Friday, October 10, 2008

When Life Is Boring But Busy

Where to start?
First, thanks to all my loyal readers. I love hearing from all of you and you keep me writing. Especially when you remind me that I haven't updated in a while. *grin*

AND... a local mom emailed me recently to get together at the indoor playground. I was NOT ignoring your invitation, but I lost your email address! If you don't think I'm a schmuck for not emailing you back and still want to get together, please email me again!

Well, this month has already started out busy for us, but it's hard to pinpoint exactly what we've been doing. A lot of it is just our boring, mundane life stuff, that has kept me away from the computer and half a dozen other things that I would love to be doing instead of mopping marshmallow off my floor.

Marshmallow? Oh, yeah. Well, just for future reference, I do NOT advise giving a large marshmallow to a toddler and asking her to "go away for a few minutes". Oh, you'll get the time you need to yourself to chat with a friend over hot cocoa, but you will spend the next week (or two) finding marshmallow goo on various objects like the floor, the table legs, your favorite sweater, baby toys, the TV, and the couch. And you will spend a lot of time figuring out how to get marshmallow goo out of those items.

Well, all's well that ends well. I managed to remove the marshmallow goo and continue about my mundane boring stuff.

Maybe the most exciting, to me anyway, is that the days are getting shorter and shorter. We are down to about 10 hours of daylight. And the temps are plummeting. I am still giggling about my lower 48 friends suffering through the "dog days" of their summer. When I got up the other morning to check OUR temp, the thermometer gauge was at ZERO degrees.

OK, OK. I know I'm a newbie. But I find it exciting. Same with the snow. We had a couple more dustings recently, then the wind picked up. The wind picked up the fine powder snow and moved it along the street, making it look like ghosts, walking down the road. Spooky and incredible.

I also learned a valuable lesson about the wind. And that lesson was:
Do not park your vehicle next to a building on a very windy very cold day if there is snow outside.
Yep. I thought I was "lucky" when I got to the post office and discovered that all the spaces right next to the building were empty. I turned off the engine, gathered up Beans, and headed inside to check to see if my mom's packages for Bean's birthday had arrived. (They had.)
We dawdled a bit. That is another lesson I learned. Don't dawdle. You'll see why.
I was in a dawdling mood. After the post office, we wandered next door to the shoppette. I ordinarily would not eat hot dogs, but when I am pregnant, I crave them. The shoppette happens to cook and sell them. And as a bonafide coffee-snob, I also would not usually drink those instant cappuccino things they sell at gas stations (and the shoppette), but once again, pregnancy does strange things to a woman. After also picking up a copy of Sleeping Beauty (who doesn't love Disney? Hello?), we decided to face the wind and cold and head back to the house.

This brings me back to my valuable lesson.
Well, the wind had blown every snowflake on the roof of the post office onto my van by the time we got back outside. No biggie. I bought one of those neat looking brushes to get the snow off, right? Right.
EXCEPT. (You knew that was coming.) Except that when we got out of the van, it, and the windshield were nice and toasty warm. What I learned that day: When snow hits a warm windshield and the temp outside is cold (like 20 degrees), the snow melts onto the windshield, then pretty much immediately turns to ice again. After wrestling Beans into her car seat (no easy feat when a child is bundled in layers of cold weather gear), I had to scrape the windows again. And the whole time, the wind was still blowing icy cold snow not only on the van, but on me. If I could have seen out of my windows enough to move the van, I would have. Instead, not only did I learn to NEVER park my minivan by the door of the post office again, I will be eternally grateful for a steaming hot beverage when I am done scraping blowing snow and ice off the vehicle, even if it IS "gas station cappuccino". I'm telling you, that steaming hot hot dog and that frothy cup of modified cornstarch and hydrogenated soybean oil (with English Toffee flavoring) was the best cup of instant anything I could have imagined as I waiting for the powdered snow that blew down my shirt to melt.

See? We had SOME excitement this week!

In other exciting news... we have been making plans to celebrate Bean's 1 year anniversary of joining our family. That's right... she's already turning one! And it kills me. They don't stay itty bitty for long. *sniff*

My next post will include the birthday plans, but don't get your hopes up about some big shin-dig. I have a personal belief about overindulging kids and creating situations that completely stress out both children and parents. Mostly parents. And I have decided to go pretty stress free this year. She'll care about parties and pony rides later in life. This year, the plans are quiet and family oriented. But more on that in my next post, when I can offend my many readers with my opinionated parenting methods and feelings on birthday celebrations and gifts and such.

And as a side note: I would like to add that it has recently come to my attention that people think I'm a weird parent. Like a freak of nature. For breastfeeding while pregnant, for cloth diapering, for feeding my family crazy hippy granola stuff like flax seed and REAL whole grains (not the stuff they slap a label on in the grocery store), for refusing to let my kids eat Lunchables. I know, I know. What a freak.
Hey, there are worse things in life, I suppose.
And why do I mention this? because it's been on my mind. For future reference, I love being "weird". I've been "weird" my whole life. At least this current stage of "weird" is relatively healthy and doesn't involve me having a mohawk again, like I did in high school. (Oh, that was my mom's FAVORITE part of raising me, I'm sure!)

So, next post promises lots of crazy weird stuff, as I divulge more of my "crazy" hippy opinions. So you should keep reading, whether your motivation to read is because you find my babblings and opinions interesting, whether you do it because you're family and you have to-I mean, want to keep up with us, or if you do it because it's fun to laugh at me. *grin*
Meanwhile, I must rescue Beans from the prison called "nap time".

Until then...
Happy Moose Trails!

3 comments:

MrsBlogski said...

Hey there- I came to your blog from the Arctic cam. I love your writing style and your lifestyle, you are only the good kind of wierd!

One of my nephews had a scary choking experience with a large marshmallow, he got it all gummed up and got it lodged... be careful!

Anonymous said...

Bonifide Coffee Snob - the best little statement in the whole blog! :)
Snow on a warm windshield - well that's just too much and waiting for snow to melt down your shirt - hey - turtleneck =- that's why it's a northern ICON! ;) Still wear them ... I wonder if that little thing of the snow hitting your car was just a freak of nature?
I like that you don't let your little beans eat just anything ... and cloth diapers - I was a FREAK in 1979 using them on my children. I couldn't in GOOD conscience use the disposable - I did use them sometimes - but the cloth are so economical! Yesh!?
Thanks for posting and I enjoyed this one too! I hope that lady emails you again ... exchange ph#'s if that helps?

Hayley said...

Well I don't think you're weird. I think the way you do things there in Alaska is great. I want to do them too! except cloth diapers...I am drawing the line there...unless I discover diapers there are insanely expensive in AK...which they probably are...so I guess I am not drawing the line there. hmmmm, glad I worked that out for myself. I think I am the weird one here.