They Both Smell After Three Days

Dear Old Man Winter,

It would seem that, not content with arriving unseasonably (and unreasonably) early, you have also determined to overstay your welcome.

As a result, The Husband and I have now had to drive three times (thrice!) through some kind of winter storm on our way to and from our home and native land. We have long forgotten the sun. Even the schoolchildren are trudging these days, having run out of snow fort blueprints and hampered by snowboots too tight that we can't replace since winter must be almost over and there's no point in shelling out good money for new ones that will be too small come next fall.

And yet there seems to be no "almost over," with fresh snow every few days and record numbers of snow emergencies and snow piles that are scheduled to remain and block my view of oncoming traffic until at least June.

Heretofore, the injuries I have amassed due to your overabundance have been mostly mental; the greatest toll was on my spirit.

Until now.

Until icy roads covered with an inch of fresh powder to which you were adding steadily prevented me from running outside this weekend.

Until I had to use my treadmill.

And fell off.

There are additional injuries. But they are in a more *ahem* intimate posterior location and thus not suitable for a family blog such as this.

It does not matter that it was I who got off a moving treadmill to adjust the fan while still wearing my headphones so that I could continue laughing at Arrested Development. Nor does it matter that it was I who stepped back on the treadmill one second prior to remembering that I had not paused its movement before getting off.

No, this is not my fault.

I blame you.

Go home.

Sincerely,

Peitricia Mae

P.S. I also blame you for each time The Husband has said sorrowfully, "I can't believe I wasn't there to see it. Please tell me in detail how it happened again, especially the part about phase one and phase two of the fall."

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Forcing the Daffodil

Who knew anyone still read this blog? Not I, said the cat.

I haven't checked any stats for awhile, and given the*ahem* somewhat lacklustre posting over the winter, I assumed only the most faithful readers (hi Mom!) were was checking in anymore.

Nope. In the most gentle admonishment I've ever received, my two aunts this past weekend (hi Auntie M's!) assured me that they check often and sorrowfully remarked that I had not been very active lately. (Of course, they were lovely and quickly acknowledged that it's winter and I have approximately zero impetus to write.)

Then my brother chimed in (hi Yenno!) and said he checked Every. Single. Day. And was disappointed.

EEP!

Every day? I hate taking the time to go to blogs only to find out that there's nothing there for me that I haven't already read. And to have that disappointment every day? And then to know that I'm the one causing it?

Well. This will not do.

(Nothing like a bit o' Mennonite guilt to smash through some writer's block.)

In the gardening world, you can pull a fast one on Mother Nature by forcing spring bulbs - planting them and then putting them in a cold, dark place for a few weeks. After the roots have started, you can then take them out and put them in a bright, sunshiney spot. They're fooled into thinking it's spring and they burst forth in technicolour.

(Not that I have tried this. I have black thumbs. But I get the theory.)

Time to bring this blog out of the closet into the bright sunshine and fool it into thinking it's spring. Let's force this blog, shall we?

Here, in writing (which apparently actually gets read), I am committing to blog in March EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Yup, you hit your little PGT linky-loo every day at the same time (well, ish - might want to make that time 11:30 pm for this to work properly) and you will be rewarded for and inspired by your efforts.

Actually, rewarded and inspired might be a touch strong. This is a promise of quantity, not quality. There may be pictures. There may be conversations overheard on the bus. I may even resort to recipes.

But I will be here, pretending it's spring and bursting out of this frozen ground. See you then!

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Argh

Last week, I could actually see my patio table - probably for the first time since October or so.

Another snowstorm this past weekend. At this point, it's looking like it will be next October before I see it again.

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Summer Car! Summer Car!

Ohhhhh yeah. My car was stuffy when I got into it this afternoon. AND I had to turn my seat warmer off as soon as I got going.

I may make it through this winter after all.

