I Used to Hurry a Lot. I Used to Worry a Lot.

Here's me "pretending" to look cold. It was actually windy and freezing that day.

Here is a quick overview blog post. Coadster is now in London. She is afraid to fly, so I was worried for her, but it sounds like she did just fine.

Here is a picture of me pointing to a bald eagle flying overhead.

Last weekend, The Guy and I ran the full 25K course of the race we're doing on St Patrick's Day. At least the last 5 miles of it are very technical trail running. After I was really tired, it was a big challenge to lift my legs enough to get over all of the roots and rocks on the trail. I did run the whole thing, but it REALLY kicked my ass.

The Guy showing off his new drink holster. I think he's ready for his spaghetti western now.

Saturday night we went out for dinner to a new place in town called Moon Raker's. Our friend E. met us, and we had good food, a great talk and a few drinks. I was pretty migrainey all weekend, so we went home early.

Me all splattered with road muck.

On Sunday we rode out on a gravel road course outside of Hills, Ia. It was cold and snowy and muddy, but it was a nice short ride.

That night, I made tilapia reubens for the first time. I don't think the tilapia had a strong enough taste to compete with everything else in the sandwich, but it was still good and it was worth a shot...

And the Wind Ain't Blowin' From the South.

Here is part of a stone church in the snow.

I started reading Barbara Kingsolver's, Lacuna last night. It takes place in Mexico. I think it will be the perfect way to combat the below zero wind chills we're supposed to get by tonight. If that doesn't work, we will probably watch The Big Easy tonight. I haven't seen it since it first came out, but as I recall, everyone walks around in sweat stained shirts...Plus, an '80's Dennis Quaid should be hot enough to defy any Iowa Winter, right?

I've been having weird, insecure dreams lately. When I was younger and didn't know how to drive, I would have "feeling out of control" dreams that I was driving a motorcycle on an old logging road in Northern California...The kind that can sometimes just end without warning. Now, I dream of f*cked-up races I find myself in. One was that I was in a bike race that took place inside the hospital where I used to work. We raced through the hallways, trying to avoid patients and carts full of expensive equipment. In another dream, I was doing a triathlon and I kept forgetting that I was racing and would stop and talk to my friends, until someone would remind me and I would find myself further and further behind. Hmmmmm. It appears that the ass end of Winter is weighing heavily on me once again.

Every Picture Tells a Story, Don't It?

This here will be a photo journal of the blizzard. This first one was taken at 6 am when I started shoveling. I finished at 8:15.

Apparently, this business was closed.

I love the textures in this drift.

Here are some things that won't be getting used for another few months.

Graffiti guy peaking over the snowy garbage cans in an alley.

This garbage can looks like a snow covered Darth Vader.

Here is what downtown looked like at lunch...Or should I say, ghost town?

Believe We're Gliding Down the Highway, When In Fact We're Slip Sliding Away

These are what shelves look like when you go to the store at 9 o'clock at night after a blizzard in Iowa.

So, yeah. We're having ourselves a good old fashioned blizzard in Iowa. It meant that I couldn't give plasma today, and so I got home close to 5 o'clock. What did I do with my extra time you ask? Well, I certainly didn't put it to any good use. I tortured my kitten and watched House Hunter's International. I'm not sure how masochistic it is to watch rich people trying to find the perfect house in Southern Spain or in the Caribbean during a blizzard, but the escapism did hurt pretty good. I'm not much of a TV watcher in general, so it seemed a little decadent.

This is what your kitten looks like after he starts to get cabin fever...Or any time, really.

Of course, all good times must come to an end, and around 8:30'ish, I put on several layers and went out to pick Stinky up from work at the grocery store. I figured I'd get there early and shop first, but the snow had drifted halfway up the doors of my car and I ended up using that half hour to shovel snow in 1,253 mile per hour winds (or that's what it felt like, anyway). So, I finally made it out of my driveway, but even though I'd seen the plows come by at least twice, my street had a good (or bad) 6 inches on it. Luckily, I have one of those all-wheel drive Subaru grocery getters, so I never got stuck.

I was going to make tomato bisque soup for dinner tomorrow night. We're just going to have that with some grilled cheese sandwiches and salad, if the roads are drivable enough to see each other tomorrow. I realized I was too tired after all of that shoveling and stressful driving, so I'm letting it go until tomorrow night. The guy always wants to help anyway, so I figure we can just drink some wine, listen to music and make soup together. It sounds kind of nice, doesn't it?

