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<p>Heart shaped home made sugar cookies with pink icing are about my favorite things ever. I wonder if I can come up with a gluten free version.</p>
<p>Off to the cheer competition.</p>
<p>Haven’t posted here in awhile but have followed this thread for many years. The wind is howling and snow is drifting in southern New England. We still have power - which is wonderful. My valentine surprises to both S’s will have to wait until Monday to be mailed. We got about 30 inches of snow - that is the most I think I have ever seen in one snowstorm and I remember the Blizzard of 1978! It actually is a ton of snow all at once. My muscles are sore from all the shoveling. After the wind calms down, we will have to check out the roof. We may have to pull out the roof rake I bought at a tag sale last year because the snow may have drifted to one part of the roof and be too deep. But what exactly is too deep? I think you need to be a construction engineer to really evaluate the snow load on your roof properly! Just an update. S1 is interviewing and applying to two grad schools that have distance learning options so if a job works out he can still do the grad school option also. I am enjoying hearing everyone’s plans. The four years are going quickly but S2 is a freshman at the same college S1 is going to so we are all set there for 3 more years! I wasn’t ready to leave yet! :)</p>
<p>We are all dug out… H measured snow at about 27"… The new snowblower did well with enclosed cab and heated handle grips… We did not lose power, thank goodness… Dog enjoyed all the snow especially all the paths H makes around the house and our attached barn… Sub zero temps tonight! :eek:</p>
<p>Welcome Chemusic and great for your S’s. SO missed D’s college when she graduated.
PJR–the problem is that is actually the real and true mother who raised the 5 of us. It is only the past few years that I figured her gig out. I did, for the most part, protect the kids from her. Later on that.
MP–will you be my D?</p>
<p>Hi Everyone…I’m in love with the guy who plows our driveway…
At 1P, H finally got a flight out of Chicago. Landed in Newark at 4ish and manged to get to Grand Central by 5. CT governor lifted the ban on driving around 4. A backhoe went through my neighborhood at 4:45 and kindof cleared a single lane. I called our snowplow guy who had just gotten home for the day. He didn’t come to my house earlier because only about half the roads in town were cleared. I begged him to clear our driveway (It’s kinda long and I would be in an ICU right now if I tried to do it myself. Well, actually, I would be dead under a snow drift cause no one knew where I was.) He said yes and came right over. Well metronorth hadn’t opened up the entire line to New Haven (still hasn’t) so I had to get on I95 and go down to a hub station to get dear H. I also had to drive our brand new SUV because my car does not have 4 wheel drive. I was a little nervous cause I never drove the thing before. (Are you still with me?) I picked up dear H and we made our way back home. Can you believe it? Our exit on I 95 WAS NOT PLOWED! Really?? We had to drive even further into the black hole of the next town over…
Oh well, all’s well that ends well. H is home and we are exhausted and going to bed!
So I love our guy who plows our driveway. If it hadn’t been for him, none of this would have happened! (Maybe THIS is part of the payback for my pay it forward plan. I gave him some brand new tires earlier in the week that we can no longer use. Hmmm… sounds good to me!)</p>
<p>Wow! Wasn’t able to log in here all day but was finally cleared. Must have been doing some maintenance work on the site. We have had a sleet/snowy day so I am curled on the couch still in my jammies. :)</p>
<p>Older D has what she thinks is pink eye…shades of being 4 again. I talked her through getting a prescription, etc. She was supposed to work and they gave her the names of people to call to try to convince to take her shift. She was able to find someone, but if she hadn’t, she was expected to work. Does her manager know how contageous pink eye is?</p>
<p>I think I went thru a slight withdrawal this morning when I couldnt get CC to open. Said the server was down or something.</p>
<p>OK… so how weird am I? This morning i watched an online video of a 2012 game from D’s team so I could learn some of the players names and numbers… easier to remember when you see them on the field (or not). Im actually looking forward to watching them play. We leave on Valentine’s day and will visit with my mom for a day or two. She has chemo on Monday so we’ll see how she’s feeling by the weekend. It’s her third treatment and I do know the side effects are cumulative. So, we’re playing it by ear if she will go to the game. It’s also a two hour drive to the game.</p>
