Popcorn coming out of our ears!

I completed my first day at work at the Northridge library today. I worked from 9:30a-3p. The day went by at a steady pace. I was constantly busy either checking in books, checking out books or reshelving books. There never was a time that I didn't have anything to do. I like those kinds of days because they go by quickly. It wasn't quite as bad as my first day at Corpus Christi. At least I didn't make anyone cry today!!

The kids and I walked home after school to find our garage FULL of popcorn! Have you ever wondered what $11,500 worth of popcorn looks like?

Wonder no more! YIKES! That is ALOT of stinking popcorn! Scott and I spent all night sorting it and trying to get it into organized piles. It wouldn't have been quite so difficult, but our garage floor always seems to be wet during the winter time and I was scared to have all of that sitting on a wet floor! I'd hate to have to pay for all of that! I would never be able to afford to anyway! So, we had to lay out some cardboard and plywood that we had in the garage to help us keep it off of the damp floor. Let me tell you, it is NOT FUN trying to sort stuff in an organized fashion with someone who isn't very organized. Anyone who has ever seen Scott's desk at work knows right where I am coming from. We think totally different and we had a few episodes that weren't so great, but we got it all done and ended up only missing 2 things. We had to go through the orders again to see where the missing items were, and thankfully, it didn't take too long to find them. I think it's all correct, which is quite amazing when you think of how many items that is! Now, if we can just get all of the den leaders to come and get their group's orders tomorrow so I don't have to worry about all of it sitting in our garage, that will be great. There is no room for my car in the garage either, so I would like to get it back inside as soon as we can. I like not having to scrape icy windows in the winter!

I am so totally tired it's not even funny. I guess that's what a day of working will do to a person! I'm not used to that. I did enjoy my day; however. I hope that I was more of a help to Mrs. Hocking, than a hindrance. There will be a different sub in the rest of the week since Mrs. Schmidt is still at Disney World. We'll all be glad to see her when she gets back!

We have a Daisy Scout meeting tomorrow after school and I also have parent-teacher conferences that I am still trying to get rescheduled. I think I have Emma's rescheduled, but I still need to talk to Gage's teacher about his. It would have been much better had they not been canceled due to the weather!! I'm sure everything will work out.

I can't keep my eyes open any longer. Good night!

Happy Birthday Jari Jo!

Today is my sister, Jari Jo's, birthday. Unfortunately for her, she never receives mail on her birthday! :-( You should be getting a package tomorrow or Thursday; however!! Happy Birthday!! Hope you had a great day!

Gage arrived home this afternoon around 2pm. He was exhausted when he came in the house, you could tell just by looking at him. He was happy to report that they got a deer today! Unfortunately for me, the stupid thing is hanging from the rafters on the patio. I'm sure our neighbors are thrilled with the view of a blood-dripping deer from their bedroom window. I really am not sure why it came home because that, in my eyes, is exactly what Tuttle is for. I'm praying it won't be there much longer. I just want to gag when I see it or even think about it hanging outside our house. I'll try to post pictures tomorrow when Scott gets them off of his camera at work and sends them to me.

The kids have school tomorrow!! I will also be there filling in for Mrs. Schmidt's last day of vacation. This will obviously be a very short week and we'll see what the weekend has in store for us. Scott has no excuse to have to go back to Tuttle, since the deer carcass is hanging on the patio. I'd actually much rather have him gone, to Tuttle, to cut up the deer, rather than having the dumb thing hanging over the patio.

Emma was very excited today to try out her new mittens that she got last night at Scheel's. We found some super soft and warm mittens that should NOT find their way into the lost and found bin at school. My Mom called with a wonderful idea on how to keep them from getting lost. She suggested I attach ribbon to both mittens and then run the ribbon through the back of her coat and down both arms. That was a brilliant idea. Since the mittens have a hook and clasp on them, I just tied the ribbon to both mittens. When I get my sewing machine out and running (the one I got last year on Black Friday) I will sew the ribbon to make it a more permanent fix. This should certainly work for now. I'll be sad if it doesn't, because the mittens were $12.99, and to keep replacing mittens at that price, well, it will break me! THANKS FOR THE IDEA MOM!

