M Tuns 11

I have an 11 year old daughter. Oh. My. Gosh. She’s a tween! No, really. I’m not panicking about it though 11 does sound a bit awkward.

We celebrated M’s birthday yesterday. Her favorite phrase is “I’m happy!” so T put the candles on her cake in the shape of a smile. She loved it. The birthday girl chose red velvet for her special cake so we also had white cupcakes with chocolate frosting. Since the birthday was celebrated on the same day as A’s baptism, A decided the cupcakes were her “baptism cupcakes.” M thought that was perfect.




M asked for knitting needles and yarn for her birthday. She got a lot of sewing stuff from cousins, her aunt and her grandma. She also got supplies and a craft lesson from her great grandmother. T and I deviated from the craft theme and gave her ramen noodles. No laughing! M is a big fan of Naruto who happens to talk about ramen a lot. She’s been asking for ramen so she could try it. T also gave her the Zune he had been ‘trying out’ for the past few months.

Today, we hung out at home. The girls had a day off school and the weather was absolutely gorgeous. They played in the woods practically all day. M said it was a perfect birthday.

Special Moment

This morning at church, we witnessed the baptism of our middle daughter.






I laugh when I look at this picture. The pastor gave her a candle to symbolize being the light of the world. A doesn't like fire so she blew it out almost as soon as he put it in her hand. She brought the candle home and put it in a place of honor but she doesn't want it lit.

Carolina

Country singer, Eric Church, released his second album titled Carolina almost a year ago. I kept meaning to give it a listen. After all, I remember seeing him in the hallways at high school. I'm pretty sure my little sister had a crush on him during those days. I also remember him singing at the Festival on the Square in Granite Falls while I walked around with T.

Well, I finally checked it out of the library and listened to it. I like it. Enough to buy it. T, who poked fun at Eric Church's singing at that little festival, also likes the album. He says, "He couldn't sing those old Garth Brooks songs but he does pretty good with his own stuff. There are a bunch of good songs on here." T usually says something is 'alright' so for him to use 'pretty good' is indeed a compliment. Even more telling than his words is the fact he took the CD with him when he left to run errands today so he could listen to it in the car.

2 Hour Delay

School was delayed two hours today. I heard so many parents question it or call the decision stupid. Honestly, that annoys me to the point that I want to shout "Think, people!" The decision was made for the entire county. Sure, the main roads were fine but there were enough rough patches on the road when I went to work before 8:30 to make me very grateful for the delay. My kids normally get on the bus at 7:10. Their bus then travels over roads with lots of shady hills, curves and bridges. There are places where the 'shoulder' is barely big enough for a car tire to sit on and then it drops away to nothing. Last month, when we had snow and ice a car landed in the creek not too far from our house. They slid down a hill and missed the bridge. The bus carrying my daughters and their schoolmates travels that road. In fact, to get to my house, that road must be traveled. I'm talking about one bus route in particular but I know there are many other buses who travel those same roads or roads like them. Just off the top of my head, I can think of one road that would be one continuous ice patch. It's curve after curve with a gradual climb or descent depending on the direction you're traveling and it only sees sunlight in patches. The road snakes by dozens of old homes in what used to be a mill village. Tall trees shade the road from both sides. I wouldn't want to be a bus driver assigned to travel that road with below freezing temperatures following ice/sleet/snow. The parents who normally take their kids to school sometimes forget about kids who ride the bus and the fact those kids start their journey to school a lot earlier. I know kids who are just rolling out of bed at the time my daughters are getting on the bus.

Decisions to delay or close school are made for the SAFETY of the children not the CONVENIENCE of the parents. Yes, it can be a pain to make those last minute arrangements but I'd rather do that than get a call telling me my children were in an accident. While it's true accidents happen every day, it's also true that the number of accidents spikes when there's ice on the roads.

Just sayin'

Flower Seeds from Santa

My youngest daughter loves plants. She's the only 7 year-old I know who has a favorite tree (Tulip Poplar) or who can identify things like Sassafrass and Yarrow. She's careful to say "White Oak" rather than just oak and she knows what flowers we have planted in the yard along with whether or not they are said to attract butterflies and/or hummingbirds.

Her letter to Santa included this line.

I want flower seeds.


She was thrilled to find 3 packs of seeds in her stocking on Christmas morning.

December Snow

While it's not rare to get snow here, it's unusual enough to be fun. Mostly. Our county doesn't have a fleet of slag trucks so some of the rural roads may not get attention for a couple days. Friday, we got what forecasters like to call a 'wintery mix' that later became snow and then went back to ice. By the end of the day, we had 6 inches in our yard. Other people in the area reported up to a foot.

Friday was supposed to be a half day for the kids with dismissal at noon. School actually dismissed at 9:45am because the storm system moved in sooner than anticipated. Roads started getting nasty right away. One of the major roads between this county and a neighboring county was closed for several hours due to multiple accidents. I've heard that a car ended up in the creek on the rural road closest to our home but the driver was not seriously injured. It's not the first time that's happened as the creek is in a valley. It would be easy to start sliding on the hill on either side of the creek and just plunk your car in the water. When my husband and I went over that bridge around 8am on Friday, there was already ice on it. When school dismissed our daughters rode the bus to their grandma's house like always. As the day wore on, several co-workers left early so they could get home before the roads got too bad. I was at work until my husband picked me up and his company tends to frown on leaving early due to weather. Still, he left a bit early in order to pick me up when the decision was made to close the library at 4:15 instead of 6:00pm. What is normally a 20 minute trip took the better part of 2 hours. The girls and I ended up walking the last 1/4 mile up our private, gravel road after the car slid into a ditch. No injuries, no damage to the car so it wasn't a big deal but the car had to be parked at my mother in-law's, a mile away. My brother in-law brought T home in his SUV.

Saturday, the girls spent a bit of time sledding in the back yard. A neighbor scraped our road with his tractor. The roads were still bad enough that church was canceled today. I'm off work until Wednesday and will be staying home because that's what I normally do anyway. With the temperatures they're predicting I'm betting we still have snow on the ground Christmas morning. Normally, any snow we get melts within a few days.

Our front yard always looks so pretty with a blanket of snow

Feather found on Thanksgiving Day

The girls were playing in the woods beside the house when they found this feather. The youngest brought it to me and asked me to see if I could find out what kind of bird it came from. I narrowed the possibilities to a hawk or an owl but that's as far as I got. The feather measures just under 10 inches from tip to tip.