Here we go again!

It's so cold that the hot flashes are starting to feel good.  I know I've said it before, but just for clarification.... I HATE WINTER.  Give me a beach and 90F and I'm in heaven.  Shoot, I'll just take the 90F temps and sit on the deck. 

No school today, it's a slip and slide out there.  Jeff had to drive off to a job in Coppell, Jody stayed home, he may have the flu.  So I've just been poking at the fire and watching a documentary about the secrets of the US National Monuments. 

Hope you are all warm and safe where ever you are.  We all can't live like Jolea and walk to work in 80F Key West. 

Mission accomplished, to a certain extent.

I had a nice drive down to Houston Wednesday. The weather was great, sunny and warm.  I made it in about 4 hours and hung out at the Clinic until Nita got off work.  I just sat in the back and stayed out of the way watching them take blood, temperatures and fecal samples from the animals.  Here Robert and Nita are taking a blood sample.

And here she has the other sample.... ewww.  She doesn't even wear gloves. The little dog is trying to find a way out right about now. 

She went out in the yard for this little guy, he had a cough and they were taking precautions against Kennel Cough, since they had some animals being boarded. 

It's a busy, fast paced job.  Kind of like mine in ways. Always something different day to day. Cranky parents, moody kids, pets in this case. They even refer to the pet owners as "Pixie's daddy." Sometimes you get bitten, sometimes you get growled or barked at.  But I don't charge unbelievable amounts of money for the service. Boy do I wish I could! No wonder we don't have a pet!!!!  It amazes me what people pay for pet health care.  I knew it was pricey, but not THAT pricey. 

We spent the rest of the weekend away from our jobs or even thinking about them.  We ran around Houston, shopping for fabric and what-nots to finish off the decorating of Nita's bathroom and kitchen windows.  She'll be hosting a Baby Shower next weekend and wanted my help making the window treatments and picking out a few accessories. 

Thursday morning we headed out to Spring, Texas, famous for it's old downtown area with tiny shops in all the old Victorian homes that line the streets.  Just like in the past, I wasn't that impressed. I'm not that into Victorian decor or the Shabby Chic look, it's a little too Fu-fu for Jody.  Nita isn't into it much either, but she hadn't looked there for a entry way mirror.  We didn't find a mirror but we did find this guy. Anthony makes things with stamped tin tiles.  Either old pieces or replicas.  That's his lap dog, she's a year old and hangs out on the porch of his little shop. 

Nita picked out a window valance and described her bathroom colors to him so he could paint the valance.  We continued on our walk, had lunch and headed back to his shop where he was finishing her piece. 

It turned out beautiful!  We found a ready made sheer panel and I cut it off and sewed some trim on the bottom.  I think she needs another panel in the window, so she's going to get some more trim and mail the leftover panel fabric too me.  I should have showed her how to do this...  she bought a sewing machine while I was there.  After finding out what the 3 old models that belonged to Mom were worth, she decided she could sell them and recoup the $99 she spent on a new one.  Besides trying to get them to run was a pain in the butt.  Her bathroom has a real Spa feel to it, her whole house has a spa or resort feel. It looks like a model home, Real Estate agents would have a fit if they saw it.   

Then we worked on the guest bedroom where I was sleeping.  She already had some wide blinds in the windows that didn't look all that bad, but this set of sheers which I cut off to fit and finished look great with the ribbon and bead overlay.  A nice finishing touch to this bedroom. 

We did some shopping and some eating, kolaches the size of your head some entertaining cooked for the new guy in her life and then it was time for me to head home.

I knew the weather was supposed to turn bad early Saturday morning.  But how early?  I had hoped to get out of the woods and small back country roads before getting in a thunderstorm.  No such luck.  Luckily I had a big horse trailer to follow the whole way.  Running lights are nice when that's all you can see up ahead in the pouring rain.  The yellow pollen from all the trees was blasted off my car too.

When I drove into the drive way and got out of my car the temperature felt like it was in the 30's.  The wind was really whipping.  I had gotten a text message from a friend up near the Red River Oklahoma state line, about 40 miles north of our house.  She said it was snowing there.  Yeah... did I jinx myself?  Probably so... I did pull out all the Spring and Summer clothes last week.

We didn't have company last night and we didn't go anywhere.... this is what the deck looked like when I went to bed.  It was supposed to snow all night.











And this is what we have this morning....  and it's still snowing!  30MPH wind too.  No wonder we saw very few Bluebonnets last weekend.  And I only saw them in Houston this week.   Of course the fruit trees, dogwoods and Redbuds were all blooming, but no sign of Bluebonnets and Mesquite trees greening up.  If you don't know when to do your Spring planting in Texas, just watch the natives, they won't do anything until all threat of a frost is over.   Our official high yesterday was 60, probably before the front moved in around midnight.  We are supposed to be up to 68 tomorrow....  YES! This crap will all be gone. 

