You Are My Sunshine

I just have to say, that even though I was being big baby about all of the snow we've gotten lately and how much I am yearning for warmth and springtime, those of you who have left comments feeling sorry for me and wishing me sunshine have really been compassionate! Thank you for caring about my shivering little soul. It has warmed my heart more than the sunshine ever could. I'm feeling the warmth across the miles, ladies.

This morning the babies and I made a little journey down the mountain to town to run a few errands. I have to tell you, I was conflicted about the whole thing. While I knew that it was supposed to be about 70 degrees down there today, putting on sandals and capris and not bundling up the kids in their winter duds just felt wrong. Just plain wrong. It felt even more wrong when I stepped out into the snow to get the babies in the car. When snow squishes into your sandals, it makes you question your level of common sense.

Thankfully, it was indeed 70+ degrees in town today, and had we been wearing much more apparel we would have been way overdressed. The warmth and breeze on bare arms and ankles was a welcome change.

The snow is melting like crazy. It's amazing that a few days ago it stood three feet off the ground and now it's only a few inches!

Anyhow, just wanted to say 'thanks' for all your sympathy. I'm doing much better now. And eating less cheesecake.

(If you don't know what I'm talking about in regard to all this snow and cheesecake, take a look here and here.)

And So It Snows

I decided to process today's pictures in black and white, to make them look more like a memory, because that's what I hope all of this snow is really soon!

We're at about three feet accumulation of wet, heavy snow this morning. It seems to have subsided for the most part, although there are still a few flakes streaming down. We haven't had hardly any wind, so it is all just sitting exactly where it has landed. Even the birds are wondering if the roofs of their houses are going to be able to bear the load...

When the amount of snowfall sitting on top of your house is taller than the house itself, you know you've got trouble.

The branches on one of our trees look like giant polar bear paws or something...

There's bound to be some broken branches out of this ordeal. Thankfully we haven't had any broken power lines. The power flickered on and off a few times yesterday, but all seems to be well today.

Even Burley, who fancies himself quite a snow dog, doesn't really know what to make of this much snow...

Even though he had to stay home from work today, there's no depression, no moping. He seems perfectly content to take a nap underneath the table.

Yesterday, Mr. Blue Eyes had to climb up on the roof and clear snow off of our furnace vent. Our pilot light on the furnace went out because the snow had covered up the vent, and at some point in the afternoon (sometime after this little incident) I noticed that the house was feeling a bit cooler and the furnace wasn't pushing warm air out of the vents. Thankfully my husband is familiar with the anatomy of our house and not afraid to climb up onto the roof during a snow storm, or we would've really been in a pickle.

We would have had to snuggle up by the warmth of our fireplace, and oh, would that have been miserable. ;)

Tomorrow it is supposed to be in the 50's, so my dreams of making all this snow a quick memory are likely to come true.

Mud pictures coming soon!

 

Come On Down!

"Thank God for the moisture."

That's what one of the men in our church says everytime it rains or snows. And he's right. We should thank God for the moisture.

Even so, I can't help but be a little bit disgruntled because, once again, here I am posting pictures of snow! I want to be photographing new flower buds or lush green landscapes or my children playing outside... WITHOUT snowsuits on!

"Thank God for the moisture."

That's what I keep telling myself.

It all started yesterday morning with some mist and rain. Then it turned into this weird stuff...

 

It's kind of hard to tell, but I like to describe this snow as looking like 'Dip-n-Dots' ice cream. You know, the tiny little cryogenically frozen balls of ice cream that feel so weird in your mouth yet you can't help but enjoy? That's what this snow is like.

Except I haven't ever put it in my mouth, so I don't know if it's similar to 'Dip-n-Dots' in that regard.

I never saw snow like this until I moved to Colorado. Do you have it where you live? Inquiring minds want to know.

Anyhow, it has since turned into THIS...

And this...

I was so disgruntled about the whole situation when I awoke that I promptly went ahead and fed myself caramel apple pudding cake, nacho cheese and tortilla chips, and peaches and cream cheesecake squares for breakfast. I just felt that I had the right.

