Sleeping with the Ag Teacher

This past winter was the worst winter ever. At least the worst one I can remember. We missed a lot of school, went without power for almost a full week, and the last throes of winter are still trying to hang on with a death grip. Yesterday I wore a skirt and a cute pair of sandals in utter defiance. I wore white before Easter. I bought the girls new swimsuits even though we haven't opened the pool yet. I've done everything I know to do and the temps just won't stay in the 80's! I really ought to check my GPS coordinates to make sure I haven't been relocated to Minnesota. Yesterday was sunny but chilly. Pete and I went to the hardware store and bought some gorgeous geraniums and he brought me some ferns from the greenhouse. There are a FEW advantages to sleeping with the ag teacher. Those FFA kids know how to grow a fern. They are just gorgeous. So after shaving the scab off of a mosquito bite this morning, I officially declare spring here- 80 degrees or not.

We've had a few spurts of really warm weather over the last month and we took advantage of it when we could.. The girls enjoyed ambling about on Peaches all over the farm.

We put up a few jars of strawberries...

Addie's friend, Lillie, came to the farm for a visit..

David, Jess, Emma and Sarah came over for supper and s'mores...

I tagged along with The Teacher of the Gifted for a few days at Jekyll Island with some really awesome students..

It took a good soaking bath to scrub the island off of Addie. (notice the Pepsi can).. 

This spring break week our beach plans kinda blew up in our face, but a little time at home is nice too. I need some time to recharge before the crazy two weeks of testing starts at school. The girls have enjoyed staying up late and sleeping in.. Today we're going over to The Big House to help open the pool. I'm just wondering when it'll ever be warm enough to swim.

The awful no good very bad week.

Three times in my teaching career I can honestly say I've had an awful, no good, very bad week. This week was one of them. All three times I've had horrible neck pain. It's the hallmark of an awful, no good, very bad week.  Thank goodness that the cure for an awful, no good, very bad week is a sun dress, friends, and temps in the 70's!  So glad the Tomlinsons came to visit this weekend. It was just what the doctor ordered.

I got to meet Pirie for the first time today! Right now she's saying "please let me stay at the farm a little longer mama". 

Pete never does anything small scale and he decided a couple days ago he wanted to make some strawberry jelly. Don't ask. I have no idea where that came from. Anyhow, we totally destroyed my kitchen today. I'm telling you this too- I won't ever gripe about the price of Smucker's Jelly again. That's all I have to say about that.

Here's a few pics from the awful, very bad, no good week... When I  look back on in pictures doesn't seem so bad after all...

We celebrated Addie's birthday a little late with a paint party with several of her friends and cousins. 

Addie wore a cute scarf her friend Caitlin's grandmother made for her for her birthday.

The girls and I had a couple girls nights because well... Pete worked late a lot and during an awful, no good very bad week , I'm not making it worse by cooking. 

And despite this blown out shoe that had to be fixed with baling twine at work...

I survived the awful no good very bad week.  

Thanks to Daylight Savings Time and warm weather next week I think I may be safe saying that I've survived this awful winter. I can't wait to start a little spring cleaning. I'm also excited about getting chickens again! Pete has repaired the chicken coop from the ice storm and we should have fresh eggs again by mid summer! 

Special thanks to those good friends who helped me survive the awful very bad no good week. CB

Thank You Sweet Baby Jesus We've Got Power!

  

This afternoon as we grilled ribs outside on the patio and the outdoor thermometer read 77 degrees, it was really hard for me to fathom that just a week ago, I woke up at 5am, took a shower and then as I was drying my hair, the power went out. I'd been expecting the ice storm so I'd prepared, so I thought. 

