snow on the ground

finally we have a bit more snow to cover the spots that became bare. This is the strangest winter. We have hardly any snow, and so many places are being dumped on with snow. The weathermen said this time we were going to get about 12-18", but we didn't. It was bitter cold, and most of what we got was actually frozen rain, and very strange, but still fun to play in, and have the first snow day of the year.

Even Adam had fun playing in the snow his own way (stealing Eli's little quad!).



I shoveled a bunch of it into the kitchen sink, and emmett spent about an hour dripping colored water into it and making a colorful mass of coldness in the sink.

Then we all bundled up and played outside in it for a while. Eli slid down all sorts of things, and emmett was busy 'sawing' through the crust with a stick.

I made maple syrup taffy and had it in the fresh snow......

fresh snow only

I made this tasty maple-ness to have in the fresh snow. It brought back memories of being in Vermont, at Uncle Cheyney's little cozy cottage that we used to visit. White River Junction.... always lots of snow... skiing..... going to maple sugar houses..... sleeping all snuggly.... listening to an old radio in the house..... mom making this gooey mapley substance that we would eager crowd around for- first running outside to scoop fresh snow into bowls, then watching the steamy simmered maple syrup poured onto the white coldness that would make it chill instantly and then we could pop it into our mouths......
yum...... had to come in and make some quickly the other day and enjoy it with the boys.
okay, so neither one of them liked it. at all. bummer. (why did I care? other than that I wanted them to enjoy it the way I did)........ I ate all of it. and enjoyed it, although less so, as neither of them shared it with me. poor lonely sweetness. so tasty!

little, cold and skiing

My mom brought this photo of me last night. I was about 1 1/2. Eli thought the skis looked dumb. I thought I looked kind of cute and cold. I wasn't terribly 'styling'. Not that I am now, but at least now I am aquiring all of the trappings I need to keep me ultra warm. I have found that as I have gotten older, I am less tolerant of being cold. I absolutely love being out in the cold weather- it makes me feel alive and invigorated. Breathing in a real sense of life. But I don't like to be cold.

I now have very cool mittens that keep me warm, along with some good layers of high tech stuff underneath everything to keep my core warm too. I do need to use the toe warmers
to keep my feet toasty (after getting frostbite 20 years ago in western Canada, now they are so suceptible). At some point I would love to invest in Hotronics, as everyone seems to swear by them for keeping feet warm. But right now, I have spent enough, and the toe warmers are only $1 each time I go. I do ski with a helmet now too.... head warm, and safe.

So, yes, I am totally warm, and comfy in the cold weather, and while skiing. Stylin'? getting there I think :)

what to not wear

since I couldn't wear much at my colonoscopy the other day ..... :)
I thought I would wear some henna instead.

I did these on my hand and thought they came out pretty well. I have had several people stop me and ask about it. I have been handing out my card alot, and have been getting some business too. Helps that many people are going away to warmer places- they seem to want something cool to 'wear'.

I like this one alot...

the swirl down near my wrist ended up looking cool

The results of my colonoscopy (see post about 'prepping' below) :
they removed 4 polyps and I am good to go until same time next year. Seems I just grow polyps quickly. I am the polyp farm, and the doctor needs to just harvest them once a year :) and then I am fine. No cancer to come again, unless I don't keep removing what I grow!

snowy and more

finally some real snow here, and beautiful skies...




the waterfall at Renbrook is finally frozen! and beautiful:


this igloo is so appealing to emmett- he climbs into it now every time before we ski!


it has been biting cold, but fabulous skiing and fun with the boys.
Eli and I went night skiing a few nights ago. We had so much fun trying to ski down and see if we could beat the lift. All of the chairs are numbered. We were trying to see how fast we could come down the hill (okay, yes, I taught him how to tuck down the flat part - although I can still smoke him on it) The first trip we were on chair 97, then the next trip the exact same one! that was what inspired us to try to beat the lift. So the next run we cruised straight down. Chair 71. Cool. We found that we could gain almost 20 chairs each run. The fun things you do as a mom to a 10 yr old boy!

prepping

today is the yucky day.. the prep day..... tomorrow I get to lie down, strip naked, have them check out my whole colon and make sure they remove anything that might turn cancerous. Do I like it? No, of course not.... but.....

