This is warming up our otherwise chilly night...

Labels: newsworthy, snow

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  How was Christmas for everyone? It was good here, pretty casual.

We're getting set up for another storm. Since they haven't plowed us all out from the last one yet, this should be interesting. We don't normally get snow on top of snow here, so this is pretty wild.

Around here, we have a really good snow once every 2 or 3 years. In the mountains they get more, but we're high plains and it's really fairly arid on the whole. So, we don't have the infrastructure to get it cleared up with any sort of speed.

I heard that one of our neighbors delivered a baby at home during the blizzard, because they couldn't get out. I wouldn't mind delivering at home if they could send in the National Guard with an epidural. ;-) I haven't met her, but I can tell you that the new mom is more of a woman than I!

Labels: snow

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  We're off to church, then out to do the family thing, so I'll be out of here for a little bit.

Hope you all are having marvelous holidays! We're settling in to enjoy our White Christmas, the first in a long time!

Yay!

Labels: holiday

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  Hooray!

While we actually had a lot of fun while we were snowbound, I'm not willing to do caretaking for the Overlook Hotel anytime soon. We were all getting a little itchy by last night.

***For a quick refresher, check out The Shining in 30 Seconds (And Re-Enacted by Bunnies).***

Although we weren't to the point of "REDRUM! REDRUM!" yet, we were definitely experiencing a lot of "STOP IT!" and "SHE'S TOUCHING ME!" and so on. It was plain to see that it wasn't going to be long before we started using hatchets on the doors, "Heeeeeerrreeeee's Jenny!" and all that...

Anyway, we're going to run out McDonald's to meet some friends. Let's hope that not everyone in Denver has the same idea!

See you later, I'm outta here!

Labels: snow, stephen king

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  It started snowing Tuesday night, and hasn't stopped since. We usually have a Brown Christmas here in Denver, so this is a real treat!

Hare are the drifts in our backyard, in comparison with the fence, the plant hanger and the swingset this morning:

As you can see, we're not getting out any time soon!

Here are all of the kids playing in the snow yesterday. Look how hard it's coming down! It's been like that almost the whole time!


We're all kind of done with all of the neat stuff we can do around the house, and have settled into a schedule of napping and watching TV. We sure became complacent fast! What would you do if you were stuck in your home for 3 days or so? We're looking for ideas...

Labels: snow

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  I'm in a bit of a mood today. I think it's the combination of the all of the readily available candy, and the condition of being snowbound. All work and no play makes Jen a dull girl. All work and no play makes Jen a dull girl. All work and no play makes Jen a dull girl. All work and no play makes Jen a dull girl. All work and no play makes Jen a dull girl. All work and no play makes Jen a dull girl. All work and no play makes Jen a dull girl. All work and no play makes Jen a dull girl.

Anyway, I was surfing The Smoking Gun looking for the complaint that Fred Goldman filed against O.J. Simpson. Did you hear about this? He's trying to get a hold of the money that O.J. received for his part in the mercifully defunct "If I Did It" project. Good for Fred Goldman! No amount of money will bring his son back, or bring the Goldman family peace, but that doesn't mean that O.J. should get to keep the money, or have a moment's peace, either! I'm glad Fred Goldman has the fight in him that is needed to stay in O.J.'s face.

While I was poking around the archives, I found something pretty noteworthy among all of the weird and sometimes foul stuff they post (stay away from the articles about the salad dressing, I wish I had...), the backstage rider for Iggy and the Stooges.

The Smoking Gun has a whole area devoted to these riders, the requirements that performers make of the promoters in each city as they go on tour. Generally they're pretty blah and technical, with occasional glimpses into the personality of the performer. I usually glance at the riders of people I've heard of, and then move on, wondering how people who read these for a living manage to stay awake. But, the requirements on this one were just hilarious! I actually read the entire thing, and enjoyed it. It's not for the kiddies, and can be a bit offensive at times (but still funny!), and you can read it here. For example, from the equipment requirements:

1 x 13 inch and 1 x 14 inch TOM-TOM WITH MOUNTING. And if you can't bring the mounting to us, we'll have to send a bloke called Mohammed to the mounting. A stand mount would be find, or a bass drum mount. Here endeth the sermon on the mount.

So, if you're blizzarded in like we are in Denver, and need a few giggles, check it out. And then send dishwasher detergent! We ran out, and can't get to the store to buy any, so the dishes are piling up. If this snow doesn't stop soon, we're going to end up actually hand washing the dishes so we have something to serve the dead rugby players in...

