It's getting ridiculous!

This weather is killing me!!

7:15 am... on the way to Chandler's school...

21/365

Is is spring yet?

Snow Day!

So, it snowed today. Fortunately (or unfortunately... depending on where you live and how you feel about snow) it wasn't quite cold enough for it to stick.
We got just a bit that accumulated on our back deck, but that's about it.

19/365


Here's a quick video we took when we got home from shopping today...

We ain't afraid of a little cold...

That's not entirely true. I HATE the cold.

However, when you have a home project and you've told your bloggy friends that you WILL have that project completed by the end of the week... you brave the cold and do what you gotta do!

16/365

Brandon being a good sport as he works outside in the cold (and dark) to cut the moulding for our guest room.

Brandon pulled out the hat and gloves for this project!

If it hadn't been so cold, I would have had him take a picture of me... I looked ridiculous!

You may have noticed on "the list" the "wear a cute hat" goal. I DON'T wear hats. I think I look goofy in them... most of my adult life my hair has been so short that when I put a hat on, you can't see any of my hair... as if I don't have any. Therefore I do not wear them and that's why it's on my list.

Anyway, even in the freezing cold I refused to wear a hat. My ensemble consisted of my jeans and thin sweater I wore all day, Brandon's bright blue ski jacket (WAY too big for me) and my green and yellow Wallabies scarf WRAPPED AROUND MY HEAD to cover my neck and ears while still allowing me to see. :)

We had 4 pieces of moulding to cut tonight... one to cut tomorrow because it will involve some more complicated cuts than the ones tonight.

Did I mention it was 19 degrees today? (-7 for you Aussies!) That was 19 degrees while the sun was out! Who knows how cold it was while we were outside at night!

The most sad girl in the world...

Chandler was SO excited about taking cupcakes to school tomorrow to celebrate her birthday... the big number 6!! The plan was for me to bring cupcakes and our lunch to school tomorrow at 10:30 to have a little birthday party with her school friends... because heaven knows I can't afford to take all 20 of them bowling!

I got a call tonight from my neighbor (and wonderful friend) Becky... she was going to keep Riley tomorrow so I could actually enjoy lunch... not chase Riley around the cafeteria... I could hear the dread in Becky's voice...

B: Hey Jen. I just a call about school being closed tomorrow.

J: WHAT!?!?! WHY!?!?!

B: Something about the rain.

UGH! Only here would they close school on my child's birthday because it rained TODAY!

Now, it did rain a WHOLE LOT, but come on! Canceling school!?!?

So I broke the news to Chandler...

J: Hey Chan? I need to tell you something and it's not very good news.
C: Ok.
J: There's not going to be an school tomorrow.
C: WHAT! (tears already in her eyes)
J: Yeah. It rained so hard today that they canceled school.
C: BUT (sob) NOW I (sob) WON'T GET TO WEAR (sob) THE BIRTHDAY (sob) CROWN! (sob)
J: I'll call Mrs. _______ tomorrow and ask her if you can wear it on Thursday.
C: But she'll say NO because Thursday is NOT my birthday! January 7 is!
J: I'm sure she will understand.
C: It's just not fair.
J: I know Chan. You're right it's not fair.

**Her teacher knew we were planning to bring cupcakes and have lunch together so I'm sure she will be very understanding about the whole birthday crown situation.

6/365

I told you it's cold outside...

Don't believe me? Even Rainn Wilson and Selma Blair say so...

It's gonna be a LONG winter!

Have I mentioned I'm not a fan of the cold?
You can read about my dislike of cold weather here and here.

Sitting outside of Chandler's school this morning... waiting to drop her off...

And for my Celsius reading friends...

Baby it's cold outside...

The last few mornings it has been a little more than "chilly" outside... it has been down right COLD! Each morning at 6:45 I RUN out to my Explorer and start the engine to hopefully warm it up a little before rushing my kids out the door to school...

We have leather seats... I LOVE my leather seats because any time the kids spill anything, it wipes up pretty easy, but I don't LOVE my leather seats when it's below freezing outside! I don't know if you know this, but LEATHER SEATS ARE COLD!

Anyway, so each morning we race around like crazy women getting ready for school and I'm always thinking, "Dear God. Please let the ice on my windshield be melted so I don't have to freeze to death while scraping ice off of the windows."
Most mornings He takes mercy on me and the ice is melted...

This was NOT one of those mornings!

Chandler had to be at school a little earlier this morning to have "Pancakes with Pastor". Her school has a day where the kids invite their Pastor to come have pancakes with them in the cafeteria before classes start. Chandler invited Pastor Jonathan, our children's pastor (and good friend, to have pancakes with her.

We woke up on time, but just as I was about to load up Chandler's backpack I realized that I forgot to make her lunch last night!
Probably because Jonathan and Amy came over to help us celebrate Brandon's birthday... but that's another post... coming soon!

I raced around making a lunch when I realized that I had not gone out to start the Explorer yet! UGH!
I ran outside and started the engine... ran back inside to finish Chandler's lunch... crammed the girl's into their coats and we ran out to load up.

