Ice Ice Baby...

How could I not use that title? :-P

(That pic is just snagged from a news story about our storm)

About a half hour after I made the last post, my internet went kapow - that was yesterday morning, it's just come back tonight... but again, I can't complain -- there are people all across the island with no power and many won't have it back until the weekend...ours in town has stayed on so far, but we're not done with this mess yet.. they've got a wind warning in place for tonight and that may bring down more trees onto power lines - the power outages have been caused by that, and by power poles themselves snapping under the weight of the ice on the lines...it's a mess here...

My friend Diane came up and helped get my car out of the mess it was stuck in..we moved it over to the other side of the parking lot - it occurred to me later that it's new location, under some very tall trees might not have been the best choice. Watch it get clobbered by a big falling branch.

A little slippy...

Gotta love maritime weather *grumble* ....woke up this morning to find everything - and i mean EVERYTHING - covered with a coating of ice. Very pretty, but also very much a PITA to try and remove from my car. The antenna looks rather cool there though, doesn't it? :-p

Unfortunately, after chopping the ice from the car, it still sits. It runs quite happily (unlike the other week when it hit -30C for a bit and the rattletrap simply told me off when I asked it to go) but the parking lot is a skating rink and I have nothing for tires. Bald as a baby's rear, they are. It's made for interesting driving sledding around town so far this winter, but this morning it's just spinning and refusing to go anywhere. Miss Cinders came out to try and help me - normally, Blair and I would do this, one of us in and the other shoving it, but as he's AWOL at the moment, she took his place and gave it a try while I pushed it --- no, I don't let my 11 year old drive around town, but she does know the gas from the brake and D from P and R, so if there'd been anything under the car aside from pure ice, it would have been out. Not happening this morning though. Ah well, there's nowhere that we really needed to be anyway.

And truthfully, I should just be glad that we have power - there's 10,000 people on the island right now who haven't any....lines down from the ice and such... there was a big black line of some sort hanging all over my parking lot entrance this morning, but it's cable or something, not live - At least, I assume so because the town guys came up and just balled it up and tossed it onto the snowbank for now.

Good old maritime weather. >^..^<

Brrr.

I think my husband may be able to identify with the little guy above, considering he just had his first taste of temperatures in the -40C range over the last couple of days in Fort McMurray. That's a wee bit nippy! (If you speak Fahrenheit, -40C is actually also -40F). Poor guy, he's resorted to wearing pj pants under his work jeans -- I've suggested long johns, but that would require a trip to the store and right now he's on the night shift; his days are for sleeping, not shopping. Maybe I'll mail some out - it's quite likely that they'd arrive before he has a chance to get any... hmmm. I think I saw some with Superman logos on them. *grin*

Another "storm day" here - though this time, I'm not babysitting the next door girl, so I can still get some work done with Miss Cinders. Her brother is home - he was upset at first when I told him what the Man On The Radio* said (he doesn't always handle changes in routine very well) but perked up when I gave him a list of work of his own we would do today.

* The Man On The Radio is a powerful figure in our house - or at least in Christopher's world ;-) ...see, the MOTR makes the big important announcements - No school? Storm coming? - and he tells the time and rattles off the call letters, two of Christopher's favourite parts of radio listening. Christopher is a mimic and he loves to copy the MOTR's "It's 8:00am and you are listening to Magic 93, CFCY!" type of yammer. For some kids, it's Santa.. for others, it's the Man On The Radio. *

Up up and away....

This big ugly thing flew out of Charlottetown on Thursday with my husband aboard - sitting somewhere near the wing and apparently able to see us through the window the entire time before takeoff.. which means he watched me taking endless pictures, Christopher and my friend Diane climbing on the window ledge, and Miss Cinders running around with her arms flung out pretending to be an even bigger and better airplane. None of that ought surprise him though. ;-)

He's made it there in one piece and is set up, more or less, in his own room at the house - it's some type of rooming house arrangement, with each person having a small room complete with bed, desk, television, and blanket on the window - and has managed to score himself a cell phone that has a plan allowing him unlimited calls to his "fave five" *************

Okay that was weird. I'd just typed the closing quotation marks there when the phone rang and there he was *grin* ....I'm glad he got that phone so fast - and with that plan, he can call us anytime he wants, whether it's after work or on a break or whatever....makes it feel a little less far, if that makes any sense... I was thinking how different it is now - I lived in Alberta as a child and I remember only being able to call my mother (my parents are divorced and she's always lived here on the island) now and then because long distance calls were so incredibly expensive back then... now, we have cells with free calling, web cams, email, the works... of course, it also makes me fell quite old to consider that none of that existed when I was younger. :-P

Miss Cinders and I are about to sit down and watch the finale of The Amazing Race - tonight, one team runs off with the million bucks...I wonder who's gonna take it...

Blair was watching this all along with us and will watch the finale tonight out there - but not until 9pm his time which is three hours behind us... if he calls after we've seen it, I'll have to bite my tongue not to reveal who the winners are. ;-)

Love is patient and kind....

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

The above is the scripture verse that a very brave 11 year old girl read in front of a church full of people on Sunday - and after having rehearsed it from another slightly different translation... I saw the moment of panic in her eyes as she looked at the paper that had been placed on her podium and knew what had happened, but she did a wonderful job with it *proud mum* :-)

He's made an honest woman out of me at long last *grin*

Now can I just pretend that he's not leaving for Fort McMurray tomorrow night?

