Picture Perfect Morning

An overflowing pond. Vivid emerald evergreens. Deep blue storm clouds. A weathered red barn against the barren trees. Scattered patches of melting snow. Occasional deer. All gilded by the golden rays of the morning sun.

This was the picture this morning as I was driving my morning bus route. By the time route ended the storm clouds had snuffed out the sunshine and it was raining lightly. We saw about 15 deer throughout route time - my students are starting to call out when they see them. That makes deer spotting much more enjoyable to me. The temperature is supposed to drop fairly dramatically during the day today - we are to have scattered thunderstorms today followed by sleet and freezing rain overnight continuing into tomorrow along with 2-3 inches of snow possible.

The weekend was a good weekend overall. Squirrel missed school again Friday - doctor confirmed that he is fighting the flu and says it could continue for another couple of weeks. He is at school today as he's not been running fever for the last 24 hours. I drove my morning route Friday and then took the rest of the day off - including my trip I was signed up for immediately after my kindergarten shuttle. I had planned to take just the midday stuff off and drive my afternoon route. However due to the fact that I fell on some ice on our driveway in the morning I figured I would go ahead and take the extra time. As it turned out...I would have had to take the afternoon off anyway due to the fact that the only time I was able to get an appointment at the doctor's was during afternoon route time.

Saturday afternoon B called and asked if I could please bring Stretch to help with cutting wood as he knew they were running out of daylight. I took Stretch up after he ran 1.5 miles and helped myself. We were probably outside 2 1/2 hours and loaded 2 pick-up trucks with split wood. Some of the time I was pitching logs and some of the time I got to run the log splitter. I also was able to take a few pictures - I figured that since I knew we were going to be outside I would take the camera along - got a beautiful sunset.

Sunday was a quiet day relatively. I missed class due to just not feeling well - actually I would have missed class anyway as I was scheduled to be in nursery. However I felt that whatever was going on I didn't need to be exposing babies to it. B and Dipstick came down for supper - that's becoming a normal Sunday event. It makes certain that except for cooking - which isn't particularly restful for me - I do rest otherwise.

Now I'd better get moving on my chores for today - have a LOT of laundry to fold and dishes to do. Also need to make a grocery list as we are almost out of milk and I want to get that before the weather turns really bad.