The mud hole that is our driveway...............isn't it pretty?????

Oh yes...the big muddy hole in front of the van.......is part of our lawn, and where it was stuck the first time

Patience.  My husband apparently prayed for it this weekend.  CAn I shoot him now??????????

We spent 4 hours shovelling snow to get van OUT of our driveway on Friday.   We never did succeed instead we got it more stuck.

Soooooooooo my father came and pulled it out with his 4 wheel drive Saturday.

We went to town (first time my kids had been out of the house in *almost* 2 weeks.

We came home dropped kids and I off.  Rob went to back down to where we were going to park it rather then put it in our nasty driveway.  He could have gone forward and turned it around about a 1/2 mile up.  But that would have recquired more time.

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooo

We spent another hour shovelling to get it out of the ditch.  And only got it out when a neighbour pulled it out with HIS 4-wheel drive.

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO  I drove forward turned it around about a 1/2 mile away and parked it down at the y of our road.

This morning I wanted it parked in our driveway.  Its raining.  There's only about 15 inches of snow in our driveway now It should go right??

Soooooooooooo he walked down to the van and drove it up.  He got it in.  *CHEERS*

But then...*Scratches head for a long time*  He decided to back it out and see if he could do it again...without the running start.

Its stuck.

AGAIN.

HE shovels.

AGAIN.

And said outloud.

NEVER pray for patience.  Mert (our SS teacher) told me this..he said God would give it wether we asked for it or not.

And we shoveled.

And rocked & rolled.

And it was stuck...in the middle of the road and the snowbank at the bottom of our driveway.

Sooooooooooo  we called a tow-truck.  $108.

Thats an expensive lesson in patience.  Fortunately we have towing insurance.  ROFL

Our lawn will never be the same....

And for some reason I just can't stop laughing.  Its the perverse side of me I guess. 

Oh and the van?  Its still parked down in the y.  Other day...maybe it will live at our house again.  Another day. 

Taking things into my own hands.....

Or *ack*  I'm becoming my mother.

The house we live in was mine first.  I bought it and with much help from my parents and my church we began to restore it.  When Rob entered the picture the grunt work had been done.  It had plumbing, sheetrock, wiring, a roof, a foundation etc.    We've since restored the lean-to.  Which was a monumental task in and of itself.      And his father did the wiring for that.  And my brother was the brains. 

I have basically done no hands-on "hard" labor since I got married.  I do the painting.  I've chosen to let Rob do the rest.

BUT...

that being said.  One year after it broke...

we still don't have a bathroom sink.

The girls haven't had a working light in their bedroom in two years..or more.  *sigh*

I'm revolting.  *snicker*

There's a dozen other similar "5-minute" projects to do to maintain the status quo. 

This weekend with some muscle from Rob and some "brains" from me.  I fixed the bedroom light.  And some other messes upstairs.   Next pay day I'm buying paint for the girls room to do there two walls.  They have attic bedrooms, the other two "walls" are actually ceiling and are still in good paint condition.   I will leave them white, and paint the other two a hottish pink.    And there room will look liveable again. 

When the income tax return comes in the girls are getting our old queen sized bed, and we will be buying ourselves a king sized one...we're tired of sharing our bed with a baby...TOO small.  And the three girls are currently sharing a twin sized bed.

This *IS* by choice.   They want to sleep together.  We finally just stored the other mattresses as they were being trashed rather then slept on.     But man they need a bit bigger space to cuddle together.  LOL

Anyhow back to revolting.  My husband is a excellent man, but he's not-so-hot at the handyman projects.

I *want* water in my bathroom sink.  I'm tired of using the bath tub to wash my hands....

SO I'm gonna tackle that next.   Goes to research plumbing 101.  It can't be that difficult can it?  And I can't mess it up anymore then it is...trust me on this one. 

*giggles*

Reverse of the sexes.  He'll do the housework, I'll be the fix-it-person.  He doesn't care...so I guess its the way its gonna be.  Cause I just can't ignore it anymore.  hehehehe

 

The capacity to hurt...We all have it.  And we hurt people without even trying.

Why am I saying this?  I just read a blog from someone I consider a friend and precious.

It made me want to cry.

And realize I could be her spouse...many days.  Which sounds wrong.  *giggles*  Its just...I'm the negative one in this marriage.

Her blog reminded me how important it is for *me* to keep my mouth shut....

Or in the words of a song on a record I listened to when I was little.  "If you can't say something nice...SHHHH! say nothing.   Think of all the things to say, thats the route to follow.  If you can't say something nice button your lips and swallow."

