take this snow and shove it

Staycation all I never wanted

by mayberry on March 28, 2011

Spring Break Day 1: Feeling OK. Taking care of an extra child for the day because her mom’s other arrangements fell through (due to a brain tumor, not even kidding). Get up at a reasonable hour, shower, dress, give kids breakfast before the friend arrives. Manage bits and pieces of work from time to time. Feed all three kids lunch, walk them to the library for a nature talk/reptile show. Kids are disappointed at small number of reptiles (3). Walk them to the ice cream shop and then home. Pack snacks and activities for skating practice. Take friend home, travel to ice rink, occupy younger child through practice/parent meeting. Take both kids for dinner. Drive home and unload one kid directly into bed. Work(ish) for two hours before going to bed.

Spring Break Day 2: Spend morning endlessly repeating list of things to do that do not involve staring at a screen (which, naturally, is what I do need to do so I can get some work done), and also basting the two turkeys roasting in the oven and washing the bedding after making the kids strip the beds. Serve lunch. March kids to museum for art “camp.” Come home: 90minuteskidsfreetimegetbusybeproductiveRIGHTNOW. Pick up kids. Remove turkeys. Stir-fry green beans. Pack up one turkey and set of sides (Jeff did all the work, all I did was baste and stir-fry) to take to friends with a new baby. Come home, eat turkey. Work late while listening to thundersnow.

Spring Break Day 3: Otherwise known as “the low point.” Morning: Interrupted every five seconds by children who really should be old enough to entertain themselves. Summoned from shower by Jo shrieking that Opie was cutting his own hair. Yes, he gave himself 1/2-inch long bangs right in the middle of his forehead. Productivity limited to creating one Barbie dress. Afternoon: art camp cancelled due to $*(&# blizzard. No such luck with orthodontist. Pack whiny children into car, say prayer while switching on four-wheel drive. On the highway driving 30 mph, pass five cars in the ditch plus one overturned truck in the median. At orthodontist, lectured about lax brushing. Leave for home, miraculously arrive in one piece. Bundle children into snow gear. They play outside for 7 minutes. Eat leftover turkey for dinner. Fight with child over music practice culminates in early bedtime. Publish one entire page on fitness site while watching and cursing at Top Chef.

Spring Break Day 4: Double session of art camp today! Homemade turkey soup wins raves! Husband takes kids to free movie at library! I might survive after all.

Spring Break Day 5: Trapped inside, unshowered, all morning waiting for windshield repair guy. Give up trying to limit screen time. Kids in pajamas until almost 3 p.m. Depart for errands-karate(1)-dinner-karate(2)-ice cream for all of us because we survived the week. Actually looking forward to spending nine-plus hours in an ice rink tomorrow (for the change of scenery).

Today: TGIM.

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Sometimes it pays not to know how to use the snowblower

by mayberry on December 12, 2010

And sometimes it does not.

Thursday: Four or snow inches of snow between 3 and 6 p.m. After karate class, “we” start shoveling, by which I mean I shovel, the kids push snow around for five minutes and then start playing with the neighbor kids.

Saturday: A few inches in the morning; ominous forecasts for the late afternoon/evening. I decide to shovel after I pick up Opie from a birthday party, so he can “help” me again. I clear the front sidewalks and a small path behind the house. My neighbor gently notes that this was a fool’s errand, given what is coming. I don’t really know what I was thinking.

Sunday morning: Well! Now we have a foot of snow and strong winds. I watch my neighbor pushing his snowblower about 3 feet per 5 minutes, then very very carefully backing out his car (he is an ER doc and presumably has to get to work). By mid-afternoon, a different neighbor has at least cleared the city sidewalk in front of my house.

Meanwhile, I am fielding calls from Jeff, who is on a multi-day, multi-city attempt to fly home from a business trip. He keeps reporting that he will be in on a plane in the next hour. I know this to be highly unlikely, if not impossible, and yet I continue to assume that he will get home at some point and dig us out.

