Blame facebook!

I have been very busy offline and when I am on the puter, I'm not posting here...

These last couple weeks have found me (and by proximity, my family too!) getting ready for another SCA event. It's the first one in a couple months -- the winter weather hermitage is nearly over! Dan and I get to drive to Manchester, NH for the largest event in the East Kingdom. It is called a Market Day at Birka - named after the historical Viking trading town named Birka. It has nearly everything anyone could want in an indoor event: friends, fighting, friends, fencing, friends, shopping, friends, classes, and usually one gets to meet a friend or two whilst relaxing in the pool and hot tub when all is over ;) I can honestly tell you that if you told me a few years ago that my favorite vacation spots are Pensylvania and New Hampshire, I would have told you you were crazy! :)
Anyway, I have made nearly 50 pounds of soap (lavender&oatmeal, goat milk&honey, chocolate&cocoa butter, tea tree oil&oatmeal) and have been organizing and creating more wire jewelry (orders anyone? lol). It will prove to be a very interesting venture. I do not plan to sit at a table and sell stuff at any other events this year, but am hoping to sell online or thru orders from folks. We'll see how it goes - knowing that the actual cost of starting up stuff (business cards, copies, display, boxes, wrappings, etc) have not cost me too much and hopefully I'll at least make that and the hotel room cost back, and chalk it up as a learning experience. But we'll see!!

There was more snow since I last posted on the 19th. Lots more. The view from here thru the window is soo pretty. The snow banks are high enough (never will there be enough!) to now be able to see the dirty banks along the street. There are foot prints *everywhere* across the front 'lawn' as well as a tunnel carved out of one of the banks along the driveway. I notice that not too many other yards have any marks in them - the snow is smooth and unbroken. Probably since it is SOOO deep? When Dan takes the pupalups along for their walk, Samsam will walk behind him along the trail now and Frodo flat out refuses to go into the woods at all! That is very unlike their avid interest in long and off-leash walks in the woods. I know the old pups (ages 12 & 13) have an excuse to avoid the deep snow, but they don't hesitate to be outside! Especially Sammy. He is true snowloving winter dog who will never think it's too cold outside - he lies down on any snow pile that's in the shade, he will swim or lie down in frigid water no matter the time of year... It's no wonder that he and I get along so well ;D

But there are less days left of winter than we already have been thru. So, to all you moaners and groaners - you know who you are :) just deal with it, it'll be over 90 degrees (ugh) sooner than you think!

Taling about snow and hot weather has me thinking about the title of this post, as in North Carolina there was recently FOUR inches!! How do I know or even care, you might ask?
Well... I recently reconnected with a wonderful friend from high school via facebook - that medium is way way WAY too easy to get SUCKED RIGHT IN so deep that an hour has gone by in the blink of an eye. That, and we still have one laptop for five humans, so it is hard to stop listening to the queries "How much longer, mommy?" or "when can I get on, mommy?" and even harder to try to concentrate and stay focused.

But facebook is so easy to use, with its photos and instant messaging. It's even amazingly easier to find people that had been searched for for years and years without luck, making one give into the thought that you would just have to live your life without talking to them ever again... But when I joined to message with a southern Vermont SCA group, I have been able to find (YAY!!) my friends Michelle, Irene, and many others from the good ole days (and I really don't remember them days being too bad either :) I also refound another friend who moved to Florida about thirteen years ago who is still there, alive and well! I am waiting to hear directly from him, but for the meantime I am happy to convo with his brother :)

It is amazing how different the internet is today even compared to a few years ago!

Not cold enough and not enough snow yet!

OK, now that the weather has finally broken - it's above zero degrees now! Yay!

I can relay this wonderful short bit that I collected when I lived upstate -- more northern than here, closer to the Canadian border, wish I was still there, believe it or not! (Even my kids wish we lived up there still, but I digress, as I can do so easily...)

So! I remember every January and February, where the whole town would be wondering if the lake would freeze enough for the ice castle to be built. Well... then we'd get a cold cold cold snap where the thermometer would not register because the numbers didn't go that low!! If I didn't get up in the middle of the night to run the faucets, the pipes would freeze. The forty or thirty degrees below zero would last for a week or two - sometimes longer!- or the cold would go away for a week and then return for another week or two... Anyway it would invariably be colder than words can describe. And then we'd get a big dump of snow, the warm front that would end the big freeze. So we're outside shoveling the two feet of snow, and all we're wearing is boots, jeans, a short-sleeved t-shirt and gloves. But we'd yell at the kids to go inside and get their coats on because it was still below freezing. But the temperature difference was so large that it was WARM in comparison!

Similarly, a friend of ours has done three tours in Iraq and each time he comes home with his hair long. I asked him the first time 'why?' His reply? He said the temperature difference between the day and night was sometimes nearly 40 degrees (average 120 day, 90 at night). He said he kept his hair long to prevent sunburn and to keep warm at night! Keep warm at night - yes I repeated 'cause does that make sense when it's 90 degrees out?

Yes, more snow yesterday. Still loving it, too! (I'm not surprised, as I have yet to really shovel, thanks to my wonderful boys!!)

fix or buy new?