I'll let you know how this whole blizzard thing turns out and if I end up having to go to work tomorrow - a real cliff hanger post, this one.

You See I Believe in Nothing and You're Convinced of the Hex

Time to take out the trash...Sorry. All I have are cat pics right now.

Soooo. Apparently, we're getting some kind of crazy blizzard in the next day or two. Right now, they're predicting about a foot of snow. Jinkies! I can't remember the last time it snowed that much at one time.

Now that I cross-country ski, I'm pretty excited about the snow. I guess the trick is to find something fun to do in any type of weather, in order to better appreciate it....I'm still working on an interesting activity for 20 below zero temps, but haven't found anything yet. I'm not sure if hibernating counts.

Now You Wear Your Skin Like Iron, Your Breath As Hard As Kerosene

I still haven't taken and new pics, so digging out some recycled ones. Coadster took this of me a couple of years ago.

Sooo, today I didn't really meet my week's goal, but that's okay. I don't feel badly about taking a day off. What did I do instead? Well, I ran right after work and it was pretty nice. I'm still encountering some treacherously icy sidewalks, but I am happy in the knowledge that their days are numbered.

I also finally went to Supper Club for the first time in forever. It was hard to weigh it. On the one hand, I wanted to stay home and get things done in the kitchen and finish reading America America (I'm so close to finishing it). The other hand held the promise of cheese fries and one of the couple's 4 month old little boy. Alone time - cheese fries and cute baby. Alone time - cheese fries and a cute baby. Today I sacrificed my alone time. Lucky for me, that baby was pretty damn cute and the cheese fries were, of course, amazing.

Now, that means I still have a little time to work in the kitchen and read before bed. Who says you can't have it all?...As long as you have it in very small increments, that is.

It's Good to Hear Your Voice, You Know It's Been So Long

Here is a snowy gate.

Please allow me to be your cautionary tale...Again. So, yeah. You may not want to do a throw down on Winter, because Winter doesn't give a shit if you're tired of it. It will just laugh at you and then throw snow in your face, pelt you with ice and freeze you out, making it really, really difficult to do any outdoor triathlon training. I hope you all can learn from my mistake and dissuade yourself from doing any seasonal trash talking. Winter is one bad-ass mutha f*@ka and should not be messed with. Mea culpa, mea culpa. Uncle, uncle. Amen.

Because I work on a college campus, I like to keep an eye and ear open, (and apparently, I don't have to open those ears very much) just to do a little upper middle class, overly entitled young people sociological studying. Kids today....I saw a girl walking around downtown during a Winter storm in shorty shorts, a long sleeve t-shirt and Uggs. Wha?! Is there some way you can get your daddy to buy your way out of frost bite that I don't know about?

Later during the big scary rush of classes getting out, another girl was talking very loudly on her cell phone. And this is what me and about a hundred other people heard her say. "....So, of course we had sex. And then I didn't get home until like 5:15..." Um, excuse me, ma'am. You do know you're out in public and we can all hear you, right? It's still not quite as good as when that other woman on the Pentacrest, screamed into her phone, "How you gonna try and tell me you're lonely when you're calling me from your wife's house?" But it's going to be hard to top that one.

If I Pick Up Speed, Get Out of My Way

Remember how I said we might get an ice storm the other day? Well, we did. I think that railing looks good dressed in ice fringe.

So, my internet is back up and running, which means I didn't get shit done around the house. No surprise there. That's okay. I have all weekend to try and finish some projects.

Speaking of the weekend...We only get 2 days this week, so I plan on trying to make the best of those days. Tomorrow night, I think Stinky is having a couple of girls spend the night. Coadster has a big show choir event in Wisconsin, so she'll probably go to bed early. That might just leave me hanging by myself, drinking beer and watching movies again, and that's just a-okay with me.

Coadster and her show choir friends on the bus to a competition. Does anybody else notice the absence of jazz hands in this photo?

Saturday will be my day to get projects done. There's talk of rain, or freezing rain, or snow, or some other kind of Wintry precipitation, and that's okay, because then I won't even be tempted to do any yard work, and I can concentrate on my many, many indoor projects.

My girlcrush and her husband are rumored to be coming to town on Saturday night to see their friend's band play. I have no idea what all will go down or how, but I want to at least try to see them for a beer at some point in the evening.

So, how about all you all? Will you be stuck inside trying to escape Winter precipitation or venturing out trying to catch a drink with your girl crushes?

