Very Strange Spring

Sitting here watching it snow outside.   Right now it is fairly heavy snow - coming down fast and hard.  However so far it's not accumulating on the ground.  It has been an odd month - we go from heavy extended rain to snow back to 50's and above back to rain and snow.  Last week (Thursday) we got several inches of rain in a fairly short time.   I was home alone that day - it was kind of nerve wracking to watch the rain just come across the field in sheets knowing we were under several different tornado and thunderstorm watches.

Sheets of rain coming across the field

Dipstick and I went to Grief Group that night as planned - driving both directions in continued rain.  Friday morning school was delayed to give people a chance to see where they were going and be able to avoid flooded areas.  I had to back out of one road on my bus route - not too bad considering.  It did put me running about 10 minutes behind but that wasn't too bad.  Several other buses had to reroute completely.  After morning route I went grocery shopping.

Migrating field

On the way home I was able to take pictures just on our road - one place where a field had migrated onto the road and another where there was a landslide.  It was crazy.  Most of the water went down fairly quickly and roads were opened again by Monday mostly. However Saturday morning we had snow on the ground again.  It was gone by that evening.

Landslide located a mile down the road from us

Last night we got another inch or so of rain - there was another smaller landslide on our road and water is at least lapping at the edges of roads in areas.  In the time it's taken me to write this the snow has stopped - at least temporarily.

Overflowing drainage ditch just down from the house

 

We had no water at our house.  However at the kids' high school water was lapping at the edge of the building.  The school is located in a town south of us right on a river, as is our bus garage. 

Fuel tanks at bus garage

Question for Discussion (I hope)

Question: How old were you as a child when your parent(s) stopped waking you up in the morning? As a parent - how old do you think your child should be when they are expected to get up on their own? What reasons do you have for those expectations? Really hoping for some chat here.

I realize some of this is obvious to some readers as we were in boarding school at least some of our school years - and had to get ourselves up. But when we boarded in elementary school how did we get up on time?  I don't remember having an alarm clock until I was 7th or 8th grade. 

This is a question I really struggle with.  Stretch and Squirrel were both expected to get themselves up by 2nd grade.  I remember Squirrel asking for an alarm clock - he would fight me when I woke him up but once he had his own alarm and knew how to set it he typically got up on his own.  It was and still is rare for him to oversleep.  Stretch was not one to oversleep either when he was still at home - he tended to sleep a little later than Squirrel but that worked out well for morning showers and shared bathrooms. 

On the other hand, Dipstick has 3 alarm clocks and still struggles with getting up on time, letting alone getting up at all.  Often his dad will holler up the stairs at him to get him up.  This morning I asked him how long he expected to have a parent waking him.  His answer (and it may have been intended to be a smart-aleck response) was "until I move out".  Being as he is 16 1/2 almost I feel strongly that he should be the one to get himself up - without regularly being hollered at.  He daily leaves for school without breakfast and sometimes not completely dressed - carrying shoes and socks into the car to put on on the way to the bus. 

Really hoping for some discussion here - not as a bashing situation but for insight. 

Can hardly believe it's been a month since I've written.  Over actually.  But it has been a busy month.  We had more than one snow day in March.  My hubby surprised me with a dinner with friends and family for my birthday.  There was school, bus discipline issues, state bus inspection...

Our last day of school before spring break was March 29.  We were off the first week of April.  It was a short break but much needed.  Stretch had his spring break a couple weeks before - his seemed to fly by.  Squirrel and Dipstick both went on the Campus Life trip to Florida this year.  Think they both enjoyed themselves.  They left on Saturday night (before Easter) and arrived back the following Friday morning.  They did have a really sad occurrence during that time - not sure how else to put it.  A student who had pre-existing heart trouble, from one of the other schools, died.  He had been on the same charter bus as the boys but they had not really gotten to know him.  I feel for those kids who were right there when it happened and for his family. 

Today has been a very long day.  The father of one of my closest friends had recently (like within the last month) had recently been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.  He had told her that if it was confirmed as cancer he would not do treatments - he would instead have his pacemaker shut off.  Long story short she called me about 4:15 this morning to let me know he was gone.  I didn't sleep much from that point.  After bus route I was able to go to her house and spend the time between routes sitting and just being with her and her girls.  We laughed, we cried, we talked...the time together was good.  Other friends came and sat as well. Very different from when Mom went.  But I have to admit tonight I'm tired.  And she still has the weekend to get through.

