up games that they have rescheduled, but oh my-lanta that's a whole lotta bball folks! I have 2 t-shirts that have our schools name on them for the high school games, and 1 that says the dance teams name on it that I'll wear to Ashley's games. Those 3 shirts are going to be thread bare by the time they get washed this many times. LOL

Oh, and this weekend is our annual road trip to Minnesota to watch Ashley's dance team compete.

Good thing there's nothing else to do in the Winter around here. ha! Oh wait....I wonder if there are some ISU home games we can squeeze in?

Winter Wonderland

When it snows, ain't it thrillin'?

When your nose gets to chillin'.
We'll frolic and play
The Eskimo way....

Drivin' in a Winter Wonderland.



NOT!

Only 79 days left until Spring.

Winter Bathroom

Earlier this week we got a little snow...you might have heard about it. I'm sure you heard me complaining about it. I don't even try to hide my great dislike of snow.

Anyhow, since we were stuck in the house during a blizzard, I had to admit it was really Winter, so I had Jay bring the Winter decorations I have for the guest bathroom up from the storage room in the basement. The colorful Autumn leaves just seemed out of place in contrast to the whiteout we had going on outside. So, here it is:

The bathroom changed from Autumn
leaves and pumpkins to snowmen.

This guy hangs above the towel holders.

The cube boxes are home to several cute snowmen
I've obtained over the years.

I have a picture frame in front of this snowman that holds a picture of the kids that was taken back when I first started decorating.

I believe Austin was around 12, but look how little he looks. Keep in mind that the girls were 15 and around 5'2", which puts him probably not much over 4'. The poor kid was convinced he'd never grow...and now he's an inch or two taller than his dad. :)

I turn this snowman on for a nightlight. When I have to get up to use the restroom during the night, I prefer to have a dim nightlight on rather than turning on the overhead light. It's so bright I am quickly wide awake, which is not what I want to be at 3am.


There you have it...you're all invited to stop by any time and see this cute bathroom for yourself. :)

No Matter What You've Heard

There are really only 2 seasons in Iowa:

1. Winter

2. Road Construction

What A Difference A Day Makes

Iowa's Local Weather Report For This Past Weekend:

Friday ~~ mid-50's. Not a cloud in the sky. Slight breeze. Overall a beautiful Spring day.

Saturday ~~ around 50 degrees. Cloudy. Very windy. Still though, overall not a bad day.

Sunday ~~ 30 degrees. Winter storm. White-out conditions. People stranded on the interstate for hours due to being stuck and rescue vehicles unable to get to them until conditions improved. Approximately 10" of wet, heavy snow (how it was able to blow bad enough to put visibility near zero is still a mystery). Overall a yucky, yucky day.

Here's the proof of the nasty weather we had:

This IS April, right? Just checkin'.

Springtime Bathroom

I changed out our guest bathroom yesterday (which is also my bathroom). Out with the Winter snowman decorations, and in with Spring flowers and bright colors. I've been bargain hunting for a while, and here's what I came up with as inexpensively as possible...

This shower curtain is something I picked up at Target. I wanted one with colorful flowers on it, but wasn't having any luck finding one like that (at least not in the price range I was willing to spend).

So instead, I bought some mixed color bouquets at Wal-Mart. I pulled them apart and used the hot glue gun to attach some to the curtain. I placed the remaining flowers in different spots in the room. For the rugs, hand towels, etc I just did a mix and match of different colors.

This shot below shows the close up of the flowers I attached. Just a word of warning. The thin vinyl is not a good buffer for the hot glue when you push on the back to help attach the flower. This is a lesson you will only need once and then you will grab a washcloth to protect your fingers.

In the little wall boxes I put some small bouquets that I had found, as well as other "Spring" related items (including the sign by the lights).

This picture actually shows the inspiration for the room. See the colorful garden gloves? They are actually little childrens gloves and I bought three different colors. They reminded me of when my kids were little. Each Spring we'd go to the garden center at Wal-Mart and I'd let the kids get a new pair of 50 cent gloves and they'd always be so excited. They would use them when we'd be cleaning up any mess outside left behind by Winter. For us, getting their new gloves meant Winter was finally over!

I took down our wooden ring-style towel holders and put up these instead. I found these at Hobby Lobby and thought they were fun and colorful as well.

Not including the shower curtain, I got by decorating the entire room for less than $30 and I was super excited by that! Of course, it's also given me a terrible case of Spring fever, so the nice weather better get here...and stay!

Project 365 - Week 9

Week 9! The last week of February - Bring On Spring!

2-22

Jays cousin has a daughter who was playing in a volleyball tournament at our high school, so we went up and watched her play. Her team ended up getting 2nd place overall!

2-23

Exciting night! DH's girls basketball team that he helps coach won their regional championship game, so they will play in the state tournaments next week!

2-24

My son had a concert at his high school. Both the choir and the band did awesome, but when their all male choir sang "Goodnight Sweetheart" I could have listened to it all night!

2-25

This morning I told Austin that I was going to get groceries, so I wanted him to make a list of anything he knew I needed to get at the store....here's what his list consisted of:

In case you can't read that clearly (he writes so neatly when he takes his time *sigh*), it says: Hot dogs, Ho-Hos, pickles, Ch. (chocolate) milk, buns, and French toast sticks. Does that sound like a true bachelor in the making or what? LOL

2-26

We had a rainy day mixed with freezing rain. Perfect day to relax in the hot tub.

2-27

I decided to straighten my hair today. The older I get, the more natural curl I get. I love it during the winter because I have many options on how to wear my hair, although as thick & curly as my hair is, it takes a long time to straighten it. Once the humidity gets above 50%, I don't even bother, because it won't stay straight.

2-28

Tonight we went up to a small lounge in town where Jay's Uncle was playing with his former high school band. They are so amazingly talented and they play all the good old songs you don't hear anymore like Mustang Sally and Johnny B Goode! Jay's Aunt even joined them by singing along for a few songs.

Be sure to click on the link in the side bar to head on over to Sara's where she is hosting this project. You can also check out other 365 pictures while you're there!

What I Don't Like About Melting Snow...

What A Great Day

Yesterday was one of the best days we have had in a very long time. It was cloudy, rainy, damp and just plain yucky outside. So what made it so great?

This:

And this:

And do you know why we had mud on our roads and ponds in our fields? Because according to my vehicle, we had

This:

51 degrees!

F-I-F-T-Y O-N-E D-E-G-R-E-E-S!

People - this is February. This is Iowa. This is not normal.

Oh but we'll accept it!

It was still cold enough that when the heated water dish was empty the farm cats took turns sitting in it. The big sissies.

I don't feel bad for them at all either, because they are wild, and they are mean. This one for example growled long and loud at me for getting within a 6' distance to take this picture. I reminded him of the saying which has to do with not biting the hand that feeds you, but I don't think he cared.

For one brief second I felt a little bad that they were out of water until this nasty ol' kitty hissed at me as soon as I stepped closer to fill it up. Fine, deal with dehydration your own way and drink from a mud puddle. See if I care. I had Jay fill it up later.

I know that today doesn't signal the end of Winter. After all, this is February. This is Iowa. This is not normal.

But we'll enjoy it as long as it does last.