Short holiday weekend

Tomorrow is MLK Jr day.  

We have the day off.  But - even if we didn't... we'd probably get the day off due to weather.

Earlier in the week, there were predictions of significant snow and accumulation.... but as the weekend drew nearer, we were just deemed with rain and some snowy rain mix.  The rain delivered.  We got a ton!  The ground is soggy and wet.  But - it stopped.  Then it started to snow... and snow... and snow... for hours.  But, nothing really stuck except in the bushes and on cars.

Isabella and I (then hip-hop joined us later) went out to check it out... make a couple of snowballs to throw at each other and at least play in the wet stuff as much as we could. 

Here are the pumpkins in our back yard "compost corner" that have not done a thing!   looks kind of cool with the snow on them.

Hip-Hop

And - as I was carrying in some firewood... I noticed a VISIBLE six-sided snowflake!  I've loved the science and math behind snowflakes, hexagons, etc for a number of years.... and to actually see one - this one MUST have been giant to have seen it with my own eyes -- although in real life (not zoomed in on my camera) it was only about 1/4" across.  Usually you have a super-zoom or a microscope to see the hexagonal formation!  

(All snowflakes contain six sides or points owing to the way in which they form. The molecules in ice crystals join to one another in a hexagonal structure, an arrangement which allows water molecules – each with one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms – to form together in the most efficient way.)

(I feel lucky to have seen this -- like finding a 4-leaf clover kind of lucky.  ha!)

From the same science blog:  perfectly symmetric, six-sided snowflakes, while beautiful, are exceedingly rare – perhaps one-in-a-thousand at the most

If you look closely at our front porch -- you can see our old (small white) refrigerator on the front porch behind the column!

Todd went to work today (the snow did not stick to the roads so he's OK).  He couldn't go in yesterday because we were tending to changing out the refrigerator in our kitchen.  It was a HUGE task!  Last weekend, we worked on moving some things around in the utility closet / cleaning out a bit.  We were going to move our kitchen refrigerator down there... and move in a new one that we bought on New Year's day into the kitchen in its place.  (The original one in our kitchen was 20 years old - purchased on my 30th birthday -- which still works great but was showing a bit of wear and the ice maker hasn't worked for a number of years)    We had been eating very creative meals since New Year's - trying to clean out the fridge and freezer.  Yesterday, we had coolers and cooler bags inside all over the entire kitchen + outside all over the front porch (the temps were in the low-40s so it was like "refrigerator" weather outside / kept the food cool.  We had to take the refrigerator doors off + the utility room door off the hinges to get our old refrigerator in + remove shelves.  It is seriously wedged in there!!  But - wow - what a difference it makes to have SPACE in the fridge!!

I took Mercer to his basketball game while Todd reassembled the old refrigerator and utility room door.  When we came home from his game - still no 'fridge... and we were getting nervous because it was going to be dark... and they were several hours late!  (Todd had to cut the water at the street b/c the water line under the fridge wouldn't cut all the way off.)  We needed water for the kitchen sink -- but also for the bathrooms!!  

The guys did arrive.  It was dark.  They came in, looked around and said that the 'fridge wouldn't fit!!  But - we had to take the back door off the hinges, move furniture out of the back hall and the room behind the kitchen... and come in a different way.  

It was still a tight fit -- a piece of moulding that was sticking out 1/4" from the wall got ripped off (thankfully did not damage the stainless steel... whew!) but these two (not big) men got this 450 lb monster of a 'fridge into the kitchen, set up, Todd turned on the water.. and everything worked!    It took awhile for the temperatures to get to where they needed to be so we could empty the coolers and cooler bags... but before we went to bed - we had our kitchen pretty much back to normal.  Yay!  I hope we don't have to do this again for AT LEAST another 20 years!!  

It's called a french door style refrigerator with 2 drawers.  The top drawer is a refrigerator drawer.  The bottom drawer is the freezer and has a piece that slides to create a separate compartment in the freezer part.  I like the back-lighting on the interior.  Our kitchen got an major upgrade with this new appliance.

There is something sad to report: the young man who was working on our bathroom last summer / fall passed away just after New Year's.  I'm not sure what happened.  He did not finish our project -- so that he could go to rehab (his 2nd time according to his mom).  She told us that after rehab he was going to move to South Dakota where they had family and start over.  It sounds like (according to the eulogy) that he moved to Minnesota instead and was working with a group of people who were clean... and then he got sick.  His mom drove to Minnesota to pick him up around New Year's and brought him home where he died several days later.  I'm not sure what happened ultimately.  

We - of course - were not happy that he was not able to finish the bathroom, but clearly did not wish him any ill-will to him -- he was a really really nice guy overall.  We were saddened to hear about his passing.  I know his mother and I feel for her.  His sister gave a really heart-wrenching speech at his funeral.  I also know his little brother - he was one of my students at the PBL school I worked at.  He was a talented cello player as well.  What a tragedy.

As mentioned, we "released" someone to work on the bathroom again - redoing some of the tilework that was done previously and finishing the bathroom project 100%.  Then, we're supposed to get the floors in the room behind the kitchen done as well -- which started all of this renovation stuff (damage to the floors which we thought was due to a roof leak so we replaced the roof... etc!)  I sincerely cannot wait until it is complete!  Our house has been in disarray / something noticeably wrong with it since 2 summers ago!  Our bedroom has been used as a construction zone since last summer.  Todd picked up more tile earlier this week... almost all of our floor space is covered with tile / spread around!  Tuesday the new contractor is supposed to start.  (I suppose this depends on the condition of the roads.)

Isabella and I made tie-dye shirts and socks last weekend.  Here she is sporting one of her shirts.   

Mercer was supposed to have his high school baseball tryouts on MLK Jr day, but it's been cancelled.  There's nothing else to report - but if we do something interesting - I'll update the blog.  

warm thoughts......

Hot cocoa after playing outside!