The first DAY in the sticks without power wasn't too bad. We have a gas cooktop so I cooked a big pot of chili. We have a fireplace that will heat half the county so we were snug as a bug in a rug in the living room. Pete pulled the king size mattress off our bed and we slept on the floor in front of the fire. Ali and Addie slept on the sofa and loveseat but eventually ended up in the bed with us along with a chihuahua that probably kept wondering why the heck we didn't just turn the lights on. The first night everyone slept but me. The trees were popping outside so loudly it literally sounded like gunfire.. sometimes rapid gunfire. I could not sleep and my phone was dying so I went out to the garage at 2am, got in my car, turned on my heated seats, plugged up my phone and found out that half the county was also up at 2am completely wigged out over the sound of trees snapping around them. I just prayed Lord please don't let that big huge tree in Mama's back yard fall on the Big House. Lord please don't let these spindly pines snap and land on my roof. I could not see what it looked like because it was dark but I heard it and I knew it was going to be ugly when the sun came up.

This is the girls' swing set in the backyard:

I've seen places tornadoes tore through that didn't look this bad. Structurally, most everything around here was fine, but I never imagined how devastating ICE on those gorgeous Georgia pines could be to a power grid. OH. MY. WORD. You would just have to see it to believe it. The devastation was just surreal. Power lines were laying on the ground everywhere, tangled in trees that were snapped in half, wrapped around fences, and laying across highways.

The next day was Valentine's Day. Addie was so bummed about not having school. EBA does Valentine's Day in an EPIC fashion and Addie wanted to wear her new Valentine's Day shirt for the occasion. I let her wear it even though there was no school. The weather got a little warmer and the ice started to thaw, but still no power.

Stir craziness was starting to set in, so Ali Grace and I started cleaning up the limbs in the yard. We worked for a couple hours and made two piles taller than we were and you could hardly tell we'd done anything. We got a good laugh or two out of Ali Grace's "pine tree power clean". She insisted on honing her weight lifting technique while we worked. It was good to get outside and burn off some energy but still no power..

The next afternoon we decided to "bug out".  Even though I'd filled the entire jacuzzi tub with water in preparation for the storm, it was starting to run low. I can live with just about anything but I CANNOT abide by an unflushed toilet. Note to the city folks: if you're on well water, your pump won't work during a power outage so you've got no running water. We were all getting on each other's nerves at this point anyhow so we decided to go to Gran and Papa's house in Jesup for a couple nights. We took the girls for an ice cream at Dairy Queen, since with all the madness, we hadn't been able to get them anything for Valentine's Day. STILL no power.

On Sunday, we heard David and Jess had power in Harlem! Finally! Yay Georgia Power! Since they were so much closer to home, we started operation bugout 2.0  and set out to Harlem. I think at this point Pete had had about enough. He really felt like we'd have power by then. Tempers were starting to flare around town and everyone and their brother was either complaining  about the power company or complaining about the complainers.. It was a good decision to go stay with David and Jess for awhile. This is a pic of Addie with her bug out bag!

I got to babysit Sarah Rose, who introduced me to her "crazy pills" (Reese's cups)! I know I let her eat too many crazy pills but she's just so precious when she asks and she squints her little eyes and puts her hand over her mouth and giggles. You just can't tell her no! Plus, at that point I needed crazy pills too so we shared.

Mama called me on Monday morning in Harlem and yelled "Carmen!!HART EMC just pulled into the yard!!!"  Honey I felt like I'd won the dang lottery and that ain't a lie! What was completely unbelievable is that HART County is where I grew up, my old stomping grounds.. born and raised! I thought to myself, if anybody can fix this mangled mess of power lines and get us back on the grid, it'll be those fellas!!

As soon as Jess got home from work, we took off back to Vidette.

After literally being in the dark for 5 days, the girls had a blast with their cousins Emma and Sarah. 

And when I got home, I found out the Teacher of the Gifted had brought over her mama's pimento cheese. It is the best pimento cheese since people started cultivating pimentos. OUT. OF. THIS. WORLD. Mama hadn't left me much, but what was left was sooooo good. But still, no power. The Hart EMC guys had promised my Mama they'd do their best to get her power on though. 

