Snow, work, kids, and such.

Thursday night it was snowing again and by yesterday morning we had another inch on the ground. I am hoping that's the last of it. After 107 inches of snow for the year, I have had enough.

At work, we are finally getting ready to be transferred into our new division at GE next week which is basically an IT support group. It will be a big change for us all; for example none of us will be doing any hands on technical work going forward once the Grand Rapids site is fully transitioned; we are not looking forward to that at all, but, on the other hand it is good to have a job. It will be strange, we will now be 'guests' or even tenants of the Grand Rapids location but not part of that business, which means we'll all be moved into an area together (goodbye my window seat that I love!) and have different benefits, vacation and holiday policies. Goodbye week off at Christmas!!!! Aarrggggg!

Danielle is over her strep which is good, though it made her lose 3 days of school and fall a little behind. Scott is doing well. Thursday night I took them both to Hobby Lobby to get Scott a sketch pad, I ended up spending over $50 getting the each a set of sketch books and pads, plus an artists carrying case for Scott and a set of artists pens for Danielle; when it comes to creative things like this I can't say no!

Chris came home from Kettering University yesterday; this is his second B session of his freshman year where he is supposed to be working with a partner company but he still does not have one. Of the eight 3 month B sessions to graduate he needs five with a partner company. He had an interview in the area a week or so ago is hoping to hear from by Wednesday so he does not have to go to Detroit for an interview. Then too he would have to live in that area instead of being able to stay at his Mom's house. He had exams this week and I was IM'ing with hm the other day and he feels he did good in them. He is the typical student, staying out until all hours, catching a bit of sleep, and then running off to class.

I thought my takes were all taken care of but the accountant told me they were rejected by the IRS. Turns out the X did Chris' on-line for him and somehow set it to claim him as a deduction for himself which as a full time student being claimed on my taxes he can't do, so, now amended tax forms for him and me had to be done to fix it for of course additional money, but, considering I get a very good refund using the accountant I have no issues with paying the extra $50 to take care of this.

Last night the X stopped in bringing dinner which I ordered from First Wok, Scott had his friend Ben over so he joined us for dinner. Afterwards the X, Danielle, and I watched "The Mist" which turned out to be pretty good. A bit after they left she called because Danielle had forgotten her antibiotics. Since I knew the X had to journey out sometime between 11 and midnight to pickup Scott and that Danielle would be in bed already I ran them over the her house.

I often marvel over the way my divorce works out with the X; last week we ended up having sinner together four times for example, I like to call this a 'dysfunctional' divorce....and I really wish I could stop carrying the torch for her..but the heart has a mind of its own... I do hope her business issues resolve this year, she works so hard for so little return, it just does not same fair.

Yesterday after work I also began the chore of setting up my new Home Theater PC, I worked that on and off until 2AM this morning. I'll probably do a separate post on that later.

For the cat fanciers out there Tails is doing fine; she enjoyed being up late with me last night, often sitting in the chair next to me at the kitchen table where the new HTPC is being set up, or curled up on the couch with me when I was sitting there.

The sun is shining, the temperature, which had dropped into the low teens overnight is predicted to hit upper 40's today, so perhaps we are finally going to see some spring like weather. I guess that's all for now!

FOOD FIGHT!!!!

How many times did your mother tell you NOT to play with your food??? Well, in her wildest moments she never could have imagined THIS:



Thanks to my friend Barry for sending me this!

Danielle and Strep and Tails and Foot

Yesterday Danielle came down with strep throat, a really nasty case. I worked from home and took her to the doctor and then went and got her meds. Today she is feeling a little better which is good, she was SO pathetic yesterday morning!

On a totally different note here's a picture of Tails enjoying her foot; I included this because Tails cheers Danielle up when she is not feeling well.

Click picture for a larger version

Easter Day 2008

It was a very nice Easter!

I awoke around 8:30AM, puttered on the computer, drank a nutrition shake and a bit later rode the exercise bike. After getting cleaned up I had Scott and Danielle make their Mom Easter cards and at 12:30 we arrived at her house for the annual Easter Egg Hunt.