(What's that you say? Snow in the forecast? [fingers in ears] lalalalalaican'thearyoulalalalal]

I've commented before on the Minnesotan obsession with weather. It's been amped up this winter like I haven't seen, what with all the collapsed Metrodomes and Snowmageddons and Flood Forecasts of DoomTM. And I've realized lately that I'm still at a huge social disadvantage because I cannot for the life of me figure out that darn Fahrenheit scale.

(It just took me three tries to even spell it correctly.)

All I can ever remember is that 32 = zero and that my house is at 73 (which is apparently pretty hot, but I don't see the electricity bills and our house has no insulation, so whatever). If an American mentions a temperature somewhere in between those numbers, I try to figure out the ratio between 20ish and zeroish. If they mention anything below that, I think "they must mean parkas."

And if they mention anything below zero, I just say, "do you have any idea how cold it is in Winnipeg right now??"

(Because the best way to hide ignorance is belligerence.)

I've tried and tried to learn that darn scale. It's just unpossible. It makes no sense. None at all. The only possible explanation I can come up with is that they just love having all those biiiiig numbers:

"It's 80 degrees warmer today than it was last week at this time!"

"It's 100 degrees out there! I'm melting in the triple digits!"

Kind of an "Everything's bigger in Texas" thing, I guess.

But I'm bound and determined. I finally taped a mini conversion chart to my computer monitor, so now if someone at work starts talking about how the high is going to be in the 50s, I only have to swivel my chair around, peer at my cheat sheet, and I can be a fully contributing member of society again.

Until they start talking about gallons.

[blank look]

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Tap, Tap, Tap

Hello?

Hello?

Is this thing on?

Yep, still here. Still pretty uninspired, so this is a But I'm not dead yet post.

Like most Midwesterners (and, I daresay, even more Canadians), my brain is semi-frozen. Kinda like when your brother-in-law visits you and your new husband in your first apartment on his way to a first date and you try to impress him and make supper by drowning frozen manicotti in spaghetti sauce and putting it in the oven and an hour and a half later it's still only partially cooked and he has to call his date and say he'll be a bit late.

(Surprisingly, that one didn't work out. At least, I never heard anything about the girl again. Definitely for the best, since the sister-in-law I ended up with is totally awesome.

[Come to think of it, I'll bet that we totally dodged a bullet due solely to my culinary misstep. My entire family should be thanking me for the crisis averted.])

We're doing well, all things considered. (And by "things" I mean "PM's crrraziness" and by "considered" I mean "ignored.") The Girl is busy making valentines. The Boy has now declared Magic Treehouse books to be "too babyish" and is attacking Percy Jackson.

Gah. I'm totally out of juice here. How about a nice Top 5 list to make this post worth something?

Top 5 Happy Things From Today

1. Chipotle. My coworker and I go on Fridays or on the last day of the week we're both in the office, whichever comes first. She's off Thursday and Friday this week, so WIN! (Although, Chipotle is making me sad right now. It's decidedly less Mexican since the recent crackdown on illegal workers. I get the need for laws and stuff, and I know I had to jump through my own hoops to become a legal worker down here, but still...some of them had kids.)

2. The Boy's Youth Group. The Boy was invited to a local church youth group (or is it called just Clubs at this age?) by his BFF last week. He loves it with his whole heart, especially since tonight was the carnival and he somehow managed to come home with a 2 litre bottle of Barqs as a prize.

3. My new iPhone. Well, "new" is a bit generous since it's just The Husband's cast-off. And "my" is also a bit presumptuous since I'm still trying to figure out how to turn it on and use it. I've asked The Husband to delete his contacts since I was just trying to figure out how the phone work and it started dialing his boss. So we need to put up some fail-safes before I can really lay claim to it.

4. The Netflix app. Read it and weep, Canucks. Know why I'm so jazzed about the iPhone? Because I CAN STREAM BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER ON THE BUS. Ohhhhh yeah. No internet usage capping for moi!

5. I can FINALLY take "Blog, already!" off my to-do list.

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