So we still have the big green minivan. The same one we've had since the twins were a year or so old. It has nearly 170K miles. Three years ago we replaced the transmission. Shortly after that we replaced the radiator and water pump. Then the brakes and tires, etc - tbut that's just regular maintenece stuff that is to be expected, eh?

Well, we decided about three years ago, when we decided to replace the transmission, that we would literally run the vehicle into the ground before buying somehting new.. at least wait until Dan is working regularly again, done with school, and all that jazz. Last August, we put in another grand (not including the hotel room cost that resulted in the car breaking down hundreds of miles away from home...). We have to look, hopefuly for a newer vehicle -- why chance buying used if repairs might be similar or worse. At least we know what we have yet to replace in our van -- the engine is really about all that is original, scarily enough!

So I ask, how much is enough? The cost of the repairs, although seemingly costly when done once or twice a year, are quite reasonable when compared to a few hundred dollars for a car loan each month (that is if we could currently qualify for a car loan!).

Also, the decision on our moving is finalized: we're staying in the little itty-bitty house we are currently in - why bother moving if we might have to move again when Dan graduates and gets a job somewhere/anywhere in two years? So we're looking into fixing up this ole house whilst we're still in it (paint, windows?, bathroom cabinets). Might as well enjoy it whilst (hi, Sue) we're here - I always wonder why I fix stuff up after we decide to move out? I know it'll be easier to sell, most likely get a better price?

And as I know everyone just love photos:

On a completely different note, Gavin and I baked cookies yesterday evening. He says he wants to be a baker when he grows up. Either that or a "medic."

I am certain that getting to lick the beaters is a big part of the attraction for him!

ffr: petty annoyances - for Dan the Man

So when Dan was working at one of his previous retail jobs, a coworker of his would say, "FYI, " with the 'i' drawn out and then a pause before saying the rest of the sentence... (you can picture the nasal quality that come natural to anyone's voice who actually uses the letters fyi in conversation, no? It may be just me then.) Well, anyway, this particular coworker of Dan's used to talk to Dan about 'issues' at work: "FYI, the spot lights should be facing in this fashion, not this way, since gives the display better lighting." or "FYI, you have a break in ten minutes."

Well, me being who I am, and not only in love with my husband, but I love to bug him as much, only in a friendly fasion, mind you... Anyway, since discovering that using the fyi not only make annoys the heck out of my dear husband... Do you think I can control myself? It has been years now. I try to use it only when it would make most sense to. I would not, for example, say, "FYI, the milk is in the refrigerator." But I might say, "FYI, the car is already started to de-ice the windshield." (No, I rarely actually go start the car for him, but today I happened to do that.) This annoys Dan to no end (saying fyi, not starting the car for him!), but at least he smiles about it still. The weird thing -- as if my not only continuing to use the term fyi still after ten years where previously I never said it before isn't weird enough -- but that he probably still thinks of that same young, annoying supervisor still after all these years, too!

SO, again, me being the person that I am, as bugging my husband with one term is just not enough, I have begun to make up my own short cuts for sayings. For example, ffr is short for: for future reference. Yes, it is even more pretentious sounding than fyi, isn't it?

btw (aha another one!) Dan will just LOVE that I have passed along one of the many existing tips and tricks for continuously annoying him, don't ya think?

We'll have to come back around to using 'whilst' in everyday convo. We shant discuss it herein whilst we're discussing abbreviations... :)

full moon weekend at work - with snow!

More snow for the crazy full-moon weekend drive home from work! (Phew, can I fit another adjective in there? ) The great thing about it snowing all of the time, the snow banks are always pretty white. Even after a forty hour weekend, driving 10mph slower, arriving 15 minutes later than usual, seeing the ski mountain lights through the haze of snow, it was a very beautiful drive home.

Yes, we received more snow, foks, but I mentioned that already, eh? I believe that, in my estimation, my car roof's 24 hour period accumulation of snow was at least five inches, most likely a bit more. Even with the clouds and snow falling, the brightness of the full moon was amazing! No flashlights needed outdoors - you know, just in case you are walking around outside in a snowstorm in the middle of the night...

How I chuckle when I think that the god of snow (weather?) tries to see how much snow I can enjoy, and he will never learn a limit! (Weird, went off in my viking persona there. That would definitely be a funny thing to say at an sca campfire or feast table ;)


PS I went to Valdimarr's shop earlier tonight before work and was able to use the dremel on some bone discs. I am quite pleased with the results!! :) Next Sunday I get to scrimshaw with an air compressed run carving needles. I love my life!

PSS next soap project: buttermilk and honey! Remember to not eat it!! :P

Back online!

So the laptop hard drive fried. It's all fixed now, but all the pics and STUFF that was saved are lost forever! Nuts. I am glad that I have many of them on the blog, even though many are not...

I have been busy, we all have, without interenet access, without ANY sort of computer at all... Not even able to work on documents - or a particular newsletter that is on my mind for that matter. Nope, not anything involving electronic information storage, games offline... It has been a quiet house here the past week indeed! :)