Gone again

I think it's probably considered a good day since we were able to stay in p.j.'s until 4:30p!! We had a nice and quiet day (until 4:30p). Gage had 3 hours and 5 minutes logged onto his bookmark timer for today! He is now reading the chapter books that I had gotten for Emma, called The Puppy Place. He is on his 3rd book and we just started reading them last night! Gage and Emma also spent a little time outside playing in the snow with the neighbors.

The phone rang this afternoon and it was Scott. He called to say he was on his way home, and wanted to know if it was okay if he went deer hunting tomorrow. Hmmm...............raise your hand if you think it's a smart idea to call your wife to ask permission to leave for another hunting trip before you're even home from the one you've been on for the past 4 days. I'm guessing there aren't many hands raised. I'm pretty sure the only reason he came home when he did was because the guys that were in Tuttle with him had to catch a flight out of Bismarck later this afternoon. He tried to make it better by telling me he was planning to take Gage with him. I'm not sure how that's better, to trade Gage for Brie?

Scott got home this afternoon around 4:15p. I decided for supper we should use my Texas Roadhouse gift card that I've had for a month or so. We got dressed (my first time out of my p.j.'s for the day) and headed over to the restaurant. It was a much needed outing, despite the fact that Scott was glued to his cell phone checking emails and sending texts, until he caught my death glare, that is. (Have I ever mentioned that I hate cell phones?) After supper we ran down to the mall as we needed to get some supplies at Target. Scott said he needed to go to Scheel's, so I thought that would be fine, since I wanted to get Emma some good mittens. I swear Scott has ADHD. He was basically flitting from one thing to the next and then wanted to go to the Scheel's bike shop to look at some snowshoes. Again, we're walking at quite a brisk pace just to try and keep up with Scott. Actually, I think the kids had to break out into a run. We left Scheel's and headed for home. AGAIN, he's running around the house like a chicken with his head cut off trying to round up Gage's warm clothes and winter clothing to go deer hunting. I wasn't aware of the fact that they were planning to leave TONIGHT to go to Tuttle. They were gone by 7:30. Scott was home for a whole 3 hours. I guess he thinks it's okay since Gage went with him. Emma's not happy, and neither am I! A little while after they left Emma was asking me where all of her stuff went. I wasn't sure what she was talking about. We have been laying their winter clothes at the front door, near the heat vent so that their stuff can dry before they go out the next time, and that's what she was talking about. Her snow pants were gone. I went to look, and sure enough, Scott took Emma's snowpants and left Gage's on the floor. I called his cell to let him know. He had to turn around and come back to get them. If he had slowed down, just a little bit, before they left it would have ended up saving them some time as he wouldn't have had to turn around and come back. He said Gage and Emma both said those were Gage's. Well, they are both black and almost identical, except for the size. They don't know that stuff!!!

I think next year, I am going to propose to Scott that he just move to Tuttle for the fall season.

Day 3 of our 5 day weekend

For day three of our 5-day vacation, and day 4 of Scott being gone, we're doing pretty good. Everyone is still alive and kicking!!! It was getting a little hairy this afternoon when Emma dealt out the Harry Potter UNO cards and stacked the deck so she got the Howler card AND the Invisibility Cloak card. Mom stepped in; however, and saved the day.

We went to Barnes & Noble again today so we could get the answers to Gage's trivia questions for the Ripley's Believe it Or Not patch contest. We flipped the postcard in the mailbox on our way home, so we'll see if we got it done in time or not. I'm guessing NOT! :-)

