The kids are over the snow. It was pretty while it came down for 24 straight hours. It was fun to play in a couple times. It's great for canceling these 2 1/2 days of school before the holiday break officially starts Wednesday afternoon. But now we dread that we still don't have a snow shovel, one car is encased, the sidewalk is impenetrable and we'll probably get a nasty note (again... we've gotten one from a "helpful" neighbor telling us when our grass was too long and another stating when our leaves needed collecting, so it's well within the realm of expectancy we'll get one about not clearing our snow fast enough. If they can reach the mailbox).
The snow interrupted quite a bit of course. Katherine had planned on earning 6 hours of volunteer time on Saturday and Sunday decorating the church and at the Foreign Service Youth Foundation Christmas party, and my parents were going to take the boys to see the new "Christmas Carol" movie.
We have a well-stocked pantry so aside from cautiously making it to church on Sunday, we have stayed home. In our small house with kids who want nothing to do with the snow anymore, that means a lot of TV, computers, cleaning house, cooking food, and a random game here or there. We've discovered the full joys of Netflix on demand. Getting a couple movies out and back over the course of a 4 days was great initially, Netflix makes no sense overseas with the shipping lag time, but now we can make an Instant queue and watch whatever whenever. Yesterday was a Mythbusters, original Twilight Zone and Planet of the Apes kind of day. Today, who knows. With another big storm making its way across the country and threatening us with icy rain on Christmas Day, I'm thinking that tomorrow may be my day to hit the grocery for some particular Christmas meal items (and perhaps a shovel). My parents and grandmother plan to come down and celebrate the day with us. We'll see what the weather brings.
With all the snow I managed to finish Rebecca's blanket and put it under the tree.
With all the snow I managed to pick a pattern for Katherine's and decide on her color palette but couldn't get to a craft store, so ordered what I think I want and cross my fingers it works. With all the snow I started on another small project with some cotton yarns I've had for a while. I'm making a multitude of small squares with them and will sew them in a patchwork. They won't make a soft blanket or anything, cotton is more for functional items like place mats or washcloths, but we'll see what it ends up being. If I have enough they might be a nice tree skirt. Somehow in our move I lost both our tree skirts, one the kids decorated back in 2002 and one my mom made. I am bummed.
What I really want to make is this blanket with different colors(hope the link works), but even the sample colors aren't so bad. I do realize that one house can only handle so many afghans, but I'm looking ahead here people, work with me. When my kids grow up and leave the nest (except Nicholas, he's never leaving he says, though I remember when Katherine was this age and saying the same thing... times have changed), they take their stuff with them. They'll each have their clothes and knick knacks, a bed set with comforter, a couple homemade afghans, a case holding their own Christmas ornaments, and a set of dishes and cutlery. I suppose we should toss in a tool kit and a car kit too. Am I planning too far ahead? It doesn't seem that far ahead. Next year Katherine heads off to high school.
Ah, the house is waking up. I was up around 6 a.m. due to bad dreams of being attacked/overrun, so I popped on here to update the blog. Nicholas is up now at 7:15 and I sent him downstairs to get some breakfast. He came back up with the question: "Mom, are we rich, poor, or in the middle." The only correct answer in my book is "Well, what do you think?" He figured we're in the middle, then rattled off that we have a big house, 2 TVs, an XBox, a Wii, etc. etc. I pointed out that we have enough, far more than just enough actually and with all our stuff we certainly sound rich. I think we're rich in more than just stuff though, don't you? Christmas comes in 3 days and sometimes it's a little difficult to keep the focus on the parts not packaged under the tree (we don't "do" Santa, so gifts raining down from a mysterious man in red don't apply), but we'll keep working at it.
