Pared and Bared

With all this snow and an impassable drive, my schedule has been significantly pared this week. This allowed me time to finally finish my first book of the year, Pride and Prejudice. I anticipated completing it last week but neglected to calculate all the NFL playoff games into the equation. At the same time, the weather has kept me from the grocery store and the cupboards have been bared. Consequently, my streak of 6 (week) days in a row with an actual cooked meal came to an end yesterday. I had to resort to eggs yesterday and pancakes tonight. Nolan, who high fived me for my efforts on day 4, will be quite happy to see me returning from the grocery store tomorrow!

Snow Day

Pajamas all day......plenty of time to catch up on some organization...enjoying hot cocoa....ending the day with a great book. I love snow days.

Southern Morning, Northern Night

I enjoyed a very nice Saturday that began 45 minutes south of us in South Portland. We met Greg and Annah at IHOP a bit after 8:30 for breakfast, where all cousins enjoyed one another's company along with a hearty breakfast. After a jaunt up Payne Road to Cabela's we headed home and I spent the afternoon performing a much needed house cleaning. After 4, Atira and I drove an hour north to Camp Good News where I spent the rest of the evening visiting with one of my favorite childhood people, Mrs. Seeley. If the day had ended there it would have been perfect. Unfortunately, I arrived home in time to watch the Colts wrap up the Ravens in the 4th quarter.....I do NOT want to see that team in the Super Bowl.

Plodding Along

My training for the Appalachian Trail hike in April has been slow but consistent up to this point. With only 3 months left, I need to be a bit more aggressive so on Peg's advice, this week I switched from the elliptical at the gym to the stepper. It was very good advice. It's working the exact muscles I'll be using for uphill climbing and from the burn of my lungs during the workout, it's clear that I needed the strengthening. The plan for next week is to begin to wear my hiking boots at the gym......to break them in. I have one of them, just need to locate the mate...... darn vortex!

Hmmm.

I spent several hours tackling the daunting job of clearing off the mound of papers, photos, pencils, manuals, pens, and folders that have taken up residence on my desk in the past month. Near the bottom of the pile was a small booklet entitled "150 solutions for a clean and clutter-free home". Hmmm.

Supper

The Gilbert family is seated at their wooden table, each member's plate holding a meal of mashed potatoes, stirfry and boneless pork chop. Most of the family is adhering to the customary manners of the day. The middle boy Nolan, however, is not. The mother looks up from her meal and notices that the young lad has one knee at chest height, pressed against the table, his foot firmly planted on the seat of his chair. The chair's front legs are hovering slightly above the floor. In Nolan's hand is an upturned steak knife with which he has skewered his slab of pork. Dispensing with the fork he has opted to simply rip off chunks with his teeth. The mother regards this behavior as unacceptable and curtly calls his name. "Nolan!" The boy's eyes meet hers as she continues. "Nolan, let us not eat like barbarians." In the midst of familial laughter he delivers a quick reply. "Well, Mom, our ancestors were Vikings." This is true and the mother can do nothing but shake her head and wish that in those 900 years there had been some social advances that had been passed through the generations.

Normalcy

It was back to schooling the kids today after two glorious vacation weeks. They did not enjoy it, nor did I. By Wednesday I expect that all of us will be back into the natural rhythm of the school year and whinings shall cease. By tomorrow my eyesight should be back to normal as well, as my contacts are due to arrive in the mail. I've been swapping my one remaining back and forth between my two eyes, as my prescription is the same in both. My brain seems to compensate quite well with only one eye seeing clear, no headaches. The only difficulty I have is driving at night and I have to make sure that on Sundays I put it in the left eye so I can see the music for worship team. Can you tell I've done this before?yes......many times. At the gym this evening, Jim was on the Abduction machine directly across from me. There is a bar in the center that visually split his face in two. I found it quite humorous as I gazed at him and saw his right side perfectly clear and his left side so blurry that I couldn't have told you if it was my husband or a perfect stranger!