How Ice-a-palooza injured my husband, nearly killed my dog, and drove me crazy.

Let’s get this out of the way. The dog is fine. So is the husband. On to the story.

We are nearing the end of Day-3-trapped-in-the-house-please-help-me!

Wednesday we got up and I made breakfast, cleaned the kitchen, and checked the internets like a mad-woman to determine if church was cancelled. That would mean scrounging something for dinner since we usually eat up there on Wednesday nights and I like to be prepared. You know, so I could weed out all of the gross leftovers before dinner.

I fed the dog his morning alottment of kibbles.

Party Boy was on a work call when I noticed the dog over in the corner trying to heave. Nothing happened and then I noticed that he was all bloated. Large dogs can contract a condition where their stomachs fill up with air. It’s deadly y’all. I freaked.

Explained the condition to Party Boy and called a local emergency vet to see if they were even open. They were.

Party Boy went to get the truck out. No lie, he was able to back it out of the driveway, but it hit the ice in the driveway and stuck. Tires spinning, no forward movement, what are we going to do now?

We had no sand/kitty litter/snow melting chemicals. And now our truck was stuck in the middle of the alley.

As I was putting the kids and bloated dog back into the house Party Boy lost his footing and landed hard on the ice, bruising his knee. He’s okay, just sore now.

It took the two of us 30 minutes, multiple asphalt shingles, a couple of cardboard boxes, and unhappy words to get the truck back into the driveway. Well, actually the yard next to the driveway. We could at least get a little traction in the grass.

Back inside. Party Boy settled into work and I got moving on picking up and nervously watching the dog. Called all the Mobile Vets in the area. None were open, but I kind of figured that.

The dog finally settled down on his bed, belched LOUDLY, and went to sleep with his stomach back to normal. Are you kidding me? Party Boy was on a conference call and just had to hope that nobody heard!

The insanity comes from trying to keep 3 kids quiet while Party Boy works. Quiet quiet.

I think I say “Shhhhhh!” and “Quiet!” at least 3,485,987,923 times a day. At least in the last four days.

And now, they are calling for snow. I think I may lose my mind.

 

Ice. Part Deux.

We are wrapping up day 2 of the world resembling some sort of ice covered post-apocalyptic nightmare. Day 1 is kind of fun. It’s like a forced vacation of sorts.

Day 2 is not so much fun. The DVR is emptying out. Daytime TV is as bad as it always was. The milk is getting low. At least we still have coffee.

The kids are a little wild. We went outside for about 10 seconds. Even the grass is covered by a solid sheet of ice. Too slippery to walk around on. Can’t build a snowman or sled. Just walk out, try not to fall down, and then go back inside.

The rolling blackouts were a nice new touch though. Nothing more fun than waking up to eerie silence at 6:30 in the morning that can only mean no power. Rummage through the file cabinet for the phone number of our electricity provider, which is not the same company that we send the money to, in case you were wondering.

I called them and got a rather incoherent message from a man that sounded like he had been dragged out of bed to make the message. Not enough power being generated, widespread outages.

Use 3G to surf to three local news websites. Nothing. Go to Facebook. Answers within 3 minutes. It took another hour for the local news to catch up. By that time we had been through 3 outages. And we were sleeping. Take that old school media hacks.

Tomorrow = day 3 of ice-covered nightmare. Look for an even more incoherent rambling post. Yay!

Ice.

Things I like about ice –

It makes sweet tea drinkable.

It makes water refreshing.

Sonic ice is magical.

 

Things I do not like about ice –

It traps me in my house.

It makes the dog not want to go outside. He didn’t have any accidents, but I practically had to use a crowbar to get him outside.

It traps the kids in the house.

And the husband. Who needs to be on the phone all day. With the kids trapped in the house.

It makes the house cold.

Sad.

Wait, is it April?

Good grief. I knew this spring that it was an abnormally calm weather season. Not so much this fall. We received 7.5 inches of rain yesterday by 6 p.m. There was flooding, swift water rescues and all the drama that comes when water levels rise too fast. For us personally, that meant that our street was full of water to the top of the curb. It drained off pretty quick once the rain slowed down. This afternoon we had sunshine. Then BOOM! Storms.

Tornados were involved, though at the time of this writing – none here. Keeping my fingers crossed for safety and protection for all of my friends and family in the path of the current storms and for all of us overnight!

As promised last week – My first Project 365 layout(s)! I present the week of September 1st – 7th.

Credits: Oceanside by Trixie Scraps Designs. Fonts – Sketch Block, Designer Notes, + My Own Topher

Wicked Weather Weekend

Last week it was all over the news that the weekend weather was going to be less than spectacular. Another late freeze (our average last date of frost is March 15th) and as the weekend drew closer – snow.

Friday was a nice day. The kids played outside and had a great time, then Friday evening it started to get noticably cooler.

Saturday morning it was just plain COLD. Miserable with the wind chill. Ugh. It was raining and groww outside.

I was on Facebook at about 7 Saturday night and I saw a bunch of updates talking about snow. I went to the window and sure enough – it was snowing. Big, fat, wet snowflakes.