I consider it wonderful that I have the opportunity to have a colonoscopy done every year. I had colon cancer. I caught it early. I am fine. My sweet friend Julie was not so lucky and she died from her colon cancer only a year and a half after finding out she had it. She left behind her two boys, then aged 10 and 14. She was a few days shy of her 40th birthday. I had Eli just days after she died. Poor little boy was born to a grieving mom.

I had been with Julie for the year and a half before she died, helping her with all sorts of things on a daily basis, so she could spend her time and energy enjoying what she had left. I did laundry, groceries, and more. I made lunches for her and friends who stopped by to spend time with her. But funny, in hindsight, she and I never really talked about her cancer and how she felt about it. Sure, I took her to get her a wig, and we laughed as she made fun of my huge round belly, and I poked fun at her bald head. I remember us laughing together as I tried on maternity things that day. But we never really talked about it. I think maybe it was that she could just be 'Julie' with me, and not 'Julie with cancer'. She dwelled on my pregnancy. She was the first (after Adam) to know. She bought me a little pink rose that day. God I miss her.

She died about 2 weeks after she made me take time off since I was due in about 2 weeks. I was sad. So incredibly sad. And I had wanted so badly for her to be able to hold my baby. A friend told me that perhaps she was getting her chance to hold my baby up in heaven before he came to me. That helped. But I still cried. Alot. Finally I went into labor.... all 35 hours of it. Yuck. And then an emergency C-section. But Eli finally came out. And I found out later that he was born right during the memorial service for Julie. Odd how things happen. He was born the day after her birthday when she would have been 40.

So then my life went on, and I still missed Julie terribly. Then a year later, a month after little Eli had his first birthday, I was diagnosed with colon cancer! WHAT!!!???!!! Me? Why had I never talked to Julie about it? Was I going to die in a year and a half too? So many things went through my head.

I had my surgery on April Fool's Day. I had a colon resection and was woozy and out of it for a few days. Adam brought my little Eli to visit me in the hospital a few times. I loved seeing him, and he was fascinated with my 'zipper' of staples that went up my belly where they had cut me open. I soon learned that the cancer hadn't matastisized and I would not need any further treatment! Yeah!!! Sure, I had lots of tests for a long time after to make sure I was clear and check my CEA levels, etc. But I was going to be okay.

And I still am. 9 years later, and past 40 that my sweet Julie never saw. I need to have a colonoscopy every year. so what. I am glad that they keep me clear of cancer. For those of you who should have a colonoscopy and are putting it off..... don't. It isn't worth it. It is yucky to prep for it. Yes. But it is ONE DAY. get over it. (oh, and when you do the prep- make sure to BLOT don't wipe.... your hiney isn't used to being wiped so much! you will be glad you blotted)

Tomorrow I will be done, and look forward to eating something soothing when I am done. Perhaps a simple bowl of rice to start. Not sure. Maybe a big old baked potato. Then I have a whole year to enjoy before having the chance to do it again. But for now........ I'm off to the loo.........

change for Eli

things have been a bit crazed around here lately- mostly due to the fact that we have had to pull Eli out of the magnet school and have him re-enrolled in the public school nearby. He was being verbally bullied at his old school, and not much was being done about it. He was hating school and suffering emotionally, and feeling as if he had no friends (which he really didn't).

So now he has finished his first week at the new school, and things are good. I am feeling really good about the change as is Eli. We are also now finding that he is academically behind, so I am glad we pulled him when we did! He has been in much better spirits, and seems back to being much more light-hearted and even funny, as he was at the end of the summer.

