Stuff and nonsense

Good night, haven't I posted this yet??  Time to stop overthinking and overediting already!

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So.  First picture.

Here are about 32 bags of leaves that we gathered from the yard. (There were actually still a couple more that were frozen to the driveway and had to thaw out before they could be dragged to the street.)  I felt really sorry for the trash collection guys -- our pile there was by no means extraordinary for our neighborhood.  I don't get why our county doesn't just send out a vacuum-thingy truck to suck up all the leaves from the curbside, instead of going through the hassle of putting everything in plastic bags.  Sort of defeats the purpose of having a "green waste" collection day, imho.  But what do I know?  I'm just a humble housewife who's got nothing better to do than improve the world from my living room window.


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(This next section is written for the benefit of the SoCal relatives -- y'know, those who don't have any experience with REAL weather.  The rest of you may feel free to just move along.)

So, the thing about winter in Virgnia is that it's not quite cold enough to be really, you know, all winter-y and stuff.  At least, not for long periods of time.  We get some snow, usually really wet (great for snowballs and forts!) then it melts.

Exhibit A: wet snow

See that bush thingy overhanging the deck?  It's usually tall enough to block our view of the evergreens.

 Often the melted snow doesn't melt quite fast enough and then freezes overnight and causes two-hour-delays for all the schools and government agencies in the area the next day until VDOT finally looks at a thermometer and decides to send out the salt trucks.  (See "what do I know," above.)

The rest of the time, winter here is pretty much a combination of November and February (think dead, chilly, wet, and dark), with a few glorious days of brisk and bright January weather thrown in just to make your blood flow and to affirm that life is indeed beautiful, and to keep everyone from moving to Key West for 4 months out of the year.

But the last couple weeks have been really truly winter-ish.  For example, it snowed and then didn't rain immediately 2 days later!  There was totally all this fluffy (not slushy!) white stuff on the ground and then MORE white stuff came, before the first stuff was gone!  Of course, because it thawed just a teensy bit during the days (hey, 35 is above freezing!) and then refroze at night, it got all pitted and crusty.  Perfect for sledding!  The kids have been in heaven.  My dryer has been working overtime. In between my usual 3-4 loads per day, I've also been drying multiple loads of mittens, hats, scarves, and snow pants.  Maybe it will break soon and then I can get a new one!  Happy thoughts!

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Hey, speaking of dryers, have you ever noticed how much cold air comes IN your dryer vent when it's freezing outside?  (Sometimes if I've left a load in the dryer for a short period of time, I can't tell if it's actually completely dry b/c all the clothes are so dang cold!)  Is there something I should be doing about this, besides running the dryer all day?

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The kids have discovered how to use the voice note feature on our old defunct cell phone.  (by-the-bye, a disconnected flip phone is one of the best. toys. ever.)  This has led to much auditory hilarity the last few days.  For your reading pleasure, I here reproduce, verbatim, Daniel's latest recording:

"Oh yeah, oh yeah, wock and woll!
Oh yeah, oh yeah, baby,
oh yeah, oh yeah, baby,
oh yeah, oh yeah, baby,
oh yeah, oh yeah, baby,
oh yeah, oh yeah, baby,
oh yeah, oh yeah, baby,
oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah!"

He then went on to record several more songs, some wock and woll, others that sounded like "Deck the Halls" punctuated with "yeah, yeah, yeah"s.

Most of Joseph's recordings involve gorilla sounds.

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After we removed the tree, we arranged the living room, so now we can use the actual "fireplace"!

Mmmm, nothing like glowing fake logs to warm up a room!

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And speaking of warm, we got new windows!!!!1!!  And the heavens opened, and all the angelic choirs sang together in praise of rooms without noticeable drafts running along the floors.  Thankfully the windows were installed on a day that was in between two huge freezes, so the house only chilled down to the 50s while the old ones were being knocked out and the new ones put in.  These guys were awesome -- they had a whole crew working simultaneously so the removal and installation of our 20+ windows took only 2 hours.  (All the caulking and external sealing took a few more hours, but meanwhile the house was able to warm back up.)

It has made SUCH a difference.  We put a thermometer in the north-facing back bedroom (currently the Playroom) to see just how cold it got down there at night before we replaced the windows.  Our thermostat is always set to 67 -- the Playroom registered at a cool 50 degrees.  That's WITH storm windows.  I knew it always felt cold in there!  The girls' room wasn't much better -- they woke up in a 56 degree room -- and I think that's only b/c their body heat warmed up the room!  They had to use every extra blanket in the house at night.  After the new windows, the back rooms are still colder than the rest of the house (58 in the Playroom), so we'll need to get a space heater to make them truly cozy.  But still!  The curtains don't flutter in the breeze on windy days any more, so it's a vast improvement.

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Despite all my commenting about how freezing cold it's been, I really do like winter.  Probably only because I haven't experienced any pipes bursting yet.  That might change my perspective.

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Sorry, another snippet having to do with the cold, but at least the cold is the backdrop to the real story:

We had a pet bird for 10 minutes.

I noticed a bird floundering around under the crepe myrtles the other day.  It looked like it had hurt its wing, so I left it alone, figuring that one of the neighbor's cats would find it and put it out of its misery pretty soon.  (Is that really cruel of me?)  A couple hours later, Katie informed me she had caught a bird by putting a little plastic pail over it.  I didn't have high hopes for the bird's future with us, since I figured it was not long for this earth.  But I fixed up a cardboard box with some water and bird seed, and we brought the bird inside.  It did not look good.  Its wing looked back to normal, but it mostly scrunched itself into a corner and huddled there with its eyes closed.

We got out a bird book to figure out what kind it was -- it was really pretty, yellow with dark striped wings.  It was either a kind of flycatcher or goldfinch or warbler.  The kids were fascinated.   I don't think any of them had ever been this close to a wild bird before.  I tried to warn them to leave the poor thing alone, so they wouldn't terrify it to death.  They were respectful enough not to be reaching into the box to pet it, at least, but after a few minutes Joseph inevitably kicked the box and the bird was up and away!

Hilarity ensued.

It flew into the den, repeatedly bonking its head on the ceiling -- I chased it around -- finally caught it -- accidentally released it -- chased it around the den -- caught it again and released it outside.  It flew into a tree and commenced cheeping, so it was fine.

My guess was that it was stupefied from the cold that morning (I think it was one of those lows-in-the-single-digits nights), and just needed to warm up for a bit.  I haven't seen any more like him, so I'm wondering if he missed the migration boat.

Isn't he pretty?  I wish I had taken more close-up pictures, before Joseph kicked his box.

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I joined a women's Bible Study called "Walking With Purpose."  Now, I tend to approach all female-oriented spiritual groups with mild suspicion, half-expecting the usual slip-shod, sugary female thinking typical of such groups, for which I have no patience.  But I signed up, thinking, "Eh, what the heck, it'll only be 6 evenings out of my life, if it's horrible, and I might get some independent benefit out of it from reading the Bible more during that time."  But it is so, so good. The actual Bible reading is in little snippets, and you really dig deep down, finding the meaning of the selected verses for your own life.  It is so beautiful and affirming and challenging in a non-threatening and non-depressing way.  It's helping to give me a little clarity about several things I was struggling with lately and didn't even know how to begin to address.

The program we're doing at this parish is only 6 weeks long, but I think they also produce an 8- or 9-month long series.  I'm definitely signing up.  I highly recommend this study, if you can find a group near you!

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Our parish priests are from Denver.  The pastor wore a bright orange shirt under his chasuble at Mass this morning.

I'm beginning to question their intercessory power.