We ended up with about an inch of accumulation, which was mostly gone by noon. And tomorrow it’s supposed to be around 70 degrees.

It’s mind-blowing.

Snow Day 2.0

Last Thursday it snowed. It snowed a record-breaking 12.5 inches.

A friend on Facebook summed it up nicely. Day 1 of snow = AWESOME! Day 2 of snow = annoying. Day 3 of snow = Gross. Thankfully, on day 3 of snow the sun finally emerged and the white stuff melted off pretty quickly. Except for in the shady spots, where it still sits. There’s a couple of spots in the backyard as I write this.

On Friday, I went outside in the morning and took a couple of pictures of the trees that were heavy-laden with snow.

Then I came inside and documented what was going on in here.

They played trains for most of the morning. Then we spent the rest of the day running around trying to get a diagnosis for Chaos, who was obviously very sick. As I said, it was RSV that caused a double ear infection. We got bubble-gum medicine (amoxicillin) and are currently on the mend.

It was a pretty crummy way to spend Valentine’s weekend, but I am happy that we got everyone back in good health.

Feeling the Olympic Spirit

Here in Texas it has been snowing. All day.

I would guess we have between 6 and 8 inches of accumulated snow. Amazing! It’s really feeling like the winter Olympics around here!

Some pictures –

Lighting the First Candle of Fall

Fall is a hard season round these parts. Typically we wake up one day and it’s 98 degrees and everything is lush and green and growing (or dead from drought), then the next morning you wake up and it’s 30 degrees and everything is dead from frost. Fall seems to land in that overnight shift.

Still, I like to pretend that we have a fall. I lit a candle today. I tend to only use candles in the fall and winter when we’re actually inside and the thought of fire doesn’t make me sweat even more. Heh.

On a more serious note, last Sunday our Pastor spoke about the difference between prayer and fervent prayer. At the end of the service we lit candles to symbolize our commitment to fervently pray for something or someone. This reminded me of that. It’s good to have little reminders now and then.

P.S. This is post # 200. Wild.

It’s Not Easy Being Green

But it is sweaty.

See, round these parts we exchange the joy of an eight month growing season for the sheer torture of 100+ degree summers. We are quite in the middle of one of those now. We have had 9 straight days of 100+ degree weather. That’s hot, y’all.

It also causes a problem. Air-conditioning is also a way of life around here. I hear tell that there are parts of the country where central air is not standard in home building. I think it must be a myth. Last week the local news went nuts because the electricity usage around here skyrocketed as the heat climbed. It nearly maxed out the system. We were warned that we needed to carefully watch our energy usage to avoid rolling black-outs, brown outs and just plain power outages. Sigh.

So, now, between the hours of 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. we turn our air up to 80 degrees. It’s never below 78 degrees in this house anyway. When the kids complain I make them stand on the back porch for a few minutes – it’s a change in perspective. We also close all of the curtains to block out the sun. We avoid running any major appliances – including the oven if I can help it.

I don’t know what the neighbors are doing, but we haven’t had any major power outages, and I figure it’s a small price to pay for the pleasure of having electricity.

What I wouldn’t give for a clothesline.

One Reason to NOT Love Summer

Last night Party Boy and I watched a tornado form over our neighborhood.

We knew early in the day that we were in for some rain and at around 6ish I turned on the news because the clouds to the west were getting darker and darker. That’s when I found out we were under a tornado warning. Great.

So, I keep watching the news hoping desparately that the storm will die down as it approaches our area only to be informed by the lovely meteorologist that a tornado was spotted on the ground about 10 miles due west of us and heading right at us. Off we go to take shelter in the bathroom. The kids sat in the bathtub and blew bubbles, much to the delight of Captain Chaos.

At one point I left them to go check on Party Boy, who was sitting on our back porch. Let me just say that we balance each other out pretty well. I take storms very seriously. He doesn’t. I looked over our neighbors house and said, “Isn’t that a wall cloud, right there?” To which he replied, “Maybe.”

Back to the bathroom.

I was reading when the bathroom door burst open and Party Boy jumps into the bathroom. That’s when I knew it was bad. He was white, and obviously scared.

He just looked at me and began to explain how our rather large garden cabinet on the back porch had been lifted up and sucked off the porch, along with several other items in our backyard. While he sat there. Ugh.

We could see out the window in the girls room that our tree was being whipped around pretty good, but it stood! Yay!

We ended up staying in the bathroom for about 25 minutes total until we decided based on the reports fom the NOAA weather radio (you need one of these) that the danger had passed. We released the kids and watched the storm roll through to the east.

Trees are down all over the neighborhood and some are really twisted off at the base – which to this untrained eye looks like we may have had a mild tornado come through. As much as tornadoes can be mild, mind you. So far, there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of large property damage, but we’ll be better able to tell as the sun comes up. If it ever stops raining.

For now, I am thankful that we made it through the storm last night. The kids didn’t seem frightened at all. They took the bathroom drill in stride and even had some fun. I didn’t panic and Party Boy wasn’t sucked off the porch.

Still, this escapade will not be included in any of my 100 reasons to love summer.