Christopher, home from college for the weekend, hid the eggs and we learned a new thing; he has ADHD and forgot where he hid most of the eggs so later in the hunt when they were missing 20 eggs out of the 104 that were hidden he was running around to get them!

There were not real eggs but hollow plastic ones the X fills with assorted candy.

The kids all got Easter baskets, shown below, then we headed back to my house to pickup Scott's wallet.

While Scott ran into the house I backed into the street, and backed back into the driveway so the car was facing the street, the experiences with Scott backing the Mustang out and almost hitting the tree across the street racing through my head!

Scott, wallet in hand, or at least in pocket, came out of the house and we headed off to the X's parents house for Easter dinner with Scott driving. He drove very well, excellent in fact, so much better than the last time we made this journey some months back. I was sure to praise him alone and again in front of everyone.

I( had not been to Mom and Dad's for awhile, so, I caught up on the news and also got to see their remodeled kitchen (most nice!) including new range and microwave. I once again engaged in the mental debate of spending money on a new oven for my house.....sadly no conclusion was reached and the debate will rage on!

Mom was having rouble with her PC again so I spent about four hours working on it, tweaking, tuning, scanning for viruses, and came across a new scam, this program called Macro Virus she has downloaded as a virus scanner said she has 212 infected objects, but, they were bogus; SpyBot defined this program as a scam, it lies about all these viruses to try and get you to pay for the registered version, then it 'cleans' them saying they are all gone afterwards. Slick trick, huh??

Mom's PC's biggest issues seemed to be a combination of too many temporary (over 25,000) files, fragmented hard disk, too many startup programs not needed running, and system restore running. Taking care of all of these too time, and as dinner was being served I left a disk check running and enjoyed a fabulous Roast Beef dinner,with baked potato, fresh asparagus with Hollendaise sauce, Holiday break (like a cinnamon nut loaf almost, salad, gravy, and sauteed mushrooms. I complimented Mom on how good dinner was and mentioned I could not have done better myself! From me, that is high praise! I even mentioned I was not sure I could have done the roast beef as well; i will have to put that to the test one weekend! Dinner over I continue work on the computer, took a break for a thin slice of strawberry cake, and then we headed home around 6:30PM with Scott driving, once again doing most well!

The rest of the evening was spent relaxing with TV, Fate on the computer, with bed around 11 PM.

Tails got canned food at bed time even though she had it before we left for Easter festivities earlier in the day; figured that was her Easter dinner.

The only negative thing off the day was that this year Danielle did not ask to color Easter eggs; I attribute this mostly to all the time she spends on the computer, which I think more rigorous action is required to break her of this habit.

Happy Easter!

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE

The picture below is from the card Danielle drew for her Mom:

And this one Scott made for his Mom on the computer:

Both can be clicked for larger versions.

Who you gonna call???

Ghostbusters has always been one of my favorites, from the first and second movies, to the cartoons, and the Ray Parker Jr music video which you can watch below:



Universal Studios used to have a live Ghostbusters show and pavilion which recreated the inside of their firehouse, it was awesome! Ecto-1, their 1959 Cadillac was parked at various parts of the studio lot. Somewhere I have a analog picture of it.

Imagine my disappointment the year we went back to find it gone, replaced by Twister (the movie about tornadoes; enjoyable but not Ghostbusters! Now they are making a video game.....I can't wait! Click the banner at the top of the screen to go to the game site.

So, Who you gonna call?? Ghostbusters!

Sorry for the lack of updates

Sorry for the lack of posts these past couple of weeks, just been feeling sick, or having back issues, or just plain blah with many issues on my mind.

I had the day off today so I took care of a bunch of errands. I headed out around 9:30AM, it was very windy and the temperature just below freezing. First stop was to get Mr. Mustang an oil change, then I picked up some cash at an ATM, and stopped at the UPS store to send my X10 Icon remote, which I bought to replace me Harmony 880, back to X10. They advertise their Icon Remote as a Harmony 880 killer, well, let me tell you the thing is a piece of garbage in that it would not control half of my devices, though the 880 it was supposed to kill had no trouble doing so until I killed it accidentally! X10 has some interesting items but their customer service really sucks. I had sent them a detailed letter about the faults of the remote and all I got back was a form letter which at least had my RMA, so, I will get my money refunded. I have no respect for a place with poor customer service!