Out of curiosity, each morning I check the temperature on the way to school. Recently I've been checking the temp in Fahrenheit and Celsius. **My continued obsession with all things Australian I guess.**

This morning the temperature was 24F... that's -4C for my Australian friends... THAT'S COLD! At one point is also said 21F and -6C, but it changed back to 24F pretty quick.

So, in summary, the coldest day of the "fall" so far was the day that we were running late and I forgot to warm the engine early enough for the ice to melt off of the windshield.

I was running around the car as quickly as possible with an ice scraper. I would like to point out that the ice scraper was a gift from my Grandmama. When she gave it to me I laughed because it has a "mitten" attached to it... however, many times (this morning included) I have said a little thank you to my thoughtful Grandmama as I scraped ice from my windows!!

The first fruits veggies of our labor...

We have PRODUCE!
Brandon and Chandler picked our very first veggie last night. A squash.
I know my mom and dad are thinking, "Has Jennifer ever even tasted a squash??"

Yes, I've tasted it. Do I like it? No, but my new favorite cookbook, "Deceptively Delicious" by Jessica Seinfeld has several recipes calling for squash puree so we planted squash.

Chandler refuses to give me a real smile these days. Instead she flares her nostrils and looks just past the camera. It's driving me CRAZY!!!

Here's what we've planted this year...

Cantaloupe

Cucumbers
(Rounded leaves are cantaloupe. Pointed leaves are cucumbers.)

Yellow Squash

A zillion tomato plants.
I have no idea how many we have.

Bell Peppers and Banana Peppers.
I can't tell the difference in the leaves. Maybe it's because they aren't doing so well!
This is our first year planting peppers... It may be our last.

Broccoli
Same story here. They don't seem to be doing so well.

Cucumber and cantaloupe have done well every year. We usually end up giving quite a bit away because we can't eat it all before it goes bad.
Last year we had a drought so the tomatoes didn't do so well. The lack of rain didn't seem to bother the cantaloupe and cucumbers. :)

Sunday night we had a TERRIBLE storm. We aren't sure we got that much rain in our area, but the wind, thunder and lightening were intense! Brandon even got up to check the news to make sure we weren't in the middle of a tornado.

This is what I found Monday morning...

That huge tree fell. It's one that I had been worried about for some time. Mainly because it could easily take out our bedroom or even worse, the girls' bedroom! When I told Brandon it fell he was only concerned with his garden! :)
It's currently hung up in surrounding trees. We aren't sure if it's "our" tree or if it belongs to the owners of the wooded lot. Brandon seems to think he can take care of it... I would like to call a tree service and have it removed.
Any suggestions???

Weather Issues!

After the egg hunt I was a little worried that the girls were going to be wearing sleeveless dresses for Easter. I knew there was a chance it would be cool, but everything in the stores was sleeveless. No, I didn't buy cardigans... Yes, I should have. :)

On Saturday I felt a little better. It was warm. Brandon cut the grass, I wore short sleeves, Chandler wore a TANK TOP!

There was still a slight wind so Riley wore a thin long sleeve top.

Of course it was too good to be true. Sunday morning cold, windy, miserable! I will NEVER understand the weather in Cleveland! Is it like this everywhere? I don't remember it being like this in Ocala.

Let It Snow...

SOMEWHERE ELSE!!!

I'm not a big fan of the snow. Put me in a cabin somewhere with lots of food, hot chocolate, a fireplace and a big picture window and I'll watch the snow all day and enjoy it's beauty, but DON'T MAKE ME GO OUT IN IT!!!

The snow itself is fine. I just don't like the mess that goes along with it. Snowy, dripping shoes, wet shoe prints across my floors, gloves and hats drying all over the place. YUCK!

Here's a photo Brandon snapped at 8:00 this morning:

You can still see the grass pretty well in some spots and it isn't very deep on the porch.

Another reason I don't like the snow... the wet snow makes Chandler grumpy. We don't have "snow clothes" so we have to make due with what we have... little cotton gloves that adsorb all the moisture and hiking boots that adsorb all the moisture.
And today she couldn't even find her gloves so her hands were bright red and ice cold and she was even MORE grumpy than she normally would be.

Here's Riley's 1st time out in the snow.
You can tell in this picture that it snowed more between 8:00 and 9:00. You can't see as much of the grass and we were actually leaving pretty decent shoe prints on the deck.

Riley wasn't crazy about the snow, but she did want to touch it a little.

She likes to jump... the smile was about jumping NOT the cold snow. She actually started crying right after this picture and didn't stop until I got her inside and warmed up.
This picture shows the depth of the snow on the deck at about 9:15.

Great News!! (drenched in sarcasm!) I just looked outside and it's snowing EVEN HARDER! All of the show prints from this morning are disappearing.
It's curently 10:30 and here's proof of the new snow fall:

Little People Chick sitting in the snow on the table on our deck. He's about a 1/4 inch deep in snow.