Heavy Snow Warning

This is just so I remember for next year. Yes, I know, I chose to move back here. But holy crap, this is too much.

A HEAVY SNOW WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 10 PM THIS EVENING TO
12 PM EST SATURDAY.

THIS WARNING INCLUDES MUCH OF MASSACHUSETTS ALONG AND NORTH OF
THE MASSACHUSETTS TURNPIKE AND NORTH AND WEST OF ROUTE 128...
EXTENDING NORTH INTO SOUTHWEST NEW HAMPSHIRE.

They were saying ~6" yesterday. Now it could be 12" or more by tomorrow afternoon. At least it's coming on a weekend. I'm sick of trying to get to work in the snow. And Aaron's sick of getting up early to shovel us out. At least we can be more lax about it tomorrow. I'm assuming Sophie's dance class is canceled tomorrow.

More Snow Tomorrow Night

I'm not sure how to express how OVER winter we are in our household. More snow predicted for tomorrow night - 6-8" or maybe more. Yay! Woo!

At this point, it's going to take until July to melt all of our snow. According to my count, as of today we've received over 70" of snow so far this winter. That is just too much. Global climate change, anyone?

This photo is from Saturday. Before we got the 4" Tuesday this week.

I thought this doodle was funny:

Doodle by Lee. The code for this doodle and other doodles you can use on your blog can be found at Doodles.

Toxic - Canned Foods

This is awful: Bisphenol A: Toxic Plastics Chemical in Canned Food . And we use a lot of canned foods.

Gee, I wonder why I have thyroid issues?

That's it. We're switching to dried beans and fresh or frozen veggies. Until someone does a study proving those are bad for us, too.

Also, Bisphenol A in plastic bottles: they leach even at room temperature.

Sophie's first recognizable drawing of a person

If you don't see the person, click on the photo for the notes.

Extras - spring vs. sparkling water

I've been working my way through Season Two of Extras - Ricky Gervais' show.

It's very funny, very dry.

This scene had me giggling in bed while I was attempting to fall asleep.

It still makes me laugh out loud.

Hoi Polloi

Here's a word that should really be used more often:

Hoi polloi

Pronunciation:
\ˌhȯi-pə-ˈlȯi\

Hoi polloi (Greek: οἱ πολλοί), an expression meaning "the many" in Greek is used in English to denote "the masses" or "the people", usually in a derogatory sense. For example, "I've secured a private box for the play so we don't have to watch the show with hoi polloi." Synonyms for "hoi polloi" include "...commoners, great unwashed, minions, multitude, plebeians, proletariat, rabble, rank and file, riffraff, the common people, the herd, the many, the masses, the peons, the working class".

Ha! "great unwashed" - oh, they mean me, don't they?

And Now I Stomp You!

It was actually quite warm yesterday (in the '40s) and I decided to walk to pick Sophie up from daycare. We live a block or two from her daycare, so it's a good way to get some fresh air.

I brought her snow boots because the warm temperatures meant a lot of puddles on the way home (we were going a longer route because I had to pick up a garbage sticker at a store near our house) and there is not much Sophie likes more than stomping in puddles.

She was in a jolly mood - happy, laughing, acting silly. She discovered that she could see herself in the puddles (before she splashed them), so it was a long walk to the store and then home because there were lots of puddles and we had to wave at each other in each of them.

She'd crouch down and wave and say Hi! to herself and to me.

The best was when she crouched down and waved said (to her reflection): "Hi! I Sophia! I nice. I walking with my Mama to the store. And now I STOMP you!!"

She was squealing and yelling (happily) and I kept shushing her, telling her that there were people in all these houses and that they might be tired and grumpy and they might not want to hear her yelling so loudly.

She thought about that for a bit and said: "I make them happy, okay Mama? I have my kazoo please?" And then she proceeded to toot on her kazoo while marching along the sidewalk home.

I don't know about our neighbors, but she made me happy, that's for sure.

Natural Food Coloring

So I can find this later: natural food coloring.

Also, on a complete tangent, but I just found it: Learning to Lie

Link, link, link

A link for me to remember: 100 Wacky Ways to Save Your Cash

A Case of the Mondays

We had a fun weekend of playing and cooking and romping about. We ended up getting about 6+ inches Friday night and Aaron shoveled us out Saturday morning so we could get to Sophie's dance class.

We got there - no one there. We waited and waited and had to answer Sophie's questions about why we weren't going into school and finally we gave up. No phone calls from the center, no emails, nothing on their website, nothing on their answering machine message. (I finally found out today that it was because it was school vacation week...well, let those of us with kids not in school know, okay?! Luckily we live close by, but one of my coworkers drove 25 minutes to the school only to find out that it was closed. She's pissed.)