So, with that out of the way I went to Lowe's next as I needed furnace filters. I use the 3M heavy duty allergens filters and my furnace is a weird size so these are hard to find. Luck was with me they had two packs of them which saved me about 3 bucks a filter so I bought 2 2 packs.

I popped into work for a couple of hours to take care of a few loose ends from the week, which was very hectic. Work is becoming a real chore lately, what with having to do my old job and trying to learn my new job and working on the integration into GE's environment.....it's very stressful, and I am not very happy with my job lately though I am pleased to be employed, all the fun has gone out of the job.

I headed off to the accountant next, where for the past few years I have been getting good tax refunds. It's certainly more expensive than using Turbo Tax or another program on the PC, but they do a great job and I get good refunds. Just as I was starting back from the accountant snowflakes started falling.

Oh! I did not mention they predicted a big storm yesterday? One that they swore would miss our area.....well, it did not.

So, as I was getting off the highway which is right by my house I decided to continue on to Forest Hills Foods where I picked up the bare necessities (the simple bare necessities!) to get the kids and I through today and tomorrow. The store was a mob scene, probably fueled by the fact of the encroaching storm and people shopping for their Easter holiday.

I got home a little after one and loaded up the crock pot with ingredients for chicken soup (which was delicious), and Scott's girl friend Emma came over for dinner and liked it too.

Scott's way of asking me if she could come for dinner was me overhearing him telling her on the phone to be at our house at 6PM and we were having soup! I thought that was pretty amusing actually.

So, there's got to be around half a foot of freaking snow on the ground now around 11PM and it is still snowing! I guess we will break the 100" mark after all!


Some other things that have been going on...

A week ago was White Day so the day before, after I arrived home from work very sore and stiff, and having already stopped for groceries and wanting nothing more than t sit and relax Scott announces he has to bake a cake for Emma for White Day, so I got to take him to the store and get the ingredients, run him over to Gamestop for some game he wanted, and then stop at his Mom's house so he could get cake pans which I do not have. AND I got to pay for all the ingredients and help him make the cake! Even with my jaundiced views of relationships who am I to stand int he way of true love??

That White Day Friday evening Chris came home from college for the weekend, I made a pot of sauce (I think that's the third time now) in the crock pot and the X came over. We had a nice pasta dinner, Chris eating chicken wings as he hates pasta, and then the X, Chris, and I watched Stargate SG-1 The Ark of Truth, which was the movie that closed all the lose ends when Stargate SG-1 was not picked up for an 11th season. It was AWESOME and they did a fantastic job of closure.

Last Sunday Scott was out bike riding and he totaled his bicycle and bashed himself good, he was sore most of the week and the bike was a loss. I suggested Sears be checked for a replacement bike, and, after checking local bike shops and finding the prices way too high the X went to Sears and got a fantastic deal on a road bicycle for Scott. I paid for it, and she and Scot put it together, she doing a good job except for the fact she put the handlebars on backwards which became evident when the front wheel would not go on!

Last night the X popped by bringing Quizno's (fourth time for dinner in a week's period....I thought we were divorced!) and she, Scott, Danielle, and I watched "I am Legend" which I thought was excellent.

Danielle has really been enjoying the iPod Nano I bought her as a reward for her last three good report cards. She has been spending way too much time on the computer though and she has been ignoring my suggestions of policing herself before Mom and Dad do it...so....some checks and balances are going to have to be put in place. For example, this evening I sent her to bed on time instead of letting her stay up later like I usually do.

That's about it for now.........I'm going to go to bed shortly and either dream of warm weather of have frozen nightmares of a post apocalyptic freezing wasteland!

The week in review

This was the lovely morning that greeted me a week ago Saturday after additional snow the day before:

I was feeling a bit sick, had been the day before, but the day was gorgeous. As it got later I was feeling worse and worse. I called my dad to say hello and got some bad news; he had seen a second specialist who confirmed what his previous doctor had said his lungs were failing and there was nothing that could be done. I was stunned and spent the rest of the weekend in a fog, particularly after more bad news from some other family back east in the medical and other areas.