The kids went sledding again this afternoon with the neighbors. They had a great time; however, Emma's hands got a little too cold for her liking and when they pulled up in our driveway she was crying like crazy when she got out of their van. Her hands were beet red clear up past her wrists. I felt bad for her because I had the same thing happen this morning. After we went to church we stopped by the Arrowhead recycling trailers so I could drop off our plastic, tin, cardboard and plastic bags. The doors on the trailer were being held shut with a bungee strap so when I went to undo the strap, I had to put my hands in the snow and had a hard time getting it loose. When I got that done, I had to do it again on the tin side. My hands and fingers were so cold by the time I got to the plastics that I could hardly stand it. Finally, when I got done and back into the car my fingers were killing me. It took awhile, but they eventually warmed up and weren't quite so painful. I can't imagine how badly Emma's were hurting. They were so red, and the weird thing was that her hands felt warm to me up to her wrists, then the rest was pretty cold. I don't know if that's a sign that frostbite was about to set in or not, but she was seriously hurting. We got them warmed up and she said they were feeling much better at bedtime. I need to go find her some better mittens. The 2 pair she has are fleece mittens and they aren't waterproof. We've already lost a pair of gloves (thankfully they were cheap ones) at school, so I hate to buy any that are too expensive because it hurts the pocketbook when they keep coming up missing. Lands' End has some sort of lost mitten deal if you buy their mittens, but I need to reread the information a little more because when I first glanced over it, it didn't make sense to me. However, it could be a good deal if the kids keep losing mittens.

Gage completed his reading log for the week with 555 total minutes!! He surely won't be out-read this week! WOW! Not even my ME!

I'm not sure what we'll do to stay busy tomorrow. I suppose we'll have to go find some good mittens somewhere.

A Hodge Podge of information

It's cold out! My little weather channel icon says it is 12 degrees outside! I'm sure it was a nice day in the duck blind........NOT!

We had a pretty good day today. The kids let me sleep in a little bit. Emma came in and asked, "Mom, could you get me some breakthast?" I decided I better get up. I had been laying awake for a little while listening to them play so nicely together. It's a rare moment when that happens, so I try to enjoy it when I can.

We decided to get out of the house and head to Barnes and Noble. We almost got stuck in the driveway. When Dave was helping me scoop last night we threw some of that slushy stuff to the edge of the drive where the snow plow could get ahold of it and take it somewhere else. I think all of the snowplow drivers are out hunting deer or something? Maybe they are all on vacation? I don't know, but I do know they haven't plowed many of the side streets! I had to pull forward, then gun it in reverse to get over the refrozen slush. Then, I got to the end of our street and started to slow down because I was going to meet a car at the intersection. I kept on going and at that time I was thankful that the snowplow had not been through, as I guided my front tires into the snow along the edge of the street. Thankfully that stopped us before the other car did! At that point I told the kids to be quiet so I could concentrate on the icy roads. Thankfully we didn't crash on our little outing. Gage got his new Boys' Life magazine the other day and he discovered that there is a patch he can win by finding out the answers to some questions they asked that are in the new Ripley's Believe It or Not book. Since it isn't in the school library, I thought we would try to find it at Barnes and Noble and look through it to find the answers. That's probably not very honest, but I don't want to buy the book. I'm sure it's quite expensive. I suppose we could try to find it at the Public Library, but Gage was also looking for some books at B&N so figured we would just go there. I ended up forgetting the questions which is the main reason we went to B&N in the first place. UGH! I guess we'll have to try again tomorrow. They have been having these contests in his magazine for the first 2000 entries they receive, they will award a cool patch. So far we have been 0 for 2 on those stupid things. I suppose living in North Dakota, we are probably the last people to receive the magazines, therefore will never win. But you certainly can't win if you don't try, so we'll keep trying. When we were in B&N we ran into Juanita and Kim. The kids love teasing and joking around with Kim.

After B&N we stopped at Target to get Emma a pair of shoes for church. I've been meaning to do that for several weeks, only to be reminded each Sunday when she has to wear her tennis shoes with her church clothes that I forgot to do it, AGAIN! Her feet grew over the summer and she outgrew all of her church shoes!

The kids played outside a couple of different times today with the neighbors. Then around 4:30, Chris, the neighbor kids' Dad, took them all to the Jaycee Park to sled down the big hill. I didn't figure they would last too long since their snow pants and coats, mittens and boots were all already wet. They were gone for a little over an hour, which is much longer than I had anticipated. It was some nice, quiet time for me. I got a WHOLE HOUR TO MYSELF! WOO HOO!