So, we went grocery shopping and put Sophie's tutu and ballet slippers on as soon as we got home so that she would stop asking when she was going to school. (It's a good thing the snow was light and fluffy this time, or Aaron would have been angry about shoveling first thing in the morning).

Saturday night, I started a potty chart for Sophie. Four squares. Each time she goes pee or poop in the potty, she gets a sticker. Four stickers and she gets a surprise! (a metal kazoo I picked up for her the other day) She thought surprise meant chocolate because the girl loves her chocolate. We gave her two small squares of dark (70%) chocolate for Valentine's Day and she almost flipped her lid. So, we said, yes - if you use the potty four times, you will get a piece of chocolate. AND a surprise! And by Sunday night - she did it! With a little prompting from us.

But now she knows that it all leads to something. Especially her one true love - dark chocolate.

Next potty chart has five squares. The stickers she decided to use? My free address labels from the World Wildlife Fund.

On a side note, we've been trying to get her to eat more yogurt because it's good for her tummy and has calcium, etc. We figured out she'll eat yogurt if it's Stonyfield Farms chocolate underground yogurt. Yes, I know - BUT it doesn't have artificial sweeteners and is actually quite healthy despite the bit of chocolate. And she chows down because she thinks she's getting a special treat.

Sunday, we made the decision to not turn the TV on at all. I knew Aaron would start to go a little crazy about the clutter of a two-year-old playing all day, so I gave him a reprieve and let him go upstairs to work on his homework as much as he wanted while Sophie and I played.

Here's evidence - even though we kept playing "Pick it up! Pick it up!" all day, he still followed us around organizing the clutter:

It made me realize how used to winter I am and how he has a really hard time with the lack of sunshine and fresh air. Sorry Aaron. Again.

There were blocks and I made a huge box (left over from moving) into a house with windows and doors and she played in it and around it for most of the day. Towers and caves and rocket ships and boats. Elaborate play where she would be in the house and I would be the mailman and I'd pass letters to her through the window. The house became a rocket ship that was going to explode her to the moon! And then she came out of the rocket ship and pretended she was a robot.

We listened to the radio and to Ella Jenkins and Laurie Berkner music all day.

We made butter cookies and cut out shapes and then ate them.

The temperature finally got above 30 degrees, so we all went for a walk around the neighborhood to get some sunshine in our systems and work off the stir crazies.

Oh, and I never did buy wool felt or polyfill this weekend. Our bank accounts are a bit low now that we are trying not to put anything on our credit cards (almost 3 months now! A record!) and I don't think I'm going to make my pledge of 5 by Leap Day. I'm going to see what I can come up with without buying material.

I did finish George the Gerbil (Bear, Mouse, Baby - it keeps changing in Sophie's head) but he's not going into the store. Sophie has adopted him. I will do G is for Gerald the Giraffe once I figure out the fabric thing.

I leave you with a self-portrait of me wishing the snow would just go away:

Linktastic

Today's links = "I wish I'd thought of that!"

Keri Smith Non-Planner Datebook

Private Entrance for the Tooth Fairy. Also here's where you can get them: ClaybyKim

Plane Sheets (via AT:NY)

Elastico Bookshelf. I don't think they would really work in our old Colonial, but I love this idea.

Make your handwriting a font for your computer.

E is for Ella the Incomplete Elephant

Here's the outer shell of what will be Ella the Enchanted Elephant. I can't add her trunk, eyes, etc., until I get more polyfill. Which was planned for tomorrow except we're getting another 6 or more inches tomorrow morning. Yay! More frickin' snow!

Also, here's a doodle I drew the other night waiting for Aaron to come down so we could watch "The Lives of Others" (very good; highly recommend)

Alphabet Animals Update

I hit a slump with the Alphabet Animals at the same time I ran out of polyfill. I still need to get some more. I also started "D is for Dingo" but the color is wrong and he looks more like a fox, so he's going to be "F is for Fox".

The plan, Stan, is to commit to making at least 5 more before Leap Day. And I'll post work-in-progress photos along the way to whet your appetite.

And then they'll all magically appear in my shop on Leap Day.

The first two on the list:

"D is for The Dingo Ate Your Baby!"

"E is for Ella the Enchanting Elephant"

-------------------------
On a complete tangent, I cut about 3 inches of my hair off this weekend and no one at work has said anything. Either it looks ridiculous and they're all laughing behind my back or no one noticed. While I hope, I guess, that no one noticed, I'd also like to know if it looks silly.

Ploopily

Sophie has started making up words. Her favorite, by far, is "ploopily"

She mixes it up by saying: "plee-ploopily" and "scoopily" and "sloopily", (and later cat-ily and Otto-lilly and Tabily) but ploopily is the go-to word.