By Monday I was flu-like sick as I had all the symptoms except a fever. I was home sick Monday and Tuesday though I did work about half a day each from home just trying to keep up with all that is going on.

I felt bad in body and mind all week and work was very hectic on top of that. I was so ready for the weekend and Friday was the start of a week with the kids which always makes the weekend more enjoyable.

I don;t know what I did, but I managed to wrench my back badly that evening and by Saturday it was about the worst it has been in a couple of years. Of course Scott had plans that required various transportation plus because he had late-ending driver education which I had to drop him off early at (plus pick up one of his friends on the way) we also had to stop at the X's so they could get their stuff for the week at my house which we usually do after school on Friday.

Unknown to Scott and Danielle getting in and out of the low to the ground Mustang when my back is like this is very painful, all I wanted to do was take some presumption pain killers and lay flat on my back in between sets of my exercises. But because the last pickup I had to do of him and two friends was at midnight, I was unable to do that until 2AM this morning (1AM but daylight savings time you know) since all day I had to keep my head clear for driving. I could not deny him his fun, he's been through a lot too this week; he had a friend pass away at school. She fainted during practice for the talent show and was dead two hours later. For him this is the second friend who has died in a 6 month period. So, as Lucy had said in Charlie Brown, I just gritted my teeth, dealt with the pain all day, and got the job done.

Sunday morning after a fitful nights sleep my back does not seem to hurt any worse......though I fear it will be delivery food for the kids this day though when I go to pickup Scott from the friend's house he slept over last night I will drag him to Forest Hills Foods with me so he can do the bending and lifting of some groceries we must have.

So, that's been my week and why there have been no posts during that period. I hope everyone else has been doing OK.

Recipe: Crock pot pasta sauce with sausage, pepperoni, and homemade meatballs

Note: Updated January 25th 2018 to point to new meatball recipe

Oh my goodness! TWO recipes in one lunch time! I felt guilty; I had the base recipes in my gmail drafts folder for days (or longer for this one) so I decided to post them both today.

While I have never given out my recipe for homemade pasta sauce that I simmer on the stove, I will share this easier crock pot version which is certainly not lacking in taste! This sauce gets a good deal of its flavor from the meats and fresh basil.

Preparation time: 30 minutes (I can do it in 15-20!)

Cooking time in a 5 quart crock pot: low setting 5-6 hours, high setting 4-5 hours (sauce is done when sausage and pepperoni can be cut with a fork)

Serves 8 or more.... (keep leftover sauce in fridge for a week or freeze up to three months)

Ingredients

Sauce:
1/2 oz fresh basil
2 cans (28 ounces) tomato puree
2 tbs chopped garlic
1/4 tsp dried oregano
4 tbs olive oil

The meats:
1.25 pounds (5 links) sweet Italian sausage
2 packages (5 oz each) Hormel pepperoni (each contains 2 small sticks)

Meatballs:
Find my better updated meatball recipe here.

Preparation:
Spray the inside of the crock pot with PAM or equivalent olive oil spray. Pour in the two cans of tomato puree, and add garlic, basil, olive oil, and oregano. Stir and turn on crock pot on hi.

Cut pepperoni sticks into five or six pieces each and add to crock pot along with sausage links.

In a large bowl combine ground meat, breadcrumbs, egg, oil, water, basil, oregeno, and grated cheese. Mix well with hands until uniform in texture and appearance. Shape into 12 meatballs. Add to crock pot and cover.

Set heat to low if you prefer the longer cooking time. If cooking on high, once pot begins simmering, after an hour stir every hour. You can add an hour or two of cooking time by doing everything with the crock pot off and then turning it on low after adding the meatballs.

Serve sauce over your favorite pasta with the meats on the side.

Recipe: Oven-Roasted Garlic Chicken and Carrots

It has been quite awhile since I posted a recipe and I came up with a new one over the weekend.

