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December 19, 2004
holidaze
Spent all weekend going back several recent promises:
1. Cleaned the house. Not the upstairs/bedrooms, but the downstairs. Brian did a good deal of the work, and my desk still looks like a nukyoolar bomb hit it, but the floors are clear of clutter, the bathroom shines, and the kitchen has been swept, mopped, scoured, etc.
2. Had company yesterday. Some friends that we met when we first moved to CNY, who have the same age/sex kids as we do (girl, boy, boy), came for dinner. It's funny; when we visit them at THEIR house, the kids are subdued and well-behaved. But something happens when kids (any kids) get into my house. Because I don't have a bunch of expensive furniture, and because I don't have knick knacks and I don't worry about the floors getting scratched, etc, kids SENSE that they can act like raving lunatics and scream and jump and vault the couch, etc. SO, my three kids plus their three kids plus my niece, all losing their minds playing Calvinball in my house. Fun.
3. Had MORE company today. Jack's 5th birthday is the 28th, but since we will be in VA for the holiday, I figured he would appreciate a small get-together with friends from school for a birthday party. I only invited 4 kids, but three of the four had older siblings Hannah's age, so they came, plus I ALREADY HAVE four kids in my house. So, I invited four kids, but still had to assemble 12 goodie bags and find space for them all to play musical chairs. I don't have that many chairs!!
Note to self: musical chairs is not a good multi-aged game. The bigger kids throw their weight around, shoving and threatening the littler ones with glares.
In other news: D and I have been running. (I wasn't sure how far into the winter we would make it.) So far we haven't experienced frozen snot, but today it snowed on us and it felt like little ice picks pricking us in the face. And we were chased by the village plow, which is quite scary. The plows up here are like HUGE dump trucks with three huge blades winging off the front in several directions. I had visions of bad Stephen King short stories about runners being chased by demon-possessed plows.
On the bright side, to have to high-step it in a foot of snow on the shoulder for a few hundred meters is probably a good way to mix up the work out.
Posted by mryonker at December 19, 2004 07:15 PM
Comments
I cycled in the snow today. Felt wonderful. But I went out right before the front arrived in Earlville, while the temperature was in the low 30s. For the first part of the ride, the snow felt like snot hitting my face; for the last part, it was turning into those needles that you met on your run.
ALSO: a year or so ago there was an ad on TV (for running shoes, I think) that had runners *following* a snowplow. I totally identified with the zen of that ad.
Posted by: senioritis at December 19, 2004 11:22 PM