A "Real" Snow Day

We have a snow day today - a real one complete with snow instead of ice or fog.  Thankfully a delay was called last night and the cancellation was called early this morning.  I wasn't able to go back to sleep though as Hubby was very awake. So I've enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, a short nap and taking pictures. 

Hubby, Squirrel and Dipstick have shoveled and plowed out the driveway and the back deck.  He did end up with the skidloader stuck in across the road for a time.   Front porch has been left alone and that is fine.  The birds are enjoying the feeders but are in dire need of suet cakes - I will be working on those soon.

Snow totals - 11 inches for our wee small town, 9.5 inches for our next bigger one and 10.5 for the closest "city".

Guess that is enough for now.  Time to get going on accomplishing stuff today.

Sorry the top picture is blue - I'm not sure why.  But it is the walk-in door to the garage on the south end of the shop covered by drifted snow.

 

Beautiful scenery this morning - everything coated in a layer of heavy wet snow.  We had a 2 hour delay then went to school.  However even after 2 hours the roads were still bad.  Many in our school district had not even been plowed yet and even the main roads were not clear.  The major east/west highway was clear and fairly dry but I have to say that was it.  Even though I've driven in this for several years for some reason this morning I was a stressed out mess.  Of course the fact that Squirrel was driving all the way to school did not help me - I am not ready for that yet.  He said basically "Mom I know that some day I will slide out.  Better to do it now when I'm younger than later.".  That didn't calm me much though.  However he made it safely to school and I simply have to learn to trust that he is God's child ultimately. 

It is snowing big heavy flakes again now and the birds have been busy at the feeders.  That tells me that the snow and the cold is going to last at least most of the day today.  It is predicted to last into tomorrow possibly.  We've not had much snow this winter - we get a couple inches then it melts off.  However thankfully we've had more moisture then we did last winter and the drought for this area is officially over.

B has been busy in the shop.  Yesterday he spent most of the day cleaning but today he called in extra help.  He was asked this morning to replace brakes on a trailer that belongs to some of the local Amish.  They call him frequently when their equipment breaks down and it is usually a rush job when they do.  I am thankful that his business has been good.  God has been good.  He always is good but often we allow the times of stress to overshadow that knowledge.

I don't have huge goals for today - 2 hour delays make it hard to accomplish much.  I will likely lay down for a short nap and need to do hand dishes in the kitchen.  I will probably throw something in the crock pot for supper - some sort of roast.  I've been really trying to expand my cooking repertoire this year and not do a lot of repeats.  However today as I know I have to wait for Dipstick after school I will want something either very easy or something that is mostly done.  Of course I could do tuna noodle casserole as Squirrel won't be home. 

Guess I'd better be away.

Back...Maybe

No school today - it is freezing drizzle out now on top of snow that we got overnight.  Sadly there is not much snow - just a couple of inches.  However I figured that now would be a good time to try to start blogging again.

Everything is expected to melt off this afternoon with warming temperatures.  However it was most enjoyable to watch the birds at the feeders this morning.  I've not actually counted how many birds there have been but I have several different varieties - 4 different woodpeckers, chickadees, at least one pair of cardinals, goldfinches, nuthatches, and 2 or 3 other birds that I've not yet identified.  So far I've not tried to take any pictures of them - for awhile I didn't have a memory card for my camera.  That problem has been solved - I have been doing some major cleaning - step by very slow step.  I know I'm still missing one - suspect it may have been left in Ontario last time I was up there over Christmas break.

Much has happened since I've last written.  It's hard to know where to start - and there's no way to include it all.  Mom was called home to be with Jesus December 31st, 2012.  All of us kids had spent time with her - I was the last one to arrive as the boys and I weren't able to leave here until Christmas Day.  We drove straight through even though we hadn't left until 3:30 pm.  Roads were mostly decent - except for some heavy snow in MI.  As a family we spent that last week taking turns sitting with Mom - reading, singing and visiting with each other.  Usually there were 2 of us "on" while the rest took turns resting and spending time with Stretch and Squirrel.  She was very peaceful at the end.  I will try to post some of the tributes in a separate post later.

B and Dipstick came up for the funeral and left that same day.  They were not excited about the 7 lanes of traffic going one direction...and totally feel like country living is the best.  Stretch, Squirrel and I got home late on the 5th and immediately jumped right back into daily life.  All are doing well overall but that was tough.

