It's official

This is the snowiest winter on record for our county. The previous record was the winter of 78-79 when we had 74 and a half inches of snow. Last Friday's snow got us to almost 78 inches of snow! That's a lot of shoveling. The forecast says we might still get more snow later this week. Ugh.

Guess I wasn't the only one sliding on the snow/ice mixture last Friday. There were a lot of accidents that day. That snow was deceptively slippery. I thought I had driven in a lot of bad road conditions this winter, but that topped the snow heap. The funny thing is, as I was sliding out of control towards the side of the road I wasn't scared. I probably should have been. But I was actually annoyed. I was thinking what a pain in the neck it would be to get stuck in the snow and have to get a tow truck to haul me out.

Since the weather was clear tonight, after dinner Violet and I ran some errands. One thing we did was drop off the Linus blankets she made as part of the all service unit Girl Scout service project. I can't remember if I posted these before, but here are her blankets. The pink one is pink and purple tie dye with skull patterns. The red is just red.






She chose to make them the requested size for pre-teens or teens. And she thought the pink would be good for a girl, the red for a boy.

Happy Easter

We did make it up North on Saturday morning. The roads still had snow on them in some parts so we were really glad we didn't try to go on Friday night. We've had a nice visit so far. The Easter bunny found Violet here. Hid the eggs all over the grandparents' house. That was a nice change of pace from the boring places he finds year after year at our house.

Not sure what time we're leaving tonight to go home. There is a chance of more snow in the forecast, so we should be keeping an eye on the weather.

And just a side note. Did you know it is the 70's in Wisconsin. The decade that is. We stopped at a Taco Bell/KFC on our drive up for lunch and Casey Kasem was on the radio doing a count down. Then we got here and they had the 70's channel on both televisions. I had no idea the state of Wisconsin was still 3 decades behind.

Definitely not going tonight

I just tried to drive over to our library. Violet had a book come in through interlibrary loan and I wanted to get it for her. It is only about 2 miles away. There are nearly white-out conditions from the snow. And the road is the worst I've seen this entire winter. I tried to make a turn onto another road. I turned, I kept spinning. I made a full circle and was pointed back the way I'd come from. I took a deep breath and drove home. That was with 4-wheel drive on.

Violet wasn't with me. Mr. Incredible is working from home. He agreed, maybe tomorrow morning we'll make it to Wisconsin.

p.s. The carrot cupcakes are done. I'll try to post a picture a little later.

Snow

Yep, the snow is coming down. It started a few hours later than expected, but even in the hour I've been up it has picked up. We've got over an inch on the ground. I doubt we'll be traveling tonight. They are still calling for 6 to 10 inches of snow.

Piggy asked in comments, wasn't it cold waiting for my package to arrive yesterday? You'd think, but no yesterday was beautiful. It was sunny all day. Nearly 50 out. Violet spent time out on the swings. I was thinking this morning that in the days before forecasts and Weather Channel and radars, we would have been shocked to get up this morning and find ourselves in a blizzard.

My box of goodies did come yesterday. I bought the whole set of the "Key to" series for math. I had them all out on the family room floor and was sorting them out. Violet starts looking at them. Then asks if she can start one of them. We settle on Key to Measurement. She did 7 pages in the first book. We still have a way to go in Miquon, but there's certain enough Key to that she can do at the same time for fun and confidence boosting!

For now I'm going on with my day as if we are leaving tonight. We baked the cupcakes yesterday, today we must make the frosting and decorate them. Violet has several projects to finish up. I'll go ahead and pack.

Glad we didn't bother to start any clean up work out in the yard! Happy Spring!

Odds and Ends

We were supposed to pick up Violet's incentives from selling Girl Scout cookies and turn in the bank receipts for the money yesterday. But I got an e-mail from the cookie chair saying that Violet's stuffed dog wasn't in yet and I might as well wait and go over later to get it all at once. Since that was the main thing she's looking forward to getting we're waiting. I just wish she'd told me that before I told Violet we were going to get them. We decided that that stuffed dog was on the truck to go to the cookie chair's house. But then he got off the truck to chase butterflies and it left without him. I assured her we WILL get her incentives. There are always missing items. I don't know why, but there always are.

Not only are we supposed to get snow flurries tomorrow. Now we are under a winter storm watch. We could get 5-7 inches of snow tomorrow. We might not be driving up to Wisconsin until Saturday morning. If at all.

That'd be a real kicker if we didn't make it there. First we took two weeks to decide if we were going or not. Then Mr. Incredible's step mom and his dad have contacted us trying to figure out what to make for Easter dinner. Mr. Incredible isn't a vegetarian, but he practically is. He won't eat beef, pork, veal, lamb, shell fish, anything weird, mushrooms or eggs. Some of the foods are because of health reasons. Others because they gross him out. He's a challenge to cook for. But he doesn't expect anyone else to give up all that stuff just because of him. He'll eat bread and side dishes and be fine. It has been a royal to do assuring them of that. But step mom is making a turkey (one of the few meats he'll eat) instead of the ham she's made every other year probably her entire life.

My Rainbow Resources order is on the truck for delivery today! If you need me I'll be sitting on my front porch waiting for it.

I blame it on my public school education

Heck, I even went to a public state university. After 20 years give or take a semester in the public school system, who would expect me to score higher? Good thing I'm getting a second chance to learn it all.

By the way, I found this from my blogging friend Maria's site: Eclectically Yours,

Ugly

That's the only way to describe how it looks outside. Ugly. The grass is brown. The trees are bare and many of them broken from ice storms. The ground is muddy. The remaining traces of snow are dirty and black. It even smells bad out (like rotting leaves and things I can't identify - Violet said it smelled like a rat, rolled in cat poop and drowned).

Friday we are supposed to get snow flurries and possible snow accumulation. I don't have to tell you how that makes me feel.

But I am actually feeling good today. Violet and I got our hair cut this morning. I got 4 inches chopped off mine. I love it! She only got a tiny trim, and even that was under protest. After the stylist and I both assured her that her hair would grow faster and be easier to comb out with it trimmed up she agreed. But wasn't happy about it. I bought her a cherry Slurpee from 7-11 afterwards.

Violet has been making HUGE strides in math! I am so happy. Things are really clicking. She's been using Noble Knights of Knowledge to learn concepts she doesn't get through Miquon and using Miquon for the extra problems to practice. If one approach doesn't work, we drop it and try the other. She loves the story format of Knights. I like that Miquon has so much practice that I don't have to make up. She's about to finish the Blue book in Miquon which is the third of out the six books. Hoping to have her up to grade level by the end of the year. I think other than not having memorized her times tables, she'll be there.

I'm pretty sure I am going to order the Discovering Great Artists book I mentioned in my last post. I have it on interlibrary loan request. I thought we could do a test run with one lesson and see how it goes. Most people who've commented have liked it. The main complaint I've heard is not enough sample pictures, but we do have quite a few other reference books around. Hopefully that will work okay.

We are heading up to my in-laws in Wisconsin this weekend for Easter. We'll be going up Friday night. Violet is making Razzle Dazzle Cinnamon Carrot Cupcakes to take with. A picture of them and the recipe is here: ABC Cookies. It is another of our Girl Scout cookie recipes. They are delicious. I had one at a volunteer meeting. (I know Piggy, never drink the Kool-Aid OR eat the cupcakes.)