More Bad Snow Photos

Because there is nothing else to do!

Actually, I am so happy we didn't lose power!  Thank God!  I spent all day yesterday waiting for it to go out and it didn't!

Here's the bench in the front garden again:

Rick, Josh and Sean dug out a pathway to the driveway and then did a lot of slow blowing down the long driveway.  During this however both the snow shovel and snow blower broke.

Here's a view out the window at the backyard.  I kind of like the effect of the shot through the screen.

Here's a shot of our screen porch, covered in snow.  I had no idea we had a fan out there.  I probably put it out there in the summer time and then stopped noticing it!  I do that sort of thing!

A bad photo of the snowfall so far

This was taken around 7:15 Saturday a.m.

Update photo  (11.40 a.m.)

I don't think the snow looks much higher than the early morning photo.

It's Snowing!

We are bracing for the big blizzard coming our way.  I heard on public radio we were supposed to only get an inch today and it wasn't supposed to start until 3, but they were a little off.  It started around 1:30 (or maybe a bit earlier) and it is coming down pretty steadily.  It must already be more than an inch.  Maybe its 2 or even three inches.  I am looking at the fence rail outside and trying to guess.  But I am bad that sort of thing!  It is supposed to get really heavy and windy as the night proceeds and be really bad tomorrow.

So Rick and the boys brought a bunch of firewood up to the screen porch so we can keep a fire going.  I have been washing lots of clothes and blankets so we can put on lots of layers and bundle up for when the power goes out and we start to freeze.

We've got flashlights and camping lanterns out.  We've got lots of pb&j and pop tarts, milk and cereal to see us through a couple of days of no power.  We have one burner that works when the electricity goes out, so I can still drink tea and make hot chocolate and soup.  I told everybody to take a nice long hot shower today because we might not be able to for a couple days.

We've charged everything we can charge so we can still use our phones, read on the kindle and play scrabble on the ipad.  We've also got a big jigsaw puzzle out on the dining room table and of course we've got board games to play.

I hope all this prep means that we won't lose power, because that happened once before for a couple of days and we were COLD!  And I didn't like being that cold. I am a big baby.

I am praying for all those people who made it to the March for Life and for anybody who still has to be out there in the snow, especially the homeless.

Some links! In praise of men!

Someone in our homeschool group sent this link out.  Made me tear up.  Fatherhood is a beautiful thing! http://www.intothebreach.net/

Dr. Peter Leithhart - this goes along with habits in the bigger sense of the word.  It also fits in with the Into the Breach theme.  The audio was a little soft on my laptop though.  It's 45 minutes long or thereabouts, but really thought-provoking and inspiring.

Lastly, I loved this review by Father Barron on the movie The Bridge of Spies.  I love the kind of manly integrity put forth here.  The rule of law is what it takes to keep a community civilized.  And that means that brave men need to make sure the government is honest when prosecuting even the most repulsive law breakers among us.  It's either that or corruption and mob violence.  Now I really want to see this movie.

Oops!  I've got a couple more.

Here's a great article about a guy living out the 'Benedict Option.'

In praise of reasonable men!  My favorite Great Courses professor.

Clouds of Witness - Book 2

Who is this woman?  Why is she on the cover of this book?

Clouds of Witness is the second Lord Peter Wimsey mystery in the series of novels by Dorothy L. Sayers.  In it, Wimsey's own brother, the Duke, is accused of murdering their sister's fiancee, Denis Cathcart.  The usual characters of Charles Parker, police detective and Wimsey's best friend, Bunter his loyal and supremely capable manservant, his erudite Dowager mother who always speaks in a stream-of-consciousness way, but with authority, as well Sir Impey Biggs and Freddie Arbuthnot, are all here.  And even Inspector Sugg makes an appearance at the end.

The plot is pretty complicated with Lord Peter and Parker finding out first which suspects didn't do the murder and discovering that a lot of people had something going on the night of the murder.  Sayers manages to deftly skewer the hip young communists at the time (maybe mid 1920s) who are full idealism but not too much common sense or actual courage.  And she also pokes fun at the stuffy lords trying their own peer for murder.  There is a lot of character development here.

As usual with Lord Peter there are many fun literary references and he is goofy and learned all at the same time.  There are a couple elements that kind of stretch one's disbelief a bit too far.  For instance, Lord Peter seems to recover remarkably quickly from a bullet wound and broken collar bone, so much so that a couple days afterwards he is traipsing around the Yorkshire bogs, sinks into quicksand, has to be rescued and never even mentions his wound!  It seems like Sayers forgot that he had been indeed badly injured.  And then I tend not to like it when mystery writers let you, the reader, into the clues but then suddenly make everything obscure so she or he can surprise you the reader later.  I feel a bit cheated!

But overall, a really fun and interesting mystery.  Lord Peter is a gem!

I bought this on my kindle for .99. Don't get that version!  It is very poorly transcribed and has lots of missing words for some crazy reason.  So I bought another version for $3.95.  That one was great except for an occasional weird character thrown in at the end of a word here and there.  Kind of a capital O with a weird marking over it.  Why does that happen on the Kindle anyway?

Two thumbs up!  For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

Tiny Habits

So there's this thing you can do called Tiny Habits.  I half-heartedly started off with it, and even though I don't think I'll continue with it formally, I do love the idea.  I think it probably works with many people, but for me I felt like I didn't invest enough time into figuring it out and then it quickly became just another box to check on the to do list.

Anyway, it did change my thinking somewhat, or rather it awakened the idea of 'pegging.'  Pegging is something I first heard about from Leonie of the Catholic Unschoolers group.  She would peg certain new things onto certain other things that she knew she'd be doing.

Tiny habits breaks things down into really small steps and then pegs one thing you do already to some little thing you want to start doing.  So the recipe as he calls it is After I do such and such, I will do such and such.

So I started out with:

After I start the coffee, I will drink a glass of water
After the coffee is ready, I will read the Bible and pray.

Now both of these were things I already did but was inconsistent about, so thinking in this way made me more consistent.  In fact, I've been consistent since January 1st, so that's 12 days!!!! Woot for me!

You are supposed to do 3 things and I did not develop the habit for the 3rd thing which I think was my fault for making it too vague.

Anyway, I started another two that are related, yesterday.

After I turn on the TV, I will spend 5 minutes on the elliptical.  I tend to watch the news at 6, so this works for me (though yesterday I was in the middle of preparing dinner so I didn't do the elliptical right at the beginning of the show, but a few minutes later, when I had everything under control, cooking wise for long enough to exercise for 5 minutes).

After each new show starts, I will do 5 minutes on the elliptical.  (I did another 5 minutes when a bit later in the evening we started watching an old movie).

But anyway, I love that I got a mini-elliptical for Christmas and I can easily just do a few minutes on it at a time.

I got the idea of 5 minutes at a time because Rick's fitbit thing beeps to remind him to move for 5 minutes out of every hour.  And I was just reading a book on will power that talked about how much movement and activity is good for the brain.  And it turns out it isn't working out that is what helps so much as just moving, as in not being so sedentary.  The author of the book said just taking a 5 minute walk or getting up and doing some housework also all helps.  And for me, I get so stiff if I sit too long, so it is really good to have that elliptical there and to connect it with watching TV.

Again, I couldn't think of a 3rd little habit to start.  I might just be better at doing two at a time instead of three.

Fused Glass Plate

Seano made this in his fused glass workshop.  I love it!  I am terrible photographer though, so it doesn't do it justice, but I think it is pretty good for someone who's never worked with glass before!