Dear Old Man Winter: don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Thursday: No school; Will's college closed, too. Started snowing late Wed night into the early afternoon on Thurs, then again Thurs night. We got an unofficial 9"/23cm of snow at our house in the first round, but the airport, a mere 3mi/5km away (less as the crow flies) declared they'd gotten 13"/33cm. In the second round, we got another 4"/10cm here, another 5"/12.5cm at the airport. We didn't do much except shovel and deal with a little homework and such at home; Will helped a friend replace a U-joint on his plow truck, so we didn't see him for much of the day.
Friday: No school; Will's college attempted to open at noon but gave up and declared themselves closed. He'd taken Friday off anyway, for Valentine's Day, so it didn't matter too much. (Both days the school superintendent had made the call the night before, so at least I didn't have to deal with 5am wake-up calls.) Two woke me at 8am with breakfast in bed, which was sweet (although I would have preferred to sleep :P) - and also the news that he'd burned himself pretty badly reaching past a steaming tea kettle to turn off the stove's timer. At first there was just a red stripe across Two's right wrist, but soon tiny blisters appeared, then merged to form one giant blister about the size of a US quarter: a nasty 2nd-degree burn. At first all I could do was put some aloe gel on the burn, cover it with gauze and keep the gauze in place with an ACE bandage, but when we got out of the house around lunch, I picked up some Vitamin E capsules, and have since been cutting them open to spread the E oil over the burn several times a day (and then covering with gauze/ACE bandage). Blister collapsed in fairly short order, and the E is helping manage the pain, but it's still very tender for poor Two, and still very red.
Will and I had initially hoped to go out for a quiet brunch or lunch on Valentine's Day, back when we thought our kids would actually go to school, but we had to exchange those plans for a family lunch together. We had a good time, though, and our kids had painted inexpensive wooden shapes (a sign for Will's office and a little box, good for jewelry or something, for me) as gifts. Will and I exchanged cards and he'd bought me roses on Wed night (before we got snowed in) and hid them until Friday.
In the afternoon, I took the kids sledding at the middle school, where the football field sits in a natural basin. The previous weekend, Two and I had gone and it was all hard and icy, resulting in a lot of spectacular blue-black bruises on both my hips. After all that snow, however, it was very soft, meaning the runner sleds we had just sank in. Two was using our plastic toboggan-like sled, which worked much better. I stomped down some of Two's tracks to be more firm, so the sleds wouldn't sink in, and that was fine - unless the sleds went off the path. The kids seemed to have fun anyway, though; MiniPlu had invited along a friend she hadn't spent much time with lately, and this was a good choice. MiniPlu's been having a lot of catty girl-drama with other friends, but K is very VERY low-key and drama-less. Probably helps that she's rather a tomboy. Anyway, MiniPlu asked permission to invite K to spend the night, and I said yes; both kids were supposed to have therapy that evening but it had been cancelled since the roads in the therapy office's neighborhood tend to be poorly plowed and the therapist said there wouldn't be any place to park. We took K back home late afternoon once sledding was done, had to ask her parents' permission anyway, but K showed back up at our house after 7pm and the drama-less good times continued. So that was nice. Will and I went up to bed around 10pm in order to give the girls some parent-free time to hang out together, and did Sudokus and such in bed - terribly romantic :P - before conking out.
Saturday: We'd been initially forecast to get a few more inches of snow overnight, but we only got a thick dusting. Instead, the snow ended up being pushed back to late morning/early afternoon, resulting in another 1.5-2"/3.8-5cm overall. OMG, we're so sick of the stuff. Two's been dying to see The Lego Movie, but MiniPlu wasn't interested, so I took him to a pre-lunch showing. I didn't feel it deserved the consistently high ratings it seemed to have garnered, but it wasn't terrible. And the final quarter of the movie, which tied everything all together, was, indeed, fantastic. Still, we had a good time together (although I must admit I got sleepy midway through and had a short period of time where it was tough to keep my eyes open). Both kids got more homework done, and they'd done their weekend chores on Friday (early) because of the overnight guest, so they were both in good shape for a quieter Sunday. I started working on some long-overdue filing, but didn't finish, so there are piles of papers all over our bedroom floor.
Right as we were getting ready to go to church late Sat afternoon, the plow trucks came through and plowed in our driveway AGAIN, although not as badly as last week, when cars were getting stuck trying to get out. Still, it meant we were a little bit late to church because Will had to shovel us out first. The kids had been begging for pizza for several days, so we picked up on on the way home.
I'd taken a chance on a grilled chicken spinach salad on Friday, having reacted badly to another meal-sized salad at Disney World, and I'd also splurged on several handfuls of movie popcorn on Saturday. And I paid for that Sat night, sigh. Nothing TOO awful, but the most number of bathroom stops I'd had since starting the recent dietary restrictions. Not sure which food had the greatest effect there, will need to figure it out some other time.
