the snow already

I know I recently requested "some" snow to get my nagging husband off my couch. I do not recall asking for 2 solid weeks of it. Some days we get an inch or two some days we get 6, Monday I awoke to probably 10 new inches. It is getting kind of difficult to tell where the old starts and the new begins. Mainly because I live at the nexus of the universe or something with the wind gusts and all, and drifts get as high as I am tall, but also because there is so much of the damn stuff.

Maria is not a happy camper. Tommorrow they are calling for an actual storm with like a foot or so. hmph

Bitching was not the pointof my post though. This morning, what with snow falling and wind chills below zero, the kids actually got a 2 hour delay. I love the 2 hour delay, not really a whole day, where they will be doing that infuriating talking to me all day, but just enough time so we are not quite so rushed in the morning.

With my middle guy catching the bus at 6:45 am, and the other 2 out the door an hour later, there isn't too much time to relax in the AM. It's nice to have a good breakfast, and the sun actually be out when they leave. No one is too exhausted and they all get up so much easier. With mornings like that the whole day seems easier.

This is the snow from the roof about to hit the snow drifts on the deck. what a view (can u read sarcasm) I used to look out that window and see my ponds, now I see snow, ooh AND ice.

And this poor unfortunate chair is the victim of my laziness this fall, I mean clearly I did not have enough time between October and the middle of Jan to put it away

hey google.....****^$*) off

you know when i switched over to the google deal this past weekend, i had to change my sign in info. when i attempted to enter my password, THE password, the one I use for every last God forsaken thing., Google told me it wasn't secure enough and I had to choose a different password.

Hey Google.....I use the same password for everything because I am an idiot who cannot remember her own last name half the time.

Now I have to do everything TWICE because I keep forgetting it changed..the inconvenience.

Ichabod Crane we are not

If you grew up in the Capital District of New York, you right now get the title. For those of you who didn't, let give you some background.

Imagine it's a snowy Weds morning, you sit by the radio eagerly awaiting the announcement. "Albany public and parochial schools (or whatever district you were in) closed." Nine times out of ten, you wouldn't get your wish. Instead you would pull on those damn rubber boots that never came off easily at school, over 4 pairs of socks (I would have given my right thumb for thinsulate back then), thrown on a coat, hat gloves pulled pants on under your skirt, because God forbid a pair of pants be allowed when it's 5 degrees out and snowing, and trekked the 9/10 of a mile to school.

And yes I am aware that was a very long sentence, and yes I know exactly how far it was because if you lived a mile from school you got a free bus pass.

Who were you cursing the entire bone chilling walk to school? Those damn kids from Ichabod Crane School Ditrict. Why? The mere thought of snow shut that school down tighter than Sr Lois's supply closet.

To this day their snow day free for alls puzzle me. I mean it's upstate NY, the Adirondack Mountains are all around....IT SNOWS. Sometimes it snows ALOT, and it's COLD. Those Ichabod Crane people thought they were in Florida or something.

I thought of good 'ol ICSD this morning, and if my kids knew better they would have been cursing them too. This is what they had to wait for the bus in

65000 calories and some tv

.....or what I did with my Saturday. Don't you love days like that. OK so my big ol ass doesn't love days like that but I did. I actually got up early and headed out, I was out of bread and youngest had baseball signups. But by 9:30 I was home, back in my sweats and plopped on the couch reading a magazine.

I did do a little work, like cleaned the birdcages (eeewwwww, birds are the WORST pets, anybody want a parrott or 3?), and got the stragglers that didn't get filed when I did all my work earlier this month finally put where they need be. Made 3 square meals, and , and I finally switched to "new" blogger so I had to go to all the trouble of setting up a google account AND changing my layout, cause it's PINK. (sigh) and work hard browsing my pics. And , ummm thats about it.

I was later cruising channels looking for something to watch, and you know TV just sucks. I have no idea how people sit down and watch TV every night, I just don't get it. It is either lame shows or movies I have seen more than 10 times. So my remote finger scooted to the PPV channels, which I always forget about and watched not one, but TWO movies I had never seen.

