SIA and Snow

First off, I am participating in a fashion challenge Style Imitates Art. The idea is to put together an outfit inspired by a piece of artwork. I have participated in the past (here and here).

This is the inspiration painting:

Here is my outfit inspiration (disclaimer, it was really hard to get some decent photos with lighting, etc.  I tried bribing Isaac my ten year old to take the pictures.  He recommended a selfie stick. :P)

I thought of my new blue button down right away when I saw the painting.  It reminded me of her head scarf.  I am not usually a leggings as pants kind of gal, but for an afternoon of errand running, I thought it worked.

Check out the other outfits in the challenge here.

Other random noteworthy things:

1. Hannah has mastered calling me "MUM!" and calls for me about 119809832 times a day.  It's actually quite adorable.  In this picture she is randomly playing with a meat thermometer... cause.. that's how we roll these days.

2. Today we finally have some beautiful weather with temperatures in the 50s, which is long overdue.  I had three actual snow days from school last week.   Even Ryan got a snow day from work Thursday which was nice.

 Hannah liked running around in the snow but wasn't such a fan of the sled.  Isaac was a good sport and entertained her until she had enough.

Today I did my carline duty at school without a jacket, only four days after these pictures were taken.  Isaac was out playing cricket with the neighborhood boys (in a driveway, since the yards are still filled with snow and slush.

Happy Monday!

random, shmandom

Okay, not to be a negative Nancy here, but I'm pretty much over the snowy weather. I'm also over my school district's unwillingness to ever give in a give us a snow day. When it's my time to go, I would rather it not be on my way in work on the sidestreets of Pottstown's North End thankyouverymuch. I like one or two big snowstorms, enough to use a few snow days, and then that's it. No more. For a girl who never picked up a snow shovel until last year, I have become a snow shoveling expert. I'm over it. There is a crapload of snow on the ground already and it's still coming down. Both of our districts have called for a delay, so I guess there is more shoveling in the near future. Booooooo. Here is the pile of work I took home with me from our 12:00 dismissal, ever the optimist that I would sit at home and continue forging on with lesson plans, IEPs and progress notes. Yeah right. It hasn't been touched and probably won't be unless we end up with a snowday tomorrow. We're also going slightly stir crazy. I am totally content to waste away a snowy weekend laid up in bed with a cup of lemon tea and a good book*. Isaac, not so much. There is only so many hours we can log on the wii or enduring the tedium that is Scrabble Jr. Even when we are not snowbound it is a struggle to come up with fun (and cheap/free) things to do in the winter. If anyone had any ideas I would love to hear them. *Incidently, I finally started Sarah's Key for book club. It's very riveting but might be too emotionally heavy to plow in a hurry. It might have to be one that I break up, like I did with Three Cups of Tea. I can't remember if I blogged about this yet or not, but I had a lovely time in Lancaster shopping till I dropped with my mom. I returned home and tried to make plans again with friends but again no one was around. I was determined not to sit in my house alone for the second night in a row on my weekend "off". I ended up texting WJM to see if he wanted to meet up somewhere. Turns out, he was out at his parent's house (like ten mins away) and said he would come over in about an hour and a half. That was the impetus I needed to get my house whipped into shape after turning a blind eye to the clutter and dishes for several days. I ran around like a crazy person and totally cleaned my house from top to bottom, even doing crazy stuff I knew he wouldn't even see like corralling the laundry in my closet and changing Isaac's sheets. It was lovely to wake up Sunday morning to a totally clean house. It was funny too because when I opened the door he was all, "Who shovelled this walk?!". I'm like "I shovel now!!" He came over for a little bit and then we went out to the Epicurean in Phoenixville for a bit, which was one of our old haunts. The conversation again was good. Equal parts reminiscing and catching up. I know I have written this before, but it is a very weird thing to hang out with him: a stranger who knows all about your past. It was actually nice though and better than staying home watching Netflix. Anyways, enough about that. This page fell out of Isaac's Kidwriting Journal at school so he brought it at home. I love, love, love, to read his writing. I just wish I could get him using more lowercase, especially for his name. "I saw a rainbow and there was a pot of gold and a leprachaun". Lastly, a friend recommended Ellie Goulding and I have been loving everything of hers. Here is her cover of one of my favorite songs. Hope things are well for all of you. Leave a comment if it's snowing where you are!