Evolution of a friend: she made a little block guy from some Duplo blocks. We have a set that has a pair of eyes on one block and a smiling mouth on another. She put them together, put on a different-colored block for a hat and "Blocky" was born. There was lots of talking to Blocky about the events of the day. We'd be in the kitchen and I'd say something like: "Sophie, do you want a pear?" and she'd say: "I'll be right back." and run into the other room to excitedly tell Blocky that her Mama was getting her a pear and she was so excited because pears are so TASTY.

Then she later made a yellow tower of square blocks with a big rectangle block on the top (for an extended nose). That was Ploopily Monster.

Blocky soon merged with Ploopily Monster's blocks and now it's a big yellow tower with eyes and a mouth and big rectangles at the top and bottom. This is now just Ploopily. She requested his presence on the table with us at dinner and she fed him pieces of pear and chicken. Ploopily apparently loves the green skin on the pear while she does not.

I love this age.

Gray, gray, gray

This week started off miserably Tuesday night when we received 10 inches of snow and then turned to an 18-hour torrential downpour. I think we received something like 4 inches of rain during the day. Everything flooded. We even got water in our bone dry basement. Aaron tried to go out early in the morning to shovel the driveway but he managed a narrow little path and had to come in panting: "Each shovel-ful weighs 50 pounds! Can we call someone to plow today? Please?"

I agreed because I wasn't going out there to do it if he couldn't. We called 3 different snow plow people and two of them had broken plows from the night before. The snow was HEAVY. Finally got someone but it was going to take "several hours" before he could come by. Meanwhile, Aaron had to be at school by noon (campus was opening late at 11).

No plow, no plow, no plow, and finally Aaron went out to try shoveling again. He managed to do the driveway and we were all able to leave.

Until I almost flooded the car by driving through 3 different impromptu lakes on the way to work. The whole time I was driving, I was thinking: "What the hell am I doing? Why am I driving to work?"

The rest of the week was no better. It was gray and cold and all that rain and snow froze to a hard, bumpy mess.

And now the weekend is gray, too. I can't count how many times Aaron and I have muttered: "Okay, I'm officially done with winter."

It's hailing and raining outside right now.

Stop it. I get it. We're done.

We haven't seen our lawn since November. It's been covered by at least a foot of snow since the weekend I planted our new trees.

I hope it's Spring soon, or we're going to all lose our minds.

Hop on Pop!

Last night, as we were getting her ready for bed, Sophie was jumping up and down on Aaron. So I started singing:

"Two little Sophies jumping on her Dad. One fell off and bumped her head. Mama called the doctor and the doctor said: 'No more jumping on Sophie's Dad.'"

Sophie stopped, looked at me for a few moments and said:

"You don't call the doctor again, okay, Mama?"

Groundhogs Don't Lie

We woke up to temperatures of around 0 degrees with a windchill factor of -15. And now they are predicting SIX to TEN INCHES of snow and sleet tonight until tomorrow afternoon.

Ugh. Blech. Yuck. I'm so ready to see some frickin' green grass. I'm done with winter. Done. Do you hear me, Mother Nature? Game over.

A First

Saturday night was a first for our little family. It was the first time we, Aaron and I, went out and let someone else help Sophie with bedtime.

The honors went to my Mom. A pro and Sophie's best buddy. Sophie hadn't been feeling well all week - cold, coughing, not eating well, etc., - and she was overtired by the time we got to my parents' house. One look at Gammy and she was all smiles.

Bedtime went well, with just a few wakeups on Sophie's part.

It was so reassuring to know that going out, just the two of us, can be done.

Yes, I know, we waited over two years to try.

We were invited to a friend's birthday party. I've known Sarah since Kindergarten and she has a fantastic group of friends. It was such a fun party! Everyone was laughing and joking and the conversations were all over the place. From who is the hottest male actor to multi-variable calculus to merchant marines to the Navy to politics. It was so great to be surrounded by smart, fun people. Our spirits were definitely lifted.

I made Sarah a rhinoceros for her birthday. Rumpy. When we were in middle school, we went on a little shopping excursion and pooled our funds to buy a little rhinoceros that we named Rumpy. This rhinoceros is in honor of Rumpy I. Even though he's much bigger. And gray.

A bunch of people at the party said they didn't really see a rhinoceros, though. There was mention of a mouse and Piglet, but not rhinoceros. What do you think?

Planned for tonight is the next Alphabet Animal: "D is for ..."

Here's a hint:

Clara the Cow - Alphabet Animal

The latest addition to my shop: Clara the Cow.