Little Miss Sunshine, which was effn hysterical. A little raunchy but just my style. And DaVinci Code, which my 13 year old surmised precisely "This movie is confusing". I f I hadn't read the book, I would have no clue about what was going on. And I just didn't like Tom Hanks in that role.

Thats why I usually avoid seeing a movie if I read the book, it is always a let down and it's hard for me to switch my picture of the character to who the actor is. Of course thats also why I couldn't read Lord Of the Rings until after I had seen the movies. Cause Tolkien was just high, and I needed that visual.

I sure hope I can take it easy today, my heart can't stand the excitement.

it's gone to the cats

Ever live in the boonies? No? you may not get this post, in fact you may be inclined to call the nearest Humane Society on me when you're done.

Anywhoo

Because I have cats, you know actual pets, who spend a good portion of their time in my house, take their meals in my kitchen and snuggle up on my bed when I am out earning their keep, our home also attratcts a good deal of "feral" cats. You know crazy strays. I'm not quite sure when they became so numerous, but there are quite a few. We realized it may be an issue when one day last summer.

My son had some friends over and they were snacking on pizza and wings on the deck. Being men, they just left everything on the table out there when the shindig was over. About 4 am I am revived from my slumber by what sounds like a pack of wolves skittering on the deck. I stumble up the stairs, carefull not to trip over my 2 house cats who are cowering on the stairs, to the door to see no less than 15 cats fighting over pizza and chicken bones, you know at the table.

I had decided then that maybe I should stop leaving food for my cats out there, obviously I was attracting attention. But the cats couldn't stay away, our garbage is just too tantalizing. All those picked at plates that find their way to the trash, it's like my youngest is trying to feed them. Of course to blame it all on one person is just not fair, we are a house of carnivores and what the coons don't get the cats will.

I told the story of Charley one of the strays who decided to join us ( of course as soon as we named him he disappeared, loong story). Now I have a chapter to add.

During the last 2 weeks the weather has gone from unseasonably mild to actual winter. Cold, lots of snow and frozen garbage. At one point someone left the garage door open and two more visitors wandered in. They wouldn't come out of hiding behind Mt Crapmore, and being an animal lover, I couldn't stand the thought of them being cold or hungry. So i put some food in the garage for them to eat and figured they would escape at the next opportunity.

I was wrong, seems my house cats showed them the "here's how you get into the ceiling" trick, and I haven't had a decent nights sleep since. I know they are coming out of the ceiling, they eat the food. I even saw the one stalking me under the old coffee table thats down there. And there are kitty prints all over the sports car. Come nightfall though those little buggers are prancing all through the ceiling. Hissing and fighting with each other. Guttural growls from every corner. It's like some kind of turf war going on.

Only guess what? IT'S MY TURF!!!! and I would like to get some sleep.
******************************************

You know I totally just realized, if you had told me 18 years ago that I would have feral cats living in my ceiling and keeping me up at night I would have had to have you institutionalized. How the mighty have fallen.

watch what you wish for

I'm not really sure which is worse, listening to my husband whine over a lack of snow or this

Right this minute I might say he could whine for snow the whole rest of the winter and I wouldn't care. I actually used to enjoy winter. But now I remember why, we lived in a place with normal winter. A few small storms, a couple big snows, and regular old days in between.

Then we moved here. Now it hasn't been bad. I actually have no business complaining. But that's never stopped me before, and it won't now either. I HATE it. HATE...HATE...HATE. The icky icy slush in every parking lot, the icy wipers that you need to stop and smack on the windshield 10 times in a 40 minute drive. The fact it takes 40 minutes to go anywhere it used to take 20 to get to. The deck that I have to shovel off so that an hour later in can be covered again. The white outs, ummm love me some white outs. Nothing like cruising along at 50 mph to suddenly not be able to see 15 feet in front of you. And I can't forget the blowing drifting snow, and that my house is the eppicenter of said snow (as you can see from the pic).

