Please to be clicking HERE (not safe for work, if people at your work are gonna be looking over your shoulder and reading things. There are no sounds or videos or anything, just text).

So. All total, 32 cm of snow. That’s a bit over a foot. Unfortunately it doesn’t all just land in one uniform pile – I WISH we only had a foot of snow in our driveway.

For a while today, we couldn’t get out of the house, because the snow was covering both doors. Luckily our neighbours had their grandsons shoveling their side of the driveway, and the younger one saw us trying to get the storm door open and came and shoveled our step, giving us freedom. Sweet freedom. I tried to convince them (one of them is a student of mine) to shovel our side of the driveway, as well (yes I offered them plenty of cash), but they said no, because they’d already been out for three hours, weren’t done their side yet, and were cold. They actually ended up leaving before they were done their grandparents’ driveway, so this isn’t a case of “Oh I hate that teacher let’s just not do her driveway”.

Rob went out for awhile and shoveled some this afternoon, but he is sick, and I made him come inside for supper. While we were eating, a snowplow went by again. I ran to look outside, and noticed our neighbour was shoveling the bit of snow left in his driveway. And… throwing what he was shoveling onto our side. Making the 5-foot snowbank at the end of our drive into a 6-foot bank. And making me utterly give the heck up.

So now the snowbank at the end of our drive is taller than me (photographic evidence here, here, here, here, here, and here). My asthma is making me completely unable to do anything out in the cold for more than 3 minutes at a time, and my inhaler is empty (will be picking up a new one tomorrow – I hadn’t noticed that it was getting low). Rob is pretty sick right now and, in his words, “When I look at that six foot tall bank of snow, I see my obituary – it reads “Local man found dead in giant snowbank, clutching shovel. Heart failure is suspected“.”

Luckily yesterday I had the foresight to park the car down the street in the hotel parking lot – which they have to plow out. It would be difficult to get to work otherwise.

Well, we ended up with between 25 and 30 cm of snow. Add the wind to that, and school was closed yesterday and is closed again today.
Plus: I have time to mark all these tests I gave last week (why did I give a test to EVERY SINGLE CLASS within a three-day span? That’s 190 tests!).
Minus: We can’t see our car, so one or both of us has plenty of shovelling ahead of him (yeah, it’s him. I try to help Rob but really I just suck and whine when I have to shovel).
Plus: We still have electricity and heat, so we’re not freezing and can still cook.
Minus: We’re down to only having spaghetti in the cupboard and can’t get out to get groceries.
Plus: I get to watch more Quantum Leap (I know I have been talking more about Quantum Leap lately than anything. Rob got me all 5 seasons, and I’m tearing through them. And making up lyrics to the theme song. I effing love this show)!
Minus: I’m almost out of episodes – I think I have three left.

Anyway. That’s what’s up right now. I just saw a plow go by the front of our house, and it was struggling to push the snow.

I swear I will stop writing about the weather soon! I promise! And one day I will show you pretty pictures of green grass and flowers and everything. Because it can’t still be snowing in July! Right?

RIGHT???!

I know I posted earlier this month that Spring was here… but it looks like maybe I spoke too soon. I mean… I know that Spring is here and that it officially started last week. And we’ve had a couple of days with +6 or +7 temperatures (that’s 45 or 46, for you Fahrenheiters), yes. But it seems that everytime we have a couple of above-zero days, we have some kind of rotten weather.
To wit:

Seriously. We just finished getting that terrible 4-foot-tall, 50-foot-long (that translates to one BILLION square feet of snow!) snowbank out of our driveway. The last bit is just melting away. And now we’re going to get more freezing rain? To paraphrase a friend, I’m getting a little tired of the game of slap and tickle Mother Nature is playing.

I suppose life could be much worse, but I won’t be thinking that when I’m trying to chip it all off my car.

The best laid plans of mice and men… I had really thought I’d be able to just keep working through this cold, but by the end of Wednesday, my voice was gone, and without that, well, I’m not very good at my job. So, I decided to stay home on Thursday. First, though, I hired one of my students for his snow moving services Wednesday after school, because the storm on Tuesday left us with a huge pile of snow in our driveway and I didn’t want Rob doing it by himself (he spent about 3 hours on it on Tuesday night, and another three on Wednesday day). The hired help managed to get most of the rest of the snow done, and Rob made short work of what he left, yesterday.