Gage has been a reading machine lately. I had gotten him this book called "Who is Neil Armstrong?" from the school book orders since he's been so into the space books lately and he noticed inside the cover that there is a whole series of these books. He wanted to go to B&N to get "Who Is Elvis Presley?" We did find it there, along with 5 others and he had them all lined up on the floor and had the most difficult time trying to decide which one to get. He finally picked, "Who is King Tut?" I'm anxious to read that one as well because I don't know much about King Tut. Each week at school the kids are supposed to turn in a reading log. They are supposed to read 15 minutes at least five times a week for a minimum of 75 minutes/week (the reading that parents do does not count). Gage is already over 240 minutes and he still has another day on his weekly log. He has been bringing home these skinny sheets of papers that have long strings of numbers to add up using the calculator and I just finally figured out where the numbers were coming from. His teacher is having them add up all of their reading minutes each week using the calculator as they have a "calculator math" section. I have noticed that there aren't the same amount of numbers as there are kids in the class, so there are several not turning in their reading logs, and there are a few who just read the required 75 minutes and a few who must read 15 min every day of the week for a total of 105 minutes and a few that read quite a bit less than the required amount. I can see that Gage's number of reading minutes far exceeds any of the other numbers in the class. I'm happy that he enjoys doing so much reading. He makes my spending habits in B&N, and on the monthly school book orders, justifiable.

Emma has also been doing a great job reading. She has a Strawberry Shortcake book that she likes and can read the entire thing. I know alot of it she has memorized, so I went through Gage's book shelf to find more level one readers and tonight at bedtime we were reading some Dick and Jane. It's so much fun when she sounds the words out and figures them out all on her own. She gets big eyes and you can tell she's excited and proud and ready to tackle the next word. It won't be long and she'll be reading them herself.

I am trudging through the last book in the Left Behind series. They started out really good, but the last couple, in the series of 12, have taken me a lot longer to read. I suppose it's hard to keep that many books in a series ones that you can't stop turning pages. I should just quit and give the books back to Shannon, but I'm a little anal that way. If I start something, I want to finish it, regardless. Maybe I'll quit typing now and go try to read some more of that book. I've seen some new ones that look good at B&N, but I won't allow myself to buy any books (for me) until I am finished with the one I am already reading. I save lots of money that way! :-) Especially when I'm in a slump!

There's a first time for everything!

Thankfully my sister Kysa called me early this morning asking if we had a snow day today. I told her that they never have snow days here, but decided that I should maybe get up and check! I think everyone else happened to be checking the KXMB web-site this morning as well, because I couldn't get it to load. I decided to try the television and I was shocked to see that all Bismarck Public Schools were cancelled today! There's a first time for everything! In the 6 years that we've lived here, I don't think there has been a day off due to weather? I know for sure in the past 3 years there haven't been! That's one of the great things about working at the school, when the kids are off, so am I! If Kysa hadn't called us this morning, we would have been dressed and ready for school and wondered where in the heck everyone was after we tromped through 9 inches of snow to get there! I never have the radio on and I rarely get on the computer before I take the kids to school and rarely watch television in the morning because we're usually too busy trying to get ready and out the door. Since I've never seen them cancel school before, I wouldn't have thought they would've today either! Thanks Kysa! Thanks to you I was even able to get a few extra minutes (45 of them) of peace and quiet since I hadn't gotten the kids out of bed before you called!

I was all prepared last night for a busy morning of getting all 3 of us ready for school. I had a list made of things not to forget and all of their snow clothes laid out on the couch to wear on our walk to school! Kysa told me that she was going to feel bad for Gage and Emma if I made them walk to school in that much snow! We would have walked this morning, but even if I had wanted to drive, I wouldn't have been able to get the car out of the garage. We had so much snow that had drifted in front of the garage door that I don't think I could have driven over it. I was thankful that I didn't have to worry about it and that we could spend the day at home.