<p>Beautiful snowfall today… apparently named Orka. I just see it as a typical Sunday in a Mn February.</p>
<p>Sounds like quite the adventure Woody!! :)</p>
<p>Been a while…</p>
<p>Spent last week in NYC with girlfriends. Had a blast. Loved Avenue Q, and the dancing in Newsies. (But the Newsies music sounds so much like Aladin or the Little Mermaid that I kept expecting Ariel to show up and sing, though that might have made the book just a little less predictable. I’m still humming, “It Sucks to be Me” from Avenue Q, however.) Walked everywhere. Had drinks/dessert in the lounge of the Mandarin Oriental late one night, where we observed three late 60’s/70’s guys in nice tuxedos accompanied by three much, much younger women in tight sparkly cocktail dresses at the adjacent seating area. Hmmmm… Found that my reciprocal privileges not only got me into the Met, but also one of my girlfriends, making her unexpectedly $25 to the good. Had one maniac taxi driver. Missed seeing the rat in the subway that the others saw. Ate too much, but probably walked 5 - 7 miles each day, so it probably evened out. </p>
<p>Flew home Friday. ALL day Friday. Boarded for an 11am flight out of La Guardia Friday morning…and four hours later, after three (!) de-icings, a refueling, having made it to #1 to take off three (!) times, and a passenger near-revolt, we finally made it into the air. </p>
<p>Apparently deicing is only good for 25 minutes in freezing rain conditions, and the operations folks at La Guardia think deicing ought to happen at the gate. Which is about ten minutes from the runway, plus whatever time you get paused on taxiways or queued up. The third time we were required to return to the gate, where a passenger service agent came on-board and told us that federal regulations required that passengers be allowed to deplane for food and drink since we’d been on the tarmac for 3 hours already. The captain then took the mike and bluntly explained that if anyone took that option that we could all just plan on spending the night in La Guardia. The giant roar of “NO” from the passengers caused a quick meeting by the crew to determine that if they offered the chance for us to get off, and served us bread and water (well, pretzels and water) that the rules would be met. So we were fed and watered. And then wandered in the wilderness of La Guardia’s taxiways until some kind folks at American Airlines let us deice in front of their hangar, which was enormously closer to the end of the runway. And finally departed. I counted only five planes still on the ground when we finally got off. Weird. </p>
<p>Grand Central Terminal is celebrating a 100th anniversary this year, and between now and mid-March they have a fabulous set of exhibits set up in the Vanderbilt Hall, and three staff members from the Subway Museum there to lead tours. Really interesting. (But if you go after mid-March, you get the next in their sequence of centenary celebrations: Interpretive Dance.) Cool factoid: The clock in the logo used for Grand Central reads 7:13. Which is 1913 in military time. Which is the year it was built!</p>
<p>I’m still catching up …the little green dingbats seem to have gone away. No loss.</p>
<p>Ive been to that Mandarian Oriental! Do they have like a rooftop lounge? Maybe it was completely different. We went into NY a several years ago for an NBA game and stayed at the Plaza. To be honest, much of that weekend remains is a blur. :)</p>
<p>Welcome back arabrab. Sorry your flight back was such a pita! And woody, my goodness, I love your plow guy to. See, it’s all your good karma coming back!</p>
<p>Missy, someone should bop your d’s employer on the head. That’s the second adult case of pinkeye I’ve heard of in the last week, and I can guess why…folks have forgotten how contagious it is! I am creeped out enough when a cashier is hacking all over my groceries. I can’t imagine pinkeye is great for selling clothes 
Hope she’s feeling better!</p>
<p>If we need any further proof that I’m dyslexic, I spent a good few min. Wondering who would name snow after a vegetable when I read this:
;)</p>
<p>Had a nice time sat night at the cabin fever blues fest…but completely blew the caloric budget on alcohol despite my attempts to limit. There’s just no way for me to nurse a drink for six hours. An athlete who was with us convinced me that stout has far fewer calories then I thought (who knew?) but even with my caloric burn of snowshoeing earlier in the day, I ended up about double! I’d like to be able to say I made it up Sunday, but the grey rain just didn’t beckon to me. I’d have quite preferred not to have had the odd warm up weather-wise on Sunday, as the melt just ends up re freezing into a mess. Saturday was so gorgeous by comparison I should have spent double time on the trail! </p>