I have been incredibly busy just trying to get him steady on his feet there, his records transfered, meeting with his new teacher, trying to get the work he needs to get caught up, and fit in the regular ski lessons, grocery shopping, food cooked, laundry done, etc.
overall.... good decision.
we are all happy about it.

too busy

been too busy skiing (yeah!!!) to blog..
I am loving it, and will post soon, as I feel I have much to blog about.
but suffice it to say, I was at the slopes today for 5 1/2 hours with the boys and we all came home tired and happy.....
we have had much cold weather, so the skiing has been great (although still no snow on the ground anywhere except there).
we have been skiing pretty much 4ish days a week, and it's been wonderful.
more soon.

oh, and here is a short clip of emmett on Monday. I was skiing with him while Eli had his lesson. Keep in mind, I was skiing alongside emmett, my hand was wicked cold holding the camera, I was using periforal vision to not crash into anyone else, and emmett wanted to 'bomb' down! (and he just learned to ski less than a month ago!!)


okay, then after I packed the camera into my pocket (usually I put it in the interior pocket, but I quickly jammed it into my regular coat pocket), we got onto the chairlift. We were almost at the top, when we heard something fall into the trees below. Ughhh. it was my camera. damn. it was dark out too. and Eli was just about done with his lesson. Sooooo I had to ski down with emmett to the bottom, get Eli from his lesson... left emmett (cold tired and crabby) with the lesson director who is so nice.... Eli and I went back up to meet someone who was supposed to be coming from Guest Services with a flashlight. We got there, and I popped off my skis, hiked up and met two guys hunting. they found it, and all was well!!

finally!!!

yeah!!! snow!!!!

I love this waterfall as we drive up the driveway to emmett's school.
It was starting to be frozen yesterday.....


then this morning.....
there was finally a liberal dusting of snow that made it finally feel like winter!!!

firing no matter what....

I am so tired of this war and just wish it were done. I, along with many others, feel so powerless to do anything about it. When you read things like this (on wemovetocanada - she publishes a letter written by a marine who was there) about how the soldiers have to "fire no matter what".... it all just makes you realize how much we don't hear in the media.

We seem so disillusioned that we think we are told everything on the nightly news. Not even close. If we were really to have the atrocities that are occurring in Iraq on a daily basis, shown to us on a daily basis, we'd work even harder to get it to stop. Somehow. Bring our troops home. Enough. Why do we think we are solving everything anyway? We aren't.

Let our troops come home to their families. Be done with spending an incredible fortune on the war and perhaps spend it on saving something universal like our planet! We can all benefit from that. For those of us who have read books like Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed and When the Rivers Run Dry, and more. Our planet needs help and we need to figure out how to sustain what we have, not spend countless amounts of money trying to police others. Spend it on sustaining our existence. THAT we need.... this crazy war we don't.

amazing skies

The skies, the stars, the clouds and the colors found there has always made me stand in awe of the world we live in.

In the last few days, as I have driven in the afternoons over to pick up Eli from school, the skies and the clouds have been so incredibly beautiful and dramatic.
(make sure to click on each of these to see them full-sized)




even the puddles seemed to reflect their gold.....

they turned 40!

can't believe my little brother and sister are 40!!!

it really was only a few years ago that mom took this photo of me pushing you....


but it was 1982 that someone snapped these......

damage done......

Apparently this:

warrents this:


Someone hit my car in the parking lot of my little one's school the other day. And then he promptly drove away, with his bumper hanging from his Volvo. I luckily found out who it was, and called him to tell him that he had done damage to my car. He was incredibly apologetic, and was very genuine about it. He had driven away partly due to the fact that he was so stunned that his own bumper had fallen off... and he was not aware that he had damaged my car in the process. He promptly called his insurance and it will all be taken care of.

Today, a man arrived at my door with a huge bouquet of flowers. I couldn't imagine who would have sent them to me. But I wasn't surprised to see the card that came with it was an apology note from the man who had hit my car. I had been told he was an incredibly sweet person. Apparently this is true!

Happy New Year

We had fun last night going to see the early (6pm) fireworks in Bushnell Park. We went to supper early at City Steam Brewery first (which is in the old Brown Thompson Building) and it was great. The restaurant is fun with seating in tons of levels, and lots of up down activity, of patrons, waitstaff, etc. There is alot to look at and we kept the kids busy playing I Spy while we ate- the kids loved the waffle fries there, and I had a fabulous seared tuna with a great dipping sauce. (click the above link for the restaurant to see the view from our table).

It was so good to get out to some festivities for the night- although odd to have it so unseasonally warm, and not even need mittens or coats zippered up! But certainly made it a pleasant evening for walking around downtown Hartford.
Happy New Year to everyone!