Overheard today:

"Spencer, you're more important to me than a friend. You're like a brother to me.
. . .Well, you are a brother to me, actually."

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Have you ever had a close call...you know, one of those things where something crazy happens and you say, "Whoa, that was scary!" and then you calm down and look around and say, "WHOOOAAAAA! " and then you go all speechless and stuff? That canoe guy found just such and example:Here is the "Whoa" part. Truck hits concrete barrier, flips off the road and then flips over a culvert and lands on his wheels facing the other direction. Man, that was scary. And miraculous. Flipped right over that culvert and landed right side up. Amazing.

Then he got out of his truck and saw how miraculous it really was:






And then he went all speechless and stuff.

Swapatorium has a great photo from the Oklahoma State Fair in the 1950s!

Recently I heard Spencer singing while he played: "If you're species is endangered clap your hands (clap, clap)..."


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Look what I won!!!! Laura at InkyDinkyDoo is giving this away and I WON!!!!! I am SO excited! When it arrives, I'll make some cards and post them.

(click for larger view)

Thanks, Kyndal!

Here's a little something fun! A blog award for not-so-famous mommy blogs! Check out the rules and consider your nominations!

I finally got out of the house yesterday! It was glorious! Most Oklahoma schools are still closed because the busses can't get through the side streets and the cities can't get the school's parking lots and sidewalks cleared off (and then some don't even have electricity!) Our school, being private, doesn't use busses and was able to clear the sidewalks, so we are good to go.

Of course, more snow (up to a foot) is on its way tomorrow. I don't recall ever having a winter storm "event" last more than 3 days in Oklahoma, so this is something for the books. Although the world looks like it is covered in snow, we are actually covered in about 5 inches of sleet. I can drive out of my driveway and not leave tracks! I just drive right over the ice!

So, yesterday I nearly finished my shopping for this summer's VBS. James and I are in charge this year and we have selected Narnia as our theme, so I went out shopping for 90% off trees and snow. I felt as if I was robbing the stores, to tell you the truth. I have a tax letter (religious organizations are exempt from sales tax) and Hobby Lobby takes 10% off the final bill for churches, so I got everthing at 91% off, no tax. I left one store with 6 seven-foot trees, 38 extension cords and a few packages of snowflake decorations for a grand total of $62. I also filled up my entire van with bags of "snow" for $24.

On schedule for today? Plan for and then teach the Cub Scouts about First Aid! Restock the pantry for round two of this winter storm! Search for wood!

Fun times.

Just a few of my Stampin' Up! cards for you!

So far, so good on the weather front. (ha ha ha! "front" Get it....? ...okay...)

Anyway, we've had an interesting day. Thunder followed by the strongest sleet-fall I've ever seen. It looked like a hard rain, but it was all ice. The weather man said some of it looked like snowflakes incapsulated by ice. I was too cold to go check that out, but it sounds cool. Sleet is great! Rain that freezes later is bad. Our trees are standing, our heater is humming. It is all good.

Man, I made one fantastic meal Friday night! I have been trying out new stuff from Southern Living's everyday recipes and not one of them has failed. I am officially a Southern Living Fanatic.
So here is the recipe:

3-4 pound pork shoulder roast
18 ounces barbecue sauce
1 can Coca-Cola

That's it. You cook it all day in the crock pot, then shred it up with forks (I like big chunky shreds), put some on a bun, sprinkle with cheddar and, oh my good heavens. Oh. Oh. OH! We ate it up with some tortilla chips and mango salsa. You've got to try it! (The smallest roast I found was 10 pounds, so I made a whole lotta BBQ pork, which is all the better. Freezes up just fine!)

I've also got a lasagna in the oven and chili melding in the fridge. Hey, I've gotta keep warm somehow. If you're hungry, I guess you know where to go!

We have an old, old house and on days like today you can really feel it. I once had a friend say he liked old houses because you could always find a room with the temperature you needed: some are warm, some are cool and some are downright drafty and cold. That's our house. In fact, I need to put away the rest of the Christmas decorations, which are all congregating in the great room in like-minded huddles, but that room is the absolute coldest and draftiest place in the neighborhood. My husband brought all the boxes up from the dungeon and is patiently awaiting his turn to take them back down, but I just can't bring myself to freeze like that. I'm trying to appease hime with lots of cooking, and it seems to be working so far.

Maybe I should go make some brownies.

I'm so thankful for electricity and so hopeful we will have continued service throughout the next week. We are a full-electric household, so no electricity means no hot water, too. There is no wood left to buy and the wood we already have for our wood-burning stove will last about 8 hours.

The ice is pelting down right now. I don't expect this storm will be as bad as the last since it started as ice. Last time it rained all day and then turned to ice and the soaked branches iced all the way through. It was just too heavy.