Unfortunately, Will's insides also started to bother him Saturday night. At first we just chalked it up to overeating at dinnertime (he'd added TONS of chopped lunchmeat to his pizza slices). But he was feeling really uncomfortable, and I had a hard time sleeping with all his tossing, turning and dramatic woeful sighs last night. I woke briefly multiple times in the night (see above: tossing, turning and loud woeful sighs); one of those was around 4am, at which point Will, sensing I was awake, confessed he'd barfed about half an hour beforehand, and hadn't yet slept at all, because he felt so crappy. Thankfully, it was just the once (and neither of us can remember the last time he had stomach flu bad enough to cause barfing), but he was pretty darn miserable all day today - aches, pains, very mild fever, intestinal troubles, and nausea (without barfing) every time he was upright for more than a few minutes. Also, somehow puking had managed to irritate his sinuses and he had a horrible sinus headache - without feeling like he could tolerate any painkiller - until late afternoon, when he finally managed some Tylenol. He spent the day on the sofa, not wanting to feel lonely in bed as he had all night, but mostly too miserable to read, watch TV, play on the laptop, etc. Thankfully, he does seem a teensy bit better by now - since mid-afternoon he's eaten a couple of saltines, an Italian ice cup, sipped a little Pedialyte, and everything has stayed down - although the intestinal troubles continue.
And now we wait and see if anyone else gets it. :P
I took the kids out shopping for a bit in the afternoon. MiniPlu had a gift card to Justice she wanted to use; thankfully they were having one of their numerous 40% + bonus 20% off sales, so she got a top, a pair of Bermuda jean shorts for warmer weather, and I bought her some white jeans. Also treated both kids to a few small treats at a candy store in the shopping center, and we hit the grocery store on the way home. I felt bad leaving Will alone all that time, but he says he slept a fair bit, so that was good. Otherwise, I spent the day doing my usual Sunday stuff - I ran, did 2 loads of laundry, walked the dogs, did things with the kids - and did a few of Will's usual jobs, too, like dishes and taking the garbage out for tomorrow's pickup.
They've already declared a 2-hour delay for tomorrow morning (WHY? It's been 36 hours since our last snow; that's not enough time to deal with the stuff?) so, once again, not going to be a full week of school. Snow is piled up nearly 4'/1.22m along our driveway from all the repeated shoveling (it's maybe half that height on the rest of the front yard) and half the parking lots are covered in plowed mountains of the stuff, significantly reducing the number of available parking spaces. Right now it feels like we may never see the lawn or any living plants (or the surface of the neighborhood roads), ever again. Thankfully, late this week is supposed to be above freezing, but it's going to take a LONG time to melt that much snow. Those of you in the upper midwest and Scandinavia, go ahead and laugh at us. But we are SO OVER winter.
Friday: No school; Will's college attempted to open at noon but gave up and declared themselves closed. He'd taken Friday off anyway, for Valentine's Day, so it didn't matter too much. (Both days the school superintendent had made the call the night before, so at least I didn't have to deal with 5am wake-up calls.) Two woke me at 8am with breakfast in bed, which was sweet (although I would have preferred to sleep :P) - and also the news that he'd burned himself pretty badly reaching past a steaming tea kettle to turn off the stove's timer. At first there was just a red stripe across Two's right wrist, but soon tiny blisters appeared, then merged to form one giant blister about the size of a US quarter: a nasty 2nd-degree burn. At first all I could do was put some aloe gel on the burn, cover it with gauze and keep the gauze in place with an ACE bandage, but when we got out of the house around lunch, I picked up some Vitamin E capsules, and have since been cutting them open to spread the E oil over the burn several times a day (and then covering with gauze/ACE bandage). Blister collapsed in fairly short order, and the E is helping manage the pain, but it's still very tender for poor Two, and still very red.
Will and I had initially hoped to go out for a quiet brunch or lunch on Valentine's Day, back when we thought our kids would actually go to school, but we had to exchange those plans for a family lunch together. We had a good time, though, and our kids had painted inexpensive wooden shapes (a sign for Will's office and a little box, good for jewelry or something, for me) as gifts. Will and I exchanged cards and he'd bought me roses on Wed night (before we got snowed in) and hid them until Friday.
In the afternoon, I took the kids sledding at the middle school, where the football field sits in a natural basin. The previous weekend, Two and I had gone and it was all hard and icy, resulting in a lot of spectacular blue-black bruises on both my hips. After all that snow, however, it was very soft, meaning the runner sleds we had just sank in. Two was using our plastic toboggan-like sled, which worked much better. I stomped down some of Two's tracks to be more firm, so the sleds wouldn't sink in, and that was fine - unless the sleds went off the path. The kids seemed to have fun anyway, though; MiniPlu had invited along a friend she hadn't spent much time with lately, and this was a good choice. MiniPlu's been having a lot of catty girl-drama with other friends, but K is very VERY low-key and drama-less. Probably helps that she's rather a tomboy. Anyway, MiniPlu asked permission to invite K to spend the night, and I said yes; both kids were supposed to have therapy that evening but it had been cancelled since the roads in the therapy office's neighborhood tend to be poorly plowed and the therapist said there wouldn't be any place to park. We took K back home late afternoon once sledding was done, had to ask her parents' permission anyway, but K showed back up at our house after 7pm and the drama-less good times continued. So that was nice. Will and I went up to bed around 10pm in order to give the girls some parent-free time to hang out together, and did Sudokus and such in bed - terribly romantic :P - before conking out.