We cooked supper over at the Big House in the summer kitchen and as the sun started to set, so did my hopes for getting power that night. I was eating a piece of chicken and standing out on the patio of  the Big House looking at my house across the road when all of a sudden I noticed a flood light come on. I started screaming like a nut! THERE ARE LIGHTS ON AT MY HOUSE THERE ARE LIGHTS ON AT MY HOUSE! I dropped my piece of chicken and took off running across the road and rang the bell outside my house!! WE HAD SURVIVED!!

Top 5 things I learned from this 6 day Amish Experience:

5.  Never underestimate how much water it takes to flush a toilet or water a horse.

 4. I don't care if we only have a catastrophic ice storm every ten years, we still need a generator. People have criticized the power company for not being prepared. Maybe they weren't, but I wasn't prepared either. I'm going to start watching more episodes of Dual Survival too. Next thing you know I'm going to know how to make a slingshot out of a granola bar wrapper and use it to kill a rabbit. 

3. My husband needs a battery powered CPAP machine. His snoring was much more likely to make me lose my ever loving mind than was the power outage. That CPAP will be the first thing plugged into the generator the next time this happens! Before the freezers, before the lamps, before some old person's oxygen. The CPAP machine will be first..

2. Dr. Klaus Steinbeck, one of my UGA Forestry professors once said "Mother Nature is not a sweet blonde with bunnies and butterflies. She's a mean redheaded bitch." I was somewhat offended by that comment back then, but you know what? Mother Nature is indeed a mean redheaded bitch.

1. Friends can get through just about anything together. Whether it's offering a hot shower, helping clear your neighbor's driveway or hand delivering the best pimento cheese in the South, friends helped friends survive this mess of a week and if there's nothing else positive about this disaster, I've become a little more appreciative of my friends and a little more proud to be both a Burke County woman and a Hart County girl. 

Why The Snowpocalypse Could Never Happen to Me.... and other rambling thoughts..

 

We don't get snow much here in middle Georgia, so when we do, we make a big deal out of it. I don't care how many Yankees laugh about it either. I don't laugh when folks die of heat strokes in New England, so I think it's indicative of bad raising when Northerners laugh at Southerners stuck on the ice covered freeway. That's all I'm going to say about that.  

On Monday before the snow came in, I was at a DOE meeting with a friend of mine in Macon. We didn't get out until 4 and after considering the ramifications of driving back to Louisville only to find the 2 grocery stores in town both out of toilet paper and milk, we decided to hit the Kroger in the big city of Macon. Once I got my hands on a 12 pack of Cottonelle and two gallons of whole milk, I was good to go. I knew I was a survivor!   :)

Which brings me to this... Survival.  Reading the horror stories on the SnowedOutAtlanta  facebook page, I thought to myself. Damn! I'm a prepper and didn't even know it. Honestly y'all!  Most of the comments on facebook went something like this:

1. I'm stuck in traffic, out of gas and I'm cold. I thought to myself.. well right now I have a sleeping bag from Ali's last overnight trip, at least 3  pairs of socks belonging to Addie.( She takes her socks off in the car whether it's 15 degrees or 95 degrees.), 2 hoodies belonging to Ali Grace, and 1 huge sweatshirt I've been meaning to drop off at the thrift store for 5 months now. 

2.  I'm stuck in traffic, out of gas and I'm hungry.  Hmmm... I'm thinking.. I have a box of granola bars in the floor board of my car (they fell out of the grocery bag a couple weeks ago and have yet to make it into the house.) I have several packs of fruit snacks with only the cherry fruit snacks left in them because Addie doesn't like the cherry ones. I have at least 3 or 4 diet coke bottles half full and I'm quite certain if I slammed on the brakes one time a 6 pack of chicken nuggets would come flying out from under the seat. 

3. I'm stranded and I don't know anyone with a 4 wheel drive to come get me. This one is a no brainer. Every male in my family can drive a 4 wheel drive. Heck so can the females for that matter. I know my daddy, my husband or my brother would be on a 4 wheeler, a tractor, a horse or SOMETHING on their way to come get me out of that mess. But no doubt, I could survive in my car for several days if I had to!