This is what’s known as wishful thinking. By dinnertime, it dawns on me that I am going to have to dig out the garage if there is any hope of the kids going to school tomorrow. I start checking the school website every 15 minutes for news of cancellations.

Sunday, 9:30 p.m. Kids asleep. Post Facebook plea about school cancellation. Realize I can’t put this off any longer. Suit up and start digging. Curse myself for not a) learning how to operate the snowblower, b) asking a neighbor to help, or c) hiring someone to plow the driveway.

Sunday, 11 p.m. On my way back inside. Stop to investigate a suspicious dark mass in the snow (notably, right in the vicinity of where four children were playing earlier today). Oh, how nice! FLASH-FROZEN SQUIRREL.

Fling it into the bushes with my shovel.

The end.

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Add an hour, add a day

by mayberry on November 7, 2010

Yesterday I was supposed to go on a day trip with an organization for which I volunteer. I’d been gone overnight a week earlier, I had a really tedious, time-consuming project to finish this past week, and I have another short trip planned for the end of this week. The thought of being gone for half the weekend was making me queasy, possibly even migrainey, so I begged off. I spent most of Saturday congratulating myself for this decision.

First, though, it was the usual skating+Starbucks with Jo. The barista has mastered three-fifths of our order by now and we are confident that she will get the whole thing down soon. Jo brought home three sample-size paper cups and then set up a Starbucks in her room for her American Girl doll. She used a small wooden chair for a table, two round dollhouse rugs for plates, carefully ripped tissues for napkins, and two toy megaphones (wide end up) for chairs.

Then we attacked the Winter Stuff Drawer. We have a set of huge (about 3′ deep by 4′ wide) built-in drawers in our downstairs hall. The bottom one is full of all our scarves, hats, gloves, mittens, earmuffs, and so forth, plus the odd baseball cap and summer sun hat. We took everything out and started over, getting rid of all the mateless mittens and outgrown hats. We sorted everything by wearer and upgraded our system of inside-the-drawer boxes and bins.  When we were done it was a Thing of Beauty. And it better stay that way.

In the afternoon I actually sat and watched a football game for the first time this season (I used to plan my entire weekends around “College Football Gameday”) and got through some of my big backlog of magazines. (I’m coming for  you next, Google Reader.)

And then! This morning I used my extra hour to run! This is pretty much unprecedented. All you mamas of little kids: there is hope. I slept 8 hours, worked out, showered, and dressed well before 9 a.m. Another thing of beauty. Maybe I’ll do it again next fall!

Edited to add photo of The Drawer for Kara:


It’s not as good as a locker area or mud-room, but it does house all our winter gear (for the whole family) except coats, snowpants, and boots. The drawers above hold wrapping paper/ribbons; DVDs; and CDs. ALL OF THEM. And then there is a cupboard above with shelves, which holds board games, Wii accessories, some cookbooks and magazines, and some art supplies.

**

Over on the Reviews tab: a sweeps where you can win books for a school library.

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Wintry things of which I am sick

by mayberry on February 15, 2010

(Aside from being cold all the frickinfrackin time, no matter what I wear, do, eat, or drink.)

  1. My boots.
  2. My other boots.
  3. My coat.
  4. All my shoes, sad and lonely and unworn.
  5. My bike, sad and lonely and unridden.
  6. My dirty car.
  7. Not being able to see lines in parking lots.
  8. Wincing every time I dress or undress.
  9. “Where are your boots? Where are your mittens? Where are your snowpants?”
  10. Tasteless produce.

And you?

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WW: Angel

by mayberry on January 27, 2010

This is from our monthly kickball game. Yes, we played in the snow. More photos at my Facebook fan page.

P.S.: I made the BlogHer Room of Your Own post sticky for now–until voting ends on 2/28. Please vote for my panel!

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There oughtta be a law…

by mayberry on March 12, 2009

…against kids being home sick from school more than two days in one week.