Saturday: We'd been initially forecast to get a few more inches of snow overnight, but we only got a thick dusting. Instead, the snow ended up being pushed back to late morning/early afternoon, resulting in another 1.5-2"/3.8-5cm overall. OMG, we're so sick of the stuff. Two's been dying to see The Lego Movie, but MiniPlu wasn't interested, so I took him to a pre-lunch showing. I didn't feel it deserved the consistently high ratings it seemed to have garnered, but it wasn't terrible. And the final quarter of the movie, which tied everything all together, was, indeed, fantastic. Still, we had a good time together (although I must admit I got sleepy midway through and had a short period of time where it was tough to keep my eyes open). Both kids got more homework done, and they'd done their weekend chores on Friday (early) because of the overnight guest, so they were both in good shape for a quieter Sunday. I started working on some long-overdue filing, but didn't finish, so there are piles of papers all over our bedroom floor.
Right as we were getting ready to go to church late Sat afternoon, the plow trucks came through and plowed in our driveway AGAIN, although not as badly as last week, when cars were getting stuck trying to get out. Still, it meant we were a little bit late to church because Will had to shovel us out first. The kids had been begging for pizza for several days, so we picked up on on the way home.
I'd taken a chance on a grilled chicken spinach salad on Friday, having reacted badly to another meal-sized salad at Disney World, and I'd also splurged on several handfuls of movie popcorn on Saturday. And I paid for that Sat night, sigh. Nothing TOO awful, but the most number of bathroom stops I'd had since starting the recent dietary restrictions. Not sure which food had the greatest effect there, will need to figure it out some other time.
Unfortunately, Will's insides also started to bother him Saturday night. At first we just chalked it up to overeating at dinnertime (he'd added TONS of chopped lunchmeat to his pizza slices). But he was feeling really uncomfortable, and I had a hard time sleeping with all his tossing, turning and dramatic woeful sighs last night. I woke briefly multiple times in the night (see above: tossing, turning and loud woeful sighs); one of those was around 4am, at which point Will, sensing I was awake, confessed he'd barfed about half an hour beforehand, and hadn't yet slept at all, because he felt so crappy. Thankfully, it was just the once (and neither of us can remember the last time he had stomach flu bad enough to cause barfing), but he was pretty darn miserable all day today - aches, pains, very mild fever, intestinal troubles, and nausea (without barfing) every time he was upright for more than a few minutes. Also, somehow puking had managed to irritate his sinuses and he had a horrible sinus headache - without feeling like he could tolerate any painkiller - until late afternoon, when he finally managed some Tylenol. He spent the day on the sofa, not wanting to feel lonely in bed as he had all night, but mostly too miserable to read, watch TV, play on the laptop, etc. Thankfully, he does seem a teensy bit better by now - since mid-afternoon he's eaten a couple of saltines, an Italian ice cup, sipped a little Pedialyte, and everything has stayed down - although the intestinal troubles continue.
And now we wait and see if anyone else gets it. :P
I took the kids out shopping for a bit in the afternoon. MiniPlu had a gift card to Justice she wanted to use; thankfully they were having one of their numerous 40% + bonus 20% off sales, so she got a top, a pair of Bermuda jean shorts for warmer weather, and I bought her some white jeans. Also treated both kids to a few small treats at a candy store in the shopping center, and we hit the grocery store on the way home. I felt bad leaving Will alone all that time, but he says he slept a fair bit, so that was good. Otherwise, I spent the day doing my usual Sunday stuff - I ran, did 2 loads of laundry, walked the dogs, did things with the kids - and did a few of Will's usual jobs, too, like dishes and taking the garbage out for tomorrow's pickup.
They've already declared a 2-hour delay for tomorrow morning (WHY? It's been 36 hours since our last snow; that's not enough time to deal with the stuff?) so, once again, not going to be a full week of school. Snow is piled up nearly 4'/1.22m along our driveway from all the repeated shoveling (it's maybe half that height on the rest of the front yard) and half the parking lots are covered in plowed mountains of the stuff, significantly reducing the number of available parking spaces. Right now it feels like we may never see the lawn or any living plants (or the surface of the neighborhood roads), ever again. Thankfully, late this week is supposed to be above freezing, but it's going to take a LONG time to melt that much snow. Those of you in the upper midwest and Scandinavia, go ahead and laugh at us. But we are SO OVER winter.