I don't mind a little cold weather. You know, enough to beat back the mosquitoes just waiting to suck us all dry in the summer. I don't even mind a little snow. But I told Pete this morning- I am good for 2 snowdays a year. After that, my Seasonal Affective Disorder kicks in. I am counting down the days until spring. We will be hitting the beach during spring break this year one way or the other. I'm going to be grumpy, ornery and generally irritated until then. Just a warning.

Although I'm a warm weather kinda gal, I couldn't help but enjoy the last couple days off with my family. The girls had an absolute blast and that makes my heart happy.

 

Don't you think these two favor each other? They're both rotten. I can tell you that!

 

 

School should be back on a regular schedule tomorrow and we're ready for it. We're approaching the critical point of "too much togetherness".  Ali Grace leaves tomorrow for 4-H DPA at Rock Eagle.  It sure doesn't feel like tomorrow's Friday but I'll take it! Have a great weekend everyone!

 

You aren't screwing it up..

This is sort of a rant.. which is kinda odd since this whole post was meant to be about how tired I am of reading rants.. It's a rant about judgmental rants if you will..  I'm guilty of  going on a tear too, or reposting crap advice to facebook, but doggone it I'm getting better and reposting less. Let me explain.  In the last month, I've "learned" the following on facebook:

1. I'm feeding my kids too much sugar.

2. My kids aren't  getting enough sleep.

3. My kids are getting too much sleep.

4. 7 Things I'm doing wrong trying to raise Christian children

5. My kids don't have an appropriate bed time.

6. My kids don't need a bedtime.

7. 5 reasons I should not let my children eat flour.

8. 5 things I should be doing to make my husband happier

9. 7 things I should never say to my children

10. 10 things I should say to my kids at least twice a day.

11. I shouldn't be helping with the girls' homework.

12. I should be helping with the girls' homework

And the list goes on and on and on and on and nauseatingly on....

Is "nauseatingly" a word?

In a recent staff development meeting, our media specialist put up a cartoon that showed a fire hydrant blasting water towards a kid who's thirsty. I thought to myself sweet Mother Mary isn't that the truth. Getting information off the internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant. I totally get how mothers think they are doing it all wrong- from what they feed their families to how they relate to their husbands, to what kind of clothes they wear. Truly someone posted on facebook the other day "What the color of your socks says about your marriage."  WTH?? Really? Hell I was afraid to read that one since I feel a great sense of accomplishment if we all walk out of the house in the morning with socks that actually match. 

Here's my suggestion:

It would help if we (me included) just stopped reposting that ridiculous mess. If people continue to post it, you don't have to click on it. I don't anymore. I don't mind 10 recipes, 5 funny pictures, etc.. But if I sense in any  way that the post may have a tone like "you SHOULD be doing it this way.." then I keep on scrolling and resist the urge to click.

I have enough stress in my life. I really don't need to add to it by reading 8 reasons why I've ruined my kids' lives because I let them stay up past 9 last night.

On a lighter note... here are some pictures of the kids from the last couple weeks.. and glaring examples of how I'm probably doing something wrong in raising them..  :)

I'm sure there's some post somewhere titled "Why you shouldn't let your 8 year old daughter chase a frog around the kitchen for an hour."

Or "3 reasons why you shouldn't let your 8 year old read books to her minion"

Here's one... "Five reasons her life will be ruined if you let your 8 year old pick our her own clothes"

"Five reasons why your family won't be as tight nit if you live in a big house and each sibling has their own room..."

"10 reasons why Dairy Queen food will make your children grow horns"

Oh and here's one of my plant nerd hubby...

"5 reasons your husband will love you more if you let him go on and on about cultivars, hybrids, and propagation techniques even though you really just want to get to the basketball game.."

I saw a quote last week that said "Behind every great kid is a Mama who is sure she's screwing it up"  I took that to heart. I'm not perfect, but I'm not doing it all wrong either. Neither are the folks that make up the "5 reasons why..." posts.   Have a great week everyone.  There's a lot you're doing right.