<p>Oh well, back on the weight wagon today. This time I will plan ahead and work a little harder to balance out the next shindig, scheduled for two weeks from Friday at our local indie music awards. This time I think I’ll skip going out for Indian food first. No such thing as diet korma ;)</p>
<p>So, my mom’s boyfriend was “home” yesterday for a trial to see if he could navigate the house. He’s making progress, but doesn’t have much use back on his left side (and may never.) I am hoping my mom is not “pushed” into an earlier release. Her house is a four-level split and whatever brave face he puts on to get home, I’m pretty certain navigation will be a challenge. I predict the result will be that the family home will be put on the market, which will cause all manner of shenanigans among the sisters (because one is already on record as wanting it and she is not finance-able to pay market value for it.)</p>
<p>More importantly, I know that mom does not want and is not ready to make a move. We’ll see how all that goes. I’m glad now that we bought this one-floor “death house” last year when well enough and with enough time for it to be “home” come what may. Can’t take something as simple as a walk-in shower for granted!</p>
<p>Trying to warm up at work today. Went to the gym and the car didn’t seem to get the least little bit warm. Then went home to get ready for work and the same. Drove all the way to work (okay it’s not that far 10-15 miles maybe) and no heat in the car. Brrrrrr. Freezing rain her today – joy.</p>
<p>Good morning. Who knew a Pope could/would resign? I bet each of us could name at least one US Supreme Court Justice who we wish would resign.</p>
<p>Younger D’s cheer competition went well. They won their category and got jackets. There weren’t a lot of teams in their category, but they beat a team that has just won a huge competition, so they were on cloud 9.</p>
<p>This weekend was also the big HS cheer competition at Disneyworld, about which I’m sure I posted last year and the year before. Apparently the routine was a “train wreck” and they didn’t even advance to semis, much less finals…the first time in school history that they didn’t advance. Since no one was injured in the train wreck, D and I think it’s a bit amusing…couldn’t happen to a more “deserving” group of young ladies (speaking specifically of the seniors).</p>
<p>Older D found someone to cover her shift, so at least she didn’t cause the customers to leave the store in droves.</p>
<p>Have a great day, all!</p>
<p>Good morning. Hope everyone had a nice weekend.</p>
<p>We really enjoyed our weekend away at S2’s college. We took him and his 3 roommates out to dinner Friday night. All nice guys that he met on his freshman floor. Then took he and another friend out for a snack after the basketball game(which they lost) on Saturday. Went food shopping Sunday morning to get him stocked up on stuff and then got on the road. Next visit will be for graduation! It’s hard to believe.</p>
<p>Today is D1’s 25th birthday! So happy to have had her home this weekend. D1, D2 and I went for mani/pedis on Saturday and then went to MOA with D1’s H and D2’s BF for a bit before we went to the fun place where we were bowling and eating at. We really enjoyed the place. It was like a cool little wine bar that had bocce and bowling inside. The food was also very good so I know we would go back. H missed the whole weekend as he is out of town for business. Hard to believe that my baby is 25!</p>
<p>NM - sounds like a great time! Terrible that your H had to miss but fun for you and the girls! It is unbelievable how quickly the time has gone isn’t it. My S turned 25 last month and D turns 22 this month. Where did those little kids go?</p>
<p>notrth minn and ararab! Sounds like fun…real fun!
Re: the Pope. I just finished watching Mea Culpa on HBO, a documentary on the whole priest abuse scandal from the 1950s beginning with the abuse at that school for the deaf children.
Something tells me he’s not resigning because of old age. However, none of the broadcasts I been listening to even hint at something like that. Just saying…</p>
<p>I did wonder about the timing of his resignation. I do know that a few months ago B16 was extremely ill and I think some thought his end was near. So, perhaps this is just the result of the infirmities of age (he’s 85). But who knows how the whole sorry abuse scandal has affected him or the timing of this decision.</p>
<p>Just lost a long braggy post about older D getting a 100 on her Accounting midterm. I won’t reproduce it but I’m very proud and D is very thrilled because she said she was basically lost in class and studied her tail off and she was rewarded for her efforts.</p>
<p>Of course, now she’s worried she will be called on in class, because she says she still is lost during the lectures.</p>