Oh yeah and the best part, my driveway. I have 4 wheel drive and sometimes need a running start to get out of it. Even if it's cleared, the plows come by and leave a foot of snow at the top of it, which, if it gets cold enough will form a wall of ice. As long as I'm ranting over Penn DOT ,we shant forget that at least once every year my mailbox gets it, then I get to dig my mailbox out of the ice and snow to retreive the mail, and try to figure out how to put a new one up with everything all frozen

good times , good times

little story

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time there were 2 girls. We'll call them M and T. These girls were very good friends, through everything. From Brownies to boyfriends, to boy bands(lol),to weddings, to having children of their own. Their friendship hit hot spots and cold spots, but they always were friends.

One day M was none to happy about a decision T had made. It really was none of her business, but she stuck her nose in where it shouldn't be and decided she knew everything. And T was wrong.

T attempted to patch things with M, but she had pride too and figured if M was going to be that way let her be. That my dear readers was 13 years ago. In that time M thought about T at least once a week. She thought about T's kids on what would have been their first days of school, and wondered how it went. She heard T had had another baby and felt bad she couldn't offer congrats. She heard T had gotten a divorce and suffered that she hadn't been able to help her friend through what was most likely a very hard decision. She wondered what her dear friend had been up to all these years.

Then one snowy Saturday night, M had her home and computer all to herself. She was killing time and looked people up on Classmates. There was T, so M being ever curious, shelled out the 15 bucks to see what her old friend had been up to. M saw pictures of T's children she had posted and could take no more.

Really she remembered why the friendship went sour, but she couldn't remember why it had bothered her so much. It didn't directly affect her, she knew that a long time ago. Pride and stubborness had gotten in the way. M took the step and sent T a short note through the site, asking her to send her an e mail.

And send she did, about a 3 page email chock full o silliness and pictures. M responded back, with an apology and silliness and pictures. And it was like the last 13 years were erased. Phone #'s exchanged and marathon phone calls loom in the near future. Turns out T had thought of M alot the last 13 years too, and missed her just as much. M will be in T's city in a couple weeks, and cannot wait to see her old friend, armed with many pictures and stories from all those years.

We all have someone from our past that we let slide out of life for no reason. Bring that person back, trust me you won't regret it. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some pics to gather up.

so it begins

The Hubs and I have found the secret to many years of happiness. We avoid each other at all costs. OK maybe avoid is a bit strong, we do enjoy spending some time together. But I find it is usually in my best interest to have a bit of a break once in awhile.

That time is now.

I know it may sound a bit cruel or uncaring, but right now...right this minute in fact, I just want him to leave my house and do something, anything. Please?

I thought his recent trek to Washington would cure his snow itch, it really only made it itch more. The saying around here is "If poppa ain't happy, ain't nobody happy". Never is that more true, he was fighting with the 8 yr old last night over a video game. It's like some 37 yr old kid is living on my couch, eating all my food, and complaining to the end of time over the fact that we have yet to receive any snow.

Like I control the snow. Believe me if I did, there would be 6 feet of it on the ground and he would be snoozing away the daylight awaiting his nightly snowmobile trek.

If it isn't going to snow then I want Spring so I can throw his ass out to work for 3 months. Absence does make the heart grow fonder you know.

In which I pay homage to many years of mindless TV watching

this pretty much describes how I feel today

good ole days

in light of my post below, i think i'll just live in denial and pretend this is here and now

lessons

Oldest had Winter Ball last night. He took his new girlfriend and they had a lovely time. He is still grounded, but got time off for good behavior. I will post a picture of the very stunning couple as soon as my desktop decides to stop being an ass, and let me sign on the ole internet with it.

He learned a very valuable lesson last night. In PA, until you are 18, you have a Jr license. You cannot drive between 11 pm and 5 am, with that license. Speedy Mc Leadfoot, decided the square sign with a 45 on it did not apply to him and got pulled over at 11:40 pm. Had the cop been so inclined oldest could have lost his license until he was 18. There is a zero tolerance for speeding with a Jr license. Instead he gave him a warning and a citation for Jr license violation.

