Valentine's Wishes and Adirondack Dreams

This morning at 6:30, A. loaded Cubby and Charlie into the Subaru and set out on a four-hour drive to the Adirondack Mountains. Their specific destination was Tupper Lake, the location of the Adirondack Wild Center. They're meeting Jodi and his two boys at the Center for a presentation on animal tracks and sign, to be followed by snowshoeing outside the center with the presenter on a hunt for tracks. Tonight all six of them will be staying with Jodi and A.'s friend Matt, who just took a job in Tupper Lake and has a house there.

Can you imagine the scene at that house tonight, with three men and four boys under the age of eight? Good God. The very thought is terrifying.

Thankfully, I got to stay at home. This is A.'s Valentine's present to me--a quiet house and only one child to care for.

So I'll be celebrating Valentine's Day with my steady:

He's not much into chocolates or jewelry, but he makes up for it with charm.

Happy Valentine's Day, my lovelies. I hope it's a wonderful day, whatever you may do.

Still Here

Just hanging out in my perpetually messy house, which currently smells a bit like sewage thanks to the old, unreachable pipes in the defunct back bath that release their lovely fumes when it gets really cold and windy.

It's complicated. And gross.

And yes, it is very cold--four whole degrees--and very windy. We have a wind chill advisory today, so of course Cubby is all, "I'm going outside today!" Because today is as close to the last ice age as we're going to get and Cubby is a wee bit obsessed with the ice age and cavemen and spear hunting. Especially the spear hunting. He didn't understand why we couldn't just go to the store and buy him a spear for his birthday. Poor kid was definitely born too late. Like about 200,000 years too late.

Not to worry. A. has big plans to make him a spear. Of course.

To continue the miscellany . . .

Charlie was more or less potty trained and now he's . . . not. That kid is seriously stubborn. Also sometimes very, very irritating.

Jack continues to grow, thanks to his healthy appetite, and also has started smiling. Best. He's really a pretty chill baby, and I give him major props for how easy-going he is. Especially when he's lying helpless on a blanket while his big brothers "play with him." He seems remarkably unconcerned about the strong likelihood that one or the other of them is going to land on his face at any moment, due to their gyrations and general insanity.

Third child, for sure.

And that's about it. Multiple boys, serious cold, and sewage odors in the house. The usual Blackrock scene.

Five

Happy birthday to

the incredible Cubby.

I Wish I Didn't Know Now What I Didn't Know Then

A long time ago, the MiL served up a dip for carrot sticks that involved all of two ingredients: mayonnaise and curry powder*.

Yes. And yes, please.

I love mayonnaise. I love curry. I really love the two combined as a dip. Luckily, so do the children. So when they asked me for a snack this afternoon, I gave them carrot sticks and curry dip. And then there was just a little bit of the dip left, but no more carrot sticks.

But there were potato chips. And this is when I discovered that the Chip Rule holds true: the dip is even better with potato chips.

I did a (heavily modified) 30-Day Shred workout yesterday, and I was all set to have a correspondingly healthy diet from here on out. I do not think my newly-discovered delicious pairing should be a part of it, and I really wish I hadn't discovered it.

Except I don't really wish that, because YUM.

* I use sweet curry powder because I am not into injuring my mouth, but I suppose you could also use the hot kind. The MiL informed us that this dip was a staple of the 1970s. What's old is new again. Or something.

Scenes From a Blackrock Winter

Pretty sure the ice build-up in the gutters is reaching damaging quantities. Cool icicles, though.

The picnic table is my snow measuring device. According to our forecast, that snow cap is going to double in height by Tuesday. Super.

The snowshoes are currently living permanently on top of the cat house by the door.

A. spent a few hours yesterday making a snow fort/igloo for the children* (and maybe to relive his own childhood snow forts), complete with Tidy-Cat-bucket blocks to make an arched doorway.

I spent some time inside it with Cubby, and I kind of wanted to hide out in it all day. Snow is such an excellent sound absorber. So peaceful. Albeit also cold and wet.

The princesses are sticking to the shoveled paths so they don't get too much snow on their dainty paws.

Which means they leave their snacks on the paths, too. Currier and Ives would not approve.

* Then he spent the rest of the day shoveling our 300-foot driveway so the water truck could back up it to deliver water. When the guy arrived at 5 p.m., he had to gun it multiple times from the bottom of the driveway to get all the way up to the cisterns, with an enthusiastic audience of Cubby and Charlie looking out the window over the couch and cheering him on, "GO, WATER GUY, GO! HOORAY, WATER GUY MADE IT!" It's an exciting life they lead. Though we were all excited that he did make it, thus ensuring we won't run out of water for a couple of weeks.

Snow Fun

Anyone heard about all the snow getting dumped in the eastern part of the country? Anyone want to to hear more about it? Oh good, because I just happen to live in the eastern part of the country and HOLY HELL is there a lot of snow out there. Over a foot, as a matter of fact. Plus, it's incredibly cold and, as of today, windy. This means that all the snow is blowing around and creating drifts. 

Today when I took Cubby to preschool, his teacher was diligently shoveling out the path from the street to the door. It's a long path that makes a couple of turns and at this point has so much snow on either side that Charlie refers to it as the tunnel. The sides of the tunnel are about even with Charlie's head, so that's three feet of snow piled up on either side. The path itself is only a couple of feet wide. This means that only one person at a time can get through the tunnel, leading to many instances of other parents politely waiting in the frigid temperatures as I try to hurry my children through the tunnel to the car.

When Charlie, Jack, and I went back to the preschool at noon to pick Cubby up, we found that the wind blowing off the lake had drifted snow over the path so that it was up to Charlie's knees in some places. The poor kid was valiantly trying to plow through the snow, but he kept falling, thus ending up in the drifts on either side and resulting in almost complete snow coverage of his person. 

Meanwhile, I was hauling Jack in the car seat and trying really hard not to whack one of the snow banks, thereby sending a shower of snow on top of the unfortunate baby.

It was way fun.

We're supposed to get another 6-12 inches this weekend, which means the fun will only get more fun. Right? Right.

I might be ready for spring.

Confused Snowbirds

Anyone from the warmer states knows what snowbirds are--retired people who spend the summer in their frigid home states, but relocate to the warmer states to escape nasty winter weather.

My parents got it backwards.

They arrived from Arizona yesterday for a short visit, just in time for temperatures below zero and about a foot of snow. Basically the weather that every retired person ever tries to avoid by moving to Arizona.

At this very moment, they are hiking up the gully with A. and the older boys in search of a dead black cherry tree covered in burls that A. is going to cut down so my dad the carpenter extraordinaire can have the burls to make bowls and things. The storm that is supposed to bring us the foot of snow has begun and it's snowing pretty hard right now.

I suppose all visitors to Blackrock are aware that they're not in for a typical vacation. But at least there are no animal carcasses. Or manure. Maybe seven degrees below zero isn't so bad after all.