Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Oh, the weather outside is frightful.....






That's right, it's snowing. Can you see the little flakes blowing around? Look close, they are there. My friend K who is a yankee say's it's dandruffing.

The kids are out of school by default. This is South Carolina. Our highways turn into die-ways at the mere hint of inclement weather. The district made the decision yesterday, before the snow began. This is due to the Great Snow Travesty of 2004. Or maybe it was 2003. It was one of those years. I remember it like it was 5 (or 4) years ago....

It was a cold winter, one of the coldest I'd ever seen. We got up that morning and the clouds were so full of snow they looked pregnant. The flurries began before sunrise. Everyone expected the district to issue a two hour delay to see how the weather was going to play out. Most of the time, the snow here doesn't stick. In fact, it melts by noon and then it's 50 or 60 degrees the rest of the day. This time was different. It was in the high twenties and falling. The snow stuck immediately. I warned my mother about sending my brothers to school. "They are just going to cancel." She didn't think so. After all, the district didn't even delay.

They should have.

She sent my brothers to catch their buses and went to work. By the time the kids go to school, it was a mess. The snow had begun to accumulate, a rarity here. Half the teachers couldn't even get to school due to the wrecks that littered ever intersection, stretch of highway, and side road. Two buses hit ice and ended up in ditches. No one was hurt seriously. School was cancelled at around 8:00 am. The district also stopped the buses from running. So, you had kids at school with no way to get home. The buses wouldn't take them and their parents were at work. I got my car down our hill as soon as it started sticking; otherwise, I would have been snowed in and I don't know how my brothers would have gotten home. I had just moved back from I had just moved back from Virginia-it was 2003, I remember now-and had some experience with real snow. I got in my car and went to get my brothers from school. On the way, I passed multiple wrecks, along with stalled motorists. I saw people so scared to use their brakes for fear of spinning on the ice that they just rolled throught red lights. I was more scared of the other drivers than the ice. We made it home safely in the end.

Ever since then, our district is paranoid and overly cautious. There was a PR sh*t-storm after all this took place, of course. So my kids are home drinking cocoa and playing Operation.

Right now, our snow is only sticking in areas but I see the conditions being conducive to worsening. It's cold and getting colder. The ground might get really cold and the snow will stick everywhere. Then it will ice over.

I need to go to the store and buy some bread and milk.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

My slackness is forgiven!


The Inaugural Ball fundraiser for my kids' school was Friday night. We all went. We actually had primo seats so thanks to whoever sat us at the Presidential Cabinet table. The stage was nice and the whole set up classy. Let me fast forward to the actually coronation. Her are the contestants for Little Mr. Inaugural Ball. Astronaut's in the green. Little Mr. is for K-2nd grade. And guess what?
That's right! Astronaut got third runner up! My son placed, even with the paltry funds he took.
Not one, but TWO trophies! He was super proud and so are we. To be fair, he got last place but since there were only 4 boys, all of them were winners. It gave him confidence. He even wants to do it again. Not bad for a shy kid. He was very apprehensive about particiating. He is super shy and was terrified of having to dance. However, he practiced a lot and when the contestants danced the shag-our state dance-he was in the front. Here is my boy, shagging like a true Southern gentleman.

And then we had a catered dinner of baked chicken, rice and gravy, green beans, corn, rolls and sweet tea. Hey, it's SC. We have to have sweet tea. Oh, and there was cake, yummy cake.

Then there was dancing. It was like a mini club in there. We did the Electric Slide-whereupon the children began to chant,"Go, old people! Go, old people!"-and some contemporary dances a la Soulja Bo, DJ Unk, and Vic.

The girls obviously had a great time and we got home late. It was a night to remember.

Tag-I'm it!

I just got tagged by fairlyluvr from Building Castles in the Sky and I am psyched!

Here are the rules:
Rules:
~Link to the person who tagged you
~Post the rules on your blog
~Write six random things about yourself
~Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them
~Let each person know they've been tagged

Here goes..
1) I never eat anything blue. Seriously, I sort my M&Ms before I eat them.
2)I want to live on a farm, with my kids and some animals.
3) I think I am most beautiful when I am pregnant, which maybe why I have spent so much time being pregnant.
4)We're thinking about not getting cable when we move into a house this year (and just keep our tv for movies)
5) I love historical fiction. Some of my faes are "Memoirs of a Geisha" by Arthur Golden, "The Birth House" by Ami McKay, the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon, and anything by Philippa Gregory.
6) I don't like condiments on my sandwiches or burgers. Just cheese for me, thanks.

so here I go to tags you...

1. Stacy
2. Lacey
3. Lori
4. Renee
5. Mary
6. Tamecka