This kid learns lessons ALOT. Last summer he luckily blew a 0.0 on a breathilizer, after chugging a forbidden mug o beer at an outdoor festival. He said he was so scared he almost soiled himself. But he got off. His whole grounding is over a BIG error in judgement, luckily we caught him before he had an opportunity to get into big trouble.

He coasts through alot of things and comes out clean. Before football camp they have to have completed certain Accelerated Reader points to participate. He waited until the day before and tried to read an entire book.

Just so you know Friday Night Lights the book, is NOTHING like Friday Night Lights the movie.

He took the test and initially failed, however even though he failed, he aquired enough points to participate in camp.

I worry about the fact he seems to have a golden touch. Or a ton of luck. I'm not sure which it is. He falls asleep in a class, and teachers can't stay mad at him. He is one of those kids. When he brought that ticket in last night I said to him, "You know you got lucky, right?" I say that to him so much it's scary. What happens if his luck runs out one day, or the day he comes across someone he can't bluff or charm his way by. Have I failed in some way because he feels like no matter what he does everything will be ok? Or is that not such a bad way to be.

This parenting thing is HARD

As much as I enjoy watching him become an adult, I long to have my little boy back. I can just tell him to go to bed with no TV if he's bad. And clean his room...lesson learned.

in search of...

Have you been shopping lately? Holy crap. It's no wonder I am in a clothes rut. Who is creating the sizes on these items?

must be oompa loompas, because noone else could label that t shirt I saw today as a large and be serious.

For the love of all that is Holy!!!! are you freakin kidding me?

Now I am the first one to admit I am no longer the leetle thing i was back in the day. I know I am carrying around some major junk in da trunk, BUT (hahaha butt) something labelled an XL (16/18) should not only make it past my thighs, it should not casue me to lose consciousness while attempting to see if I had missed a secret button somewhere or something. It should not only fit, but it should be big.

cmon, you know they do that sometimes....the secret button, snap or hook n eye..they do it right? i'm not the only one.

They keep trying to pawn off teens and eating disorders on models. Blame it on the damn clothing manufacturers. I am sooo sick of it. Go into a Hollister store, they do not even carry a misses size over a 9. I bought my neice a pair of sweat pants there for Christmas, they were a Large, she couldn't get them on. Yet her jeans are a 9/10.

There seems to be no happy medium anywhere. I either dress like an old lady or continue on in my jeans and tshirt rut. I even tried plus sizes for tops and sweaters. I guess plus size means you got some knockers cause most of the necklines hit my belly button.

Yeah thats HOT

I miss buying new clothes I do, I used to love to shop. Now I avoid it like the plague. Nothing but disappointment and anger comes of a shopping excursion. Then I am FORCED to buy a bag just so I feel better. My friend and I have a saying "shoes and bags, they always fit".

yeah so the title is for real

I honestly and truly have nothing to say. I really don't. I got rid of my kids and my husband, and I am so enjoying the peace and solitude that I dare not even begin to think, for fear I will start talking to myself and ruin the bliss.

So I sit quietly and get work done....COMPLETELY uninterrupted. It's reeeaaalll nice. For the first time in my adult life my books from the previous year are complete and mailed to the accountant before June. My employees W 2's are out, all my end of the year filings are filed, my bills are paid and there is none of that signing on frantically to pay directv at 6 am, and my new software is up and running.

I even contemplated switching my Blogger account to new blogger, they are getting a little pushy. But I think I will let that slide just a bit longer. Of course now I have no option but to go clean the house....

I knew there was a reason I kept those kids around...diversion.

Enjoy your peace wherever you find it today

knock on wood

Thank you, thank you, thank you..Sweet Baby Jesus, thank you. My husband has decided to wander off in search of snow and is currently booked on a flight to The Nordic Northwest. He is scheduled to leave on Sat am (uber early) and not get back until Weds am.