Dipstick is struggling with school again - not that he's unable to do the work, just that he does not want to.  It is frustrating - nothing seems to really motivate him.  He is involved in archery - and doing well at that.  State high school athletic rules say a student must pass 5 of 7 classes so he can still participate unless his dad and I pull him out.  But considering this is the first sport he's ever done we hate to do that. 

I guess I'd better be away. 

Picture at the top was taken on my phone camera one early Sunday morning when I had to drop Squirrel off for a Gospel Choir concert.  I thought the sun shining on the hoar frost was beautiful.

30 Days of Thanksgiving - Day 14

For today I'm thankful for my husband who is working so hard to make his business a success.  He is in the shop from 8-5 pretty much daily as well as on Saturdays.  He tends to often get the difficult jobs - doing engine swaps on fire trucks, working on a 1968 truck...I'm thankful for him.

30 Days of Thanks - Day 11 & 12

I missed a few days.  Just going to go back and do yesterday's and today's.  Trying to go back any further is just stressful.

So...for Day 11 - Veteran's Day.  I am thankful for all the veterans who sacrificed to allow me the many freedoms I have in this country. 

Day 12 - A nice warm home when the weather outside is frightful.  :)  We had snow this morning - mixed with rain and sleet.  It stuck for a short time.  The sun came out this afternoon but it didn't warm up much. 

30 Days of Thanksgiving - Day 8

Today I am thankful for....a warm wood furnace even though it currently has no fire going.  That is being worked on as we speak.  (or as I write).  I am thankful for a nice home and plenty of food.  And I am thankful for healthy strong boys that can do much of the heavy chores around here.

**********************************************************************************

On a different note - today ended up being another rather crazy busy day.  Did bus route this morning where I dealt with a couple behavior issues.  Got to take a short nap when I got home, balanced the checkbook, took care of my chickens, did a parts run and a little shopping, did bus route, had a meeting with someone I'm sort-of discipling, ordered food, picked up boys and finally got home about 7:30.  Makes for a long day but thankfully today I was not overly stressed about it.  This in spite of the "surprise" I found in the chicken coop today.  Unfortunately a possum decided that would be a nice warm dry place to hang out last night and today.  No chickens were harmed and I did have one egg so that was good.  (Picture may have to come tomorrow).

30 Days of Thanksgiving - Day 7

Today I am thankful that the election is over.  Even more so I'm thankful that God is still in control and I know he still has a plan.

30 Days of Thanksgiving - Day 5 & 6

Well I rather hope this still counts - even if I'm not posting daily I should still end up with 30 thankful things.  Of course that won't cover all in my life to be thankful for but hopefully it will put me in an attitude of thankfulness.

For Day 5 - I am thankful for daylight in the mornings when I take kids to school.  It makes bus route so much easier when it is light outside.  Even though I know where all my stops are it is difficult to see them in the pitch black - and even worse when it is raining.  So...much as I dislike daylight savings time I really really appreciate the daylight in the early morning hours.  Actually....I've always liked early morning daylight.  I remember way back when I was little - like 4th grade and we lived in Ethiopia we lived outside a little village on a mission compound.  The house was tiny - only had 2 bedrooms and no indoor choo.  I originally slept on a cot in the living room - the windows faced east.  I remember waking up early when the sun came up shining in - usually being the first or maybe the second one awake after Dad.  That first peek of daylight.  Makes me think of the Scripture that says "His mercies are new every morning". 

For Day 6 - I am thankful for the freedom we have in this country.  Today we have the freedom and the privilege to vote for the people of our choice to govern.  They are not perfect people by any stretch of the imagination and I won't agree with many of their decisions.  But in this country we have freedoms that many many people in the world do not enjoy.  And for that I am thankful. 

30 Days of Thanksgiving - Days 3 & 4

I didn't post yesterday - it turned into a crazy busy day.   So...for yesterday (Day 3) I'm thankful for a wonderful visit with my son Stretch.  He came home for the weekend - spent Friday evening with friends.  Saturday morning we went to breakfast and spent about 2 hours just talking together catching up.  It was so nice to have that time.  After that he indulged me and walked through a craft show with me. 
(Not a great picture but it shows two of my boys having fun together).
 

For today (Day 4) - I'm thankful for a store employee who opened the door of the local hardware store for my husband and Dipstick so they could purchase me a new kitchen faucet.  I am also thankful that they installed the faucet for me so I can have my kitchen back in working order.  Having the faucet fall apart in my hand after turning it on is not conducive to keeping a clean working kitchen. 