I have a new goal in mind for myself.  I want to make the point of thanking and or praising each member of my family for at least one thing each day.

Its an attainable goal.........

But hard work for me. 

I have a husband who likes me the way I am.  He never tries to change me.  And theres several things that could seriously use some change.  I need to thank him for that.

His only two requests are that *a* he gets umm some   And thats on hiatus right now as we're establishing a new b/c method.

B.  I don't interfere with his parenting in front of the kids.  (this ones tricky )

He doesn't question, judge how I spend money.  He doesn't mock my weight,  He doesn't point out the messy house.   He doesn't point out all the flaws I'm well aware of.   He could.  He doesn't.

Now I need to return the favor. 

Wish me luck.

Good afternoon.

I woke up at 6:30 this morning and headed into grocery shop in the only car that we can drive in the snow.   Why that early?  Because Rob had to go to work by 10:30.   Jeremiah and I made quick runs through the grocery store and Walmart and we can now handle being house bound for at least 3 more weeks. 

They were having a "crate" sale.  So I was able to get a bunch of canned stuff for dirt cheap.    And still managed to only spend my normal amount on grocerys.  Of course partly this is because I sat down a wrote a menu again.  I always shop so much cheaper when I write and keep to a menu.  But eventually I slip out of it and wooooooooosh there goes the budget. 

Its "warm" enough outside that my kids are actually willing to play.  It helps that Sam has boots without holes (thanks WAlmart)  And Jamari just plain has boots as his were too small.  These were major bonus'. 

Speaking of boots....

Need a laugh?  We have this up to the knee pair of black barn boots.  They are what I've been wearing to wade in the snow. 

There's NO snow in town.

So I put my berkenstocks in my coat pockets and waded out to the car (the bottom of our driveway).  Threw them in the car took my boots off (too awkard to drive the Metro with.)  and headed to town.

Went to slip my berkenstocks on....

and can't find one of em.   It *may* be buried in the snow...I'm still not sure where it went.  *GROWLS*

Soooooooooooooo  I went grocery shopping in knee high rubber boots. 

Man did I feel goofy.  I splurged and bought myself a $3 pair of canvas shoes to wear the rest of the day....*growls*

And may I find my shoe...they are the ONLy shoes I have (well except for the $3 canvas ones   And the only  ones that don't hurt my back.

Snow is still here...and rumour says we could get another foot tonight. 

I really really hope rumour is wrong. 

            

But regardless. I have these to smile at. 

 

Good morning

Remember I said I was greatful for electricity????  I still am.

The power was out Saturday from 9-3 and Sunday from 10-8 and then 10-12.    I'm not holding my breathe it will stay on today.

I still can't get out my driveway.   The school bus got stuck in a ditch outside my house...I'd rather not repeat his experiment.  Although it was entertaining......

in a macrabe sorta way. 

Here we are all cuddled up by the fire.  As it was our only source of heat, and no fans to spread it to the rest of the house.   WE did get a lot of family bonding time in.... 

Oh yes...and that *is* our dinner on the top of that stove.  It turned out really well...so well we're planning on doing it again.  Its slow-cooked steak and was super tender.  MMMMMMMM!

            

I actually didn't mean to cook it on the stove.  We have a 2 burner Coleman cook stove and a BBQ'er was gonna use one of them...although the BBQ'er is currently under 2 feet of snow.     But it started cooking and we went with it.  LOL    Definitely we went back about 75 years this weekend.

For the most part we actually enjoyed it....though I don't wish to continue it on a long term basis........

Yup I'm a wimp

Theres the snow on our birdfeeder.   Its not a great picture but it shows how it got dumped upon.  There's no longer snow on it....because the snow on our roof landed on top of it when it went sliding off. 

   That's the roof LOL  It was an impressive avalanche.

I did get to do my Saturday walk.  So I'm staying on schedule and achieving my goal.  Mind you I did it in rubber boots.    And wiped out and landed on my already sore hip.    Oh well it was nice.  And I had fun taking some beautiful pictures.  Here's one of them....

           

And this...this is for posterity's sake.  That littler blurp?  Its our mail box......    Zeria has since dug it out so we can get mail. 

             

And one more pretty from my walk.

                

I'm really hoping the grand adventure is going to calm down....although I'm not exactly holding my breathe.   Its the joy of living in the foot hills.

It could be worse....

The neighbours a mile up the hill  behind us haven't had power since Friday. 

Oh and one major bonus????  Saturday we ran out of pull-ups and couldn't go into town to get more.  So we let Rainee run nakey....

