goings on

Today's a snow day. They are excited and staying home is fun, especially having breakfast cereal for lunch. Do not ask me where Log got the kilo baggie of cocoa pops, we don't buy that kind of thing here. They arrived in his book bag.

 

I actually thought I threw them out. Yuck.

 

Earlier they tried to make a snow fort.

Mostly they managed to knock a bunch of snow

 into the previously cleared sidewalks.

 

 

 The neighbor's garbage / recycling cans are so lovely.

 

Log came in pretty soon after that, he lost interest.

 I finally called Mr. C. in when I looked out the window

and he was just laying there, his pants were covered with snow.

I figured he froze to death but then he moved, so I made him come inside.

He didn't just get up and walk,

he crawled through the snow.

Which was up past his elbows. Across the yard.

 

Then I had a huge tantrum because I noticed Log got snow in my boots, then wore them in, took them off, left them there to melt all over the place and now the inside of my boots are wet. Not to mention the area in front of the refrigerator. And my socks. This is why I forgot why I hate winter. It melts in front of the refrigerator which is actually plumbed into the entryway. When we moved in I wanted to move the fridge out of the entryway and into the kitchen for this exact reason. But no.

So now anyone who wants to use the refrigerator gets wet socks, feet, paws, whatever.

So then we put down towels, which of course get soaked.

So there are wet towels sitting around getting cold.

 

 

Dumb place for a fridge.

 

I'll be happy next month though because we finally did buy a breakfast nook bench table thing.

 

It isn't very expensive, so I'm not expecting it to last a zillion years

 of course,

but hey, it's black.

I can Sharpie all the scratches.

 

So that will go in the area where I thought for sure we should put the fridge. Then I can clear off the dining table, polish it really nice, put a really nice arrangement on it, and we can all just work in the freezing cold kitchen nook. That way little people will work faster to get outta there, right? I might need a little rug. Really nice. Really nice.

 

 

Oh also, earlier this week J. and I removed the gigantic wall mount TV holding thing from the living room wall. At first I thought I'd buy a huge TV to go on it, which would have been awesome. But then for Valentine's day I bought J. a tiny TV to go in the kitchen. He wanted one to watch the news on while he's doing stuff in the kitchen. It just so happened the tiny one we had in the bedroom was tinier than the one for the kitchen, so we decided the bigger one was for sure the thing to put in the bedroom. We like to watch Price is Right in the morning if we don't have anywhere to go.

 

 The idiots we bought the house from (I say that with feeling. Idiots!) installed it over wet paint. So when we took the screws out of the wall, it actually stayed there. And it's heavy! We finally thought maybe they glued it and so we just ripped it off the wall. The truth was, it was just painted, so the paint stuck to the metal. The paint also took a chunk of plaster off the wall.

 

Not to worry. I covered it up with my big painting.

 

 

This was perfect, it covered up all the spots where

the paint and plaster ripped off the wall.

I'll just take care of that later.

Yes I have plastic on my wood desk top.

 I am scared I'll drip water on the fish tank

and it'll go under the edge and mess up the top of the desk.

Worse than it already is.

Moving that painting cleared up space on the opposite wall

 to hang up the one Johnnie got me for Christmas.

 

 

I just love it.

 It's called "Santa Claus" which confuses my youngest children.

 

I need a taller plant there now to use up some of that extra space between the globe and the painting. Or I guess we could lower the painting, but what's less work?

Edit: There is more to this story. I got two calls from J. because my darling Ivanhoff has a job interview on Monday. If it were up to me he'd have a haircut this weekend, and new white dress shirt. Johnnie called twice to give me notes on what to tell him. Shave. Shower. Wear good shoes. Go over interview questions with him, make him think of good answers. You can look the questions up online. Wear a tie. Don't mumble. I wrote all this down on a post-it note. Finally I thought I could sneak downstairs to talk to him, he spends all his time in his room, you know. Teenagers. So I did that. We talked about all this stuff. I heard stuff happening up stairs but I thought, well, I'd take the risk. Finally I heard water running. I had the idea someone must be brushing his teeth right? Because their dad was coming to get them. Right? No. Log was running bathwater, and he was actually in the tub. Already. Tub full of water. Complaining the water was cold already. Well. Is our hot water heater tank as large as our bath tub? Who knows? That's about when I lost it. I was already agitated because my boots were full of snow. And I needed to get a shower so I could go to work later, but I was waiting till they were picked up, because well, we all know what can happen if he's left unsupervised. So then I just figured why not let him bathe? May as well wait. He had told me his dad was coming at 4, because he talked to him on the phone, but four and four thirty rolled around and still nothing. So eventually I convinced him to get out of the tub. I went in the bathroom with him, I brought my book so I could sit there and read while I supervised. I had him clean up the bathroom and we made our way to his bedroom. I sat on the bed a while reading and directing traffic. Then I realized his sheets needed to be changed from the night before. Then I really got upset so I went back in my room to give myself a time out. Finally I told him, look, I get upset when you're leaving because I wish you all would stay all the time. He said he knows. He knows we fight because we have all this pressure built up.  Then the doorbell rang because their dad was there, so I said to him, you may as well go so he doesn't yell at you guys for being late and so I don't get a nasty email about having you ready when he gets there. And he told me, No, I am going to help you with this! and I felt so confused, because just right before that he was not the least bit interested in self-motivating to get his room cleaned and couldn't wait to leave, and then the next minute the door bell rang, and he suddenly decided he owed it to me to do all this stuff instead of leaving.