Monday, February 26, 2007

Shotguns in Winter?

As we all know, about a month and a half ago there was a nasty ice storm here in Springfield. The ice began to fall in the evening on a Friday in January. Colleen and Phil were in town. My parents came over that night, along with Joe and Casie and Colleen and Phil. We were all having dinner together, as we try to do when the siblings are all present in one metropolitan area.

Darin had to work that night at the plant, from 7pm to 7am, so he was out of there about 6pm, and my parents cut out early too. When the lights went out I was home with the kids and all the younger sibling folk. After a long while with no electricity, siblings all decided to go home before the roads got any worse.

Did I mention that the weather here in MO is insane? I arrived here three years ago (yipes!) in March and still, I do not pay attention. When Ted Keller, weatherman of my dreams, says get thee to a shelter, when offices empty at 3pm and people are either hunkered down at home or at the store buying spam, I don't even have clean pj's for my children or an accurate idea of where the flashlights are. So it is going to storm. It can't be a tornado since this is January. I have great fear of tornadoes, but not ice storms.

So I am alone with the kids in a very dark house for the night. No idea when the power will come back on. I think the biggest thing that struck me was the total silence from all of my household things. Not even the air in the vents moving. Outside it was extremely cold. I thought it might get chilly in the house by the time the power came back on, so I got Mia from her bed and tucked her in mine, along with Quinn.

The view from my bedroom windows looks out over most of Republic. We can see tons of houses rolling out to our south; to our southwest we can see the lights of both grocery stores in town. Before going to bed, I took a look out. Blackness. I could see the outlines of my neighbors' houses, with no light in any window. No sign of life or warmth in the whole scene. The sky looked huge and black and kept dumping sheets of ice down onto everything. I could hear it on the roof and on the walls. The houses of my neighborhood looked tiny. All this crazy weather comes rolling above it and it just blows my mind. Up till then it had been tornadoes I felt at the mercy of. Now immense coatings of ice covering everything. Our little vinyl clad boxes and strings of power lines. No match at all.

I laid there with a tiny kid on each side and stared at the ceiling. So quiet. Dark as a sack, as I like to say! Sounds of icy rain hitting the surfaces of the house and sticking there.

At some point I realized I was hearing periodic gunshots sounds outside. What the heck are these people doing? How could you go outside in this weather to cause a ruckus? Firecrackers? Shotguns? I just don't get these people. Get inside and bundle up! Yes, the cops probably can't come get you but aren't you FREEZING?

What I was listening to was all the trees splitting and cracking apart, for miles and miles around.

There was no power at our house until sometime Monday afternoon. By the time the men of the family had cobbled together a generator situation and was able to turn on some heat for brief, glorious stints in our house, you could see your breath in my living room.

I am SO READY FOR SPRING. Except that it is almost March, which since I've been in MO means tornadoes.

crunchy buns

coming from the bathroom after I sent Mia in there to brush her teeth tonight:

Hot crunch buns
hot crunch buns
one a penny
two a penny
three a penny
hot crunch buns

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

signing on

A million years I've been a devoted web surfer, reader of random blogs and just general online time waster. At last I meld that pastime with my habit of TMI.

I know you will be on the edge of your seat after this, my inaugural edition of a witty, insightful, and terribly diverting peek at my life. What's not to be enthralled with? Suddenly I'm a thirtysomething mom ensconced in a pleasant suburban home in the recent cow pasture we call our neighborhood. Most days I wake up at 5:30am with the kids and don't stop running till they are tucked in at 8:30 or so. I pick them up and drop them off; I sit in front of a PC for 9 hours or so analyzing things; I do dishes and laundry whenever I can; I give baths and wipe up all manner of my children's bodily eruptions. Not a lot of time for reflection in this routine but all the while an amazing thing is happening: I'm making a family, and all the mess that comes with it.

Let's start with the obvious. Pictures of the kids!