I've had my fill...

Yesterday morning I woke up to about 6 inches of snow and by the time I got home from work, I had a few more inches on top of that.  I spent the next hour plus shoveling my driveway, path between my garage and back door (basically a path through my back yard), and front sidewalk.  It is days like this, I want a snowblower!  Shoveling this much snow with a shovel really takes a toll.  I decided to take a picture to show just how deep the snow is!

In case you can't make out the measurement on the above picture, here is a close-up!  

Yes, 10 inches and more expected tonight and this weekend!

I am however happy that it is not the inches of ice that we had just before Christmas which knocked out my power in sub-zero weather for about a week.  I was able to go back home in time for Christmas Eve.  Some didn't get their power back until after Christmas.  I was also fortunate to be able to stay with the parents of my house owners about a block from my house.  Yes, you read this right!  They had power as did the people across the street from me, however, my block did not have power!  

Tonight as I was turning into the alley, I got stuck in the pile of snow that the snow plow left there.  Yesterday, I got through, barely...but now with the extra snow from the street, I didn't.  Right away, the guy who lives on the corner and the neighbor who lives behind me were right there with their snow blower and shovel respectively and got me un-stuck!

Snow snow...

you are pretty and fun 

when you don't cause me to have a tow

Christmas time and birthday you are a welcome sight

also when building snowmen, sledding, and a snowball fight

I also don't mind too much as long as the roads are clear & dry

It's just the slickness and shoveling that make me want to cry

written by JW 1/29/09

Gingerbread & Jailbirds

My niece, sister, and I went to the Festival of Gingerbread at the History Museum and had fun seeing so many different things built out of gingerbread.

This scene was built with various denominations of money.  For 50 cents a guess, you could guess as to how much money was built into the scene.  Whoever was the closest, won the money in the scene while the money placed in the guess box went to charity.

This is one of many churches we saw.

This mansion was one of our favorites.  My sister wants a life-size version of this to live in.

A smaller "cottage".

This building is a replica of a historical building in the city.

A school house.

This is my favorite...a tree house!

A cool looking cottage house.

The Washington Monument was also represented as well as ...

the Eiffel Tower

This castle was my niece's favorite...

especially since it was complete with all her favorite Disney princesses.

I thought that this igloo was cool too.

If you look through the windows of the below church, you will see a wedding occurring.

Another historical marker portrayed in food.

After walking through all those artistic displays of food, we built up an apatite and got arrested for eating parts of the exhibits.  How convenient that there was a jail in the basement of the building.

We were not really arrested and we did not eat any of the displays; we just took the opportunity to goof around in the jail in the basement.

I am now ONLINE!!!

I hope to be able to post on a more regular basis now that I finally got internet at home.  I know it has been a looooong time since my last post and a few of you have reminded me of that fact.  I will do my best to update you on what I missed posting about over the last month and a half. ...while at the same time trying not to overwhelm you nor blogger.  It will not necessarily be in chronological order, just in case you're wondering.  

Update #1

On my birthday earlier this month, I was on the 11:00 p.m. news.  Why?  On our local NBC network, they have a little blurb called "Todays Weather Word".  They go out into the viewing region and ask the first person that walks by to come up with a weather word for the day and they video tape them.  I was walking from work to a restaurant to meet my mom for lunch when they stopped me.  It was not until a  few days later that I realized on was on Channel 33 on my 33rd birthday.

After work, I spent the evening at my sister's house where she made a pot roast dinner for her family and me.  We had fun playing games after dinner.