My emergency preparedness has consisted of filling the pantry and refrigerator, sanding down all the walkways, putting a heat lamp on the porch for the outdoor cats, washing the dishes, washing the clothes, washing the children, putting wood in the stove and charging the cell phone. I have a barbecue pork roast in the crock pot for dinner tonight and the number for reporting an electric outage posted by the old-fashioned phone (the new phones don't work without electricity, you know).

Although many report we Oklahomans are acting a little crazy buying up groceries and wood and sand, I must say the last ice storm taught me many lessons about being prepared. For instance, if you don't clear your garbage disposal before the electricity goes off, your house will STINK in a few days. Anyway, having extra groceries and wood and sand around really isn't a bad thing. Hopefully we won't need it all, but at least we'll have it if we do.

"This is a one-in-maybe-15- to 25-year event," CNN severe weather expert Chad Myers said Friday of the forecast freezing rain, sleet and snow. The big story will be how many roads are shut down, airports are shut down and how many power lines are down because of the ice this weekend," Myers added.

I've been reading a lot of very good blogs lately. Some people are just good writers! There are the witty blogs, the information blogs, the inspirational blogs and the down-right funny blogs. It doesn't get any better than that!

One day I decided to go back and read some old parts of my blog and I realized I'm not that entertaining compared to the superheros I've been reading. A Minor Blog Blockage ensued, and frankly still lingers. I want to be hilarious, but I'm not. Sometimes I'm amusing, but rarely hilarious. Inspirational could be cool. . . but I'm just not serious enough for that.

So, I'm trying to find myself, or remake myself, or something-or-other, to be what I want to be, but for now I suppose I'll just continue on with my everyday drivel that tens of you keep coming back to read, bless your hearts. Thank you for taking me just the way I am. And please, no comments about how you really think I'm not so bad after all. I'm just telling you to tell you, not to get sympathy comments!

Anyway.

(As opposed to Anyways.)

Anyway.

We're supposed to get an ice storm this weekend. Tomorrow, actually. The citizens have gone into Full Preparedness Mode. I joined the throngs at the grocery this evening and found lines going all the way down the aisles to the back of the store. Crazy. Just crazy. One of the ladies in line was purchasing a huge box of frozen pizza rolls and two cases of beer. That's it. It will be a great weekend.

(Did I ever tell you how impressed I was that Cindy T*ylor knew how to spell "aisle" in the fifth grade? I just thought she must be the smartest girl ever.)

I'm not in the least bit excited about this ice storm. They predict it will be like the storm of 2001. That was the storm that took us out of electric service for 9 days. Nine days with a toddler and a baby, that is. Definitely some of the worst 9 days I can remember. Let me just say this about that: if your yard lights up green, you're in trouble. (That, dear friends, is the color of loose electricity).

So, we had a great Christmas break. We planned to visit beautiful Colorado for the last week of our break, but seeing how they closed all the highways in Colorado (and some in Kansas), we were unable to go. We did get to go to Texas, however. We stayed with friends on their ranch and had a big time. I didn't even fall in the lake! The children ran free when the sun was up and we all played games in the evenings. One night we made a big bonfire and roasted hot dogs. We even had beans in a big iron pot sitting on the fire. MmmmMmmmmmMMmmmmm. Did I mention Colin built the fire and lit it? It was his first time to make fire and we were quite proud of him.

There was a little incident where I lost Jean Pierre. We both thoughtthe 06Jan07 on his ticket meant January 7 (because we seemed to forget the new year, I guess), but I got an email on January 6 asking me if Jean Pierre had arrived safely. In a panic, I went to the bus station, but he was not there. After several hours of pure adrenaline rush, we found him in Iowa. He had never left because he read the ticket wrong, too. Eventually, I had the opportunity to pick him up from the downtown bus station at 2:30 a.m. on January 8, which I know causes you all to turn green with jealousy.

That same weekend Colin and I had a lot of fun visiting emergency rooms around town after he put his arm through a window and cut his wrist. It was one of those injuries that could be superficial or could be a big deal requiring surgery (if he cut a tendon), but I suspected it was not a big deal. When we arrived at the first emergency room I asked a woman who was being called back how long she had waited. When she replied, "5 hours," we were outta there. We did a little more "forum" shopping before we decided to come on home and get out the second aid kit.

In other news, my cell phone is broken and there are bound to be several Very Important Messages on it. I'm probably losing friends every day while I try to resolve the problem. A friend loaned me her old cell phone, which was very generous and helpful, but it is locked and the code is long forgotten, so the phone just sits here on my desk mocking me.

Other things that are broken? The glass door, another glass door, the oven, the shower curtain rod, the wood blinds and the doorknob. The remote control is lost. In other words, our home has that college fraternity feel to it. Maybe we should just get a keg. And some pizza rolls.

Igloo by Spencer

Queen Amadala by Colin

Something Fishy by Spencer