She Said, "Do You Think There's Some System That Controls and Affects?"

Here are my counters. Waiting out their installation in my bedroom. The sink hole seems cut out to accentuate the weird stain on my floor. Nice.

Soooooo, this weekend? This weekend I was really tired. I thought it was just from all the annoying little crappy things I had to deal with for a week straight, but my girls were both exhausted too. So, I'll just go ahead and blame it on the mind numbing cold.

I decided to give myself a little break on Friday night. I took the girls out to eat to Chili's (their choice). We never do that anymore, but since my kitchen was torn apart and we were all exhausted, it seemed like the thing to do. We had a nice meal and the girls went on and on about their high school stuff. I'm so glad they have each other to talk to about that stuff with. If I had to listen to it all the time and try to pretend to care, my head might just explode.

Stinky went out for a bit when we got home, but Coadster and I stayed home and we watched Valkyrie, while I drank my two beers. Last week we watched Inglorious Basterds, so I think I've officially met my quota on watching Hitler assassination plot movies.

Stinky came home from hanging out with her friends that I don't particularly like. She just started hanging out with them this Fall and got into trouble with them. I've been talking to her about the fact that these kids aren't the best influence. I try not to make a huge stink about them, because if I've learned one thing about having teenagers, it's that the more you tell them you don't want them to do a thing, the more they want to do it. Anyway, I think Stinky might be over this latest boundary pushing/rebellion exercise. She finally told me I was right about those kids and doesn't think she wants to hang out with them anymore. She said all they care about is partying and she's bored by the fact that they really have no other interests. Sweet. I'm glad that she came to that realization on her own...Eventually.

Saturday was good in the fact that my pipes weren't frozen and my car started. Coadster and I went to the rec building to run and that felt great. I was still exhausted all day. I don't think it helped that when I got back to working on the kitchen, everything I touched in there turned to shit. Behind every moved appliance was a new project. There were so many cracks and so much peeling paint, I felt like I was reconstructing every wall in the room. I finally gave up around 9'ish. Stinky and I tried to watch a movie, but we were both too pooped and we ended up going to sleep around 11. Yeah. We really know how to party.

Anyway, I finally got the kitchen walls scraped, spackled, sanded, taped and primed. Now, all I have to do is my favorite part - paint. I love adding color to a room. I can't promise anything, but I might be able to show you the freshly painted walls tomorrow or the next night.

In the Place Where I Make No Mistakes

Here is Stinky, earlier in the season with a coworker and a certain Hawkeye.

I'm writing this while watching the Orange Bowl and my daughter is yelling at the TV, so this post might be even more disjointed than usual. Today continued my string of annoyances. Believe me, I know how good I have things. Annoyances are not tragedies. I've just reached my saturation point of having to deal with crap - mostly because of the frigid temperatures.

When it's bitterly cold out, I drive in as close in to work as I can without having to pay. So, this morning, I hopped in my car and the battery was dead again. Nice. As I've said before, I have the right kind of clothes to be able to handle the cold, so I walked all the way to work. No problem

The big problem came with trying to figure out what was wrong with my battery and how to get it fixed, so I don't get stranded wherever I go. I emailed K.'s ex, J. because he was the one who was nice enough to get and install my battery 3 years ago. He gave me some options and said something about the battery possibly needing water in order to hold a charge. I had no idea you needed to put water in your battery. I've had my car for several years and didn't water my battery once. He sent me a link to a helpful YouTube video about just how to water up my battery.

My friend G. was nice enough to come over right after work to help me push my car out of the garage and give my battery a jump. Of course, we didn't have very good cables, and the jump didn't take. G. was smart enough to get a number for my neighbor V. who lives two houses down from me and happens to be a mechanic. He was still at work, but said he'd stop by if we didn't get it figured out by the time he got off. Next, my ex stopped by to drop off my daughter and tried to help as well. Even with his cables, my car didn't charge.

I was starting to think my battery might be toast, but then my neighbor stopped over and used his cables and my car started right up. Finally! My neighbor was even nicer still and told me that if my car doesn't start in the morning, to call him and he'll give me a jump, so I can drive to the mechanic where I bought the battery and get me a new one - one that hopefully works.

So, like MnMom suggested, this might be the year when my friends show up at the right time, with exactly what I need. Thank god, the wonderful people in Iowa make up for the crappy weather.

All the Leaves are Brown and the Sky is Gray

Here is an upside down Christmas tree hanging from the ceiling of the Deadwood. Merry Christmas!

