Image taken from the web.
Why is it when a huge winter storm is on the way people rush to the store to buy eggs, milk and bread? Because we all eat french toast apparently.

Another storm is on the way. This one is supposed to be ugly with a lot of ice. I am stocked up on groceries and cleaning products. The last I heard the brunt of this one is supposed to be a bit further north than where we are. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it stays that way. I'd really like for the kids to have a full week of school. At the rate they are going, they will be staying all the way into October!

I am ancy about spring. Maybe it's the retail world and seeing the new colors, shorts and bathing suits....across from the winter coats. lol.

Brrrr.

Nothing like getting into your car after work and seeing that it is 5 degrees outside.

I am so confused as to what day of the week it is too. The kids have had the past two days off of school due to snow. We got eight inches of it yesterday. - This is also during the same week that they had Monday off due to the holiday. A two day school week is not too shabby!

Megan went over to a friend's house today to go sledding. I actually had to drop her off at the end of the driveway because the house is on a hill and there is no way anything but a 4WD could make it up the slippery driveway. The boys and I stayed inside all day and watched shows on the Food Network and Travel Channel. We like to watch food shows together. Trevor always gets inspired by whatever we watch. I think the boy is going to grow up to be a good cook like his daddy. :)

Feeling nostalgic.

Image above taken from the web.

Well.....my scrapping and writing has slowed down quite a bit over the past year. It's not that I don't enjoy it anymore, and really I don't consider myself to be a good writer at all....in fact I know that my sentence structure or punctuation is not going to pass any English class rules....and I have even been known to start a sentence with BUT (which I realize is not proper, and I do always pause before using it.....but.....I write on my blog like I would speak, casually.) I have to remember this is for me.

It's more just to jot things down as I think about them. My picture taking even slows down this time of year. Not sure why, other than maybe like some others have suggested it is that December is such a photo full month. Not to mention that it is usually cold out in January. lol.

So, back to the writing. I feel like so much has happened over the past year and I've let it slip by. I found a place for some daily journaling prompts. Some I like, some I don't. Some just don't pertain to me at all. Some I stop and think, "Wow. I really do want to remember some of that stuff but don't really think I want to devote an entire scrapbook page to it."

So, this is something that I hope to continue through this new year. When I don't have much else going on to blog about, I may just write down a few things that come to my mind from the list of prompts.

One I chose from this past week was:

Think of the place that you consider to be home, even if you don't live there anymore. Why is that place "home"? What events/people make it home?

This answer may change, in fact as time goes by here, I hope that this will be a different answer. As of now, the place that I still consider "home" is Arizona. Even though I was born in Florida, spent some time in Southern California as a child, and currently live in Kentucky.

I did the most of my growing up in Phoenix, Arizona. My family is still there, I went to school there, met Mike there, got married there, had children there. I lived there for a few decades and had been around to see so many changes.

The cotton and corn fields that I used to ride my horse through are now six lanes of paved road that run through one of the busiest areas of Chandler. I have seen street names change from Indian names to the more politically correct versions, seen local stores come and go, can recognize the smell of a monsoon storm or never take for granted the bit of cool air and the amazing smell of the orange groves in the spring. I understand the good fortune of finding a parking space under a small palo verde tree even if it only gives the illusion of a cooler temperature and often times is a farther walk than finding a close parking spot near the door of a store. - Or driving with pot holders. Or that brief moment when you have been frozen to death in a restaurant with great air conditioning in August and you sit inside your 150 degree car before your a/c starts....and it actually feels GOOD.
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Just the sound of cicadas can make it instantly feel 10 degrees hotter. Burning the bottoms of your feet on the sand at Big Surf. Riding a bike miles to the store. (The hills here aren't conducive to casual bike riding!)
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Never understanding the idea of a 'snow day.' Being able to play outside in 60 degree weather with new toys on Christmas day. A quick getaway to San Diego. Saguaro cactus, in ground pools and real Mexican food.
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The energy of downtown Phoenix during a game, the history of Mill Avenue, the sound of small aircraft and being a part of that sound and seeing the area from the air. A city big enough for U2 to visit many times, multiple Targets and movie theaters, Peter Piper Pizza and anything ending in -ertos. Like Filabertos!
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I love my new home in Kentucky, and as we plant roots here I know that things will change. I can list a thousand things I already love about here. Ironically I did always want to live in Kentucky when I was a horse loving girl. I think it is strange that someday my kids without a second thought will consider this 'home' as they live and learn more about the area, go to school here and grow up here. It is hard for me to shake that in my heart....Arizona is still "home."