3 days....

I commented to a friend last night - "What started out as a quiet little event here at home has quickly spiraled out of my control and become something else entirely!"

"Weddings have a way of doing that," she replied.

These things ought to come with a written warning. *grin*

Meanwhile, my mother is having canaries over being the "mother of the bride" and walking with me. (My father lives overseas; I've asked my mom to walk down with me in that position) She makes an art form out of stressing, this lady - but she's my mom and I love her to ducks.

A Change...

Okay, so in typical fashion for our lives - a change... we will be married in the Church that the kids and I attend, rather than here at home! Same day, change of spot. I'm over the moon - I had hoped that this could be done, but I doubted it because I thought that they would only do that if both adults attended and Blair often doesn't (he just comes for special events, like the Christmas pageant)... Turns out my assumptions were wrong (as assumptions often are!) and our Pastor would be very happy to marry us there! *thrilled* !

January beginnings...

Two different ways of heading 'back to school' now that the holidays have left us - Christopher brought home a fair bit of his 'stuff' over Christmas and rather than try to balance child & accessories for the walk to the bus stop, we snagged Cindy's sled and went off that way. Miss Cinders, on the other hand, has discovered a bonus to homeschooling - being able to pop out before books are opened to fetch some hashbrowns for breakfast from a nearby drive-thru. Yes, she shares my eh, whatever line of thought when it comes to sneaking out in pjs. Shhh.

Blair's flight is booked for January 17th - ten days from now. Eeeep.

This Sunday afternoon, we're getting married here at home. *grin*

His mother, when he told her, said - and I quote - "It's about time!"

We agree! >^..^<

Attempt at a first post.

Two stepkids, five cats, one husband heading for Alberta in a couple of weeks. Our island men are leaving in droves, eyes on the oil money to be made out west.

A little introduction, I guess - this is my first attempt at blogging, so I'll likely trip and stumble around here.

my other half - almost eight years ago, a single father hired me to babysit his kids. Please note the 'single' there - the looks I sometimes get when I forget to add that one little word. *grin*. Fell for the kids, fell for the dad, the rest is - not history, as the expression goes, but life, love, and learning how to accept that sometimes professional wrestling *is* worth watching. A quiet, shy, and extremely smart guy, Blair won me over with his love for his kids and fondness for 80's television shows. He's spent the last four years working as a shipper/receiver at a hardware store in town here; last night he was offered a similar position with a large mining company in Alberta. My pool-playing, cross-stitching (shh, he'd growl if he knew I told you that), rabid Maple Leafs fan of a husband (commonlaw, but the hearts don't care) is leaving in a couple of weeks. There may be five cats in this house, but no amount of fur curled up on the bed is gonna be able to replace him. *wail*.

(step)daughter - 11 years old today, where did the time go?? Everyone asks that, but it truly seems to have gone by faster than it should have. A bit small for her age, Cindy is a whirling twirling bundle of energy with a big heart and a fondness for furry critters and all things musical. She sings, plays the drums (celtic drumming), folds, flips, and throws herself around in gymnastics class, and at the moment she's taken with the idea of getting a pet snake. After 5 years of public school, Miss C is now homeschooling, something that will no doubt get a lot of its own ramble in this blog. :-P

(step)son - 9 years old this past October, Mr. Christopher is a walking demonstration of how challenges should be met - shove on through and don't forget to laugh at yourself. ;-) .. I think his method is right on and wish that I could carry myself in the same manner more often. See, something went awry when Mr. C's biological mother was carrying him; his brain did not develop in the way that it was meant, nor did his eyes. Mr. C is blind and has, as the medical professionals like to word it, "global developmental delays" - they've also tagged him with not-quite-a-diagnosis terms like "autistic like behaviours" (basically, they can match him up with some of the criteria but not others), "sensory issues" and a few other little piles of words. This is not who Mr. C is though - he doesn't define himself by his disabilities, nor do we. Mr. C shares his sister's energetic way of slamming through life, though he hasn't quite the patience that she does for the inevitable crashes (Christopher is the king of a well placed meltdown), has a wicked sense of humour and can find the funny in anything - including that upside down bowl of kraft dinner in his lap (independence can be messy!). Talkative as all get-out, he's never short of a story to tell and can charm the stinger off a bumblebee. Mr C. is still attending public school (second grade) - we're looking at this as we go and changes may come in the future.

{my (step) in brackets - I've included this for clarity in this first post; most of the time I don't bother with that addition. They may not be my children 'biologically', but they are in the heart.}

Myself - Can I just skip this part? :-P ... Okay, I'm 30 and not fond of that, I have rocks on my dresser and a tank awaiting a betta fish, and yes that is my banana seat bike in the basement.

With us live five tumbling balls of fur and one large goldfish - he had a buddy for a while, but he ate him. Or something - a friend told me that goldfish don't eat other fish, but I think someone forgot to tell Spiffy that because there was only half of Cola left one morning.

The felines, in order from oldest to youngest - Claire, Moly, Angel, Max, and Toby. Five bundles of fur, each with their own personality and attitude. Did I mention attitude? Yes, I guess I did. *meow*.

We all live in a yellow submarine rented rowhouse type thing - former military housing. Bit crowded with all of the bodies and fur, but it works. Wish it wasn't do darn expensive though.

We're also buried up to our noses in snow at the moment. Oo0Oo sharing my snowballs.