It would really stink to be driving home from Spring Break on South Padre Island (it's 68 down there) into this mess, trying to get to Tulsa, Okla...  I know there will be many people wishing they were still on the beach.  I'm so over Winter. 

Have a good week.... only 11 more weeks of school!

It's a snow day!

Did you actually think we'd be going to school today?  Not us!  We can't function in this stuff.  Our carports and awnings can't handle it, they have been falling down all over the Metro-plex.  Trucks can't navigate those super high overpasses that I think look so cool. We just don't have snow plows in this part of the country, and this is some snow plow kind of snow!  

Oooh! Let's do a time line.  This picture was taken around 4PM yesterday.

Then last night around 9PM.

 

 And this morning once the sun came up around 7:30.  

Check out our fence...

Come on... don't you want to chill on the deck with me?  Got a nice soft seat for you.

The Barbie Doll Barbie shows how much snow we had.... Looks like 12 inches to me!

I went out front for awhile.  Hmm?  I wonder if the ragtop is leaking?

Let me go take a picture of the front of our house.  As a kid, Mom had tons of pictures of our house in Odessa after snow storms.  I think she would send them back to her snow deprived family in Louisiana.  Look both ways!

And then the other way.  Where is everyone? When we were kids we were out earlier than if it was a school day. 

Well... it's not the house in Highland Park but I wouldn't want their mortgage. 

I hope we don't loose our tree, that's another thing that can't take this snow down here... the Live Oaks, Magnolias and Pines just can't take the weight.  Neither can the power lines.  Many people are with out electricity today.

It's so cool up under the tree. That's really smart... get under a tree that could split and fall on you at any moment.  I'm not really one of those people who go check out the tornado or raging flood waters in person.  It's just that I had a really good shot of it from the porch when I was going in. I'm not stupid.

One thing is for sure... it's a great day to have Toads in a Hole for Breakfast. 

I think I'll get dressed and go up to school, I need to box up all of Jolea's Haiti shirts today.  Then I'll come back and knit the whole day away.

This is going to be fun....

We started the day with lots of snow coming down in big, slushy flakes this morning around 4:45.  Lourdes, Work Maria and I were scheduled to go to a workshop in Dallas.  Lourdes was hoping I'd tell her we weren't going.  I would have volunteered to drive but it's really hard to fit 3 people into a Miata.  It's just not that comfy.

We headed South into Dallas around 7:30, I had no idea that Lourdes had NEVER driven in the snow.  I guess I should have known a Cuban from Miami wouldn't normally have that skill.  But she did quiet well and I rewarded her with a Cafe Mocha when we got there.

The traffic wasn't too bad, most people were being on their best behavior.

Except when everyone spots the news crew parked on the overpass and they try positioning their car to get on camera.  Why? No one is home watching.

Driving through University Park and Highland Park was really nice.  The homes there are nice to look at even when it's not snowy, but today made them look like a winter storybook village.

The workshop was relatively informative and we learned some things about being an "Indispensable Assistant" even if everyone in the room was thinking about the weather and our drive home.

I know some of you are wondering 'what's the big deal?'  We just don't get snow like this in Texas. If we do get White Weather, it's in the form of ice, as in sleet and freezing rain.  We get slammed with weather that will have you slip sliding down the road even if you don't touch your accelerator.  When we see white flake falling we go into shut down mode.

So at 6:45 this morning I was at the school waiting for Lourdes to pick me up and answering the phone to call after call of "are we having school today?"  "Las clases hoy?" "No escuela si?"  To which I had the pleasure of saying,  "yes we will have school today at the regular time, please leave early and be careful."  "Si clases hoy, hora regular!"  Needless to say, they were disappointed.  Maybe we can do something about that tomorrow.

In the workshop this afternoon, Maria and I got phone messages from the district that school would begin 2 hours late tomorrow.  That's going to be iffy.... all this slush is going to freeze tonight and we are supposed to have at least 4 more hours of it coming down.

This is Work Maria making a little extra cash before we headed home.  You can't say she's not industrious.

Doesn't SMU look nice in the snow?

My favorite overpass system in the snow....

Over the river creek and through the woods, we were almost home and Lourdes could relax her knuckles.  She was going to home to break out the Sangria.

And at home in the backyard.... 5 inches of snow and piling up.

Stay warm.  And you people in the USVI,try to keep sand out of your crevices.