Why do I say "knock on wood" , he is not afraid to take an airline credit should he decide otherwise. I am waiting with baited breath.....for I need me some alone time.

here's to....

my hubs (even though if he ever read this we would probably end up divorced). Today he turns 37 a full 2 mos and 25 days before me. And may we not have a repeat performance of 30, when he ran out and got his tounge peirced (EWWWWW) and he is so NOT like that. It was his first and last delve into the whole body art thing. Thank God for surgeries, when you have them they make you take that crap out and your wife kinda loses the stud. (go me)

May we make it through another year without killing each other to spend yet one more New Year's together, as we have every year for 16 years now. And that's ALOT of New Years.

As happy as I am to see 06 GONE, I am a little weepy today. The years go by too quick. Before the year is out my oldest will have become a senior and it's just too much. This time next year I have a feeling I will seriously be wanting to put the breaks on everything. But as the years progress they seem to go even quicker.

Damn time....Here's to a happy, prosperous, healthy year.

it must be new years

Why do I say this? Because it's time, it's time for my kids to once again leave the nest and go back to school. I actually went to my bedroom last evening and put laundry away...JUST SO I COULD BE ALONE. How sad is that?

Between work ending, a lovely vacation and Christmas break, my family is really starting to grate on my nerves. Is that horrible? am I the only one? Will I actually (really and truly) look back to these days of incessant neediness and miss it some day?

Sometimes I wonder.

I took the boys to the mall yesterday, just to you know maybe spread out a bit. Garr they fought the whole way in the car. Sulked and kicked at each other while I was attempting to get what I needed at Staples. Whined if I was in a store that wasn't "someones favorite", or called becasue I needed to be at Hollister STAT! (!!!!) there was a "huge" sale. Ok, since when is a hoodie for 30 bucks a sale? Not in my book, so we sulked because I'm cheap. This from the oldest who wears a uniform to school anyway.

Then we went home, and asked the oldest to drive to this one pizza place because we really like their pizza. It's maybe a 10-12 min drive. He doesn't feel like it. Well I didn't feel like getting outta bed at 6 am one day to you know...give birth to you, but i did. I didn't feel like being your indentured servant and driver for the last 16 years, but I was. Now go get the damn pizza. And please when you get home make sure to whine extra hard about why we couldn't just order from the place that delivers....because you had to wait 10 whole minutes when you were there.

TEN MINUTES! the nerve. I have to wait 48 hours to get your butts back in school, you'll live.

football is like my lover

hmph...last nights game proved to be indicitave of the entire season. a few points short after a good game. at least they put the fear of God in those damn Giants, who now will probably end up playing the effn cowboys and I'll have to just wish the stadium opens up and swallows both teams.

bye football...i'll be waiting

It's the Superbowl...kinda

As mentioned earlier, I am a Washington Redskins fan.

This year I feel like I should be saying that in a meeting or something..."My name is Maria, and I am a Skins fan"

If you don't follow football, take my word for it, it's been UGLY.

There have a been a few shining moments, beating Dallas was tops in my book. Winning in New Orleans was pretty sweet, and I did enjoy the game I took the fam to. Went to watch Atlanta beat them soundly earlier this month, but at least my boys enjoyed that, and they managed to get attention from one of the Falcons WR's, who gave them a wave. You would have thought it was the second coming.

Which brings us to tonight...

Growing up in "Giants Country" (if there was a font of disgust, I would have used it just there), I had 2 options when I decided I enjoyed the foolsball. 1) root for the hometown team, or 2) pick their arch rival and root against em. I chose the latter.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because tonight is the night, last game of the season, after tonight Skins hang em up for another year. Giants pretty much have to win to play post season...And you heard it here ...Skins are playing spoilers, sorry Tiki..after tonight it's going to be over. Skins are going to send you home one last time, and be heroes for the rest of the NFC. I am stoked, and I will be calling out every Giants fan I know after.