30 Days of Thanksgiving - Day 2

Today I am thankful for the sunshine that we had.  It was uplifting after so many days of rain.  The clouds are cool looking sometimes but sunshine is better.

30 Days of Thanksgiving - Day 1

Going to try to do 30 days of thanksgiving.  Don't promise to have long posts though some may be.  Tonight as it's late and I'm beat it will be very short.

Today I'm thankful for safety on the roads.  I spent most of the day out and about - getting my bus serviced, bus route, taking Squirrel in to have his foot looked at, Grief Group tonight with Dipstick.  All added up to a LOT of driving - and plenty of traffic.  Thankfully I witnessed no accidents and were not involved in any.

Today is a cold, blustery, grey day - we've had rain, sleet and snow coming down.  The snow will not stick of course but the flakes were there in the air.  I've not accomplished a huge amount in getting the house reclaimed.  However I'm satisfying myself with baby steps at this point.  Goal for today is to get the kitchen cleaned before bed (waiting on the boys to unload the dishwasher after school).  It is improved from what it was first thing this morning but not great.  I started working on clearing off our second table for Thanksgiving.  When we bought a new table I wanted some way to expand so we could seat more than 6 around it.  Since we couldn't find one that was reasonable that we both liked we purchased 2 identical smaller tables that can be put together in a couple different ways to hold plenty of people.  I doubt we will do a sit-down meal but I know we will want both tables available since Thanksgiving is here this year.  Having said that...the thought of hosting can be anxiety causing for me - I'm trying really hard not to fret over it.  I won't have to cook everything - we will do the turkey.  Sides and desserts will mostly be brought.  The boys will likely make cookies as well.  I have not thought beyond that.  Really would like to get back to setting out a page and having people write down things they are thankful for.  Makes it really nice to go back and read later.

Just realized what time it is - guess I'd better stop and get ready for work.  Got to go tend the chickens and get cleaned up for route. 

Still Here...

Beautiful sunny breezy day today. B has the overhead doors on the shop opened - that is a good thing as I'm in the office again today. So thankful for windows and doors that let the light in. I am writing this while waiting on a business call.

I've not written anything of note in several months. A small part of that is the fact that I'm busy - back to school, sports events, bus driving...the list goes on. A much larger part is that I fell into a deep black hole of depression over the last 6-8 weeks. Even a bright sunny day like today could not lift my spirits much. It took all my energy to function at basic level - get bus route done, kids to where they needed to be and the most minimal housekeeping and cooking accomplished. I drank far too much coffee and ate too many sweets and packed on the pounds. I can't explain exactly all the things that triggered the increased depression - shorter days, a boy leaving his teen years and renewed grief were definitely part of it but probably not all. I finally realized something had to give the day I teared up on my morning route when I could not figure out which child was causing all the commotion in the back of the bus. When another, younger child said "she's crying" in wonder the tears spilled over. Thankfully I was able to get into the doctor the next day for an appointment. That was a week ago today. He diagnosed me with a sinus infection, depression and anxiety - doubled the depression meds I was already on, gave me something for anxiety and an antibiotic for the infection. By Monday I was beginning to see a difference in how I felt emotionally. I've noticed I don't normally "need" as much coffee as I was drinking before - I definitely eat less sweets (and crave less). I'm not napping as much as I was - still do occasionally but no longer long daily naps and I'm slowly beginning to reclaim my house. Additionally B has noticed - that is huge. The anxiety is definitely still there at times - I feel my face begin to tingle when it gets bad. But unless it's really really necessary I'm avoiding those meds and able to deal with it other ways.

Fall sports are over - that frees up Squirrel some. He is still training to run a half marathon in early November so is still running alot. He is also involved in Gospel Choir and will be helping with the fall play.

Dipstick is still enjoying attending Squirrel's school district though he is not enjoying school. We still do Grief Group twice a month and he is getting involved in archery.

Stretch is pretty much gone from the house. He is enjoying his 2nd year of college - this time with no broken bones. However he does have an extremely heavy course load this fall - he's found that rather stressful. He has a serious girlfriend and an on-campus job, both of which also keep him busy.

That's probably enough of an update for now.