Since Scott was gone, I figured I better get my butt outside and start attempting to shovel the snow from the driveway. I didn't run out to the grocery store like I'm sure every other Bismarck resident did to stock up on groceries because I didn't really believe we would get the blizzard they were talking about. Boy was I wrong! (There's a first time for everything! HA!)
I figured that I would have to be able to get to the store before our 5 day weekend was over, so I best get to work on the driveway. Around 9am, the kids and I bundled up to head outside to tackle the snow.


Gage and Emma were quite excited with how deep the snow was! I, on the other hand, wasn't that excited once I started shoveling it and realized how wet and HEAVY it was!

Oh, and I was quite thrilled that I had to trudge through the deep snow to the shed in the backyard to get the shovels because we hadn't gotten them out yet. I wasn't too happy when I realized that Scott had put the bicycles away for the winter and the shovels were clear to the back behind all of the bikes. I'm not sure why he didn't think to pull them out since it's pretty much inevitable that we will end up using the dumb things before the winter is over? NICE!



The snow had drifted up high enough in front of the front door that we couldn't open it from inside. Gage and Emma thought that was "COOL!"

The kids were having fun making snow angels while I was hard at work. I had my camera in my pocket just in case I needed it!

Emma wasn't out too long before she was freezing to death because she had gotten snow inside her mittens, inside her coat and inside her boots. I think we may have to get some bigger snow pants? Actually, it would probably be smarter to get Gage the new, bigger pants and let Emma have his, since his are about too small also!

After this snow angel, Emma headed indoors. She didn't last long.

I, on the other hand, was outside for 2 hours shoveling snow and only had a path big enough for the mailman and possibly wide enough to get the car out of the garage if I needed to. It was wet, heavy and there was ALOT of it! I actually enjoy shoveling snow, but not the "heart attack kind!!!" I'll bet there were many people in the emergency room today with chest pains! During those LONG 2 hours, I had a lot time to think. I was cussing Scott like there was no tomorrow, wondering why in the heck he wouldn't stay home in weather like this. I also thought it might have been nice of him to offer to get us a few groceries last night when he went to the store to get stuff to take to Tuttle. I guess I should just thank my lucky stars that he brought us home a pizza like I asked for supper last night. Thankfully we had enough milk and bread to make it through today and maybe tomorrow. There were many more ugly thoughts running through my head, but I guess I probably should keep them to myself.

It was a long day. It would have been easier had we gone to school!

I never did get back outside to finish shoveling the snow. My back is already sore and my deltoid muscles are killing me. It was quite a workout trying to launch that heavy crap up over the mountain I had created along the edge of the driveway.

Tonight when I was sitting on the couch watching television I thought I could hear a motor running. I was thinking that poor old man that shovels all of the older people's driveways on our street was still out working! I went to open the front door and look and it was my neighbor Dave, snowblowing MY DRIVEWAY! I put my jacket on and went outside to tell him THANK YOU! I told him I could almost kiss him for that! He got all of the driveway done and then started into the sloped area where the driveway meets the road. That was some nasty wet snow that kept plugging up his snowblower. He wasn't able to do much more and I told him that was okay because I was just grateful that he had done the rest of the driveway for me! I told him I would get it and then he said he would help me. I ran back inside to get my boots and gloves.

Dave hard at work at 9:30 tonight! I am SO THANKFUL he helped me out. I can always count on Dave. You know you have great neighbors when they're out snowblowing your driveway in the dark! I'm sure he has saved me a trip to the chiropractor! I shouldn't speak too soon because I'll probably be lucky if I can get my sore, sorry butt out of bed in the morning!