and now back to your regularly scheduled life

• Ugh back to work tomorrow. Part of me looks forward to the return to routine, but part of me knows that it will be a disaster since Isaac and I have been staying up and waking up way too late. I have enjoyed the long lazy days, but a lack of structure definitely takes its toll. Too much TV, too much wii, too much junk food, etc.
• I did get all of the Christmas decorations taken down, do some crafting, read some books, excercise a fair amount and finally catch up on laundry. Usually I just root through the laundry baskets and pull out socks, underwear, pajamas and workpants to wash. When we were briefly snowed in I did load after load of laundry. It got to the point where the drawers were totally full and there was still more to be put away. I counted, and I have 27 clean and ironed pairs of workpants in my closet! I was shocked. I mean, I only work five days a week and I frequently wear skirts or dresses too.
• This inspired me to go through and get rid of clothes that are worn, faded, stained, just don't fit right, etc. I also managed to get Isaac to sort through a bin box of toys that have been in the basement for over a year now. I was reluctant to let some of them go, but he didn't seem to mind as much as me. Now I have a huge bag to take over to Goodwill this week.
• I have quite a bit to look forward to this week though. I know some of my friends get annoyed by my insistence of planning ahead for social activities, but this is how I survive. I know that if I can hang in there x days, then I will get to do something fun. This week I am having dinner with a friend on Wednesday night, Friday I am hopping on a train to Philly to celebrate my girl Becca's birthday with some close girlfriends. We tend to celebrate our birthdays by dinners out and then going to dance clubs and/or piano bars in the Gayborhood. I believe that is the exact agenda for Friday, so I am looking forward to that.
• Saturday I will be getting my car inspected (the brakes are really squeeling which is not good) and then going back into the city to see Mary Fahl in concert at the Tin Angel. I saw her in concert when I was hugely pregnant and sort of fell in love with her. I listened to her cds over and over during that time in my life, and her music takes me right back.
• So looking forward to fun things should help me get through what will likely be a rough week back at school.
• I will report on last year's goals soon and identify some new ones. I haven't updated that tab in ages. I didn't get to everything, but I did get to quite a bit.
• Someone must have heard my rant because today they announced that our weekly FHE's are going to be replaced with monthly service projects. Now that I can handle. It might mean I can occasionally make it to Monday night yoga. I've sure missed it! They also asked me to speak in church next week, and asked me to sub for the Sunday School teacher. I will be very busy preparing for all of that.
• I managed to remember to register Isaac for spring soccer. Thank goodness after the fall season fiasco. He is old enough now that he will have a practice on a weekday in addition to a Saturday game.
• I think I'm getting the hang of Twitter. Although, I don't really need another social networking site to engage in heavy cyberstalking waste time. I decided I must become active on it though to prove that I am still young and relevant. It makes me feel so old to not understand it.
• I ended up actually having a very enjoyable New Year's Eve, despite my prediction that it would be another unmemorable one. A few of my friends got together for a small party. The girls who hosted had their nephew there who is a year older than Isaac, so it worked out well to bring him along. I figured we would just drop by briefly, but Isaac was so well behaved we ended up staying till after 12. I was honestly impressed he could stay up so late. It was low key but very enjoyable.
• Anyways, I should get off the computer and do lunches, lay out clothes, pack up bags for tomorrow. Have a lovely week!

Obligatory Blizzard Post (Part Two)

So there is like 4 feet of snow on the ground. And good old Pottstown still hasn't cancelled school for tomorrow. Gotta love it. Here's a look at our day (being snowbound for the second time in a week). We're hanging. Getting bundled up to go outside. Extra socks, scarf, snow pants, boots, winter jacket, hat and gloves. Approximate time to put on clothes: 20 minutes Approximate time spent playing in the snow: 10 Minutes

Repeat process 3-4 times.

When we finally threw in the towel with shoveling, we had a chocolate craving so we had to make some chocolate chocolate chip cookies (recipe found here -- delicious!!!):

And Cody Pablo is still chilling...

How did you pass the time on this snowy day?

Obligatory Blizzard Post

I'm seriously craving some time at the Jershey shore. I don't need a tropical island. I'm content to take a ride down the AC Expressway to sit around in Ocean City.

And to my neighbor's-- it's time for you to take down your "Welcome Fall" flag. You know, since it's buried under 2 feet of snow.

I can't take anymore of weather like this:

Shoveling sucks. There is at least two feet of snow on my driveway and I gave up after about 45 mins. I'll go back out later...

Maybe....

Isaac is at his dad's for the weekend and since obviously I am not going anywhere I've been trying to not go crazy here. Other than the nieghbor's kids that rang my bell to offer to shovel my driveway (sadly I had no cash...) I haven't seen or interacted with another live person in over 24 hours. Lonely...

I've been quite lazy today. My attempt at organizing the office was thwarted when I inspired to make this:

I really need a mantle for projects like that.

Pretty lucky

So one of my complaints about this neighborhood is that it looks like a parking lot. As far as I can tell, I am the only person on this row of townhouses that lives by herself. Everyone else has two cars that they park behind each other in their driveways. My three closest neighbors all own two SUVs each. Our little townhouse unit looks like a used car lot. However, having two cars stacked in your driveway provides a definite advantage when it comes to snow removal. You just have to shovel out the sidewalks and that little strip of driveway between the road and the sidewalk. This morning I found myself with my work cut out for me and I did not have the best attitude while I was hauling away snow for the second time in 12 hours. I had just shoveled out 90% of my driveway only to have my brother call and say he was on his way over with his girlfriend and a shovel. I promptly stopped shoveling. I am a big feminist and definitely believe that girls can do anything guys can. But I am not so progressive that I can't allow someone else to break their back hauling snow while I sip hot chocolate and supervise. He can do the last 10%. =) It reminded me of a time when my dad made my brothers head out to shovel the driveway of a family he home taught- the Kneelands. Bruce Kneeland was away on business, so he figured he would go and shovel the driveway for Donna. After my brothers and Dad had finished it up, They were sure surprised when Bruce opened the door in a bathrobe and thank them. His flight had been cancelled but he hadn't gotten around to shoveling yet. I also remember my dad going to shovel out Linda Holiday, an older widow, on many occasions. I'm lucky to have a wonderful father and two caring brothers who always look around them for opportunities to help the women in their lives.

Great way to start the week!

Looked out the window and what did I see??? So it was no surprise to get my 5 am alert call-- no school!!! Surprise snow days are the best. So I can spend the day doing catching up on laundry and taking care of those items on the to-do list that I can never seem to tackle during the week (exciting stuff like comparing car insurance rates).

What will the little man be doing you ask?

His latest fixation -- the Nick Jr website. I have been trying to use it as an occasional reward but he would play it all day if I would let him.