And then I felt something else. Like indigestion. But that's beside the point.

(Sorry, Multigrain Cheerios. Don't worry, I still love you. We'll rendezvous again tomorrow morning. Or whenever I run out of cheesecake bars.)

So far we've got... I don't know... Maybe two feet or more? I can tell you this: When I went outside a little while ago to wrangle Timber, who was stuck in a snow drift (I'm not kidding) the snow was up to somewhere between my knees and thighs.  

And just as a sidenote: Draft beagles such as Timber don't really take kindly to being picked up. His nickname is 'Timber Tyson' because one of our friends had the mistaken impression that draft beagles did, in fact, like to be picked up, and he bit him in the ear. Thus, I was a little apprehensive about the snow drift rescue, but luckily I came away with all of my limbs in tact.

Draft beagles, while deceivingly cute, are actually quite aggressive in nature and need delicate handling only by well-trained professionals, such as myself.

But back to... Well, whatever I was talking about. I guess I didn't really have much point, other than we're getting A LOT OF SNOW. So far, like I said, we've got about two feet. We're supposed to get another 6-12" today and yet another 6-12" tonight. Whatever it turns out to be -- 6"+6", 6"+12", 12"+6" or 12"+12", plus the two feet already on the ground -- it's just A LOT OF SNOW.

My high school math teacher would be so proud.

Thankfully I am not without entertainment...

I had to call back the phone company because we are in the process of switching our cell phones, and almost as soon as I got on the phone Little Blue Eyes said, "I have to go potty." I went ahead and let him into the bathroom to go about his business, and as he walked in he said, "I have to poop!"

"Great," I thought. Sounded good. Usually it takes him a little while, so I could continue with my phone call while he was working things out.

Almost immediately he yelled from the bathroom, "I pooped!"

"Wow, that was fast," I thought. At this point the lady I was on the phone with was very quiet as she was reading our account information. I thought I would just quietly slip into the bathroom, do a little wiping, and Little Blue Eyes could be off on his merry way. Quietly.

See, the 'quietly' part is where I was somewhat misguided as to how this all would play out.

Instead, as I was executing my role in this whole endeavor (the butt-wiping part), Little Blue Eyes could not contain his excitement at having completed a successful poop in the potty. Admittedly, it was a big deal, and had I not been on the phone with a phone company service representative, we would have clapped and danced and confetti and balloons would have magically floated down from the sky.

But I WAS on the phone with a phone company service representative, so I was trying to contain myself. Little Blue Eyes, however, doesn't yet grasp that concept.

Right away he said, "Mom, I got a poop in the toilet!"

When I didn't respond (remember, trying to remain quiet and respectful of the business transaction I was in the middle of) he felt the need to express himself repeatedly and loudly, "Mom, I got nuggets! I got nuggets! I got nuggets in the potty! I got nuggets! Nuggets! Nuggets, nuggets, nuggets... NUGGETS!"

At this point I thought that perhaps the kind lady on the line might think we were going through the McDonald's drive-through and I could maintain some semblence of composure.

Then, as I picked him up to carry him to his room to get a baby wipe, with his head close to the phone, he said, "Mom, I got TURDS! Turds in the toilet. Turds, turds, turds, turds. Turds!"

Obviously this was a big deal and he couldn't understand why I didn't seem to have a word to say about it, so he felt the need to lay it all out for me in plain English.

I finally lost all control and began giggling uncontrollably, then proceeded to tell the kind lady that my little boy had just had a triumphant potty experience and felt the need to share it. She laughed and said, "Hey, out of the mouths of babes."

Then the power cut out for a moment because of this massive dumping of snow, and our call was cut short.

Kids... They do the darndest things.

Did I mention that it's snowing, A LOT? Because it is. And now they just announced that General Hospital may be pre-empted today to continue with the storm coverage. Grrrrr...

I'm going to have to eat another peaches and cream cheesecake bar.

The Calm Before the Storm

We're in kind of an awkward state these days... We know we've got some big changes coming, but for the moment we're at kind of a standstill. There are so many things that we will need to get done, but it's still too early to start most of it.