Blizzard conditions

At noon I went to Corpus Christi to start my work day in the library. I had plenty of warnings that I might be in serious need of cold adult beverages around 3pm. It was a very interesting day to say the least. It did go by fairly quickly, as every Kindergarten class (5 of them) has library on Thursday afternoon. The fun started at 12:30 and every half an hour we had a different group of kids. I'd say that every class has an unfortunate high number of kids who don't listen! One of the little boys was sent out into the hall and while I was standing out there with him he continued to mess around despite me repeatedly asking him to be quiet and to stand in the corner, etc etc. Thankfully each of the classes only have 30 minutes of library time. Emma was very excited to see me and she obviously forgot our conversation the evening before about not calling me "Mom" at school. Oh well. At least she's not getting sent out into the hallway! Despite the fact that I had one kid burst out crying because I wouldn't let him take any books (he had 2 at home overdue) and several who couldn't tell me their last names (because they don't know them) so I could get their account pulled up onto the computer screen and a whole bunch of speech impediments, I didn't need to break into the adult beverages once I arrived home. I'm not sure about Mrs. Hocking though! :-)

Speaking of arriving home, that was quite a challenge as well. When I left home to go to the school, it was just starting to do a little misting. They have been calling for a blizzard, but I have been let down many times when nothing comes our way. I suppose because I only wore a light fleece jacket on my walk to school, is the reason why it cut loose this afternoon. It snowed like crazy all afternoon, causing the school to postpone parent-teacher conferences that were to be held tonight. Unfortunately we were amongst the group of parents who have to wait until next week to get the reports. They are supposed to be at the same time next week, which falls on the day we have our Daisy Scout meeting and right at the same time. Hopefully I can get our conferences rescheduled for another time slot.

Anyway, back to our walk home. I had told Gage to come to Corpus Christi when he got out of school as I would be in the library. I was actually able to leave at 3pm, so Emma and I went out to walk towards Northridge to meet up with Gage. He was walking down the hill as we got to the crosswalk so we just waited for him. It was UGLY out! It was even worse when we turned around to walk home because we were headed right into the blowing snow. If you have ever seen the Little House on the Prairie episode when Laura has to walk home in the blizzard, well, that was Gage, Emma and I this afternoon. We seriously could not look forward because of the blowing snow. We had our heads down and every so often I would peek up to make sure we weren't going to run into anything! It was painful to look up! And, since I didn't dress appropriately, that means I didn't have a hat on and my ears were freezing. I had to take hold of both Gage and Emma's hands and drag them along so we could get home as quick as we could. Thankfully we don't have that long of a walk, but with the weather like it was, it felt like forever! We were all thankful to get home. My hair was sopping wet, as if I had just gotten out of the shower and our shoes were wet with wet socks and the fronts of our pants were all wet. The kids wanted to know right away if we would be going back out into it and I assured them that we were home for the evening. They both went right down to their bedrooms and put on their p.j.'s. They did end up changing back into warm clothes since they saw the neighbors outside playing. I let them go back outside, but they weren't out for too long. It's much better watching the weather from inside!

After I describe the weather conditions and tell you that they have shut down I-94 east of Mandan all the way to Dickinson and Highway 83 going north to Minot, you'll probably NOT be shocked to hear that Scott left this evening to go hunting. If you remember, back during the rainy day of the CROP Walk, he told me "I don't even hunt in conditions like this!" That's right, because he waits until they are worse! What a dip****! He's gone through the weekend and hopefully they don't get stuck in a snowdrift. He tells me the water is going to lock up from the freezing temperatures and the season will be done. I wasn't born yesterday Scott! I know better than that. He may not be able to hunt ducks because they are smart and headed south, but there are other species that stick around in this weather that he will continue to stalk.

The blizzard warnings are in effect until 6am and we could end up with a foot of snow. I don't know how much we have right now, but I know it's going to be a back breaking hour of shoveling the driveway after school tomorrow. I am working at the school tomorrow from 9:30a-3p, so I will have to wait until after school to shovel the walk, unless I wake up early and am so rested I just pop right out of bed and head out to do it first thing in the morning. I highly doubt that's going to happen, so I will apologize to the mailman right now. I suppose I could walk home and spend the hour from the time I drop the kids off, til the time I have to go back to the school shoveling, but I'm sure Mrs. Hocking and the rest of the kids who will be coming to the library wouldn't appreciate me smelling like a sweaty pig! I hope Mrs. Schmidt enjoys her week in sunny Florida at Disneyworld! (I should have hopped into her suitcase!) Actually, you know I love this kind of weather, but as I said earlier, I like it more when I can enjoy it from inside!