Starting this while I'm sitting out in the shop office waiting on Bruce to come do invoices.  I've got quite a bit to do today but those invoices are pretty close to the top of the list.  So far today I've walked, eaten 2nd breakfast and entered soccer stats into the computer.  That is rather a fun job and definitely easy.  It will be easier if I can do it the same day as the game though.  Or I need to at least go over the sheet and check off the kids that played even though they didn't actually have any stats to enter. 

Today is an overcast grey day that is quite cool.  Actually the first three days of this work week are supposed to be only in the 60's.  Fall is definitely in the air.  On my walk this morning with my friend L we saw leaves on the ground that had already turned glorious shades of red as well as trees in the tree line that were already changing colors.  I would love to find a persimmon tree to see if I can "predict" the winter based on the fruit.  I've found that those old weather tidbits of lore are often rather accurate.  Accurate or not I enjoy looking at those and seeing what happens.

 

I'm thinking the seasons are definitely changing.  It's dark out at 8:30 pm and temperatures are below 68 degrees.     I'm not sure that I'm ready for winter to come early but I suspect that it won't matter whether I"m ready or not. 

Life has been crazy busy - I will catch up in another post.  For now...it's enough that I'm writing again.

Severe Storm...

Chairs that blew into the woods

Under another severe thunderstorm warning but so far it looks like just wind.  Unfortunately we need more rain and less wind.  Friday we had a severe storm move through - lots of swirling wind, heavy rain, power outages...Many people had property damage - roofs peeled up, siding off, trees down - some on vehicles, power lines down.  In all actuality we were very blessed.  We had an empty 55 gallon steel drum (the kind we used to pack in for Africa) blow from the northwest corner of the house the full length of the house and across the road into the woods.  We also had a couple of our porch chairs (plastic) in the woods, plenty of smaller branches down, grills and wooden bench blown over.  But again nothing compared to what others had.  Some people are expected to be out of power until as late as Wednesday. 

Overturned grille

As I've been typing this the wind has already died down - birds are back out and we didn't get any rain. 

Suz and I drove down Friday evening to pick up the boys from church camp - they went and 2 girls went.  We had a good time going to get them - the rearview mirror fell off the van when I went to adjust it to drive.  For a school bus driver not having a rearview mirror was interesting to say the least - and it certainly made for a lot of laughter.  It was neat to listen to the boys on the way back and get their "debriefing" in the van.  They both did have a lot of fun - weren't together the entire time so that was good.  Fridays storms hit them as well - they were all gathered in one building for awhile.  I think one of the highlights was getting to help clean up afterwards - Squirrel was put "in charge" of one group that was stacking wood.  Dipstick was working elsewhere.

Overturned pot and grill lid in flower bed

I spent the week mainly doing parts runs.  L and I walked a couple times and I did spend some extra time with Suz.  B and I enjoyed the quiet evenings though he worked late a couple nights.  One night we went to the local festival to hear a live band.  That was fun.  I managed to scan a few rolls of negatives into the computer and did make a top for a lap quilt.  Going to take that to Mom hopefully. I wasn't going for perfection - just completion.  I bought some ribbon to use as the binding but it's too dark a red.  So not sure what I will do now. 

Long week

Been a long week - this will be a rambling post.  We still need rain desperately - it is cloudy and cooler tonight.  But so far not a drop up here.  The grass is brown and crunchy - crops are shriveling in the field.  We had some rain over the weekend - seemed like the corn grew inches.  But we need more - the corn leaves are rolled up again.  My zuchinni does have a tiny baby on it - hoping it survives.

I said it's been a long week - Monday morning early Mom K called us to come help her get Dad back to bed.  (Early like 4 am).  We went and got home about an hour later.  90 minutes later she called again - this time to have help getting him up and into the ER.  Ended up with Dad K getting admitted - he was just released today.  He had an infection and broke his nose during the 2nd fall.  That short night took a couple days to recover from.  I will never regret going - to help anyone.  But between the lack of sleep and the memories it brought up...wow. 

Summer is flying by.  Guess the boys will be going to church camp next week.  Squirrel has done alot of work to make that happen - we have no counselors going from our church so it wasn't being advertised.  He checked into it and began making arrangements for those who wanted to go to go with another church.  But now that we are down to the last "minute" he's somewhat ambivalent.  There is no one going from our school and no one that he is close to from church. So it will be an opportunity for him to make new friends.  And he usually loves it.  Dipstick will be going also giving B and I some uninterrupted time together - after work hours at least. 

After church camp comes the 4H fair followed by a trip to Ontario to see my folks.  After that it seems like school will be starting again already.