Take packing for our upcoming trip to MN, for instance. I can't really do any packing yet, because we still have about 2 1/2 weeks of living here before we head out, and we all still need all of our clothes and toiletries pretty much until the day before we leave.

Since we haven't sold our house yet and we aren't moving all of our things, and our house is being shown from time to time, we can't really pack up any of those things either.

Our basement needs to be cleaned out and things disinfected due to this discovery, but we don't want to do that until it comes time to move, so that we can take everything out, disinfect it, and put it right into the semi trailer that my brother-in-law is so graciously going to help us move with.

Instead I am trying to finish up some small projects and keep up with the day to day tasks as best I can. Today I spent quite a bit of time cooking and even had some time to play with some photos.

As I'm going about my day I keep on stopping and asking myself, "Wait. Shouldn't I be doing something else? Something that will get us ready for the move?" Then I realize that we're pretty much on schedule for most things in that regard and I keep on putsing along with what I was doing.

I also find myself realizing how many things that I do every day (and have been doing almost every day for a couple years now) that very soon I will no longer do every day. Most of them are really nothing significant, just the idiosyncrasies of our life... Pulling up the shades on our windows every morning and looking out at the horses, greeting the little boy that I've been watching three days a week, talking to the neighbors about this or that, letting the dogs in and out, Mr. Blue Eyes calling me on his lunch break and on his way home from work. Since I've been a stay-at-home mom, this house and I have gotten quite intimate. I can't say that I'm sad to leave it really, but it has been a good little first home for us, so it's special to me in some way.

I guess that's just how life is... Everything stays the same until, well, it changes.

As the next few weeks roll along I'm sure we'll get more into the nitty-gritty of packing and preparing, but for now things are strangely quiet and mundane. It's hard to believe that in a few short weeks this quiet and mundane existence will have vanished into thin air.

Not that things in the future won't be quiet and mundane too. I'm sure we'll quickly settle into our new routines.

We're quiet people. And we like being mundane. It suits our nature.

It's this whirlwind that lies between the quiet and mundane in Colorado and the quiet and mundane in Minnesota that gives me something to stir about. I can't help but wonder...

p.s. I tell you no lie... Shortly after I finished this post we started to hear the rumblings of our first thunder of the spring. The winds of change are a'blowin'!

Winter's Last Hurrah

Maybe I speak too soon... Here in the Colorado mountains we're known to get snow into April, even May. Even so, I can't help but look at these boats and think that they're patiently waiting for balmy summer days to arrive, to lap gently up and down on the water while their passengers bask easily in the sunshine.

On Saturday the babies and I drove up to the resort to have lunch with Mr. Blue Eyes. The recent snow still covered the ground, but the roads were mostly clear so it made for good driving, even down the dirt road into the mountain valley where the resort sits.

Even though we had to be inside, we found a table where the sunlight was streaming in through the window and my camera and I ate it up (along with our lunch, of course)...

Good food. Good company.

Burley was back at work, in what he likes to think of as his natural environment...  

He likes to pretend he's one of those St. Bernards who carries hot chocolate around his neck and rescues people from the throws of frostbite.

Except he's not a St. Bernard.

And there's no hot chocolate around his neck.

And he's never rescued anyone.

And he likes to beg people for treats.

But that's why I said pretend.

By the time I arrived at lunchtime he was ready to hop in the car and come back home with me and the kids. He prefers part-time work when he can get it.

On the way home, the babies, Burley and I did a little bit of photographic touring. I captured the picture above, and a few more choice shots that day...  

 

 

A dusting of snow makes for some good black and white contrast, if you ask me.

These shots were made possible by two sleeping babies, one sleeping dog and one happily road-tripping farmer gal. We didn't venture too far from home, but it was a good outing just the same.  

p.s. If you haven't already, check out the first installment of 'The Adventures of Hickory and Hank'!

p.s.s. For 'My Best Shot Monday' and other photography posts, navigate to my new photography page!