Religiously all winter Mark has been tending to the batteries in the 4-wheelers. They couldn’t take it anymore and put the battery in Greg’s Honda and took her out for a spin. The cart hooked up to it was the Christmas/birthday present we gave Mark. He has plans to do all kinds of yard work with it. Time will tell. Click on the photos for a bigger look see.
The day started out different. Early in the morning we had a small herd of deer go through the backyard. There are 3 in this photo. We saw at least 6.
We finally got snow. All day they had been predicting it. It started late morning and went into the night. It was a fairly heavy, wet, snow and unfortunately we lost power during a movie we rented for Em’s birthday. We were able to finish it the next day. These are the photos I took yesterday morning (the 17th). They don’t do the beauty justice. It really was like something out of a painting.
To the left represents Emily’s future (and ours). Her acceptance to Champlain College came on her birthday. We had received her acceptance to MCLA the middle of December.
Unfortunately the financial package Champlain offered was very unimpressive. We are weighing all of our options as is Emily. She is leaning towards MCLA for a number of reasons. I have asked her to make her decision not based on finances. Champlain is more than twice the cost of MCLA so in the end I think we will all be doing the practical thing as starting life with over 120k in debt makes little sense. I’ll keep you posted. We have until May to decide about MCLA and March 15th is the deadline for Champlain. Her major is creative writing.
I really shouldn’t complain. This winter hasn’t been that bad snow-wise. Yesterday they were predicting a big storm for us. Tuesday, in preparation the news started to report cancellations for the next day. They told people to stay off the roads. Wednesday morning there were a ton more cancellations. Emily was dismissed at noon and we waited and waited. Derek’s afternoon and evening classes were cancelled. The picture on the left is before the storm. The picture on the right was after. Hmmm… One thing the news did comment on was last evening was the best commute home ever.
So far February has been a light work month for me. More about that later. I’ve been enjoying a few Saturday’s off in a row which is very nice. I’ve always wondered what that was like. Saturday morning we went to one of our favorite breakfast places. It’s fairly small, very quaint and the food is wonderfully homemade. I didn’t think to bring my camera so these are from Greg’s cell phone. I’m still not thinking like a real blogger yet. Anyway we sat down, placed our order and enjoyed some conversation until… a group of about 10 retired woman came in and sat right next to us. They were very enthusiastic and very loud. Did I say they were loud? They were laughing and having a grand time. They invited us to join them. One of them told us they were all retired teachers except for one nurse. They meet the first Saturday of the month for breakfast. She was telling us that so we could plan accordingly for the future. They really were very nice. We just felt like we were sitting in on an episode of the View with all the cross talk.
We finished our breakfast with little conversation because we really couldn’t hear each other anymore. As we were leaving they wished us well and I told them they had given me something to blog about.
I made reference above to a light work month for me. Last week one of the girls resigned at work. A few months ago I told my boss that I would be willing to start out at 16 hours on the books, meaning I would no longer be per diem. I would be giving up my flexibility and control of my schedule but it would guarantee me 16 hours per week. The details aren’t worked out yet. I told her I would like to stay per diem until June when Emily graduates so that I could attend the many things that will be coming up. In the meantime I will start working every other Saturday again starting this month and will pick up more days during the week.
It always amazes me how quickly the days go by between some of my posts. It’s not only the days but the years that have been flying by. It’s not that our life is so full of fascinating things that I have no time to blog, its that life is so full of laundry, chores and working that I have no time to blog. I’m sure many of you know what I’m talking about. Getting back to the years flying by… January 18th marked a milestone for Derek. He turned 20. We had a simple celebration with just us. For those of you who know Derek you know that since he was a baby he was never without a quilt. Twenty years has not changed that.
Back in October I did a post about a classmate of Emily’s that died in a car accident. Undeniably a horribly, tragic loss for the family and the community. The kids snapped into action and ran numerous fundraisers to raise money for a scholarship in the young man’s memory. Sadly, not everyone is honorable and the money, or most of it was stolen. That did not deter the kids. They organized another
Last night we had dinner at the Texas Roadhouse. We had a flyer put together by the students and the Roadhouse agreed to donate 10% of the meal to the scholarship fund. Some of the kids manned a table at the entrance where people could donate cash.
This was our first time dining there. The atmosphere is casual. The country music was a bit loud making the conversation throughout equally louder. Every so often the waitress would form a line and do a country dance to music. The food was good although we all agreed a bit salty for our tastes.
The main point of the evening was to keep Michael’s memory alive through a scholarship fund. The other lesson learned for the kids was to never give up… no matter what.
This week we went out to breakfast, just the two of us, on 
Getting back to Monday, after breakfast we decided to take a scenic route home and headed to Newburyport. Visible from our route was this wind turbine. We drove to it’s location. It was the first time I’d seen one up close. It was huge, looked very futuristic and didn’t make a sound.
As we 
There has been a full moon this week. I find I’m superstitious about these. Being a nurse it has been my experience that people get a little crazy when there is a full moon. They are beautiful and it always amazes me how they illuminate the night sky. I took this photo yesterday morning from the bathroom window.
In the afternoon we picked up about 3 inches of snow. Enough to shovel easily and enough to make everything look magical. This woodpecker was kind enough to pose for me.
I wish for everyone a calm and peaceful New Year filled with only the best of things.