…against bagged salad containing any of those yucky rib pieces.

…against the temperature being below 10 degrees F in March.

…subsidizing home delivery of groceries to mothers stuck at home with kids horking up their body weight in snot on an hourly basis.

Can you tell what my week has been like? I have such bad cabin fever that I am actually looking forward to a PTA meeting tonight.

#helpme!

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Too much snow, too much information

by mayberry on December 19, 2008

Over the ground lies a mantle of white…

You’re not kidding. In addition to the foot of snow we got 10 days ago (which mostly didn’t melt), we’re now in the midst of a fluffy downpour of flakes today, with more predicted for Sunday/Monday. White Christmas: check.

It’s not, however, a snow day. Still had to take Jo to school this morning. She gave it her best shot by putting an ice cube in the toilet and sleeping with a spoon under her pillow, but no luck. I have never heard of those two superstitions–is it a Midwest thing? We never did it growing up in Pennsylvania.

I have to brave the highways later on for an OB appointment. My practice now has a new procedure for urine tests: BYOU. They give you a little cup at your appointment and tell you to bring it back at the next one–full. Isn’t that delightful?

I had an sonogram yesterday, the nuchal translucency screening. Baby spent the whole time sucking his/her thumb and trying to shove away the ultrasound wand pressing down on its turf. Not to sound like a pro-life activist but it really is amazing to see that at 13 weeks gestation. When I got home, like an idiot I googled what a normal NT measurement is. It’s almost 4 times less than the number I thought I saw on the screen. Thanks a lot, Dr. Google.

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In like a lion, out like a junkyard dog

by mayberry on March 31, 2008



This is what March 1 looked like. Picturesque, but damn annoying.

Today is uglier. We have the piles of really old, really dirty snow. We have the garbage emerging from underneath said snow. We have mud and thunderstorms. We have brown, crushed, nasty-looking grass and plants.

But this afternoon, Jo saw a rose clinging to one of the bushes that line our front walk. She was thrilled. “Look! A rose is blooming already!” I hated to break it to her: That was an old, dried flower from last summer. Still, she saw the bright side. “It survived!”

I guess we all did.

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It’s safe to be a sturgeon again

by mayberry on February 22, 2007

Today, as I looked beyond my laptop and out my front windows, I was amused by the endless procession of pick-up trucks towing ice shanties away from the lake. We’re starting to thaw.

By this past Monday—President’s Day—it had been a very long week. Opie came down with a mild fever the previous Monday, so that meant no school for him for three days. Friday is my regular day off and Monday was a holiday. Of course! I love! spending time with my kids! but maybe not so much time for so many days in a row.

What got me past the wall of this particular marathon was that the temperature finally approached freezing (instead of being below zero), so Monday afternoon we hauled out the wagon and took a walk. First we checked out the lake and the ice-fishing. Further up the shoreline, a few families had cleared off enough snow to create a rectangular ice rink. We waved to a dad (hi, anesthesiologist on whom I once barfed) on skates who was pulling his two daughters behind him on a sled. We waved to two more boys in full hockey gear making their way down to the rink. Turning the corner, we approached a different, thawed area of the lake. Instead of ice shanties, here we found what seemed like hundreds of Canada geese taking a breather. Soon we were talking about migration, about what geese eat and whether bugs live in the water, and of course about all the goose poop we had to dodge on the sidewalk.

Back near our street, Jo started spotting birds’ nests, including a curious, smooth, round ball in one of our next-door neighbor’s trees (I chose not to mention that it might house hornets instead of songbirds). This soon led to a discussion of how the trees have no leaves in wintertime and then to speculation about all the things trees are good for.

Thus I regained the strength for the tantrums that followed seconds after we walked in the door (hot cocoa denied, etc. etc.) and the dinner and the bedtime and the laundry and the dishes and whatever else.

And if you need strength or a restoration of faith, don’t miss the comments on my last post. Y’all are a bunch of superior monkeys, for sure.

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