I meanwhile, can’t really sleep much when I’m sick lately, it turns out. I managed to stay in bed until just before 7am, then I was 100% up. I pretty much just laid on the couch all day, but managed to make supper, which turned out terrible. No sense of smell = no working tastebuds aside from salty or sweet. So I could tell that I had salt in the chicken and dumplings, but not how they tasted. Fine for me, but poor Rob ended up eating something terrible. It’s his turn to cook today, and I think he’s doing pot roast. Which we both love, so there’s no chance at him messing it up just to get his revenge on me. Not that he’d ever do that.

And today, I’m back to work. And it’s 7:20, which means I leave in 10 minutes, which means I should probably put some pants on. Have a good Friday all!

I try really hard to save up my sick days, but it always seems that by the end of the year, I’m down to two or three. In Nova Scotia, I got 20 per year, and they carried forward, so by the time I got sick I had over 60 days saved up (which I then used, before we moved here). Here we get 15 per year, and they carry forward, too, but with the days that I’ve used up due to my grandmother dying, then Rob being in the hospital a couple of years ago, and doctor’s appointments, I don’t think I have all that many saved up at this point. And I need to save them up for a couple of reasons. I’m one of those people who likes to save for a rainy day. If I could I would be one of those guys who has like, a year’s worth of food saved in the basement. Hoarder? Maybe, yeah. I just like knowing that I have backup available in case of emergency. In May I’m going to find out when my surgery is and I don’t know if it will be in the summer or if I’ll have to take time off for that.
I have been going to work sick, in order to save up the few sick days I have left. Well, I mean, if I’m throwing up or have a high fever, I stay home, but otherwise, off I go.
And then all last night, through this morning, I started having the worst sinus headache, sore throat, low-grade fever, and earache. On top of that even the world’s best diet pills couldn’t do to me what this is doing to my insides.
In other words, I am getting a cold.
Not a big deal, for sure, but you know how a cold can make you just miserable and run-down? I am in pain all over, and whiny, and … yeah. A cold. But I was determined that I wasn’t going to miss any days, because I have a flurry of doctors’ appointments coming up.
And then this morning? High winds, blowing snow, icy roads, and schools are closed.
I have a bunch of work I can do, so that’s good. But for the next couple of hours my hot water bottle and I are going to snuggle on the sofa. Hello, sofa snuggles.

… but apparently it is not. With winter came a false sense of security. Colder weather, heavy winter coats, boots, sweaters, all was right with the world.

Or so I thought. Spring has arrived, and people have begun wearing lighter clothing. Short jackets. T-shirts. And so, I have but one request:
Read the rest of this entry →

We haven’t done any grocery shopping, nor have I been to work to get anything done there, but we are going to my parents’ later on. My mom bought a new computer for my dad, apparently (well, it might be for both of them, but from what I understand Mom mainly uses her laptop and Dad uses the desktop for checking out the NHL webpage), and needs Rob to put some programs on it.

I’ve also been checking out some other wigs (I KNOW! FICKLE!!!) but the two I’ve been looking at today are in the “Ebony Styles” category so I’m not quite sure if they’d be… uh… suitable for me.

(I’m going to link to the ones I was looking at, because I realize that, like Lattegirl in the comments, you might be thinking “afros” – I’d post pictures but the website they’re on has all this security stuff so I figure they don’t want me thieving them)

This one, you can use a curling iron on, so you can actually try different styles with it (you can’t with most synthetic wigs). But on this website it only comes in two colours.

This one’s made with human hair. It looks a little weird in this photo but I’ve seen other pictures where it looks better. Again, though, on this website, it only comes in 2 colours.

I’m stealing this from DJ

The Inside The Actors Studio Questions

If you have watched “Inside the Actors Studio” you have heard James Lipton ask these 10 questions to the guest(s) at the end of the show. What would your answers be?

1. What is your favorite word?

I love words. My favourite in English is “propinquity”. Both for the sound of it, and for the meaning.

2. What is your least favorite word?

I know this isn’t an actual word, but you know those Yoplait yogourt drinks? That are called “Yop”? I hate that word. “YOP“.

3. What turns you on?

Kindness.

4. What turns you off?

Self-importance, presumptuousness, rudeness under the guise of “joking”.

5. What sound do you love?

The ocean.

6. What sound do you hate?

Garbage trucks.

7. What is your favorite curse word?

I usually resort to “crap”. Although since Rob and I have met, I have become a much more diverse swearer.

8. What profession other than yours would you like to attempt?

I would love to be a librarian.

9. What profession would you not like to do?

Anything having to do with cleaning. Some people have that thing where they can be all ‘zen’ while they clean … I don’t. My cleaning experience is more along the lines of “crap, crap, this is crap, this sucks, boring boring, crap crap crap, blaaaaaaaah”. That could be the ADD though.

10. If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?
“Good to see you, the buffet’s over this way”.