Hey, kids. Tomorrow is my last day of work before the holiday and not a minute too soon. The handful of us who didn't take vacation are as squirrely as hell. One of the grad students I hadn't seen for a while showed up for work and we had this quaint little exchange:

Me: Hey, long time no see.

John: Yeah. Where've you been lately?

Me: Oh yeah. I took last Wednesday off. I needed a day to party. I got drunk at 8 am and stayed that way all day. It was really fun picking my girls up from school in the afternoon...

John: See? I have no idea if you're kidding or not...

I made a big point to run outside tonight, since who knows when I'll get another chance. The song "California Dreaming" by the Mamas and Papas came on the minute I started slipping on a patch of ice but caught myself in the nick of time. It was perfect.

I spent most of this evening doing some disaster preparing. If there's one thing I learned from the tornado, it's to arm myself if there's even a slight chance of bad weather shit going down. I got a bunch of food we can eat if we lose electricity and can't cook and some more flashlights and I was book lusting, so I stopped into Prairie Lights and bought myself Marilynne Robinson's book Home. (you know, just in case I finish the 5 other books in my reading queue in the next couple of days) I used to always make sure I had candles, but right after the tornado, we had gas leaks all over the place and for some reason fire and gas don't mix...Well, when they do it's pretty dramatic anyway. I just think the better prepared I am for an ice storm, then the less chance there will be one.

I'm not sure how much I'll be on the blog the next few days. I'll definitely try, but who knows what will happen. There could be an ice storm where we lose electricity, or else we'll be doing some traveling and then I also might be drinking wine and too relaxed to get on the internets. There are just so many excuses.

How about all you all? What are your holiday plans?

Colors Your Eyes With What's Not There

Here is the jazz band playing at Coadster's concert last Saturday.

Well, kids. According to some predictions, we could have the worst blizzard we've seen in these parts in 30 years tonight and tomorrow. I guess we'll see. My girls already know they have a snow day. Me? I'm not so sure. Even if the university cancels classes, it's still usually open for business. Since I walk to work and most of the people in my office live in other towns, if we are open for business, I'll be there.

It's fine with me either way. If the planets aligned in such a way that the university actually closed for all non essential personnel, (the flood was the only time that's happened since I've worked there) I would either have to use a vacation day or one of the 5 mandatory furlough days (forced days off without pay because of our state's budget crisis) that I now have to take before July. I just prepped most of my living room to paint, except for a little taping and sanding. So, the day off would be pretty much perfectly timed for me.

If the university does stay open, the walk to work will suck, but I have every kind of outdoorsy, cold weather kind of clothes you can imagine, so it won't be dangerous for me and it will be nice to be one of the only 5 people who show up to work. It's always a fairly festive feeling (nice alliteration, huh?) in the office in these circumstances.

I'll let you know what happens tomorrow. If you're anywhere near this weather mess, be sure to stay warm and dry and don't drive if you don't have to.

Better Stop Dreaming of the Quiet Life

Here is a fish in a tank. It's the only standing water in Iowa that isn't frozen right now.

So, here's what happened. I took a half day off to do my taxes, and got them all done for the most part. Which means I'm awesome, right? Wrong. I couldn't actually e-file because I guess not all the forms are out, and now I have to wait until mid-February to submit them and finally get my refund. Grrrr. At least they're done now, so I don't have it hanging over my head. Which means I can start playing video games again, reading books and am ungrounded to do things besides sit around and so actively NOT do my taxes, but not do anything else either. I'm emerging from a kind of a weird purgatory that those of us who are chronic procrastinators create when we have something to do that sounds too practical and probably involves math. Hopefully, you are not like me and don't have to ground yourself just to get anything done. GAWD!

On the plus side, I gave myself an alone time afternoon, AND I accomplished something. I feel stupid ever complaining about my lack of alone time, because my girls will be gone all too soon and then all my time at home will be spent by myself. But I not only like, but I need to be alone at least once or twice a week. When I get that time, I'm a way better parent and more pleasant person to be around in general. Although, I'm sure with as silly as I was being tonight and with all the goofy dancing around the house that occurred on my part, my daughters would rather I were cranky and shushing them every five minutes while I clumsily tried to work with numbers.

Tomorrow will be a new, less taxing day. No, it won't be seventy-five degrees and sunny, with birds chirping around me as I walk to work, but I'll just have to picture that in my head and try not to slip on the ice. Tra, la, la, la la...