She's potty trained.

Just like that.

I bought her a potty chair a week ago and she's been playing with it, but Saturday she decided play time was over. 

Hip! Hip! HOOORay!!!!!!

 

Good morning

The well laid plans continue to go astray.

Yesterday at 1 pm the power went off.   The snow continued to fall.  The power came back on at 11:30 pm.   It was a intresting day/evening.   We have an impressive amount of snow.  A foot?  foot and a half?    Rob didn't get home yesterday morning until 10 am.  He walked the last mile and a half.  His car just didn't want to come up the mountain. 

Needless to say date night was cancelled.  I don't have pictures of the snow.   Its cold out there.  LOL  Maybe later.

Right now Rob is walking back down to the car cause he's "worried" about it.    Whatever.   I keep telling him its not going anywhere etc.  He was determined. 

There's one thing for sure and certain....its not getting in our driveway.  Thanks to the snowplow we have a 3.5 foot wall of snow in front of it.  Plus the foot and a half of snow IN the driveway.

The car is a Geo-Metro.  Trust me its not going in there.  I drove it in a paper-route for 3 years.  It is a great car.  It handles snow quite well.   But its not a tall car, and can only push so much snow before it high-centers and there it stays.  *snicker*

Last night was actually kind of fun.....if we hadn't been worried about when the power was coming on due to cold and loosing stuff in our freezer, and no water as our water is activated by our pump. 

We all cuddled around our gas stove and watched the candles burn.   We read a couple chapters out of Black Stallion.  And later we had a sing-a-long.    In between times the kids took a flash light upstairs and played hide-n-seek. 

I'm very greatful for electricity.   And running water.   And lights.   Candles are romantic....but you sure can't see much with 'em. 

In the year 2005 I resolve to: Not eat cloned meat. Get your resolution here

Good morning.
The well laid plans of men. The snow just keeps coming down. My husband headed his hour 15 minute drive home on the windy curvy road to find his boss and a provider stuck in a ditch on their way to work. So being the good sucker-up that he is, wait I mean the good Samaritan he is he stopped and gave them a ride back to work. It had taken him an hour to get as far as he was....and he was only half way home. So no running away for me today. He's usually home at 7 and its currently 8:40 and no hubby.
The roads are treacherous and the plows are *just* getting out. We have about 6 inches so far.........
Its a good thing Jeremiah slept fairly decent....cause usually I'm sooooooo tired by this time of day.
My kids are happy cause Scooby Doo is on so their watching that.
Well except Rainee...she's brushing the hair on a My-Little-Pony.
We have a baby sitter for tonight so unless the snow gets too heavy we'll be going out. Other then that...things are quiet. Have a great day.

Good evening   We got another half of inch of snow on top of what we already had today.  And its getting colder and is cloudy, so we'll probably get more.

I got out and did my first walk.  It was a short one, and my hip gave me grief.  But it felt so good to get out and do something.    I even managed to do it without kids.  Much to Zeria's chagrin who sat on the edge of our property waiting for me. 

Jeremiah and I got brave and climbed the stairs to the kids bedrooms.   An hour later with all kids except him on deck we found the floor in both bedrooms.     I swept, and then Rob when he woke up swept some more.  Apparently their room is clean....

momentarily.

Such slobs!   I did help them get a better way to organize, and we through dead toys, and unloved ones away.   So with a bit of nagging it could theoretically be kept cleaner....

I'm not precisely holding my breath. 

Other then that was a quiet day.  I'm gonna run away tomorrow morning and do some errands and have a nice quiet breaky without kids.  *cheers*   Its a must in this racous house of many.

Good evening   We got another half of inch of snow on top of what we already had today.  And its getting colder and is cloudy, so we'll probably get more.

I got out and did my first walk.  It was a short one, and my hip gave me grief.  But it felt so good to get out and do something.    I even managed to do it without kids.  Much to Zeria's chagrin who sat on the edge of our property waiting for me. 

Jeremiah and I got brave and climbed the stairs to the kids bedrooms.   An hour later with all kids except him on deck we found the floor in both bedrooms.     I swept, and then Rob when he woke up swept some more.  Apparently their room is clean....

momentarily.

Such slobs!   I did help them get a better way to organize, and we through dead toys, and unloved ones away.   So with a bit of nagging it could theoretically be kept cleaner....

I'm not precisely holding my breath. 

Other then that was a quiet day.  I'm gonna run away tomorrow morning and do some errands and have a nice quiet breaky without kids.  *cheers*   Its a must in this racous house of many.