Oven-Roasted Garlic Chicken and Carrots
Serves four

Ingredients:
Chicken pieces (I used 3 drumsticks, three thighs, three breasts)
Baby Carrots (approximately 25 pieces)
1/4 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tbs dried parsley
4 tbsp crushed garlic (jarred or fresh garlic through garlic press)

Preparation:
Wash and pat dry chicken with paper towels

In a Ziploc freezer bag combine all ingredients above except for the baby carrot pieces. Mix thoroughly and leave in refrigerator for a minimum of 2 hours or more (overnight works well!) Turn bag over at least once halfway though marinating.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray with PAM olive oil spray a large glass Pyrex baking dish and evenly distribute the baby carrots across the bottom. Place the chicken skin side up and lightly sprinkle some additional parsley across the top.

Bake for 50 minutes raising heat to 450 for the last 10. Chicken skin should be crispy upon removal.

Serve with Salad or your choice of side dish.

Variations: Any oven friendly veggies could be used here such as broccoli or onions, or a mixture! Skinless chicken can also be used.

What happened to me last night

I had been invited to dinner at the X's house with herself, Scott, and Danielle. Afterwards, the kids went off to play video games and the X and I were watching TV. She was channel surfing after the show we watched ended and a music video came on.

I do not know who the female artist was nor I did not recognize the song, but the twang of steel guitars was present and she sung it with a thick Southern drawl. While the exact words elude me today the subject matter was of a woman who had tired of her husband. She metaphorically ripped his still-beating heart from his chest and, after holding it at eye level for him to see, smashed it under her foot. In other words to his surprise she had told him she no longer loved him and was leaving him.

The X loved this song and was loudly saying things like "Yea!" and "That's the way to do it!" and other such phrases while looking coldly in my direction every few seconds. The song ended, she commented "Was that a great video or what!?!?" and she left the room. I was totally stunned by this, finally knowing the meaning of the word dumbfounded!!!

Needless to say my feelings were incredibly hurt so,without a word and filled with a great sadness, I left the room and exited her house. Incredibly hurt and upset, on the verge of tears in fact, I was not paying attention to where I was going as I fled her residence. I found myself in a very strange frame of mind walking along a road I did not recognize but seemed to me at the time to be reminiscent of the streets in Glen Ridge New Jersey where I grew up. VERY reminiscent! So much so that if I did not know better, since I live in Michigan and had not left the state to my recollection, I would swear at one point I was on High Street in Glen Ridge a block away from Bloomfield Avenue. This was, without a doubt, a very disturbing feeling! I continued walking in a very distracted manner not really paying attention to where I was going though my ultimate destination was to get to my house.

The fact that I was still in Michigan soon became evident as I found myself under a bridge on route I-96, which goes nowhere near New Jersey. Evidently I was so distracted I had wandered off the road or was subconciosuly following a shortcut after being distracted by the familiar nature of the previous road I had been walking on. This new area was a lightly wooded place at the bottom of a small gully so I surmised the bridge was an overpass over this area.

I heard the sounds of music and talking and ventured under the bridge. There were many people sitting, standing, and moving about. There were many conversations going on. To my eye this was a cross between a flea market and a Renaissance Fair because people, mostly female, clad in typical Medieval attire were circulating the crown offering goods for sale, such as hand-made jewelry, finely crafted boxes, and such, and there were many tables and tents with goods on display.

I found a place to sit and continued looking about the area. A very heavy woman passed by and, as she had done to other folks seated in this area gave me a little porcelain plate upon which rested several cookie-like pastries. I ate them while having a conversation with a gentleman I did not know sitting next to me. Upon chatting a bit as to how I had come to be here I discovered his wife had left him as well. Using this as common ground it was soon evident we shared many of the same interests and could easily become friends. He was also dressed in medieval attire such as you would expect a merchant to wear. Around his neck he wore a thick gold chain with an intricate jeweled medallion. He remarked that this gathering happened monthly weather permitting. I pronounced surprise at this news and remarked I had never heard of this in the 7+ years I had been living in the area.

Under one side of the bridge a large area was setup where food and beverages were being prepared and provided to those who desired them. Several large pigs were roasting on spits and the delicious aroma wafting my way was making me hungry. I mentioned to my new-found friend that I was going to journey over to procure some of the roasted porcine goodness and he elected to accompany me there.