****I reserve the right to delete this post if they lose ******

HAIL

back

we're home...yeah. can you sense the excitement? Our trip was wonderful, relaxing, great weather. No one fought an obscene amount. Only the day we tried to go to Magic Kingdom killed us, it was VERY crowded. But we stayed to the bitter end (mostly to get our $400 bucks outta the place) and watched the parade and fireworks. The days at Universal were awesome, it was practically empty. Of course now we know why, everyone was at Magic Kingdom. Went to Coccoa Beach for a day, and it was so relaxing, warm sun, empty beach. It really was a great trip. We even found a PS3 and brought it home...BONUS.

With a drawback or 2.

A little history for you, no trip is complete without a visit to the ER or urgent care. It's always something....swimmers ear, strep throat, a foot that blows up so much it really looks like one of those cartoons where the guy blows into his hand and makes it bigger. That was more funny than anything. You name it. I was in Kona for 2 weeks in 04, and made 3 trips to Hualalai Urgent Care....nothing says paradise like heading across the street to Wal Mart for your meds.

So this time it was me, Thurs night. After feeling like I was trying to give birth to a 10 pound gas bubble for most of the afternoon. I told hubs we HAD to go to the ER, I no longer cared if they laughed at me behind my back for coming to ER over gas. I just wanted to feel better. So we went, and spent thurs night until 5 am in the Sand Lake ER. It was nice as far as ER's go. And I got some great pills to make the rest of the trip go by real smooth. Nothing major, just a slight fem problem that my Dr will be able to remedy, (as soon as she gets back form vaca...glad I'm not dying).

Then because 06 could not go out on a high note, we get home late on the 23rd. There were just a couple boxes that were delivered while I was gone, I had asked a friend to stop by and put them in the garage so they would not just be laying outside. Turns out a certain grinch helped themselves to the boxes OUT OF THE GARAGE.

I KNOW!!!!!! Can you believe someone could sink so low? It wasn't even much, and unless this person had a Falcon fan, chess player, drummer and kid who wanted Guitar Hero 2 they were useless to that person. Just the point. Plus all of those gifts were for my 13 yr old, at least I was able to tell him what happened, and that I would buy him new ones. But the kid had 3 gifts under the tree on Christmas morning, and it bothered me.

but we did have a wonderful time, especially the part when I called one friend on the 20th, I was sitting at the pool, she was frantically searching for some I cat or something. ahhhh...life is good. Happy New Year ...I am hunkering down until it gets here..glad to see 06 in the rearview.

venus and mars collide

My husband is a bath kinda guy. Me? I honestly prefer a shower. So in our bathroom we have a big ol' jacuzzi tub, and a separate shower. Never the two need meet. Until yesterday.

Because of a plumbing glitch, the tub desperately needed a disinfecting. So the hubs was forced to use my shower. When I said to him.."I don't have any bleach right now, just use my shower". I had no idea the what I was bringing upon myself. OK, I should have. I mean we've been married for like a jillion years. I should have run immediately and bought some bleach. Looking back, I wish I had.

So I got into my shower, and oh no he did not..He did, he changed my shower setting. I had to tiptoe up (shower head comes out of the ceiling) to change it back. Also, because he is 6'4, and I am not even close to that, the water was hitting me smack dab in the face. Because, gawd, I guess he needed to shower his head as well, so he moved my shower head to accomadate him. hmph

I avoid drowning, and I reach for shampoo. He has messed up my collection of 1/2 empty shower products that I don't use anymore but refuse to throw away, AND put the wrong shampoo in front. AND used the scrub, but not put the top back on right. Oh the list of wrongs goes on and on. So I did what any normal woman (who is leaving for vaca in less than 24 hours and desperately trying to keep the peace) does.

I put a teaspoon of coffee in his choclate milk (he hates coffee), loosened the top of his mouthwash, so when he picks it up he'll grab the top and have a minute of frustration. Hid his cell phone under the bed and moved his shoes. Lots of little things, that will make him say..."I could have sworn I left it right here", but nothing that can be linked to me.

Because passive aggressive is my middle name.

Well I have some gifts left to wrap, and some clothes to pack and boys and girls.I AM OUTTA HERE...ciao