Like most of the Midwest, I’m staring out at a very chilly winter wonderland. We received close to a foot of snow in less than 12 hours on Sunday, followed by a deep freeze for the record books.
I noticed early last week that our furnace was making more noise than usual. It’s never a good thing when you hear things from your furnace. Either you’re about to drop a lot of cash or the voices are winning. Ours turned out to be a tired motor, which could give out in a few days or a few months. These odds would be okay in Vegas, but not in Indiana with subzero temperatures approaching. So of course we gambled, and late Thursday evening the furnace was straight up groaning and pumping burning electrical smells through our vents. I was never so happy to see the repair guy on Friday morning or to hand over the checkbook. This storm would’ve done our furnace in for good.
Waiting for the repairman meant we got on the road to Nashville later than planned. My brother and I practically share a birthday, his being January 3rd and mine being January 4th. We planned to surprise him on Friday for his 50th birthday. In our haste to get on the road, we didn’t pay much attention to the weather. I’m kind of glad we didn’t, because we might have decided to stay put. And staying put means this picture wouldn’t exist, and that would make me so sad. We don’t love each other OR tequila AT ALL.
It ended up being the shortest trip to Nashville ever. We woke up the next morning only to realize that if we didn’t drive home that day, we might be stranded in Nashville for days. And so I tried to pack everything I wanted for my birthday into a few short hours. Sleep in? Check. Fish tacos? Check. Jeni’s Ice Cream? Check. And then my Colts were kind of enough to give my middle-aged heart a near coronary episode before pulling off one of the greatest wins of all time. At 8:30 p.m. our time we piled in the car and headed north. Our stay in Nashville? Just over 24 hours.
We’ve been hunkered down in our home for 3 days straight now. Sunday was beautiful, with snow straight out of Narnia. Monday was tenuous, with temperatures low and tempers high. Today? This is the stuff prayers and alcohol were made for. We’re going on 18 days of vacation from school. Mike has gone into work 5 of those 18 days. I think we’ve met our quota of family time through March. Today I decided to get fancy and put yoga pants on instead of pajamas. I finally broke down and put a bra on this afternoon. I now know for certain that I cannot be a productive member of society without underwire.
Tomorrow, God-willing, we’ll start to move back to normal. I will put on pants that button. The kids will go back to school. Mike will go back to work. I will sit down to do something and not even the furnace will call out, “MOM! Mom? Momomomomomom?!”
This just in: school is cancelled for tomorrow. Please ignore previous paragraph. Instead, send beer, noise-cancelling headphones, and a new supply of flannel pajama pants.
I love this! You said it almost identical to what we have been experiencing. I have had so many great ideas to “get” things done around here, but have settled into a a sluggish lifestyle with beer, PJ’s, and TV. We also went to STL for 24 hours and have been in the house since Saturday at 11pm. I need to be human again!
The pic with your brother delights my soul. You look beautiful. *sigh*
I’m with you on the snow days. Let’s just say Girls go back to school on January 7, manuscript due on January 10 is looking like a much bigger deal now than it did a month ago. Praying tomorrow we only have a delay.