When we neared the head of the line the large woman who had given me the plate of pastries appeared, shoved my friend to the ground, and, brandishing a large ornate medieval looking dagger threatened to "split him end to end" if he did not give her yon bejeweled pendant! To emphasize her serious nature she slashed out at him, tearing a rent in his sleeve and drawing blood! People started screaming, I saw several people making hurried cell phone calls!

The woman advanced, acting more threatening, and, on the spur of the moment almost without realizing I was doing so, I grabbed a large metal serving tray and, coming up behind her, smashed her over the head with it! She went down like a sack of wet sand without making a sound and before I could check on her condition the police appeared wanting to know what was transpiring.

I tried to explain what had happened, but I was shaken somewhat and could not raise my voice above a whisper which was drowned out by loud shouts of "I saw the whole thing! He bashed her over the head for no reason!!!" coming from an unseen female.

The crowd parted, and Crystal Bernard (for those of you not familiar with this name she played Helen Chapel on the TV show Wings) appeared, even more loudly repeating her affirmation of my guilt! While I was totally stunned by this her next comments really floored me; "I'm his ex-wife and I know he's capable of these things!". Needless to say I was flabbergasted! I was blown away by the total and utterly absurd untruth of this!! How could she lie in such a manner!!?? Of course I was not capable of these things!!!

I then tried to explain myself to the police, repeating what had happened and mentioned the incident that began this and the way the X had behaved at her house over that annoying music video! Before I knew it I was being roughly handcuffed and led away in total shock! They pushed me into the back seat of the Police Car and the door slammed!

I awoke; amazed at this dream I had experienced and wondering about Crystal Bernard and the role she played here! What was really weird was at that point in the dream she WAS my ex-wife in my mind, though in the beginning of this dream my ex-wife was my real ex-wife. I have not seen Wings in ages! The dreams I have featuring the X prior to this have virtually all been pleasant other than the sadness felt upon wakening. What a disturbingly strange and vivid dream!

Idiots of the Open Road

Of course it began snowing Monday evening. At least we were spared the major dumping the folks south of us got in Michigan, we only had a couple of inches but it was enough to make the roads dangerous on the way to work today. The trees looked nice though because it was that wet type of snow that really sticks on wires, branches, etc. When they wrote Winter Wonderland it must have snowed like that I suspect!

KUDOS to the major jerkwad in the big white pickup truck this morning. As I was doing a bit under the speed limit as I headed towards the main intersection by work this idiot zooms past me in the right lane and ends up having to brake at the traffic light which I arrived at a few seconds later.

Next this MAJOR FAULT zooms off and cuts in front of the vehicle in front of me from the right lane and then was zooming ahead...to stop where...at the next traffic light!

WHAT drives these idiots? Not only do they not get there any faster but they are wasting fuel and putting themselves and others in danger!

Weekend Weather

As promised there was NO snow over the weekend. REALLY!! The temps hit the upper 30's but even with the sun made little difference in the ground cover except for the streets. Monday I drove to work for the first time in weeks without the traction indicator coming on in the Mustang!

The rest of the weekend was no fun; there was a four hour power outage starting at 3 AM at work that hit both sites in Grand Rapids and I ended up spending over 10 hours working on site Saturday and several hours working from home Sunday. I love those no pay work daze! Of course this had to happen on a weekend when I had the kids! I think I need a weekend to recover from the weekend!

MAC .vs. PC

I'm sure everyone out there has seen those MAC verses PC adds with the frumpy guy with the glasses supposed to be the PC, and the cool easy going skinny guy supposed to be the MAC. Since Apple sponsors these ads, the PC always comes away looking inferior.

Well, I saw this picture on the Internet and I just had to share:

Baby, it's cold outside!

Thursday morning in the Grand Rapids area the temperature overnight dropped to five below zero! That's way cold enough for me! This morning it was 30 degrees warmer at the same time. Today we may hit 30 and it is brightly sunny and will be over the entire weekend hitting the mid 30's.

Of course, next week there is another storm with snowfall accumulation predicted; we shall see what happens.

