Not as Bad as Predicted

Last night was a night of freezing rain. When I woke up this morning, the ground, our house, the trees, and anything else that could not move were covered in about 3/4 of an inch of ice.

At first I thought we had received a mix of sleet and freezing rain, so I did some research and discovered the difference. In the process I also discovered the difference between light, fluffy snow and heavy wet snow. (Ain't the Internet wonderful? Well, at least for some things!)

Here is what a pine tree in my front lawn looked like early this morning. As of the time I am writing this (1:38 PM), it doesn't look much better.

The picture of the maple trees below does not do justice to how they really look. Each of the limbs and twigs of the ice-covered trees actually sparkles, even in the limited light allowed by the cloudy sky. Beautiful!

According to the weather forecast yesterday, we were supposed to have a heavy snow followed by several hours of freezing rain, with the added possibility of loss of electrical power because of ice accumulation on the power lines. I have seen what freezing rain can do to power lines. When I lived in Eastern North Carolina in the late 1960s - early 1970s, I saw lots of power lines down, not just isolated problems but long stretches of downed lines between adjacent sets of poles. Fortunately, we did not lose power here, but it did happen in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and a lot of other places.

The university in which Cheryl teaches closed yesterday but only delayed classes until 10 o'clock this morning. The problem with that is that the roads and the danger for drivers is, in my opinion, much worse today. Hopefully, the roads will have been cleared by tomorrow afternoon when I have to leave for class.

Some people say they own cats. Others say their cats own them. I prefer to think of it as sharing living space with a wonderfully unique animal. So Cheryl and I share living space with Callie the Cat. When I give her name like that, it's almost as if I were talking about royalty, as in Her Royal Highness Callie the Cat; and I suppose we do treat her that way sometimes.

Callie has her own bed. It is a blanket that we have folded several times so that it is the right size for her, and it is on our bed at the foot between Cheryl's side and my side. There is plenty of room down there for her, and sometimes she actually sleeps there. However, she has other beds of her own choosing. Sometimes she sleeps on the back of the sofa so that she can keep watch on the front yard if needed. Other times she uses one of the cushions on the sofa, one of the easy chairs in the living room, or the carpet at the top of the stairs where it is nice and warm; but she especially likes Cheryl's or my chest when she comes in from the cold outside.

However, when she thinks it is time for me to get out of bed in the morning, she uses none of these. I sleep on my side with my knees drawn up just a little, so when seen from above, I look like a giant question mark with just enough room between my chest and the edge of the bed for Callie. Whe she thinks it is time for me to get out of bed, she lies there with just a few inches between her face and mine and waits patiently for a few minutes until I wake up. Sometimes, especially when it is 5 AM, I doze back off. She will again wait patiently for a few minutes but then reach out her paw and tap my face.

At that point what can I do except get up and either open the door so that she can go outside or follow her into the laundry room to show her that there really is food already in her bowl?

I made dinner last night. I used a bean-soup recipe I found on the Internet. It was so good that I ate three bowlfuls!

I used dried beans and garlic powder from our pantry/storage; carrots, tomatoes, basil, and oregano from our garden; and a few things from the refrigerator. The carrots I dug out of the garden from under a huge pile of leaves a few minutes before I needed them. The tomatoes I took out of the freezer, skinned and diced them (yes, we froze whole tomatoes a couple of years ago when we ran out of time to can them), and added the spices.

I made enough soup for three meals; but because I ate so much, we may only have enough for one more meal. Making enough of a main course for three meals is something C and I have just decided to begin doing. We're doing it because, with the stress of her long hours at work, my schooling, and the time we need to spend taking care of her mother, we end up eating unhealthily when we run out of time and/or energy to prepare something healthy.

I uploaded this pictures to show that I really did just dig the carrots and take the tomatoes out of the freezer. I think we have enough carrots still in the garden that we are going to have to begin using them more often so we can free that grow-box up for planting when spring finally arrives.

Snow, snow, go away until next winter!

It began raining about midnight last night and rained for several hours before the rain changed to snow. How do I know that? I woke up every hour throughout the night; and while I was up, I could hear the rain or see the snow. It continued snowing for several hours, and I suppose we have perhaps three or four inches of snow on the ground now.

It's not like a Western snow, all light and fluffy. It's a heavy, wet snow. I suppose that's partly because of the rain and partly because the temperature has been well above freezing since early this morning. I have shoveled part of the driveway so far, but I'm going to wait two or three hours before I shovel some more because I'm hoping a lot of the snow will melt this afternoon.

Tomorrow is supposed to be colder but sunnier; however, we are supposed to get some more wet weather beginning tomorrow night – a mixture of rain and freezing rain changing to rain sometime Wednesday morning. Hopefully, the rain will get rid of a lot, if not all, of the snow.

Unfortunately, the snow plows piled a lot of snow at the entrance to our driveway, so I will need to go out soon and clear that snow and the snow next to the mailbox away.

On the bright side, there is plenty of clean snow for snow cream; and the snow on the trees remind me of Christmas. And I also know that snow provides some of the moisture needed to replenish our groundwater. Snow also covers the ground and protects plants and animals, so it does have some other good points. However, I'd better stop listing good points or I'll begin to convince myself that I really and truly like lots of snow.

First Real Post

School starts tomorrow, but my class doesn't meet until Thursday, so I still have a few more days off. I have only one more class to take before I can graduate, and I am so very happy about that. However, there is quite a lot of research and writing in that one class; I also have my MA thesis to write, so I will not teach an ESL class this semester. My going to school and being gone for several days each week has put a burden on my wife because of the large amount of time and energy she must spend taking care of her mother. I will miss the teaching. I enjoyed it, and I have many ideas as to how I could do a better job of teaching the same course again. However, the Lord said not to teach, so I will obey, but I will save those ideas for the future.

I will be glad to finally finish my Masters in Teaching English as a Second Language, but I will miss the students and the professors. I don't know yet what I will do between the time I finish school and the time we leave on our mission. It would be nice to teach ESL somewhere and earn some extra money to put away for our mission. I have thought about doing something online, and C mentioned a month or so ago that one of our friends suggested that volunteering in an elementary school would be a nice way to help the students while using what I have learned.

C and I have figured that we have roughly another year or two before we will be able to go on our mission.We don't know where we will be assigned, but we think it will probably be a Spanish-speaking mission because the Lord has told both of us that we need to learn Spanish. I will begin studying Spanish on my own now, and both C and I will enroll in Spanish 1 for the fall semester 2014. By then I will be advanced enough so that I can help her in the class. Once we receive our call, we will receive language instruction via Skype from the MTC and will be provided with language buddies so that we can practice speaking.

C was sick today, so she didn't go to church. Our home teacher, Brother B, stopped by on his way home from church; and we administered to her. He plans to bring some chicken soup over at six o'clock tonight for dinner, and I am baking some bread to go with the supper.

Hello

My previous blogs closed, so I'm creating a new one here. Fortunately, I was able to download the information in them, except I may have lost my photographs.