Labels: newsworthy, snow, stephen king

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  I am babysitting this morning, so I thought I'd better blog before I'm trying to watch 9 kids (mine plus 5 more.) Not that they'll give me too much trouble, they're easy kids and my kids love them so I expect they'll be off making messes but not requiring a lot of "hands on," which is OK by me!

For your enjoyment, I will post a picture that Tiernan took during the Investiture/Rededication Ceremony for our Girl Scout troop.



Does anyone else's kid do stuff like this? I just uploaded 141 pictures from my camera, and at least 20 of them are "self-portraits" by my son (many of them upside down like this one). It would not be an exaggeration to say that another 30 of them are photos of his feet, the floor, the TV, his sisters yelling at him because they're not fully dressed, etc.

I shouldn't ask where he gets it from, my mom says that at least one photo from every roll of film we developed in our house while I was growing up was a close up self-portrait of me, so I guess that apple didn't fall far from the tree. I'm just glad that I'm raising my kids in the future where (ooooeeeeeoooooo) we don't need to pay for film and developing on these masterpieces, we don't even need to shake them, they just pop up on our computer when we're ready. Now, if I could just get my flying car and my robot maid, I'd really feel like I was living in the new millennium...

Labels: kids, life

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  If you have a minute, stop by Strange Pulse and check out her "A Christmas song a day" that she's been doing this month. If you scroll down far enough, you'll find the David Bowie/Bing Crosby version of Little Drummer Boy, which always makes me happy...

Does anyone know where Dorothy (Surrender Dorothy and Dorothy's Road) is? Whenever I click on her blog, it takes me to junk sites. Did I miss an announcement that she's leaving or something?

We have most of our decorations up. Sage has been counting and reporting to us how many angels, baby Jesus', stars, etc there are in the house. Since we keep dragging out more boxes, the numbers are consistently going up. We cram a lot of Christmas cheer into this house!

Labels: david bowie, holiday

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  I had a two day migraine, which appears to be gone today. Woohoo! One good thing about feeling so crappy sometimes is that you really appreciate it when things are just average :-)

We are about 1/2 way done with the Christmas shopping. Anyone else this far behind? It would comfort me to know we're not the only ones...

Labels: life

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  And do I want to switch to it? I'm getting messages about it now when I go to log in. I'm afraid when they make changes, that the systems will be more unstable than it already is...

Labels: blogger

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  Lorrie, a homeschooling mom I know from the Five in a Row boards, passed away in November from breast cancer. We all prayed for her, and kept track of her ups and downs as she dealt with her illness and prepared her family.

She kept a blog that chronicled her family's homeschool adventures, and then told of her struggles and worries as well.

Now her husband is posting on her blog, and it's so bittersweet to read his posts. He talks about how his wife rounded out his personality, and tells her about how the kids are adjusting to school, and how life has changed. I hope that if I ever lose someone this close to me, I will be able to roll with the punches, and see my new life as clearly as he does.

You can read her (now his) blog here: Grisoni Ranch Learning Academy

Labels: homeschooling, requiem

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  and checked out 45 books!

That's actually pretty common around here. We even have a really cool cart that we use when we go, because it's so hard to carry that many books to and from the car!

The cart is way better than our old system, which was a milk crate connected to a luggage cart with a bungee cord with a hook on each end. That system worked pretty well until Tiernan disconnected the bungee cord and found out how cool it was and started playing with it all the time.

It was pretty hilarious, because he called it "the hooker" because of the hooks. So, he would say things like, "Can I play with the hooker?" and "Can I take the hooker to bed?"

Eventually, we just let him keep his hooker, and we sprung for the cart. So, now you know the story...

Labels: books, kids, life

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  I'm back from my blog break! I just couldn't pass up this story...

World's oldest person dies at 116

Elizabeth "Lizzie" Bolden, recognized as the world's oldest person, died Monday in a nursing home, the home's administrator said. She was 116. Bolden was born Aug. 15, 1890, according to the Gerontology Research Group, a Los Angeles organization that tracks the ages of the world's oldest people.

This is the part that I think is just amazing!

Family members said this year that Bolden had 40 grandchildren, 75 great-grandchildren, 150 great-great-grandchildren, 220 great-great-great grandchildren and 75 great-great-great-great grandchildren.

Can you imagine? The story says she had a stroke in 2004 and his been pretty under the weather since then, but I wonder if they have pictures of some of these families? I thought it was pretty cool to get 4 generations pictures of my family, but they could conceivably have gotten a SEVEN generations picture! Wow!

Labels: newsworthy

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