I got an e-mail from my brother Rick in New Jersey early this morning; they have 7 inches with more on the way; predicted to continue snowing until past midnight this evening. Yesterday at work a gentleman I had been meeting with for work left to fly home to the east coast. he was happy because when he came out Tuesday night this week the place was a mess and it was snowing heavily. I heard thous morning he was stranded somewhere, not able to make it back home because of the storm hitting the east coast!

Steve in NJ, Bev in PA, are you guys seeing snow and if so how much?

I must admit I am pleased someone else is getting snowed on and that my sky is sunny and blue! Perhaps that makes me a lesser person, I do not know!

Moon over Michigan

Wednesday morning the full moon hung so low in the sky if I had not been late for work I would have gone back in and gotten my camera. Trouble was to see it I had to be at the intersection and I was running late.

I realized after the fact that of I could see the moon the sky must be clear and it was and while the temps never rose above the low 20's THE SUN (THE GLORIOUS SUN!!!) WAS OUT ALL DAY!

Last night was a total lunar eclipse started around 9:30 PM. Every 10 minutes or so until 11PM I went back to the back of the house and looked out the rear sliders. It was awesome! Times like that I feel very insignificant in the face of nature!

Tuesday

Not much to say other than the snow continued heavily and I got to use the snow blower yet again!

We also had a repeat of last weeks X and kids visiting for dinner, she brought Chinese food (the same menu items in fact) and she and I watched Supernatural.

February broke a Michigan record for the amount of snow and snowy days in the month. We are at about 93" of snow for the year in this area and are certain to easily break 100". The average yearly snowfall around here is 71".

Monday

Monday I got home after work wanting to do nothing more than feed the cat and rest my back. The plows had been by after I left for work and the streets were semi-slushy because the temps had gone above freezing for so long Sunday.

Well, during the day the temp dropped and the winds blew fast and furious all day so when I got home from work I found a 3 foot wall of solid ice in the bottom of my driveway.

With my sore back I alternated between using the snow blower and a shovel to break up the ice. Took me an hour to clear the driveway so it could be driven over.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday......

Sore back or no I had to get to the store and pickup food for Tails! So, around 9AM I headed out. The weather (though you were going to get a few posts without that topic, did you??) had warmed up, in fact as I type this around 10AM Sunday morning it is 42 degrees. It is raining steadily and my street was the worst it has ever been! I got onto the street and the car immediately slid sideways though I was only doing about 5 mph. We limped to the corner, again turning almost completely sideways across the road and managed to get onto the main road which was not too bad. I picked up the food I needed for kitty and a couple of other items and we headed back,

I was pleased being able to make it to the store and back; when my back is like this I always worry it will go completely out and then I can barely walk.

This warm up preceeds the predicted storm and temperature fall later this evening. Overnight it is predicted to drop below zero and as much as 10 below going into Tuesday morning. The roads tomorrow will likely be nightmarish!

Oh! Lest I forget, KUDOS! to the major jerkwad in the blue van that got on my car's ass and leaned into his horn as I slowed down before getting on the icy left turn center lane for my street. Some people.........

How much TV can you watch in one day......

Saturday morning the pain in may back was quite intense making anything but finding a comfortable position and sitting next to impossible. I did several sets of the exercises the chiropractor had given me in the past for my back, and spent the day watching TV, playing Devil May Cry, and eating cold leftover pasta for food. Tails stayed with me all day either on my chest or on my legs sleeping or watching TV.

The kids and the X popped in on their way to the mall as the kids had left their wallets here (though Danielle could not find hers theorizing that it must have been in the bag she took over to her mom's Friday) and then they headed out back to retrieve that wallet and head to the mall.

What made the whole day bearable was a call from the X around 7 or so; Scott wanted to know if he could come over and hang out for awhile figuring with my back sore i might be lonely. He arrived and we watched a couple of hours of Simpson's episodes off the Season 5 DVDs including the infamous Cape Feare and Homer Goes to College episodes.

After Scott left I spent until 2AM alternating between rounds of Devil May Care and TV, I did a Angel Marathon over the weekend as I had about 8 episodes recorded and I watched the last before retiring.