Snow day number two

above: Trevor heading up the hill.

Another snow day! This time at least the school made the announcement the night before. For some reason our district is always the last in the county to announce if the school is going to be closed.

At least this time instead of getting the call in the early morning, the school had made the calls the night before. We took advantage of that and stayed up kind of late, and slept in today. Mike made breakfast, then shoveled the driveway again. He did this yesterday, but even by yesterday afternoon you couldn't tell that he had spent all that time out there clearing it. It snowed all day and night.

After digging ourselves out, we went to the hill.

above: Trevor after doing quite an awesome flip sort of dismount. Luckily no broken bones.
above: Matthew, who really was having a great time but looking at this photo...he looks somewhat scared.
above: Megan, who wins for sliding the farthest.

above: The van. I still am in love with the van. It did kill me to have snowy, wet feet in it. I have to remind myself that it is only water and nothing a trip to the car wash with a high power hose won't clean out of floor mats. I do have my rubber winter mats in the front for now. But isn't it pretty in the snow? :)
above: there's a car under there. Somewhere.

As nice as having two days off midweek has been...I am sure the kids will be going to school tomorrow. The snowplows have been busy and you can hear them everywhere. The roads where we live have been clear all day. The rural roads getting cleared are the ones that dictate whether or not there will be school tomorrow.....so we'll see!

Mike made the best rueben sandwiches and greek salad for dinner tonight and we'll all sit down to watch Modern Family in a bit. We were all pretty productive in finishing up a bit more laundry and completely going through all of the bedrooms upstairs. Clean feels so good!

Not much going on....little details of today.

Snow day. :)

This is one of the best ones. I am off from work until Friday, Mike is still home, the kids are all home, we are stocked up on things to eat, movies to watch and no place we really need to be. These are the best!

Laundry is getting done, house is clean. :)

I just went outside to take some trash out (really I just wanted to stand in the snow and watch it come down.) and the street looks so pretty right now. Those who have been here know that is a rare thing....lol....but the snow has covered everything including the street and everything is untouched. For once I can say that it really looks beautiful.

Right now I am baking some cream cheese filled cinnamon breadsticks that are making the house smell wonderful.

By the looks of the weather....tomorrow will be another day off from school.

A collective sigh......

Dang. Who is happy that the holidays are over? ME ME ME!

They were nice. There were nice surprises, nice memories and all that, but it was a whirlwind. Somebody I work with said exactly what I felt. That we had been putting out Christmas decorations in September at work (I actually had missed the overnight of putting up Christmas trees and all of the holiday decoration displays since I was still recovering from surgery at the time, so I remember exactly when those went up....then came back to work with Christmas trees all over.)
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However....we had been looking and dealing with Christmas for so many months, and trying to get through the season with the whole retail madness.....that by the time it was all over......it felt like we missed it. I mean really....Valentine's Day stuff is already out so that whole Christmas thing was a blur.

Ours was nice though. Mike ended up being home for it, which for a week or so we didn't think was going to happen. He is doing a contract job ferrying a new airplane overseas in his off month from his regular job when he is supposed to be off and home for a month.
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We were bummed about the possibility of him missing Christmas, but a financial boost was hard to say no to.
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Long story....and this IS the internet.....but he was home for the holidays! Nice. :)

I am putting together a Daily December book to remember all of the details from the last month.
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So.....
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Thank you to the above mentioned job, we have a new car. All mine. A 2004 Mazda MPV. This came about with a trip to Indianapolis to take a look at one that was found with everything that I could have asked for. The best is....it is clean. Oh, so clean! It looks brand spanking new inside and out. It was privately owned, so we got an amazing deal on it. I enjoyed the road trip back to Kentucky in it the other night.
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2011. I am happy to see it and hope everybody has a happy and healthy one! It is already looking up here. :)